The Dutch writer Conny Braam has written a (Dutch) book about the production of cocaine in a factory in Amsterdam, and that was sold later to the British Government. And that same cocaine was issued later to the British soldiers, just before they went 'over the top'. The book, with the Dutch title 'De handelsreiziger van de Nederlandse cocainefabriek', will be published later this month.



It seems production in Amsterdam doubled during the war and the Dutch factory made a lot of profit. According the writers investigation many soldiers returned to home after the war as a coke addict. By the way, the English title of the book would be 'The Merchant of the Dutch Cocaine Factory'.

We've also found an old photo of the cocaine factory in Amsterdam.


Dutch text under the photo : De gebouwen van de Nederlandse Cocaine fabriek aan de Wenckebachweg, op het terrein waar nu de Hell's Angels zitten
English translation of the text under the photo : The buildings of the Dutch Cocaine Factory at the Wenckebach road, terrain where now the Hells Angels can be found.

I know nothing of Cocaine in the trenches but Shackleton certainly used it in Antartica in 1916. So I wouldn't be suprised at its use before the men went over the top.

John

Cocaine (and Heroin) were used in the trenches and could be bought and used quite legally in the early war years. As been related earlier in this forum some London department stores and Fortnum and Maisons used to make up gift packages to be sent to 'one's loved one at the front'. However I would be extremely interested to see if anyone has evidence of its official issue (which I think is very unlikely).

Used in the trenches? or used by service personnel? there is a difference. Do we have any specific evidence of the use of drugs other than the use of alcohol while manning a trench? To use cocaine or morphine effectively takes some preparation.

Mick

My mother, daughter of a WW1 soldier, routinely referred to local anaesthetic, dental or surgical, as cocaine. It's misuse was certainly widespread in the twenties and thirties but I suspect it was out of the price range of most working people. I don't see it as a big problem in the trenches. There is a similar myth ascribing widespread drug addiction in US servicemen to overuse of morphine by their corpsmen. It melts away under close inspection.

I recall that cocaine was used as a vasoconstictor (in a controlled manner) when I was student nurse on and ENT ward in the early 80s. I imagine it would have had a use in medicine during the Great War.

Michelle

"Cocaine"(possibly some derivative) was the normally used local anaesthetic for dental extractions in the 40s & 50s - possibly still is?. I wouldn`t be surprised if it was also used for minor ops at CCSs in WW1. The recreational use of cocaine in those years I always assume to be for the higher classes, not the working (or even middle class) folk who`d be the normal trench fillers.

We have discussed this before on many occassions I enclose one link
http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/i...t&p=1008730

Unfortunately there was a much fuller thread that appears to have sunk without trace (I know I posted to it). The p**y search engine doesn't find it. [Do threads get deleted?]

See also http://www.qi.com/talk/viewtopic.php?p=62480

Anyone knew of the existence of the factory in Amsterdam ?

No but it proves nothing

No, it doesn't. But I'm just trying to indicate that almost nobody ever heard of the excistence of this factory in Amsterdam.

True but I don't expect anyone was looking for it. There is little doubt that cocaine was in significant use in the British army in WW1 but mainly as a local anesthetic for dentistry and minor surgery - this could account for the increased production. Some people also took it for 'recreational' use. There seems to be no substance in the suggestion that it was issued officially to troops going over the top. Other wise we'd have to redraw Barnsfather's classic 'Af a mo Kaiser' to show Old Bill snorting a line of coke instead of lighting up [but what was in that fag or pipe do I hear you ask? probably not]

The Drug now known as "Ectasy" was developed by German Chemists in WW1 as an appetite suppressor for the use of their front line troops.In WW2 British Bomber crews were issued with "Wakey" Tablets.



http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/archive/i...hp?t-49477.html

I've been doing a little digging. Cocaine was a common 'over the counter' sale pre WW1 and not just in the UK. In the US Sears & Roebuck sold a number of cocaine based products. Ryno's Hay Fever and Catarrh Remedy ("for when the nose is stuffed up, red and sore") consisted of 99.9 per cent pure cocaine. One pharmaceutical company advertised it thus "could make the coward brave, the silent eloquent, and render the sufferer insensitive to pain". Products such as chocolate laced with the stuff, wines containing it and cocaine cigarettes were widely available. Many doctors prescribed it as a way to get opium addicts 'clean' - unfortunately many of these then combined the two - inventing crack cocaine.

In Britain there were legal restrictions on its sale but these were not enforced.

