Tobacco

Tobacco is a product prepared from the leaves of the American tobacco plant. The leaves are cured and matured in storage for two to three years.

The tobacco plant is grown in warm dry climates for use in cigars and cigarettes, and in powdered form as snuff.

Pixiebay

While more than 70 species of tobacco are known, the chief commercial crop is Nicotiana tabacum.

HISTORY

Tobacco has been smoked in the Americas since at least 5000 BC.

The Aztec goddess Cihuacoatl was said to have had a body consisting of tobacco. 

On October 15, 1492, the American Indians offered Christopher Columbus a bundle of dry tobacco leaves. It was the first time a European had seen tobacco.

Tobacco leaves. Pixiebay

Rodrigo de Jerez, a crewman of Columbus, was the first known European smoker. He was thrown in jail for it as exhaling smoke was seen as satanic.

The word 'tabaco' in Spanish was originally used for the pipe or tube through which native Americans inhaled tobacco smoke.

Nicotine is named after the French ambassador to Portugal, Jean Nicot, who introduced tobacco to France in 1560. He sent the queen of France, Catherine de Medici, leaves of the plant. She took it in a mixture of snuff.

Francis II, the newly crowned young French king used tobacco to cure his headaches. It became known as a cure for many ailments including arthritis, headache, stomach ache, toothache and bad breath.

The word tobacco was first seen in English in 1577. Tobacconist, in 1600, meant a heavy smoker.

The earliest depiction of a European man smoking, from Tobacco by Anthony Chute, 1595

The 1585 expedition to Roanoke Island on the outer banks of Virginia, which was funded by Sir Walter Raleigh brought tobacco back to England on July 27, 1586. 

Although Raleigh is widely credited with introducing tobacco to Britain, the French and Spanish had brought it there previously when he was a child.

English astronomer, mathematician and translator Thomas Harriot who accompanied the 1585 expedition to Roanoke Island smoked tobacco before Raleigh, and may have taught him to do so. Pipes for smoking tobacco were first mentioned in English by Harriot.

Raleigh's First Pipe in England", included in Frederick William Fairholt's Tobacco, its history.

During the tobacco craze that followed the first imports of the weed to Britain, everybody smoked it in the belief that it had a powerfully healthy effect. For a time, boys at Eton school were beaten for neglecting to smoke their tobacco. 

'Funk' was originally a Tudor word for the stale smell of tobacco smoke.

King James I of England (VI of Scotland) was a fervent opponent of smoking. He wrote in 1604 a book called A Counterblaste to Tobacco. In it he wrote "smoking is a custom loathsome to the eye. Hateful to the nose. Harmful to the brain. Dangerous to the lungs."

Upon his death, Walter Raleigh was buried with his favorite pipe and a tin of tobacco.

In 1638, China made use or distribution of tobacco a crime, punishable by decapitation.

Tobacco smoking, chewing, and snuffing became a major industry in Europe and its colonies by 1700. 

An illustration from Frederick William Fairholt's Tobacco, its History and Association, 1859

After Germany discovered the link between smoking and lung cancer, the Nazis initiated a strong anti-tobacco movement. Hitler himself called tobacco "the wrath of the Red Man against the White Man, vengeance for having been given hard liquor."

Tobacco has been recognized since the 1950s as a health hazard.

FUN TOBACCO FACTS

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), there are more than one billion smokers in the world and tobacco usage is rising in poorer countries.

There are 1 billion people on Earth addicted to tobacco—it is linked to 11% of deaths in males and 6% of deaths in females every year.

According to the WHO, tobacco kills an average of one person every six seconds.

The US Food and Drug Administration reports that there are 93 harmful and potentially harmful constituents in tobacco and tobacco smoke.

China, the world's largest producer and consumer of tobacco, is home to at least 350 million smokers.

The Caribbean island of Tobago took its name from tobacco, possible because of its cigar or pipe-like shape.

Source Daily Express

Smoking

HISTORY OF SMOKING

Tobacco and hallucinogenic drugs have been smoked in the Americas since at least 5000 BC. The smoking of euphorants probably had its origins in the incense-burning ceremonies of shamans but was later adopted for pleasure, or as a social tool.

Cannabis smoking was common in the Middle East before the arrival of tobacco, and was early on a common social activity that centered around the type of water pipe called a hookah.

Aztec women are handed flowers and smoking tubes before eating at a banquet, Florentine Codex, 1500

Rodrigo de Jerez, a crewman of Columbus, was the first known European smoker. He was thrown in jail for it as exhaling smoke was seen as satanic.

In 1557, European doctors recommended smoking to combat bad breath and cancer.

Tobacco was introduced as snuff to France in 1560 by the diplomat and scholar Jean Nicot, from whose name the word “nicotine” derives.

Urban VII was chosen to succeed Sixtus V as pope on September 15, 1590. His death from malaria 13 days later made his the shortest papal reign in history. His very short time as pope nevertheless gave rise to the world's first known public smoking ban when he threatened to excommunicate anyone who "took tobacco in the porchway of or inside a church, whether it be by chewing it, smoking it with a pipe, or sniffing it in powdered form through the nose."

In 17th-century Turkey ruler Murad IV ordered that anyone caught smoking be executed on the spot and their bodies be left where they were as a deterrent to others.

