September 22, 2026 • 39 mins
Have you ever gone full red-mouth off betel nut? Did you ever buy cigarettes to cure your asthma? When Ben, Noel, and Max first began exploring bizarre drugs of yesteryear, they had no idea that they'd stumbled across a continuing series. Luckily, the guys aren't returning to this Ridiculous History alone -- they're joined by special returning guest Zaron Burnett, co-creator of Ridiculous Crime, to learn even more about history's strangest drugs.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
(00:27):
the show, fellow ridiculous historians. Thank you, as always, so
much for tuning in. Everybody listening now, please don't do drugs. Okay,
so now that we have that legal stuff out of
the way, we got to shout out our super producer, Mr.
Max Williams.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
Max, just say no Williams. Max, dare to dream Williams.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
Ben, which is your name, I'm Noel, and I am
sad that I'm not wearing it because it's in the laundry,
but I have a really sick vintage D.A.R.E.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
Shirt. Remember D.A.R.E.? Oh, yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Oh, my gosh. Yeah, you dare to keep a kid
off drugs by showing them how to use drugs.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
And here's all the fun ones.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
And identify them in high school. I'm Ben Bullen. You're
Noel Brown. And we know, we know for sure, folks,
that earlier this year, we learned, despite the puritanical attitudes
toward recreational substances in the modern day, people and non-human
animals alike have been kind of trying to get high
(01:31):
on all sorts of things.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
Shout out stoned ape theory, by the way, that's a
conversation for another day.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
Well, before the dawn of recorded history. And, you know,
we quickly realized that we had to make this a
continuing series and we are not going into it alone.
You may have heard a legendary voice, uh, Big up
in us. At the intro here, we are thrilled to
welcome not only a returning guest, our brother in podcast arms,
(02:02):
the award-winning journalist, author, activist, and podcaster, Zarin Burnett.
Speaker 4 (02:08):
Yo, what up, gentlemen? Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
Oh, man.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
I love that you chimed in. I love it when
a guest chimes in before they're introduced. It just adds
to the mystery of it. I fully support that.
Speaker 4 (02:18):
I couldn't help myself. No, it's the best.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
It's like on one of my favorite pods, Blank Check
with Griffin and David, they'll do a whole intro and
talk for 20 minutes, and the person will just be talking,
and then they'll finally introduce them. And I just, I'm
a big fan of that. But we couldn't be more
thrilled to have you, man.
Speaker 4 (02:32):
I'm stoked to be here. So thank you guys for
having me back. Always a fun time with my fellow
ridiculous historians.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
Now, as everybody knows, you have created so many shows,
Black Cowboys, Ridiculous Crime, very special episodes. I think I
still owe you a script about New Coke.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
Not the, I mean, not the drug.
Speaker 4 (03:01):
Yes, we've been looking forward to that one. It sounds awesome.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
We did a new Coke episode on Ridiculous, didn't we, Matt? Yeah,
we did.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
And I'm cribbing it for another show.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
As well you should.
Speaker 3 (03:10):
And also, just not to bury the lead too much,
but Ridiculous Crime, technically part of the extended Ridiculous universe.
So we're brothers in extended franchise universes as well.
Speaker 4 (03:21):
Totally. We are your sister or brother show, depending on
how you want to look at it.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Indeed.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
Yeah, how's it going, man, out west?
Speaker 4 (03:27):
Oh, going really well. It's a beautiful day. We've had, obviously,
a bunch of challenges this summer, but right now it
is looking really nice going into the autumn. So all
things considered, it's going well.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
You know, we have a game show together on the way,
not too long from now, probably toward the end of
this year. And Zarin, we came across a study a
while back that argued people have been habitually partying as
far back as 25,000 years ago, which, as you recall,
(04:01):
is a little bit earlier than when we got into podcasting.
Speaker 4 (04:05):
Yes, just a little bit earlier.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
And I believe, Ben, it was a good, significant jump
from what had been thought prior. Like, is this number
coming from that recent study that we talked about on
Strange News on our other sister show, Stuff They Don't
Want You to Know?
Speaker 1 (04:21):
Yes, yes. We've got a Brady Bunch here, and we realized, Zarin,
that we have to get back to the mission of
this series. We had that episode in the past, earlier
this year. Weird things people used to get high off of,
and we're continuing the mission to uncover strange old substances.
(04:44):
To boldly smoke, snort, and chew.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
What?
Speaker 1 (04:48):
So many have done before that uh star trek parody
for our producer max.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
Did they do do they do drugs on star star
trek was that.
Speaker 3 (04:55):
Oh yeah they did okay well i love the magazine
resolutely yes no hesitation.