In 1916 a Canadian major was worried about the widespread use amongst Canadian troops, he reckoned to have about 40 addicts in his command alone, and so did a little detective work to trace the suppliers in the UK. Using a corporal as a sting a man called Horace Kingsley and a woman - Rose Edwards were trapped and charged with "selling a powder to members of HM forces with the intent to make them less able to perform their duties". Given the vague nature of the actual law on the subject a smart lawyer today could have got the charges thrown out but the pair got six months hard labour. Immediately afterwards the well known pharmacists Savory and Moore who made up the kits sold in Harrods and other department stores were fined for "selling cocaine and morphine to one individual without an introduction and without obtaining his address". Harrods were also fined on the same charge. This effectively ended over the counter sales whilst more appropriate legislation was enacted.

Luckily the city archives in Amsterdam do, there was a Nederlandse Cocaine Fabriek build in 1900.

@Centurion,

Sigmund Freud once wrote his girlfriend to take a portion each day, and you will get rosy cheecks
Cocaine was once an ingredient of coca-cola as well.

We,ve done some digging too and we,ve found this:
http://www.forumeerstewereldoorlog.nl/view...p=288036#288036 it's the only part in English.
And: Forced March:
http://forumeerstewereldoorlog.nl/viewtopi...p=175897#175897

I haven't found documents stating it was common use so far.

Regards,
Yvonne

very interesting indeed

i just cant imagine soldiers sniffing lines of the stuff,altho i do believe you can wipe it on your gums

its not the done thing swallowing it.........................


it must have been well below purity for it would kill you if anything reaching 70% as well

also,ecstasy is a combination drug,it was mdma which was introduced by german chemists in the twenties iirc

as stated here:
http://forumeerstewereldoorlog.nl/viewtopi...p=288753#288753

Cocaine in the trenches, no.
Not for common use that is.

Any chance of a translation?

On 14th Feb 1920 Labourer Chang Ju Chih was executed for the Murder of a Woman and her 3 children part of the main feature of the case was summed up by the Deputy Assistant Provost Marshall.."Since then,he has been all over France trafficing in Cocaine until arrested near Calais on the 1.2.1920.

Judge Babington also suspected that the executed Officer 2nd Lt.John Paterson was involved in running a Drug Ring,and other Illicit activities prior to his arrest.No doubt many Old Soldiers with service overseas prior to WW1 would have come into contact with Drugs in various shapes and forms,and one would have to asume that at large Ports like Calais and Boulogne,there would be ways and means for Soldiery and Officers alike to obtain Drugs etc..A question i would like to ask is..was the use Cocaine,Morphine,and Opium illegal in France and Britain in WW1 ?.

As previous postings on this thread show sale was made illegal in 1916 but I don't think use was.

In late Ocotber 1914 the Director of Supplies was informed that he had to supply a daily opium ration to the 6,000 Sikhs in the IEF under the euphemism “Indian treacle”.

He wrote in the War Diary “This is the first I have heard of opium. I did not know that it formed part of their ration, nor do I know what stock there is in the country as yet.” (WO 95/74 Director of Supplies, War Diary, October 1914 to January 1915 29 Oct 1914). The problem was solved a few days later when he discovered “that there is at Marseilles about 1,100 [pounds] of this [Indian Treacle], and as my issue will only be about 15 [pounds] a day, I shall have sufficient for some time.”


Ivor

Puts a whole new gloss on 'steamed treacle pudding'.

NowI know why I like my school dinners!

I have a 1917 issue of a Canadian magazine called "Canada in Khaki: a tribute to the Officers and Men Now Serving in the Canadian Expeditionary Force" produced by the Canadian War Records Office. It included a short story dealing with the cocaine issue. Drug addiction must have worried authorities, as one of the items in this magazine was a short moralizing tale about a Canadian soldier and two English women. The fictional story is called "The Saving of Tom McKay" (read online, starting page 145 - here.)

Tom was wounded and awaits transport home in London. He is approached by a strange woman who tells him that he looks unhappy. She invites herself to tea. She asks him what he thinks about cocaine, at which point a Nursing Sister sitting at another table looks over: "She had seen the girl with other soldiers, and she had heard her speak to them of cocaine. More, she had seen significant alterations in them."

The woman tells him that she can sympathize with the use of cocaine by soldiers: "...a pinch or two of cocaine snuff will make you as happy as a king...Why shouldn't a man forget care for a little?" He asks her if he would feel ill the next day, and she replies: "If you did you could take some more and cure yourself." He asks if it is expensive, and she says: "Yes, but it's worth it. You see the silly old Government's stopped people buying it, stopped it coming into the country. It's awfully risky to get it through now, so the people who bring it have to charge a lot."

She then sells him a small packet for two pounds. She then explains that she will be there at the same time next week if he needs to purchase more.

