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The "Love Drug," "Heroin for Lovers,"1,2 "The Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Drug,"3 "Hottest Drug on the Streets,"2 "bigger than marihuana—methaqualone sweeping west."4 With such grandiose publicity within the past few months, methaqualone, "pharmacologically equivalent"4 to the short-and intermediate-acting barbiturates, has entered the emerging arena of desired (and commonly available) drugs of abuse. First introduced to the American public by William H. Rorer, Inc, in 1965 under the trade name of "Quaalude," it has at this writing become the sixth most popular sedativehypnotic in the United States, and in 1972 "Quaalude" sales alone increased 360%.1,2,3 Motivated by such a success story many other drug companies have leaped into competition for this prosperous market and methaqualone is now marketed under the various trade names of Sopor (Arnar-Stone), Parest (Parke-Davis), Optimil (Wallace), and Somnafac (Smith, Miller & Patch).The major selling point of methaqualone is that |