Speaker 5 (05:02):
Oh yeah there's a lot i mean there's there's the
episode in the original series where they all get like
horny and so he gets his shirt off and then
the second episode of tng they do that same episode
again which is a really weird time to do that
episode and it's really bad and then Data, for some reason,
gets really horny despite the fact that he's immune to
it because everyone else is so horny.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
I guess his job is just to adapt to the vibe,
you know? Yeah, he's just reading the room.
Speaker 6 (05:27):
Seriously, explain to us, it's a contact high.
Speaker 4 (05:30):
Yeah, he's right on the high.
Speaker 6 (05:31):
It's a really bad episode. It's the second episode of
the show.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
Now, Zarin, we previously, in that earlier episode, we looked
at stuff like Nutmeg, Henbane, you know, possible inspiration for
the witch broomstick trope. We looked at Belladonna. We looked
at Urgot. And for some reason, I was just re-listening, guys,
(05:55):
for some reason, toward the end of the first episode,
we spend a ton of time talking about hummus. So
your demanding fans, sir, creator of Black Cowboys, very special episodes,
Ridiculous Crime, they have to know Zarin Burnett, the third,
what's your hummus stance?
Speaker 4 (06:16):
My hummus stance. You know, I don't think I've ever
been asked that. And I actually do have an answer,
not one prepared, but I have one ready in the
back of my mind, which is I'm pro hummus, right?
I'm a big hummus fan. I'm not so big into
all the flavored hummus. It's like they have a lot
of varieties now that are not really my bag, but
I love hummus. I put it on sandwiches all the time.
I was raised a vegetarian. So the idea of like
(06:37):
sneaking proteins in that you can is always been something
I've done forever. So Hummus is something that I still
put on all my like cheese sandwiches. Absolutely love it. Big,
big fan. And by the way, I was thinking when
you were talking about earlier about how people have been
getting high for a long time. I find it interesting
that we'll get high before we'll like satiate ourselves. Like
there's evidence that. We were making beer long before we
(06:58):
were making bread out of the same materials. We were like, oh, yeah,
this grain stuff is awesome. You know, if you ferment it,
you can get drunk. And they were like, huh, you know,
you could actually make bread. And it was like 10,
maybe 20,000 years later, they were like, oh, hey, by
the way, we could also make bread out of that stuff.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
20,000 years.
Speaker 6 (07:14):
Yeah, don't quote me on the years.
Speaker 4 (07:16):
It's a long period of time. I don't remember exactly,
but yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:19):
All right.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
So we're pre-gaming now and we have to ask you
another question. You and I, Noel and Max, we're talking
a little bit off air. Zarin, what is the weirdest
quote unquote drug you have ever heard of?
Speaker 4 (07:34):
Okay. I've got two. I've got a modern one and
I've got more of an ancient one. The modern one
is people huff disc cleaner. Like, you know, the stuff
you use and like, you know, for cleaning a computer,
like the compressed air. but it's like the ones that are,
they have like a propellant in there and people use it.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
They call it duster.
Speaker 4 (07:49):
Yes, exactly.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
That's the street name. I've heard.
Speaker 4 (07:54):
And then also like they use the same idea with
spray paint. So you'll see guys like in the parks
who spray paint like silver paint into a paper bag
and then they huff it and you see them and
they have silver teeth.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
Shout out charlie day on us uh always sunny yes.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
Shout out mad max fury road yeah oh right shiny
and chrome yeah the duster thing though guys it's like
um again i've read about this phenomenon as well it is.
Speaker 3 (08:16):
This very similar high to uh nitrous oxide yes yes with.
Speaker 4 (08:20):
It yes it burns holes in your brains because i've
known people who do it and they they are not
the same after doing it it really is it messes
up your brain real bad real quick much like huffing
paint does and That's something I used to see in
San Francisco, like in Dolores Park back in the day.
It was like these kids with like silver teeth. And
I was like, oh, man, that guy's not going to
be able to drive a car soon. Now, as far
(08:41):
as a more ancient one, one that always tickled me because,
you know, OK, in the old fairy tales, a princess
would kiss a frog and they would turn into a prince. Well,
people also lick frogs to get high. Bofo?
Speaker 2 (08:55):
What's it called?
Speaker 4 (08:56):
Yeah, bufotoxin. So like the Colorado river toad, aka the
Sonoran desert toad, it secretes these bufotoxins and then people
go and either lick the frog or some people who
are not so into like getting intimate with the frog back.
they'll scrape the frog and then use that later on.
But once again, not recommended because it can be toxic.
(09:16):
It can literally kill you. But people try to get
just the right amount because usually, you know, it's the
dose that makes the poison. So they're like, if I
get just a little bit, maybe I can get off.
And it has a high, apparently, like ayahuasca or DMT.
And people see all sorts of crazy stuff. So licking
the back of a frog, I think, has to be
one of the weirder ways I've ever heard.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
So we're saying that in... ancient days of yore, there
would be some like grizzled frog licking veteran who would,
who was saying, Oh buddy, you can't lick it too hard.