A Persian girl smoking by Muhammad Qasim. Isfahan, 17th century

In 1665 pipe-smoking was compulsory among pupils at Eton College in England as a defense against the plague.

The term “smoking” wasn’t established until the late eighteenth century. Before then, it was often referred to as “Dry Drunkenness."

The practice of smoking opium became common in Europe in the 19th century. Widespread medical use of unprocessed opium continued until late in the century when it gave way to morphine, which could be injected at a precisely controlled dosage.

An illustration of an opium den on the cover of Le Petit Journal, July 5, 1903

By the end of the 19th century, doctors began to suspect that smoking cigarettes caused lung cancer, despite the fact that there were only 140 published cases of the then rare disease in 1900.

On January 21, 1908, New York City's Board of Aldermen passed the Sullivan Ordinance, a controversial law that prohibited women from smoking in public places. It didn't outlaw smoking for women altogether, but made it illegal for owners or managers of public places like restaurants, hotels, and theaters to allow women to smoke on their premises. Mayor George B. McClellan Jr. vetoed the ordinance just two weeks after its passage, citing public opposition and concerns about its enforceability.

Torches of Freedom was a 1920's campaign to get more women to smoke. Tobacco companies targeted feminists, portraying it as emancipating, and even hosted seminars to teach women how to smoke "correctly."

Winston Churchill is said to have been the only person whom Field Marshal Montgomery would allow to smoke in his presence.

The Nazis were the first ever people in modern history to start an anti-smoking and tobacco movement.

In the 1940s there was a large increase in lung cancers and evidence began to be found that this was linked with the huge increase of smokers at the beginning of the decade. It was suspected that tobacco smoke and tar contained cancer causing chemicals and in the early 1950s an extensive study carried out by English epidemiologist Richard Doll statistically established that cigarette smoking is linked with lung cancer and that tobacco smoke, like tar, contains the cancer causing chemical benzene.

A few years later, in 1954 the British Doctors Study, a study of some 40 thousand doctors, confirmed the link, based on which the government issued advice that smoking and lung cancer rates were related (See below).

On January 11, 1964 the Surgeon General of the United States Dr. Luther Terry, M.D., published the landmark report Smoking and Health: Report of the Advisory Committee to the Surgeon General of the United States stating that smoking may be hazardous to health. This sparked national and worldwide anti-smoking efforts.

Even before the surgeon general issued his report on the dangers of tobacco, Mad Magazine went on an anti-smoking crusade ridiculing big tobacco companies, ad agencies, and even smokers. Also before it became law, Mad Magazine's offices were smoke free and none of their content featured smoking.

The R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company Director of Research wrote in a private internal memo dated February 2, 1973 that the warning labels on cigarettes helped boost sales with young adults who love taking risks and believe they are "immortal."

In 1975 the Nobel Prize for Medicine was awarded to US geneticist and virologist Howard Temin for his research on cancer. During his acceptance speech in Sweden, he called out some present -- including a Queen and other royalty -- for smoking. He insisted that the ashtray on the laureates' table be removed.

The resort town of Aspen, Colorado, became the first city in the US to restrict smoking in restaurants in 1985.

The U.S. ban on inflight smoking began with domestic flights of two hours or less in April 1988. It was extended to domestic flights of six hours or less in February 1990. There was an exemption for pilots out of safety concerns of them going through nicotine withdrawal.

U.S. consulting firm Arthur D. Little International Inc. studied the impact of smoking on Czech public finances at multinational cigarette company Philip Morris's request in 2000. They concluded that smoking was highly beneficial to the country's economy, as more people would die earlier, hence allowing the government to save millions on health-care, pension and public-housing.

Motorcycle world champion, Barry Sheene, enjoyed smoking so much that he had a hole drilled through the chin-bar on his full-face helmet allowing him to smoke right up to the start of a race. He died aged 52 on March 10, 2003 from cancer of the oesophagus and stomach.

In 2004 The Republic of Ireland became the first country in the world to ban smoking in all work places, including bars and restaurants.

Three years later, in 2007, smoking in England was banned in all public indoor spaces.

When France increased the price of cigarettes by 66% between 2000-2008, the smoking rate among French executives and professionals declined. However, the smoking rate among manual laborers remained about the same and among the unemployed, it increased.

FUN SMOKING FACTS

Nicorette was actually created to help smoking seaman get through their time stuck on submarines.

About one billion of the world’s 7.6 billion people (14 per cent) are smokers.

The Chinese are the world’s biggest smokers. The average Chinese adult has 11 cigarettes a day.

2% of Indonesians will be smoking by age 4.

Four of the six ‘Marlboro Men’ have died of smoking-related diseases.

People in Japan carry portable ashtrays to keep streets clean.

Pantone 448 C, the "world's ugliest color" according to research, is used by many European countries on their tobacco products to dissuade people from smoking.

No Smoking Day is held on the second Wednesday in March each year. in the UK Appropriately enough, the first was on Ash Wednesday in 1984.

Today it is estimated that around 80% of lung cancers result from smoking and the chance of contracting lung cancer increases both the longer and the times the person smokes. However if someone stops smoking then these chances steadily decrease as the damage to their lungs is repaired.

