How High Were They?: 5 Drug-Fueled Insights From The Past

Shakespeare's weed, Washington's opium, Freud's coke, and other habits of the high and mighty.

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When we talk about the forces that shape history, we usually hear about wars, revolutions, inventions… maybe the occasional love affair. But there’s one powerful force that’s rarely acknowledged—because, well, it makes people uncomfortable.

That force is drugs.

In his new book Human History on Drugs, writer and historian Sam Kelly uncovers the surprising, often scandalous ways that everything from opium to cocaine has shaped leaders, inspired art, fueled some bad decisions—and some good ones. It’s a provocative and oddly humanizing look at the past, and it just might change the way you think about both history and substance use.

1. What you were taught in school isn’t necessarily what happened.

I’m not saying your teacher deliberately lied, but they definitely left out some juicy details that maybe weren’t appropriate to share with a roomful of rambunctious middle-schoolers. Or maybe your teacher didn’t want to be accused of tarnishing the reputation of beloved historical figures.

Take George Washington, the father of our country. In school, kids learn that he cut down a cherry tree and then confessed to his father, saying, “I cannot tell a lie.” Is that story true? No, absolutely not. It was a lie invented by his biographer, a guy named Mason Locke Weems, to sell more books.

Maybe your teacher mentioned that Washington had fake teeth, which is true, but I’ll bet they didn’t tell you the whole truth: his teeth weren’t made of wood. They were real teeth taken from real people—some from corpses, and the rest from enslaved people that George Washington owned. Not only that, but Washington drank opium every night to deal with the pain of wearing those incredibly primitive dentures in his mouth.

I understand why your teacher didn’t want to tell you this stuff, but whitewashing textbooks isn’t the answer. Scrubbing away references to drug use and pretending it didn’t happen doesn’t make it go away. If you want people to learn from history, they need to know what really happened.

2. Famous historical figures led complicated, messy lives–like we all do.

Famous people from history weren’t superhumans. They were real people with flaws and vices. But their drug use is rarely mentioned because it doesn’t fit in with whatever image someone is trying to convey. Instead, we get manicured historical narratives that don’t reflect the multifaceted people they were.

Consider Sigmund Freud. Everyone who takes an Intro to Psychology class learns about Freud. Textbooks will say almost parenthetically that a few of his specific notions (like “penis envy” or “the Oedipus Complex”) are no longer widely believed, and emphasize his revolutionary theory of a subconscious mind that influences how we think and act as absolutely foundational to the understanding of modern psychology.

“Instead, we get manicured historical narratives that don’t reflect the multifaceted people they were.”

But they downplay or omit entirely the fact that Freud used tons of cocaine. When he was a 28-year-old research assistant in Vienna, he was dying to make a name for himself, and he latched onto cocaine as his ticket to fame in the medical world. He absolutely fell in love with the stuff. He used it all the time and prescribed it to his patients.

People who write textbooks are afraid that telling you this part of Freud’s story might tend to undermine his importance, but it helps explain so much. Freud had all these kooky theories, like penis envy, that seemed outlandish to lots of people, but he was always supremely confident and convinced he was right. Why? Because he was on freaking cocaine.

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3. Drugs are tools.

The chisel that a sculptor uses to carve a masterpiece out of marble could just as easily be used to murder someone. But the fact that a chisel can potentially be used to maim or kill doesn’t change that its primary purpose is to create beautiful art.

Drugs are tools. Most are intended for beneficial purposes, but some are used in ways that cause harm. Elvis Presley is a good example. While everyone today knows about the opioid crisis, half a century ago, people didn’t understand it was possible to become addicted to prescription drugs. The type of pills that Elvis took has helped large numbers of people, but he was never educated about the dangers of taking too many or of combining them. He was taking thousands of pills a year, but was convinced he wasn’t a drug addict because he thought that if his doctor gave it to him, it was okay. Medicine was supposed to help, not hurt.

I’m not saying all drugs (or all tools) should be treated the same. Some have a higher level of baseline risk than others; a butter knife is safer than a chainsaw. A bunch of U.S. states have legalized marijuana, but I don’t think those states will be legalizing heroin or methamphetamine anytime soon. People today seem willing to embrace the idea that, while drugs have the potential for abuse, they also have the potential for good. It’s a matter of installing safeguards and ensuring that people are properly educated about the risks and rewards.

4. There is no inherent moral element to drug use.

The righteous, the wicked, and everyone in between use drugs. At the same time, the righteous, the wicked, and everyone in between abstain from drugs. Knowing that someone uses drugs tells you nothing about their personality or about whether they are a good or bad person.

Obviously, if you are running a drug cartel from a fortified compound in a South American jungle, or you are a part of a covert government program that doses unwilling participants with LSD in an effort to control their minds, you have crossed a pretty serious line. But just using drugs does not, in and of itself, make you bad.

“Knowing that someone uses drugs tells you nothing about their personality or about whether they are a good or bad person.”

Think about Marcus Aurelius, widely regarded as one of the greatest Roman emperors of all time. He devoted his life to making wise and just decisions and improving the lives of his people. He wrote the definitive book on Stoic philosophy and is universally regarded as the epitome of clear thinking and sober reflection. But he also took opium every night. He wasn’t trying to get high. He just couldn’t shut off his brain. He was always thinking, always evaluating, and that made it impossible for him to get to sleep at night. So, at his doctor’s suggestion, he swallowed a tiny teaspoon of opium at bedtime and was out like a light.

If he were alive today, he might well stick with Melatonin or ZzzQuil instead. But no one thinks Marcus Aurelius was a bad person because he drank opium.

5. History can be incredibly entertaining.

Some people think history is boring. But history is literally everything that has ever happened. Do you know how many truly insane, bizarre, and fascinating things have happened in the past?

Sure, history includes some boring stuff. But it also includes the coolest stuff that has ever happened. If you think history is boring, you’ve been focusing on the wrong parts. It’s like seeing gold nuggets in the dirt and walking right past them.

Forget about memorizing names and dates and who won what battle. How about the fact that we had a Pope who was 80 years old and, when he needed a burst of energy, drank cocaine wine? Or that William Shakespeare smoked cannabis, Vincent van Gogh drank paint and turpentine, and Steve Jobs soaked his feet in the toilet to relieve stress? All of that is history, too.

So is this: Scientists looked inside the mummy of one of the greatest Egyptian pharaohs and found cannabis. Queen Victoria chloroformed herself and called it “delightful beyond measure.” And President Richard Nixon used to drunk dial his cabinet members in the middle of the night and order them to nuke Cambodia.

History is filled with incredible true stories that are every bit as exciting and weird as anything you could ever make up. You just have to know where to look.