Where do drugs come from?

The use of drugs is not a recent phenomenon. The oldest signs of drug use date from 7000 years ago although it is widely suspected that there have always been people who use drugs. Many drugs come directly from nature. Hash and weed come from the hemp (cannabis) plant. Strong mind-altering substances can be found in the peyote cactus and certain types of mushrooms. Cocaine is obtained from the leaves of the coca plant. Opium, which is the basis for morphine and heroine, is a product of the poppy plant. Since the beginning of the nineteenth century, the active compounds in an increasing number of these natural products have been identified. Many of the active compounds can now be ‘imitated’ in the laboratory. There are also, however, drugs which have actually been ‘discovered’ in the laboratory itself. Examples of these are LSD, XTC and benzodiazepines such as Diazepam.

Sometimes drugs appear to pop up out of nowhere. Their use will often then occur for some time within a closed circle. When the use of such drug starts to spread, considerable commotion can occur as no one knows exactly where it comes from or the possible risks of using the drug. A new drug can also become a ‘hype’. Some of these trends will blow over, but others may stay and the media plays a major role in this.

Despite a very strict approach towards the production and trafficking of drugs, the presence of illegal drugs cannot be prevented altogether. A country cannot be hermetically closed off. Some drugs are made, moreover, in Bulgaria as well – mostly cannabis and its products, as well as synthetic drugs like amphetamines or XTC, which could be prepared in lab conditions everywhere in the world. Probably poppy could also be cultivated in Bulgaria, but the production of heroine is more difficult than the production of the drugs of the new millennium – the synthetic drugs.