Smoking is often the cause of other cancers such as cancers of the larynx, mouth and urinary bladder. Indeed in the United States cigarette smoking is thought to be responsible for nearly half the cancer cases considered to be environmentally caused and for almost one third of the cancer deaths overall of men.

Smoking can negatively affect bone healing after a fracture. Studies have shown that smokers have a higher risk of delayed and/or non-union bone healing, which means the bone takes longer to heal or may not heal properly at all.

One study published in the Journal of Orthopaedic Trauma found that smokers had a 2.2 times higher risk of delayed and/or non-union bone healing after a fracture compared to non-smokers. This is because smoking can affect the blood flow and oxygen supply to the bone, which are essential for the healing process.

Within 48 hours of quitting smoking, your senses of smell and taste begin to return to normal.

Source Daily Express

Punch (drink)

Punch is a general term for a beverage containing various mixed drinks, often including fruit, fruit juice, and/or alcohol.

Punch was introduced to England from India. It was so called because it was made up of five ingredients: lemon juice, sugar, tea, hot water, and arrack (an eastern spirit often made from rice) and punch or "punca" is the Sanskrit word for the numeral "5".

The Honorable Edward Russell, the First Lord of the Admiralty was wintering in late 1694 in the Spanish port of Cadiz . On Christmas Day, he hosted an extravagant party in the grounds of the local governor’s estate (Don Francesco de Velasco y Tovar), in which he used the fountain in his garden as a giant bowl for mixing his drinks. The recipe included 500 gallons of brandy, 25,000 lemons, 20 gallons of lime juice, and 1,300 pounds of sugar. Russell's bartender rowed about in a small boat, filling up the cups for the incredulous guests.

England's King George I liked to drink endless bowls of punch with his Chancellor of Exchequer Robert Walpole .

Gentlemen enjoying punch in about 1765, by William Hogarth

In the 1810s, cold green tea punches, heavily spiked with alcohol were popular in England. One example was Regent's Punch, named after Prince George, was acting as regent for his senile father King George III.

The first publication of a bartender's guide, which listed recipes for various punches, was made in America in 1862.

Hawaiian Punch was originally created in 1934 as an ice cream topping.

Punxsutawney Phil is the name of a groundhog in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, who according to tradition emerges from his burrow on February 2 (Groundhog Day) every year. If it is cloudy he emerges from his burrow, then spring will come early; if it is sunny, and the groundhog sees his shadow, six more weeks of winter can be expected. Punxsutawney Phil is said to owe his longevity to drinking a magical punch in summer.

Opium

By 3400 B.C. the Sumerians were growing the opium poppy and called it Hul Gil, the 'joy plant'.

The Assyrians used the opium poppy medicinally to relieve pain, induce sleep, and bring on feelings of serenity and wellbeing for psychologically damaged patients.

Opium poppy seed pod exuding latex from a cut

The ancient Egyptian, Indian, Minoan, Greek, Roman, Persian and Arab Empires all made widespread use of opium, which was the most potent form of pain relief then available.

An inventory of the Imperial Palace of Rome, dated to the year 214 AD, lists 17 tons of opium.

By the seventeenth century, opium was being mixed with tobacco for smoking, and its addictive properties were being recognized.

At the turn of the 19th century, opium was deemed in Western countries to be the most effective painkiller. It was usually dispensed as a dark brown alcoholic solution, but unfortunately its use had become particularly addictive.

Storage of opium as a pharmaceutical, Germany, 18th or 19th cent. By Bullenwächter

The poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge started using opium as a pain reliever in around 1796. His and Dorothy Wordsworth's notebooks record that he suffered from a variety of medical complaints, including toothache and facial neuralgia. There appears to have been no stigma associated with taking opium then, but also little understanding of the physiological or psychological aspects of addiction.

Whilst a student at Oxford, the English essayist Thomas de Quincey (August 15, 1785 – December 8, 1859) took opium to relieve a toothache. This became a lifelong addiction and eventually all his teeth fell out and he had to live on liquids.

De Quincey is best known for his Confessions of an English Opium-Eater. First published anonymously in September and October 1821 in the London Magazine, the Confessions was released in book form the following year Many scholars suggest that in publishing this work, De Quincey inaugurated the tradition of addiction literature in the West.

Thomas de Quincey by Sir John Watson-Gordon.

Laudanum, which was opium mixed with alcohol, was widely used throughout Victorian society as a medicine. William Gladstone used laudanum to settle his nerves before parliamentary speeches and once glugged down so much he was forced to go to Baden Baden to recuperate. The taking of laudanum was socially acceptable in Victorian England and Gladstone's doctor came and administered it twice a day.

Widespread medical use of unprocessed opium continued until late in the century when it gave way to morphine, which could be injected at a precisely controlled dosage. Opium was prohibited in many countries during the early twentieth century, leading to the modern pattern of opium production as a precursor for illegal recreational drugs such as heroin and cocaine.

Opium users in Java during the Dutch colonial period c. 1870

The 2010 documentary film Restrepo chronicles the deployment of a platoon of U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan's Korengal Valley who are battling in a country whose biggest money earner is the illicit trade of opium.

Today, 219 million opioid prescriptions a year, primarily in the form of OxyContin, are dispensed by US pharmacies.