Speaker 4 (09:51):
Give it three good licks, but not five.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
I had a really good Peking duck dinner at this
restaurant in Flushing Queens last night.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
And on the menu, they had bullfrog.
Speaker 3 (10:03):
So you got to wonder, like, you know, with frog
being a staple cuisine in some parts of the world,
like the trial and error that it must have taken
to find the frog that you licked and it got
you mad high.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
I'm always fascinated by that.
Speaker 4 (10:16):
How many things were you licking before that?
Speaker 7 (10:18):
Right.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. The old mushroom trope, right?
Speaker 3 (10:24):
Jordan Firstman, who's a comedian, he was an Instagram sort
of star. And now he's got a new film coming
out called Club Kid that's supposed to be really, really fantastic.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
He was in that show. I love L.A.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
Anyway, he I saw an interview with him doing some
press rounds and he said that he had a really
crazy year ahead where he had to film it. final
season of a TV series shoot his first directorial feature
and a handful of other things and so he said
he lit he took He took that drug and it
made him see himself as he thinks maybe others see him.
And he had like a total, you know, like existential
(11:00):
realism kind of moments.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
And he was able to figure out how he was
going to tackle the year. So, you know, hey.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
He got a lick.
Speaker 4 (11:07):
Takes all kinds.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
Right. We will introduce our first drug that people used
to get high off of. and still do today. In fact,
roughly 1 in 10 people across the planet ingest betel
nut in some form. It probably originates somewhere in the Philippines. Yeah,
(11:39):
if we're going to be fancy and put a tie on,
it's the areca nut, the seed of a palm called
areca nut. And I don't think any of us have
personally ingested betel nut, but I have seen a lot
of inexplicably weird mouths.
Speaker 3 (11:58):
I am going to red mouths for my purposes, call
it betel nut.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
Cause it's just more fun. You can go betel nut,
betel nut, betel nut. And no, you're right, Ben.
Speaker 3 (12:08):
And this was actually the, the substance that came up
in the strange news article. We don't stuff they don't
want you to know about how scientists have discovered that
people were getting high on purpose way farther back than
they had previously realized.
Speaker 4 (12:24):
And betel nut was the thing that they were getting
the thing.
Speaker 7 (12:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
It is still to this day, as we record in 2026,
the fourth most commonly consumed drug. Can we guess the
other three most.
Speaker 4 (12:39):
Commonly consumed drugs?
Speaker 2 (12:40):
Caffeine.
Speaker 5 (12:42):
One.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
Nicotine?
Speaker 6 (12:43):
Marijuana.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
I would hope, but I bet it's nicotine.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
I would hope as well. It's caffeine, alcohol, and nicotine.
Speaker 4 (12:52):
Oh, okay.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
Nicotine, valium, vicodin, marijuana, ecstasy, and alcohol. That was a
Queens of the Stone Age reference.
Speaker 3 (12:58):
Ben, I think you mentioned the red mouth situation, the
chewing of this nut or sucking on this nut.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
Let's go ahead and we'll leave the jokes at the door. Causes.
Speaker 3 (13:08):
This is, it turns out, an archaeological boon. It's what
allowed them to figure out what was going on with
these red stained, you know, remains.
Speaker 4 (13:17):
Of course, it leaves behind definitely an indicator of like, oh, yeah,
they'd be getting high. So did they crush it in
their teeth or did they like make it like, you know,
pistol and mortar style?
Speaker 1 (13:29):
So originally what what we see, thanks to a study
led by a guy named Adam Brum over in Australia,
Griffith University, Brisbane University. if I'm saying that correctly.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
I think you are. Queensland. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
They have a study, kid you not, guys, the title is,
Betel Nutsucking is the Earliest Recorded Evidence for the Habitual
Use of a Neuroactive Plant Drug.
Speaker 3 (13:55):
Scientists be so literal, man.
Speaker 2 (13:57):
They didn't want to run that through an edit.
Speaker 4 (13:59):
They have to know what they wrote.
Speaker 6 (14:01):
Betel Nutsucking.
Speaker 4 (14:02):
Nutsucking is how we first got on.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
Betel Nutsucking. So, Zara, to your question there, these folks, like,
Now you can find a betel nut in something called
betel quid or pond like non with a P and,
and it's essentially big league chew. Uh, it's wrapped in
a leaf and you, you just sort of chew on
(14:25):
it with a slaked lime and calcium hydroxide. But back
in the day, uh, according to this study, uh, These
guys didn't have bigly chew technology, so they would just
grab a betel nut and they would put it in
their mouths, right? They'd tuck it in their cheeks.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
Like a dip.
Speaker 7 (14:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
Or like a snooze.
Speaker 3 (14:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
Like a snooze, yes. And they would– what's the word?
Not quite masticate? Macerate?
Speaker 2 (14:58):
I can't remember.