The Nursing Sister named Barbara now comes over to his table and asks him how he likes London. He explains that the people are not very friendly, and then she asks who was the "friend" he was just sitting with, and what did he buy from her. He shows her the packet marked "rice powder". She then asks if he plans on using it. He does not give her a clear answer and she thinks "She was very sorry for him and very grateful, for, again and again, she had seen what men must endure who go into battle. And this man had fought for her, in common with all other women. More, he had come from Canada to do it."

She asks him to give her the cocaine so that she can prevent him from becoming an addict, but he refuses. They meet again, and he lets her know he will be meeting with the woman who sold him the cocaine. He meets this woman and notes her "extensively expensive wardrobe...It was too gay for the state of Europe". He asks her for more, and she lets him know the price has gone up - she thinks "How far could she bleed him yet? Better be modest until the time came when he must have the stuff." He buys it and she warns him not to increase the dose as it won't have the same effect after he gets used to it.

He meets Barbara again who is angry that he has been meeting the other woman and apparently buying more cocaine. Suddenly he asks her to marry him. She says no, and he says "Then you don't think I'm worth saving?" She says that she cannot be married to a drug addict, and that it would make her miserable. He then says he will promise never to buy it again. She agrees to marry him, and then he asks that she come to the cafe again the next day.

She arrives and finds him sitting with the drug seller. He pulls out 14 packets and puts them on the table, and tells the woman she will be going to jail. He tells her that she can give him back the money plus more that he paid for it, but he will still destroy the drug. She says that she doesn't have the money as she works on commission. He threatens to bring in the police, but she finally gives him the money.

A building with such a provenance? But of course, must have been unresistable for Hell´s Angels!!
But how could the soldiers afford the cocaine, they weren´t paid bundles of money for waging war as far as I now?

http://www.forumeerstewereldoorlog.nl/view...p=291699#291699
And the story continues.

In short, the author states that the half of Europe was addicted, soldiers were kiling machines and as a rule " they" 've put cocaine in the rum before the poor lads went over the top.

And Elvis is hiding out on the moon because he knows too much about the Milk Marketing Boards involvement in the Kennedy assassination!





Theres always money in conspiracy theory books!

And: it's a novel mind you

Fanciful as the theory is, there is a more practical problem with idea of cocaine being put into rum. Oral ingestion of cocaine is the least effective way of experiencing the physical effects of the drug: snorting, smoking (rock/crack) or injecting cocaine is the best way to experience the immediate high, though its effects tend not to last too long, hence the need to keep ingesting it to attain that same high. If the goal is to provide some sort of fortifying "boost" to the troops putting it in very strong rum is not the way to go. "Speed" would be a more effective drug, again, not best served with rum i would think.

A fascinating topic- but in many ways wish Conny Bram had written a factual account of his research rather than a novel.
As I have an interest in Vera Brittain's writings on the Great War, have done some research on Maurice Ellinger,an army officer for a short time, a lesser character mentioned in 'Testament of Youth' and 'Chronicle of Youth', but whose family were friends of the Brittain Family, and Maurice attended Uppingham School, where Vera's brother, fiancee and friends were educated. According to Maurice's war service records in the NA, he took a drugs overdose at an army training camp near Grantham on 11th November 1914; he had got his servant to buy some veronal and sulphonal from the chemists. According to the records, there was talk of stripping him of his commission but in the end he got sick leave for a month and resigned his commission.
According to the paperwork , Maurice's commanding officer initially wanted his commission taken away due to Maruice's 'drug habbit'. Maurice's father managed to persuade the authorites to remove the reference to a 'drug habbit' .
Though Maurice's experience with drugs seems more like an intentional overdose rather than a habbit, it got me thinking about the use of drugs during the Great War era, especially when there was less prohibition, so intrigued to see that 'De Handelse Reiziger van de Nederlandische Cocaine Fabriek ' has stimulated discussion.

Was reading in "The Great Silence" the other day that Lady Diana Manners used morphine regularly, and Katherine Asquith also indulged (at Dianas hand) Duff Cooper persuade Diana that continuing ti use morphine would ruin her looks................

Michelle

I seem to remember as a child, whenever I complained of an upset stomach, my late Mother would reach for a bottle of Collis Brown's Kaolin and Morphine.
I haven't seen the stuff in years......but it made me feel better!

Bruce

And too much blocked you up good and proper (still a problem with some opiate based pain killers). There was also a cough medicine freely prescribed on the early NHS in very large bottles that included significant amounts of alcohol, liquorice and aniseed. Take enough and you didn't care if you still had a cough. They stopped it when they found it was taking over from meths at the bottom of society [probably a lot healthier than meths].