Australia supplies about 50% of the world's legally-grown opium used to make morphine and other painkillers.

In 2009 Australian opium farmers found mysterious crop circles and patterns in their fields. The culprits were wallabies who got high and bounced around in circles.

The phrase ‘pipe dream’ originates from the fantasies induced by smoking opium.

Morphine

Morphine is the most abundant opiate found in opium, the dried latex extracted from the unripe seedpods of the Papaver somniferum poppy.

A freshly-scored opium poppy seedpod bleeding latex.

In December 1804 the German pharmacist Frederick Sertürner (June 19, 1783 – February 20, 1841) isolated the alkaloid compound morphine from unripe poppy blossoms. As he found it gave relief from severe pain, and relaxed the patient by making him drowsy, he named the drug after Morpheus, the Greek god of dreams.

Morphine was the first ever alkaloid to be isolated from any plant. Thus Sertürner became the first person to isolate the active ingredient associated with a medicinal plant or herb.

Friedrich Sertürner

The drug was first marketed to the general public by Sertürner and Company in 1817 as an analgesic, and also as a treatment for opium and alcohol addiction
.
A Scottish doctor Alexander Wood developed in 1853 a hypodermic syringe with a needle fine enough to pierce the skin. This syringe was mainly used for giving injections of morphine as a painkiller.  Doctors believed at the time that morphine is not addictive if it bypasses the digestive tract and the needle Wood perfected allowed the drug to be injected directly into the blood stream, thus avoiding the stomach.

Alexander Wood's wife was the first person the over dose from morphine injection.

An ampoule of morphine with integral needle for immediate use. From WWII. By Gaius Cornelius - Wikipedia Commons

After the invention of the hypodermic needle the easy availability of morphine injections led to serious problems of abuse and addiction. Family doctors gave morphine at the drop of a hat for pain relief, and these physicians created numerous morphine addicts.

Morphine addiction was especially a problem for American Civil War soldiers among whom it was known as "Soldiers Disease". It is estimated the Civil War produced over 400,000 morphine addicts.

John Stith Pemberton, a former Confederate officer, found himself grappling with addiction to morphine following a saber wound he sustained. Driven by a desire to find a remedy, Pemberton embarked on a series of experiments, seeking a cure for his addiction. It was through his tinkering with coca and kola that Pemberton eventually created two notable concoctions: Pemberton's French Wine Coca and later, the iconic beverage known as Coca-Cola. These innovative creations emerged as a result of Pemberton's relentless pursuit to address his personal struggle, ultimately giving birth to a beverage that would go on to captivate the world.

A common cure-all medicine known as Mrs. Winslow's Soothing Syrup contained alcohol and morphine, causing thousands of children to die due to morphine overdoses in the 19th century.

Despite it's addictive consequences, at the turn of the 20th century morphine was being used as a general painkiller for many ailments even colds and minor headaches. In 1903, the US had over 3,000 stores selling over 50,000 different opium-based drugs over the counter.

Before the Morphine by Santiago Rusiñol

The Nazi Hermann Goring was wounded when he took part in the 1923 failed coup known as the Beer Hall Putsch. He became addicted to morphine after being treated with the drug for his injuries.

Morphine was used as a cure against opium addiction and later heroin was used as a cure against morphine addiction and even later methadone was used as a cure against heroin addiction.

Mead

Mead is a fermented alcoholic drink created by fermenting honey with water, sometimes with various fruits, spices, grains, or hops.

Mead's history is possibly as old as that of beer. Archaeologists discovered that people were making the honey-flavored alcoholic beverage around 7000 BC. Pottery vessels from that period containing chemical signatures of a mixture of honey, rice and other fruits along with organic compounds of fermentation were found in Northern China.

The earliest surviving description of mead is in the hymns of the Rigveda, which is a Hindu religious text, dated around 1700–1100 BC.

In ancient Babylonia, the bride's father would give his son-in-law all the mead he could drink. Since the Babylonian calendar was lunar, this period was called the "honey month." Today it's called a "honeymoon."

The art of brewing mead reached northern Europe around 1000 BC. Here, because the climate was too cold to grow vines, iit became the principal drink for many. In Ancient Britain the ritual brewing of mead was one of the main activities that take place at sacred religious ceremonies.

During the Golden Age of Ancient Greece, the preferred drink was mead, a mixture of fermented honey from wild bees and water. It was popular with them as they considered bees to be a symbol of immortality.

The ancient Greeks generally avoided drunkenness with the exception of the cult of Dionysus, in which intoxication was believed to bring people closer to their deity.

Vikings were very fond of alcoholic drinks and one of their favorite drinks was mead made from fermented honey. Drinks were served in large horn-shaped cups made of glass or else in the hollowed-out horns of sheep and oxen. Drinking was part of social life, and it also was part of some religious ceremonies. At their banquets they often toasted each other from the skulls of their slain enemies. Drunkenness was common and it was a frequent occurrence for a Viking man to die from the effects of too much drink.

Later, taxation and regulations governing the ingredients of alcoholic beverages led to commercial mead becoming a more obscure beverage. Some monasteries kept up the old traditions of mead-making as a by-product of beekeeping, especially in areas where grapes could not be grown.

