Okay, so today I added this to my collection of interesting stuff:



(For the record, the 500 Quaaludes that this bottle once held are gone. It's empty. There isn't even any Quaalude residue that you could lick.)

I was alive when Quaaludes (methaqualone) were popular as a recreational drug, but I was too young at the time to know anything about them. At least in the U.S., distribution stopped between 1982 and 1984 (depending upon which source you believe), and they were outlawed at the federal level in 1984.

Perhaps some .orgers who are slightly older can enlighten me... what was so great about Quaaludes?

People who remember Quaaludes (a/k/a Sopor, Parest, and Mandrax) seem to think that they were the best drug ever, and yet the only place where illicit methaqualone is readily available today is South Africa. Even there, it's mainly used by poor people who can't afford other drugs.

Occasionally pills sold as "Quaaludes," complete with the "714" stamp, turn up in the United States. But they're usually nothing more than a high dose of diazepam (Valium).

So... if Quaaludes were such a wonderful thing, why did they essentially disappear? My hypothesis: they were probably fun, but not as good as nostalgic people remember. There probably isn't much of a market for them today, and so underground chemists don't think it's worthwhile to whip up some methaqualone, especially when they can just get some pharmaceutical bulk diazepam powder, press it into pills, and sell them as "Quaaludes."

Perhaps I could do some research, write a dissertation about this ("Quaaludes After 1984: What Happened to Them and Why?"), and get a Ph.D.

Aren't they legal in MEXICO? I Know that Heroin Products are Over the Counter or was Morphine back in 1988. But, well what I know from some Older Friends...QUAALUDES MADE WOMAN all HORNY and Relaxed and WANTING SEX...Plus it was AMAZING SEX..... People would take RORERS or LEMON 714's with Beer and even eat 2 or more. But I was told ya had to watch out cause it made ya Sleepy. So what was it Actually PRESCRIBED for? I Know ROOFIES are AMAZING for a SEx DRUG and people say it's the same....

reminds me of what Al Pacino said in "Scarface"...

"Don't worry mane, she'll take a quaalude in the morning and then she'll love me again"...

Zelaira said:

Quaaludes may be "legal" there in the sense that they weren't outlawed and remain legal to possess (maybe a prescription is required). However, to the best of my knowledge, no pharmaceutical company is currently making methaqualone, so at best, you'd have a prescription that no pharmacy could fill. I'm told that a similar situation currently exists in Canada.

Edit: Now that I think about it, I have heard of a drug called "Mandrex" being sold in Mexico. Note the similarity to "Mandrax," a drug that contained methaqualone. But it almost certainly contains/contained no methaqualone... there are various Mexican medications with names very similar to "good stuff," and the idea is to trick people who don't notice the difference.



I believe Quaaludes were primarily intended as a sleeping pill. Note the directions on the label. In fact, the name "Quaalude" was derived from the phrase "quiet interlude." (The double-"a" was intended to connect the drug with Rorer's best-selling product at the time, Maalox.)

However, some doctors set up "stress clinics" whose raison d'être was solely to issue prescriptions for 'ludes. Somehow I suspect that these places wouldn't take health insurance... cash only, please.



The same? I doubt it. I'm oversimplifying things a bit, but Rohypnol (generic name: flunitrazepam) is just another drug in the benzodiazepine family, which includes Valium, Xanax, Klonopin/Rivotril, and Ativan.

Although this is controversial, some folks claim that Soma (generic name: carisoprodol) is similar to Quaaludes, and Soma is relatively easy to obtain. It's not even a controlled substance at the federal level, although it is controlled in some states.
[Edited 2/4/06 20:45pm]

matt said:

I just got a really funny pic of you in my head sitting there licking the inside of that damn bottle....

I don't know much about ludes except they seem to be a MAJOR pop reference for all books written in the 70's or about the 70's. What I particularly gather from my Erica Jong ("Fear of Flying", "How to Save Your Own Life", etc) novels is that they were used as an aid to sleep or sexual prelude