Robert Smith, age 12, of Midway City, California, for his question:
How long have people been taking drugs?
Drugs are classified as chemicals that bring about unusual changes in the body and the mind for better or worse. They are as old as the herbs, minerals and other chemical substances of the earth. Long before recorded history, our ancestors dis¬covered and used alcohol and other drugs.
Most people have a deep seated faith that the right drug can cure every ailment of the human body. Some expect drugs to numb the emotional woes of their minds. Modern man is a medicine taker and basic human nature has changed very little through the ages. Some experts suspect that our early ancestors of 50,000 years ago dosed them¬selves with whatever drugs and medicines they could find. Opium was used ages ago in the Orient and hashish in the Middle East. The people of Malaysia chewed betel nuts, the American Indians smoked tobacco. They used mind dulling drugs from mushrooms and cactuses and extracts from bark to subdue their fevers. And nobody knows how long ago the various populations of the world began using alcohol.
We think of drugs as medicinal chemicals and surely this is what nature intended. However, this is merely one side of the picture. Nature's gifts are usually two sided and we are expected to use our brains to select the side that suits us. For better or worse, all drugs are related to poisons. They can kill or cure. Most of those used during prehistory were the numbing, narcotic drugs. Many of these tricky potions tend to be habit forming and deadly dangerous.
About 5,000 years ago, early civilizations sought drugs to heal the body's ills, rather than merely mask the symptoms.
The doctors and druggists of ancient Mesopotamia noted down prescriptions on clay tablets and we have some that are at least 4,000 years old. They include details for preparing medicines from seeds, roots, and barks, from thyme and other herbs, from saltpeter and other minerals. Modern druggists know why the ancient extracts of willow, fig and other ingredients may have been beneficial. They also know that success de¬pends upon giving the right dosage of the right medicine to the right patient for the right disease. The earliest druggists apparently did not know this and failed to mention what their medications were meant to cure.
The taking of drugs has always been a chancy business, but our modern chemists know a great deal about how drugs behave and our chances are getting better. These same chemists also have discovered and even created numerous new drugs. Meantime medical science tries to make the best use of them while preventing their misuse. Our early ancestors had to depend on trial and error. We are protected by laws that require a qualified doctor to prescribe the right dose of the right drug.
Nevertheless there are few people who fail to appreciate our protective laws and insist on abusing our modern drugs. Since they rightfully belong in the stone age, they deserve no more than a mention. Neither does LSD deserve more than a mention. Everybody has been informed that this drug is cruel and deadly, and no sensible person wants any part of it or any other drug that could do him even the tiniest bit of damage.