In 2013, Poland became the world's largest producer of mead made according to traditional methods 

LSD

LSD  is the shorter name for a drug called Lysergic acid diethylamide, which causes people who take it to witness illusions. It is often referred to by the slang name acid.

Lysergic acid diethylamide was first made by Albert Hofmann, a Swiss chemist, on November 16, 1938 from ergotamine, a chemical from the fungus, ergot.

Hofmann discovered LSD's psychedelic properties by chance on April 16, 1943 when he accidentally consumed it during medicinal research. He intentionally took the drug three days later and notoriously experienced its disorientating effect when riding his bicycle through the streets of Basel. April 19th  is now known as "Bicycle Day," after the first intentional acid trip.

Albert Hofmann, at 50th Anniversary of LSD Conference. By Philip H. Bailey

During the Cold War, the American military and the CIA experimented with LSD (sometimes on uninformed subjects) to see whether it would be an aid in interrogation. It wasn't.

In 1961, a handful of the world's top scientists gathered at the Green Bank Observatory in West Virginia, to give dolphins LSD. They noted as soon as the dolphin on LSD had contact with another intelligent mammal, it wouldn't shut up.

LSD became the favored psychedelic drug among the young in the 1960s, prompted by Harvard psychology professor, Timothy Leary, whose slogan about LSD: "Turn on, tune in, drop out" was adopted by the hippie movement. A number of famous rock bands, including The Beatles became known for their use of LSD, and a new genre, "acid rock," was born from the fad.

Alduos Huxley was injected with LSD on his deathbed in 1963 and essentially tripped into death.

When Jefferson Airplane singer Grace Slick was invited to the White House for a tea party in 1969, she planned to spike President Nixon's tea with 600 micrograms of LSD. The plan was thwarted by White House security.

Some casual users began to experience side effects, such as "flashbacks" and psychotic symptoms and signs of depression and instability were seen. Due to the spread of LSD, the United States government banned the drug in 1967. Other countries soon followed.

In the 1960s, the CEO of electronics company Ampex wanted his employees to take LSD to improve their creativity. The board of directors said no, and then had to fire him after they discovered he'd snuck off anyway on a mountain hike with seven or eight engineers and given them LSD.

It's believed that during the 1990's up to 90% of the worldwide supply of LSD was manufactured in an decommissioned US missile silo converted into a luxury hideaway with hot tubs and bath appointed with imported marble.

The CIA created a project called “Project MK-ULTRA” in which they experimented with LSD to wipe the memories of retiring CIA agents.

LSD trips can last up to 18 hours because a cell's serotonin receptor locks the LSD molecule into place by covering it, almost like a lid.

Liqueur

One of the first spirits to be distilled by Europeans was made in early thirteenth century Italy where liqueurs were being produced from wine and aromatic herbs. At that time liqueurs were principally being used for medical purposes.

The Italian painter Bernardino Luini was commissioned in 1525 to paint a fresco of the Madonna for the local shrine of Our Lady of the Miracles. Luini used as his model for Madonna a young tavern keeper, with whom he was having an affair. She was so impressed with the picture that she created for him a Christmas gift, an amber red liqueur made with almonds and apricots from her garden. It was named Amaretto, which is Italian for "a little bitter".

Chartreuse is a French liqueur made by the Carthusian Monks since 1737.The liqueur is named after the monks' Grande Chartreuse monastery, located in the Chartreuse Mountains in the general region of Grenoble in France.  The recipe came from instructions set out in a chemical manuscript given to them by François Annibal d'Estrées in 1605. The 130 herbs, plants and flowers used to prepare chartreuse liqueur may be known today to as few as three monks

By Infrogmation of New Orleans - Photo by Infrogmation, CC BY-SA 3.0, $3

After Bonnie Prince Charlie was defeated by the English government forces at Culloden, the young pretender fled for his life and was befriended by Captain John Mackinnon. The prince was so grateful that he gave Mackinnon his personal recipe for his favorite concoction, made from a French formula, of Scotch whisky laced with heather, herbs, honey, and spices. He called it Drambuie, which means "a drink that satisfies" in Gaelic.

An orange flavored liqueur named Cointreau was created in 1849. It was made from unripe, sweet and bitter oranges two French confectioner brothers, Adolphe and Edouard-Jean Cointreau, in the Angers region of France.

The French Marnier-Lapostolle family firm developed in 1880 a new 40% alcohol liqueur made from a blend of cognacs and oranges. César Ritz (1850–1918) reportedly came up with its name "Grand Marnier" for Marnier-Lapostolle, who in return helped him purchase and establish the Hotel Ritz Paris.

Jägermeister is a digestif made with 56 herbs and spices at a strength of 35% alcohol by volume. German Curt Mast came up with Jäger’s original recipe in 1935.  It was originally used medicinally for easing flu symptoms from coughs to sore throats.

Baileys Irish Cream, a blend of dairy cream and Irish whiskey, was created by Tom Jago of Gilbeys of Ireland, a division of International Distillers & Vintners. The liqueur was introduced in 1974 as the first Irish cream on the market. with a name inspired by a London restaurant, Baileys Bistro. Such was its success that several other manufacturers were soon working on their own cream liqueur imitations.

