SUNDAY BREAKFAST

Whatever today’s repast might have been, it wasn’t preceded by a lude or a mandy. Mandrax in the UK, Quaaludes in the US, they made you horny, cosily stupid and the world turned very slowly and every casual contact was beautiful. They were adored by tattooed love boys, party girls, and Elvis Presley. And, many a morn, if it hadn’t been for the coke, you might next have risen from the bed, and even then it was only to stagger out for a wobble and if one wobbled in the direction of some alcohol the God Lord save us all. Wikipedia rather stiffly recalls…

“Quaaludes became increasingly popular as a recreational drug in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The drug was used during sexual activity because of heightened sensitivity and lowered inhibition coupled with relaxation and euphoria. The drug was often used by people who went to glam rock clubs in the early 1970s and at discos in the late 1970s. (One slang term for Quaaludes was disco biscuits.)” 

The drug was methaqualone and its vogue was sadly short if intense. It was just too much fun for the authoritarian squares. The global drug enforcement industry leaned heavily on the big pharm to simply stop making ludes and mandies. Big pharm instantly caved despite the popularity of the product. The seductive white pills just plain vanished. Bootlegs are manufactured in Mexico but they were powdery rubbish. Large sections of hedonist/airhead drug culture were bereft and distraught. Some expressed their distress by becoming full blown junkies. I joked in my 2001 novel Darklost that Robert Evans had the very last Quaalude on the planet in his private safe,  

“Gene Haislip, the former head of the Chemical Control Division of the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), told the PBS documentary program Frontline: “we beat 'em.” By contacting governments around the world and manufacturers of Quaaludes, the DEA convinced them to halt production. Haislip said “we eliminated the problem.”

Bah!

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