Curated playlist
Euphoriants
- Cannabis (drug)Uruguay became the first country in the modern era to legalize recreational cannabis in December 2013.
- CocaineSpanish colonizers banned coca, then legalized and taxed it. Miners and field workers relied on the leaf.
- CannabisA shaman in northwest China was buried with 789 grams of cannabis. Researchers later confirmed it still held THC.
- OpiumTo harvest opium, a farmer scores an unripe poppy pod by hand. The plant weeps a milky fluid that dries overnight.
- MorphineIn 1817, a German pharmacist tested morphine on himself, three boys, three dogs and a mouse.
- Alcohol (drug)Alcohol works by boosting GABA, the brain's main brake pedal. The liver then breaks down most of it.
- AmphetamineIn late 1933, a drug company began selling amphetamine as a nasal inhaler. Smith, Kline and French called it Benzedrine.
- KetamineKetamine owes its best-known label to a pharmacologist's wife. Researchers testing the drug wanted to call its anesthetic state "dreaming," but the manufacturer, Parke-Davis, would not approve the word. Mrs. Edward F. Domino, whose husband…
- Areca nutThe areca nut is chewed by around 600 million people, mainly of South and Southeast Asian origin. It leaves red stains on pavements from South Asia to the northern Philippines. This seed of a tropical palm, also called betel nut, acts as a…
- Nitrous oxideNitrous oxide, also called dinitrogen oxide, dinitrogen monoxide, laughing gas or simply nitrous, is a colourless gas with a faint, slightly sweet scent and taste. By 2020, every billion molecules of air held 333 of its molecules, and that…
- Mitragyna speciosaIn Thailand, the leaves of Mitragyna speciosa were once described as "used as a snack to receive guests and was part of the ritual worship of ancestors and gods". That same leaf, known as kratom, is now restricted across much of the world.…