Before Bill Cosby admitted to drugging women with quaaludes and allergy meds, quaaludes were a staple of the American recreational drug scene, one that “everyone remembers fondly.” It’s even been called an “icon of the 1970s,” before it was discontinued in 1985—in part because of its widespread illegal recreational use. In the October, 1980 issue of High Times, we featured quaaludes as a centerfold and discussed why they were called everything from a dangerous downer to an aphrodisiac.
Q. Are Quaaludes (methaqualone) really the ultimate love drug?
A. Different strokes for different folks, really. A lot of people do ‘ludes to get high, lower their inhibitions and go to town. A lot of other people use grass, booze and fast cars for the same thing. Since lots of people expect to get horny behind ‘ludes, more often than not they do. But there are always some people who use the Quaalude euphoria as an excuse to act out pent-up hostilities or self-pity and that gets decidedly antiaphrodisiacal. And there are always some people for whom the drug euphoria becomes an end in itself, and these folks will tend to prefer getting high to making love. Basically no, sexual arousal is not a specific pharmacological property of methaqualone.
Q. Are Quaaludes as addictive as barbiturates?
A. As with reds and Tuies, regular ‘ludes users do tend to develop a tolerance to the euphoria and need progressively higher doses to get suitably stoned. But unlike barbiturates, ‘ludes don’t tend to promote heavy withdrawal symptoms—craving, convulsions, cramps—when a moderate user gives them up. Most people who do ‘ludes can voluntarily and independently kick their dose down from, say once a day to twice a week, without anything like the trouble they’d have with barbiturates.
People who get strung out …
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Author: High Times / High Times
