History
IV drug use is a relatively recent phenomenon arising from the invention of re-usable syringes and the synthesis of chemically pure morphine and cocaine.
It was noted that administering drugs intravenously strengthened their effect and since such drugs as heroin and cocaine were already being used to treat a wide variety of ailments, many patients were given injections of "hard" drugs for such ailments as alcoholism and depression.
By the time of Aleister Crowley intravenous drug culture already had a small, but loyal following. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle writes that Sherlock Holmes used to inject cocaine to occupy his mind between cases.
Read more about this topic: Drug Injection
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“Those who weep for the happy periods which they encounter in history acknowledge what they want; not the alleviation but the silencing of misery.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)
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“Every generation rewrites the past. In easy times history is more or less of an ornamental art, but in times of danger we are driven to the written record by a pressing need to find answers to the riddles of today.... In times of change and danger when there is a quicksand of fear under men’s reasoning, a sense of continuity with generations gone before can stretch like a lifeline across the scary present and get us past that idiot delusion of the exceptional Now that blocks good thinking.”
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