In the United States and Canada, where spirits are often called "liquor", there is often confusion over liqueurs and liquors, especially as many spirits today are available in flavored form. The most reliable rule of thumb is that liqueurs are quite sweet and often syrupy in consistency, while liquors are not.

Lager

The word "lager" is derived from the German "lager" which means "to store".

Lagers are relatively new to the beer scene, first appearing in Bavaria during the 16th century; before that, ales were brewed for over 7,000 years because ales are easier to ferment.

Lager became a popular drink in Germany as a result of The King of Bavaria outlawing brewing during the summer months in 1553 as beer brewed in the winter tastes better. This helped the sales of lager as, unlike ale, it is brewed and stored in cold conditions.

In 1858 a German born migrant and businessman, Bernard Otto Holtermann, arrived on the Australian goldfields. He brought with him to Australia the Central European beer called lager. Holtermann was the first to import German lager beer on a considerable scale Down Under.

The Australian Foster's Group Limited was founded in Melbourne in 1888 by two American brothers William and Ralph Foster of New York, who happened to own a refrigeration plant. Their new beer, Foster's Lager, was produced in an American style with refrigeration, a lagering process and bottling.

Corona Extra is a pale lager produced by Cervecería Modelo in Mexico. In the United States, Corona Extra is the top selling imported beer.

In 1987, Corona sales plummeted when a rumor spread that their workers were weeing in their beer. The company traced its origins back to Heineken, whom Corona sued for $3 million in damages, but their reputation still suffered and their product was referred to as “Mexican urine water” for years.

Of the top ten best-selling beers worldwide, all ten are lagers.

Heroin

In 1898 Bayer introduced its new "sedative for coughs," which was given the brand name, Heroin. 24 years earlier a C. R. Wright had derived the crystalline powder from morphine and years later Heinrich Dreser, the head of Bayer's pharmacological laboratory spotted the commercial potential in the drug.

Dreser began testing the narcotic on his laboratory animals and then some of his employees. The drug gained its name after his assistants commented that the drug made them feel "heroic". Marketing it as a cough remedy proved an astute move and it soon became popular in both North America and Europe.

In the late 19th century, the Sears catalog used to offer a heroin kit, two vials of heroin included, for only $1.50 - the equivalent of slightly less than $50 in 2019.

Because of its extreme potency, heroin was soon used to ease severe pain for which it was found to be several times more effective than morphine. By 1902, it accounted for five percent of Bayer's net profits,

Bayer heroin bottle

Heroin was as marketed as "non-addictive morphine substitute" / cough suppressant but within a few years of its launch, many Western doctors were reporting cases of heroin addiction. By the end of the 1900s decade recreational users were supporting their habits by selling scrap metal (hence the expression "junkie").

Bayer stopped making heroin in 1913, and the narcotic was banned in the USA the following year.

In the mid-1990s, dressing like a heroin addict was in high fashion. The look was referred to as "heroin chic."

Heroin deteriorates the white matter of the brain, which harms one's ability to make decisions and regulate behavior.

An unexpected side effect of heroin use is severe itchiness. Heroin and other opiates can make people's skin crawl and itch, and they may want to scratch their skin for relief.

A lot of users think something is wrong with their heroin when their skin gets itchy, but it usually means the drug is strong and not contaminated,

The expression "kicking the habit" is thought to have originated from the kicking movements seen in people going through heroin withdrawal.

Around 23% of people who try heroin become dependent on it.

Pakistan is the most heroin-addicted country, per capita, in the world—drug-related deaths outpace those caused by terrorism. 

Gin

Franciscus Sylvius, a professor of medicine at the University of Leiden in Holland  distilled the juniper berry with grain. The result was a very reasonably priced medicine for kidney ailments.

The medicine was ridiculously cheap to make, requiring only grain, water, and readily available herbs.

By the late 1660s, the juniper medicine was becoming popular as a beverage and had been introduced to England by soldiers returning from the Low Countries.

Samuel Pepys recorded in his diary that he took ‘strong water made of juniper’ as a cure for constipation.

The Dutch for a juniper shrub is “jenever” and the English shortened and mispronounced it to gin.

After the Dutch Protestant king William III accepted the crown of England as joint sovereign with his wife Mary in 1689, sales of gin soared. William heavily taxed French brandy, as he identified it as a Roman Catholic drink and encouraged the drinking of gin, the patriotic tipple of Protestants.

By 1720, 2.5 million gallons of gin were produced annually in London. the quantity consumed each year by Londoners quadrupled between 1720 and 1730, and almost doubled again in the following decade. which saw consumption average ten liters of gin per person per year.

There were 6,287 places to buy gin in London in 1726. That’s twice as many as coffee shops today.

The Gin Act was passed in 1736 in the UK to curb dangerous levels of consumption of 'Mother's Ruin' by taxing it. On the day before the act was passed, mobs took to the streets to drink as much gin as they could lay their hands on.    

Alexander Gordon opened his distillery in Southwark, London and began making Gordon’s Gin in 1769. The quest for better quality was a reaction to the Gin Craze of early 18th- century London where very rough gin was consumed,

The Black Friars Distillery, which opened in 1793, is the oldest gin distillery in the world.

Early Australian settlers paid for imported gin with gold dust.

Gin and tonic was used to prevent and treat malaria in the 1800s. Tonic containing the anti-malarial drug quinine was very bitter, so gin was added to make it tasty.