I vaguely remember being given a cough medicine called 'Liquorfruiter' (spelling) when I was young.
It was a dark brown sticky medicine which tasted awful.

Was recently reading "More Gangs of Liverpool 1890-1970; Tearaways" by Michael Mcilwee, and in a chapter called "Dope fiends", not about Cocaine in the trenches but a cocaine scam involving soldiers probably awaiting repatriation at the end of the Great War
he writes
" ...Cocaine was another popular drug. All firms dealing in cocaine had to have a permit from the Home Secretary. chemists ould only supply the drug with a doctor's prescription. To meet the demand from Europe cocaine had to be smuggled in and blame was laid on the Chinese. The year 1918 saw numerous cocaine scares. With thousands of colonial and American soldiers passing through London at the end of the Great War, there were plenty of easy victims for the cocaine scam It seems that some troops were returning to their units in a dazed condition, totally penniless. They were not drunk but suffering from the effects of cocaine. The soldiers were befriended in cafe's, cinemas and music halls where they would be offered a cigarette laced with the drug. They would remember nothing more until they woke up with empty pockets Local newspapers reported the crimes although it is not clear whether the practice was also common in Liverpool

Further along in the chapter he writes "Morphine was another highly sought after drug.....some men became hooked while serving in the Great War. Morphine and cocaine kits, including a syringe and needles could be purchased at Harrods store in London. The advert on the front boasted:' a useful present for those at the front' "

Bruce when I started my nurse's training I can recall giving patients Kaolin and Morphine for Diarrhoea but it wasn't around for long as I remember with other medication(s) taking it's place. Liquafruita YUCK!

Caryl

Spelling was Liqufruta, browny black colour and I loved it. I haven't seen it for years, but apparently cough medicine products under the same trade name are still available (but maybe without the magic ingredient).

My father, a dental surgeon, always swore that cocaine was by far the best local anaesthetic and trumped all the replacements such as novocaine. I always understood that cocaine was a middle/upper class recreational drug in the 20s/30s.

If soldiers were being given cocaine in the trenches, are there any reports of their having any withdrawal symptoms on leaving the front line/for leave/whatever, or was it just used to give them a boost at stressful times?

Jim

When I started ny nurse training I remember hearing about something called a Brompton Cocktail being given to terminal patients.

Michelle

Since there appears to be no evidence that it was being given in the trenches its not surprising that there is no evidence of mass withdrawal symptoms.

Michelle

Yes, I remember hearing about that from the older nurses, didn't like the sound of it at all!

Caryl

Unless the symptoms weren't recognised as cocaine or drug withdrawal and other conclusions were made either in ignorance or deliberately? shell shock? PUO? fever? chills? Maybe they had injuries and were treated with strong opiates anyway masking withdrawals and/or the non-injured just went home and not being able to afford cocaine (apparently £10 legally then) just got over their withdrawal symptoms or turned to drink. There were apparently a lot of meths drinkers post war (not suggesting they were all war veterans. Cheap drink for alcoholics)

Caryl

On 18 August 1914 the "Times" reported that the price of cocaine had risen to 10 or even 12 shillings per ounce due to inability to import from Germany.

On 11 February 1916 the newspaper reported that a chemists shop in New Bond Street was fined £1 for selling a quantity of cocaine and morphine to one Frederick Branch "without an introduction and without entering his name and address in a book".

A letter of 14 February 1916 notes the recent prosecution at Folkestone for the sale of cocaine to Colonial troops and the evident addiction dangers of sending morphine to men at the front.

A letter of 22 June 1916 notes that Col Norton Griffiths was about to raise a question in the House concerning the abuse of cocaine by soldiers in the trenches. The "Times" suggested heavy penalties for misuse.

Many other instances of prosecution of small-time traffickers at home appear throughout the war.

On 25 July 1917 the death by overdose of a soldier who had been wounded and discharged from the army over a year before was reported. The Court admonished the supplying Doctor for having listened to a "cock and bull" story.

etc etc etc

So it went on - but judging by the relatively low level of reporting it hardly seems a major issue of the day.

Occam's razor would go for the simper solution that I've stated - no use = no withdrawal symptoms. The few cases Chris (and I) have quoted in various postings would be accounted for by the fact that in any body of about 9 million there will always be a few users. The evidence that exists suggests that the authorities were trying to stamp out even this. 

BTW cocaine was not legal at the end of the war (except when properly prescribed) so where "£10 legally" comes from is open to conjecture

"legally", typo, meant to write 'illegally'. Street price in London, according to the same book

Caryl

I put it to you, me Lud, that this can make a significant difference.

Oh absolutely, my learned friend