On a recent episode of The New Roth Show, Van Halen frontman David Lee Roth discussed how the decadent drug scene of the 1980s can be traced back to the historic times of the 1800s and revealed a disturbing drug secret of the time period. Alternative Nation transcribed Roth’s comments
Roth: We are at a state now where I think now when you look at pharmacology when it comes to pot where perhaps pharmacology was in the late 1800s. Victorian Days, post Civil War turn-of-the-century, alright. Apothecary. When you say those words – apothecary, you think of the labels with very ornate and hand-done lettering, right? You think of corked bottles and the coca-cola made you go fast because it had some of the same stuff that Bovril had, whatever that was that you gave the kids in breakfast. That would get them through homeroom lickety-split [snapping motion] and they didn’t mind homework for two days at a time.
Roth continues:
Roth: Your wife would lose weight inexplicitly because she was just [flustered motion], she didn’t change anything she was eating but she did stop sleeping and she did talk like this incessantly. [Roth mimics] Another bottle made you, well, we didn’t have jazz back then but we knew it might be comin’ so we practiced being DJs. We didn’t have mics either we could do this after a couple of opium pills. [Roth mimics] They made millions of opium pills during the Civil war and that’s the part you don’t hear about, millions and millions on both sides. Opium pills and not because of aches and pains. At the end of a dramatic surgery that was like, all day, every day. Starting with breakfast, before coffee and a lot of the time you didn’t have coffee but you had a little sachet, they called it. Just a little powder. Millions and millions of these were handed out were just handed out and that just kind of began a little bit of the culture of “Hmmm, I can solve this pretty readily here.” or the Beverly Hills way in which we call “Plastic Makes Perfect”
