No Miracle Cure for All Diseases. Drugs Enter France.
"Are coca leaves really that much of a problem?"
"Of course they are."
Coca leaves, the raw material for cocaine, had arrived.
"Numbness, hallucinations, euphoria. Are these normal effects?"
"Isn't tobacco the same?"
"At least tobacco doesn't leave you listlessly starving to death."
The reaction was surprisingly lukewarm. Well, in the old days, drugs were used like common remedies, so that made sense. Even in a remote corner of modern Korea, people brewed poppy wine. Among the elderly in Gyeongsang-do who hated Park Chung-hee, eight or nine out of ten supposedly resented him for banning opium and cannabis.
"We must be wary of anything that causes severe addiction symptoms."
Coca leaves, opium, cannabis, and various other addictive poisonous plants. Addiction to these ruined lives. If ordinary indulgences were the seasoning of life, narcotics were its perfume. With seasoning, you could add or remove freely, and too much made the taste obviously foul. But with perfume, too much just blended in unnoticed at first. Only when your clothes were soaked through and the stench emerged from the liquid did you realize the awfulness. Spraying more perfume to cover it only soaked the clothes further, and the once-emitted odor mingled with the new scent into something inseparable.
"But, Your Majesty. How do we define addiction? By that logic, water after three days or food after a few make us frantic. Doesn't that mean everything is addictive? Our Treasury's own analysis judged that, like tobacco, monopolizing them would contribute to the national coffers."
That was the conventional wisdom of this era. But it couldn't be allowed. Drugs were drugs, no matter the age. If I were a doctor, I'd pinpoint the brain circuits involved, define the mechanisms of drugs versus food and water—but that wouldn't be the right approach. In any case, in the 18th century, drugs were remedies and indulgences.
"We'll need to conduct live experiments."
No amount of boring, pedantic theory would make policy or set precedent. It would just gather dust in books until 20th-century scholars or 21st-century policymakers rediscovered it. Achievements were fine, but to craft usable policy now, we needed 18th-century methods.
"We'll need about 100 coca addicts and serious criminals."
I hadn't wanted to resort to this pseudo-science.
*
In November 1787, serious criminals from across France gathered in Paris.
"What is it? Execution?"
"Perfect timing. Sundays have been boring without any beheadings lately."
Contrary to the Parisians' expectations, they weren't condemned to death. Most were 'sympathetic' serious offenders: wives who killed abusive husbands, revenge killers who tracked down partners who destroyed their families and fled, workers who took the fall for their bosses' crimes. Heavy sins, but from upstanding folk with extenuating circumstances.
"Aw, no execution. Let's be on our way."
They were assigned in groups of ten to a former noble's villa near Versailles for King Louis XVI's personal experiment.
"This is His Majesty's mercy. Here, you will undergo several choice experiments. We'll reveal the details after your participation. Will you take part? Note that your choice may lead to pardon or extended imprisonment."
In an era without research ethics, even asking consent from serious criminals was mercy.
"We'll do it."
And since judicial deals were rare, the criminals gladly accepted.
"You are the control group. Choose normally. We'll reveal sentence adjustments at the end, so choose naturally. Here: Brittany beef steak and coca leaves. Choose."
The live experiment divided into four groups: two non-addict and two addict groups. The control gave ordinary prisoners standard indulgences versus coca.
"You are the remission group. Choose non-coca for sentence reduction."
The remission group offered ordinary prisoners standard indulgences plus remission incentives.
"You are the coca group. Ahem, choose after hearing."
The coca group gave severe coca addicts indulgences with remission conditions versus coca. From this group on, to emphasize dependency, they were denied food and water for a day.
"You are the opium group... Sigh."
The opium group told opium addicts that choosing opium extended sentences, and ten-plus choices meant execution.
And the results were as Louis XVI predicted.
"The control chose indulgences—all but one. Why did that one pick coca?"
"Curiosity, he said. Not instant addiction, apparently; he chose indulgences thereafter."
"Pardon and find jobs for the nine normals. Halve the sentence for the one coca chooser."
The control overwhelmingly picked meat they'd never touch otherwise, colonial sweets, and '83 wine over coca leaves.
"The remission group goes without saying."
The remission group unanimously took indulgences and reductions.
"The coca group is surprising. No starvation deaths despite high coca picks. Fresh leaves? Refined like opium, it might be deadlier."
The coca group mostly chose coca but switched to food at death's door.
"Your Majesty, realistically, two died. They picked coca three straight times, then barely mustered finger strength for food at the end. Without our feeding them, they'd be gone."
Two were effectively dead already.
"The opium group as expected."
"The four survivors, like coca's, only chose food at the brink."
The opium group had six starvation deaths. Long-refined, it showed full addiction even now.
*
All cultivation, possession, consumption, and trade of dependency-inducing crops—coca leaves, opium, cannabis, and others termed Herbe toxique du diable—are hereby forbidden.
Basis: Three-week choice experiments on serious criminals, demonstrating lethal dependency overriding survival instincts.
Consumption: Labor reeducation. Possession of multiples: Deemed trafficking, summary execution. Cultivation: Burned without notice; destruction costs billed.
In December 1787, the drug ban edict issued in report form. It banned everything about narcotics, dubbed Herbe toxique du diable.
"Pleasure worth defying death?"
Naturally, such sensational research piqued French curiosity.
"Idiot. Read the next paragraph."
Louis XVI had anticipated, adding smears.
"Dying pleasure, they say."
He equated narcotic highs to the 'final burst' soldiers feel bayoneted or shot in melee.
"So, one hit gives battlefield thrill?"
"No. It's the body expelling everything in death throes. No effect without cause—know rationalism, rationalist? And you're college-educated?"
"Sorry..."
Drugs artificially induced that 'final burst,' then drained all strength post-effect, killing the body; recovery required more drugs, he wrote. Louis XVI named the 'burst' arousal and the drain exhaustion.
"Seen the penalties? Consumption alone: heavy sentence. Multiples: trafficking, instant execution."
"Yeah, no one carries loose smokes like that."
To protect French bodies, the edict mandated labor reeducation for consumption, execution for trafficking, unannounced burning of fields with cost recovery. Herbe toxique du diable covered common narcotics like coca, opium, cannabis, to folk remedies like digitalis and belladonna—nearly all painkillers banned at once.
Some civilian grumbling arose, but
"There is no miracle cure for all ills. Delaying pain with shortcuts just means paying the debt later. Unless you're dying, don't shortcut."
The king's iron will crushed it.
"That said, for the fatally wounded, it's permitted. Only the surely dying may consume. But if a non-dying soul demands and takes drugs, die with the prescribing physician."
With such fierce anti-drug resolve, officials, intellectuals, and commoners abandoned resistance.
"Your Majesty, eradicating cannabis means no hempcloth, sails, ropes."
But in the 18th century, those 'drugs' had myriad uses.
"I never banned fabrics. Just consumption. Didn't grasp Herbe toxique du diable?"
"But Your Majesty, what of liars selling 'medicinal' or 'industrial' while personally consuming?"
Thus, Louis XVI switched to permit system for cultivation.
"Bans without enforcement are pointless. From next year, narcotic crops under area-limited permits, state-supervised. But compensation: State monopoly on cannabis, poppies, etc. Buyback at double production cost; sell to factories and apothecaries at 5% profit over cost."
Strategic resource designation: max 1,000 hectares poppies, 30,000 hemp.
"And summon Count Nunes. Spain has much to answer for."
With foundations laid, Louis XVI invited the Spanish ambassador to Versailles.
To hold them accountable for it all.