Its popularity soared during the Prohibition era in the US, due to the ease of making ‘Bathtub gin’.

The Philippines is the largest gin market, accounting for some 43% of the world's gin consumption. San Miguel is by far the largest brand with 62% of the Philippine market.

Gin is only gin if the predominant taste is juniper (Juniper berries, the only spice to come from coniferous trees).

It’s the quinine in gin and tonics that makes them glow in ultra-violet light.

Source Mail On Sunday

Drunkenness

DRUNKENNESS IN HISTORY

The Chinese royal astronomers Ho and Hi dedicated too much of their time to consuming alcohol. On October 22, 2137 BC. they failed to predict a forthcoming eclipse. The emperor was very cross because, without knowing that there was an eclipse coming, he was unable to organize teams to beat drums and shoot arrows in the air to frighten away the invisible dragon. The Sun did survive, but the two astronomers lost their heads for such negligence.

The Old Testament records an early example of drunkenness. It tells us how Lot, the nephew of Abraham, settled with his two daughters in the mountains. The two girls were unmarried and unlikely to meet any men to help them to produce children so on two successive nights each of them got their elderly father drunk and lay with him. They both become impregnated and the products of their incest were Moab and Ben Ammi.

Within a few hundred years, the Moabites and Ammonites, the descendants of Moab and Ben Ammi, were two of the fledgling country Israel’s greatest enemies.

The Torah, given from God to Moses on Mount Sinai, imposed dietary restrictions that formed the basis for kosher food requirements. There was also a command to the Hebrew priests on duty at the sanctuary to drink neither wine nor "strong drink," lest they become intoxicated.

Several Old Testament prophets criticized those who revel in too much wine. Isaiah, for instance claimed that not only were the common people prone to overindulging but even priests and prophets had stumbled and blundered in judgement "through strong drink."

Ancient Persians believed that every argument should be debated twice: once while drunk and once while sober.

The strange power of intoxicants such as wine to release the human spirit from the control of the mind meant they were regarded with superstitious reverence by the ancients and their use was frequently linked with religious rites. For instance in Greece, Orphism, a religious cult aimed at securing eventual immortality involved the use of wine in its ceremonies, and festivals celebrating Dionysus, the Greek God of wine involved much hedonistic excess.

In the more disciplined city-state of Sparta, overindulgence of alcoholic beverages was not encouraged. The Spartans were known to make their slaves drunk to show the Spartan youths the results of intemperance.

The Aztecs had punishments for being drunk which ranged from head-shaving to the death penalty.

In 1400 Holy Roman Emperor Wenceslas IV was deposed on account of drunkenness.

Drunkards in seventeenth century north west Europe were sometimes made to wear a wooden barrel with holes for their hands and head in order to shame the victim into sobriety.

Drunkenness was scarcely mentioned in medical writing during the Middle Ages except to warn against the use of drink to relieve melancholia. In 1684, the English physician, Thomas Willis (1621-1675), suggested that habitual drunkenness resulted in `stupidity' but physicians frequently prescribed wine, beer, and spirits as medicines.

Gentlemen in England at the turn of the eighteenth century were frequently in the habit of arriving in their local town on horseback in order to pass away the evening in a tavern or gaming house. Whilst there they send out the occasional drink to the boys who look after their horses. These boys were known as newts and by the time their horses wee ready for collection, the young “newts” were often completely inebriated. So frequently was this happening that the phrase as “drunk as a newt” came into existence.

During the Gin Craze of the 1730s London had 207 inns, 447 taverns, 5875 alehouses and 8659 brandy shops for a population of around 1.5 million.

In the 18th century habitual drunkenness came to be seen as a disease. The American physician, Benjamin Rush (1745-1813), concocted a rum and tartar emetic which he used as aversion therapy for men who preferred the tavern to domestic society. Doctors began to associate drink with insanity.

James Gordon Bennett, Jr. (May 10, 1841 – May 14, 1918) was the New York-born son of a publishing magnate. A successful publisher himself of the New York Herald, he sponsored explorers including Henry Morton Stanley's trip to Africa to find David Livingstone, and the ill-fated USS Jeannette attempt on the North Pole.

Portrait of James Gordon Bennett, Jr.

An outlandish international playboy, Bennett's exploits gave rise to the exclamation ‘Gordon Bennett!’, to express shock. He’d turn up drunk to restaurants and cause havoc, and enjoyed driving round New York stark naked save for a top hat.

The first driver to be charged with a DWI offense by police was George Smith, a cab driver in Great Britain who got drunk and drove into a building in 1897. He had to pay a 20 shilling fine.

Indianapolis police, dealing with a surge in drink- driving due to the end of prohibition and an increase in cars, introduced the world’s first breath tests on December 31, 1938. People had to blow into a balloon, the contents of which were then mixed with a chemical that became darker if alcohol was present.

Licensees throughout the United Kingdom complained on the night of October 9, 1967  that trade had slumped by up to two-thirds on the first day of alcohol breath tests. Worst hit were outof-town public houses which rely on motorists for most of their business.

In 1996, the President of Colombia introduced a bill to make drunken walking illegal.

FUN DRUNKENNESS FACTS

Every language known to man has numerous words for drunk but not for sober.

