The Dispensary is Today's Soda Fountain
A long time ago, about one hundred years ago, modern medicine was just taking off. Handwashing was being forcefully introduced by Igor Semmelwetz to Austrian doctors who didn't like the fact that he was a Jew. Louise Pasteur and Robert Koch had only just proven germ theory. X-rays had just been discovered as well. Gregor Mendel died in anonymity, but then was rediscovered. We knew very little about the human body but we were making progress.
And so the age old apothecary, or the druggist, or what we now call the pharmacist, had to change as well. This is the transition period between "your mom makes you chew willow bark for pain" to "you use medically prescribed aspirin in a tablet." With all the new innovations, but with all the folk remedies still around, and the new global transportation network, pharmacies wanted to stay ahead of the game.
This was the era that radium was painted on watch faces. And children's toys because it glows. So don't get so freaked out when you read what follows.
Drugs back then were legal. In fact there was no precedent for them to be illegal, so they were just fine. The Coca in Coca Cola comes from the fact that until 1928, all Coca Cola had large to trace amounts of COCAaine in the drink itself.
7-Up had lithium in it. Lithium incidentally helps people with bipolar disorder, and it is the drug we still use today. It was all to be "healthier." It really wasn't good for people. That's why Coca-Cola eliminated cocaine from it's "secret" recipe.
maura Flickr
And so the age old apothecary, or the druggist, or what we now call the pharmacist, had to change as well. This is the transition period between "your mom makes you chew willow bark for pain" to "you use medically prescribed aspirin in a tablet." With all the new innovations, but with all the folk remedies still around, and the new global transportation network, pharmacies wanted to stay ahead of the game.
This was the era that radium was painted on watch faces. And children's toys because it glows. So don't get so freaked out when you read what follows.
Drugs back then were legal. In fact there was no precedent for them to be illegal, so they were just fine. The Coca in Coca Cola comes from the fact that until 1928, all Coca Cola had large to trace amounts of COCAaine in the drink itself.
7-Up had lithium in it. Lithium incidentally helps people with bipolar disorder, and it is the drug we still use today. It was all to be "healthier." It really wasn't good for people. That's why Coca-Cola eliminated cocaine from it's "secret" recipe.
maura Flickr
People used to go to the soda fountain, a place where the pharmacist or druggist would mix drugs, sugar, syrup, carbonated, water, stimulants, and medicinal herbs, to make their pains go away. It also replaced the bar during Prohibition.
In a day of biohacking miracles, in a day of "soft" and possible"hard" drug legalization, such as what is going on in Oregon and California, it isn't hard to see a future situation, where the current cannabis dispensary becomes what the soda fountain was in the past. With the current popularity of marijuana skyrocketing, dispensaries opening all over the country, the loosening of state and federal regulations, the skyrocketing sales of "hard" cider, and many of those psychoactive ingredients being added to brownies and other baked goods as an example, I could see the following happen:
Coca Cola or some brand of soda creates a "hard" marijuana laced soda. (there have already been attempts to do something like this)
Coca Cola offers a "hard" low dosage throwback cocaine laced soda in the original recipe sold only at special dispensaries and distributed only by special bottlers.
7-Up creates a special "mood-enhancing" soda filled with serotonin, lithium, ginseng, and other "brain-boosting" chemicals, much like energy drinks already do today.
The problem is that conservatives like me wouldn't be too happy about it, but the libertarian right and left would be so stoked about it. But ultimately, like a century ago, there would be a return to a ban on drugs, much like there was a start to a War on Drugs in the 1970's after experimenting with hundreds of years of laissez-faire government drug policy and enforcement of community norms.
In a day of biohacking miracles, in a day of "soft" and possible"hard" drug legalization, such as what is going on in Oregon and California, it isn't hard to see a future situation, where the current cannabis dispensary becomes what the soda fountain was in the past. With the current popularity of marijuana skyrocketing, dispensaries opening all over the country, the loosening of state and federal regulations, the skyrocketing sales of "hard" cider, and many of those psychoactive ingredients being added to brownies and other baked goods as an example, I could see the following happen:Coca Cola or some brand of soda creates a "hard" marijuana laced soda. (there have already been attempts to do something like this)
Coca Cola offers a "hard" low dosage throwback cocaine laced soda in the original recipe sold only at special dispensaries and distributed only by special bottlers.
7-Up creates a special "mood-enhancing" soda filled with serotonin, lithium, ginseng, and other "brain-boosting" chemicals, much like energy drinks already do today.
The problem is that conservatives like me wouldn't be too happy about it, but the libertarian right and left would be so stoked about it. But ultimately, like a century ago, there would be a return to a ban on drugs, much like there was a start to a War on Drugs in the 1970's after experimenting with hundreds of years of laissez-faire government drug policy and enforcement of community norms.
Comments
Post a Comment