At any one time, 45 million people in the world are drunk.

It’s estimated that at any one time around 0.7% of the world’s population is drunk.

Figures show that around 13 per cent of fatal road accidents in the UK involve a drunken driver.

Before the word "groggy" came to mean sleepy, it meant someone who had too much grog.

In days gone by a British man would physically bend two edges of a coin and give it to his sweetheart to charm her into love. If the his advances were rejected, he would drink all day until drunk,which gave rise to the phrase "going on a bender."

The Russians have a word, “Zapoi”, which describes several days of continuous drunkenness during which one withdraws from society.

"Schnapsidee" is the German word for a ridiculous idea that only sounds good when you’re drunk.

Gut fermentation syndrome (called auto-brewery syndrome) is a rare disorder in which intestines produce ethanol from carbohydrates. If you have this disease, you're drunk all the time.

In 2013, a feral pig in Australia stole 18 beers from a campsite, got drunk, and then tried to fight a cow.

The ant always falls over on its right side when intoxicated.

Australian parrots have discovered that sugar spilt from cane trucks and wet by dew overnight can rapidly ferment in the Sun, providing free booze.

Birds that consume alcohol slur their songs, much like a human would slur their speech.

An Australian bird, called the rainbow lorikeet, routinely gets drunk from spring to summer. The small birds drink the fermented crimson flower nectar from the Weeping Boer-bean tree. When intoxicated these birds make loud drunken noises which many people find a pain.

Sources History.World, Daily Mail

Drug Abuse

Sarpa salpa is a hallucinogenic fish that was used as a recreational drug during the Roman Empire.

The Great Binge is the period in history covering roughly 1870 to 1914. It is so known because of the widespread use and availability of narcotics such as absinthe, cocaine, heroin, morphine, and opium.

Until the 1914 Harrison Narcotics Act, there were no legal restrictions on the importation or use of opium in the United States. Medicines often contained opium without any warning label. This first federal attempt to deal with drug abuse also banned the use of heroin.

Corky retired from the U.S. Customs Service in Miami in 1991. The golden cocker spaniel, rescued from an Illinois animal shelter three years earlier, had sniffed out $18-million in drugs.

Until 1967 it wasn't illegal for Olympic athletes to use drugs to enhance their performance during competition.

Alexander Shulgin (June 17, 1925 – June 2, 2014), "the godfather of psychedelics", he had a license from the DEA to produce any schedule 1 substance. He is noted for the discovery, synthesis and personal bioassay of over 230 psychoactive compounds before the license was revoked.

Alexander Shulgin at book signing in Oakland, California in December 2011

MDMA ("ecstasy", "mandy" or "molly")  first appeared sporadically as a street drug in the early 1970s after its counterculture analogue, MDA, became criminalized in the United States in 1970. It began to be used therapeutically in the late-1970s after Shulgin tried it himself, in 1977 and subsequently introduced it to psychologists in the late 1970s for psychopharmaceutical use.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, MDMA as "ecstasy" was widely used in the United Kingdom and other parts of Europe, becoming an integral element of rave culture and other psychedelic/dancefloor-influenced music scenes, such as Madchester and Acid House.

Fleetwood Mac seriously considered thanking their drug dealer in their album credits for their 1977 LP Rumours. They ultimately decided against it after their drug dealer was murdered.

Pencils produced in the 1990s with the anti-drug slogan "Too Cool to Do Drugs" were recalled because, when sharpened, they read "Do Drugs" .

On January 1, 2023, Oregon became the first US state to allow adult use of hallucinogenic mushrooms.

Molly, while defined as pure MDMA powder, is almost always mixed with unknown, dangerous chemicals.

For much of human history, people got their drugs from nature. Marijuana comes from the cannabis plant, cocaine from coca leaves, heroin from poppies and magic mushrooms from er, mushrooms.  In the 21st century, most damaging drugs do not come from plants. They are synthetic — manufactured in a lab, usually requiring no plants at all.

Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid used as a pain medication, which is also used as a recreational drug, often mixed with heroin or cocaine. 100 times more potent than heroin, Fentanyl is measured in millionth of grams by doctors, and a dose the size of a grain of sand will kill you. 

Fentanyl and meth, which is also produced in labs, made 2021 the worst year for drug overdoses in US history: The full-year death toll topped 100,000 for the first time, Annual Drug overdose mortalities increased from 36,450 in 2008 to 107,000 in 2021.

The FBI and many other federal agencies have strict hiring criteria, which includes a ban on drug use. As per their policies, applicants cannot have used marijuana in the last three years and for harder drugs such as cocaine and ecstasy, the ban is for 10 years. This requirement can be a challenge in hiring skilled cybersecurity professionals, as the use of these substances is widespread in the tech industry.

Singapore gives random drug tests to tourists and locals before they can enter the country. They must be negative of any illegal drugs before they can enter.

South Korea has strict laws regarding drug use, possession, and trafficking. South Korean citizens are subject to these laws regardless of whether they consumed drugs in South Korea or abroad. The extraterritorial application of drug laws means that if a South Korean citizen uses drugs in a country where they are legal, they can still face legal consequences upon their return to South Korea. These consequences can include criminal charges, fines, and imprisonment. 

Source New York Times