Speaker 3 (14:58):
I mean, it would also, if I'm not mistaken, Ben,
one of its properties is that it– increases the flow
of saliva oh naturally yeah naturally so you just hold
it in there and all of a sudden you're gonna
be spitty as hell and then you're swallowing up that
you know the red spit juice so it really is
like all of a sudden yeah 100 yeah.
Speaker 4 (15:17):
Very much between your cheek and gum and then all
of a sudden you're good to go okay.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
Yeah and it's due to ericoline uh that's the functional
substance a kissing cousin of nicotine but uh like you
guys were pointing out this stuff does have an impact
on people's dentation, right? They call it dental pathology. And
they're like, hey, why are these teeth bizarrely red?
Speaker 4 (15:44):
Do we know what kind of high? Is it like nicotine?
Speaker 2 (15:48):
I think it's a mild amphetamine type.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
Oh, okay.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
So some euphoria, alertness.
Speaker 3 (15:54):
I don't think it goes so far as to become
truly psychedelic in any way.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
But I think it is like, you know, sort of
like chewing on a cocoa leaf.
Speaker 4 (16:01):
Okay, I got you.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
Or sucking on a chili dog.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
Sure. Very much so.
Speaker 6 (16:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
It's like a strong cup of coffee, you know, and
it doesn't, the, the thing is it's somewhere between, between
coffee and alcohol, right? It doesn't get you too wonky. Like,
you know, if you, not calling anybody out but if
you smoke too much cannabis you might feel a little
(16:29):
weird about the world and if you drink too much
booze you might be stuporific yeah you might get intoxicated
this won't do it it just uh keeps you up
for a while apparently thousands of.
Speaker 3 (16:42):
Years which makes sense uh why it was so popular
and it remains popular today because it's just kind of
gives you a little give you a little zing a
little pep in.
Speaker 4 (16:50):
Your stick a labor aid i'm surprised we don't have
it here Labor aid.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
Someone should make a joke, a product called labor aid.
That's very funny.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
Oh, God, we're so close, you guys. We're so close.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
For the proletariat.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
For the proles. Oh, my gosh. Man, we're also going
to have to talk about another problematic relative of the
betel nut, obviously, tobacco, nicotine. Now, Zarin, you and Elizabeth
often record videos out in California, right?
Speaker 6 (17:24):
Correct.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
And I, I, I am of the mind or from
what I understand, uh, smoking cigarettes is way worse than
smoking cannabis in California.
Speaker 4 (17:36):
Yes. Uh, well, like places like, uh, and I think
San Francisco County, they have banned the sale of vapes.
So like, you can't get like vape cartridges in stores,
but you, You can obviously go and get marijuana pretty
much on every corner store if you want because they
have all sorts of like both dispensaries and then legal
work around so you can sell it in corner stores.
So there's obviously a predilection for giving people marijuana as
(18:00):
opposed to tobacco, nicotine. So it's much easier to be
a pot smoker than a cigarette or a vape smoker
in a lot of parts of California. But generally– You
can't smoke it outside. A lot of places like apartment
complexes have rules where you can't smoke it in your apartment,
so you can't smoke it outside. There's large parts of
(18:21):
downtowns where there's no smoking and you can be fined
if you are smoking. So there's a big push to
ban cigarettes, vapes. There's a lot of places where they'll
be illegal. you will be fined heavily for it. So
there's definitely a push. And whereas you can pretty much
walk around most of California and smell pot smoke in
(18:41):
the air.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
For sure.
Speaker 3 (18:43):
It's becoming the case in a lot of places. Like
I'm here in New York City and in a lot
of boroughs.
Speaker 2 (18:49):
It is illegal. I mean, I think in the entire
state to sell like flavored vapes. Oh, yeah, definitely.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
Oh, sure.
Speaker 4 (18:55):
They're down to like just normal vapes like you can't.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
A hundred percent.
Speaker 3 (18:58):
But my point is that, you know, weed is also
decriminalized here and recreationally. So it is kind of becoming
that similar kind of vibe. But there are, to your
point about the workarounds for corner stores, now the workarounds
are for vapes and cigarettes where they're trying to figure
out how to low-key under the table sell you, you know,
(19:20):
a geek bar or a freaking elf bar that tastes
like pina colada. Like that is now becoming the contraband.
Speaker 1 (19:27):
This cotton candy caramel-flavored vape is definitely for people in
their 50s.
Speaker 2 (19:33):
What do you want? I got you. You want Coco Crispy?
What do you want?
Speaker 1 (19:37):
Well, it's interesting. We're bringing this up because we know
that the world is learning more about the dangers, right,
of inhaling anything, right?
Speaker 2 (19:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
We have to get to a bizarre hypothetical. Riddle us this, guys,
if we're walking into a bar in, say, Oakland, right,
and we're smoking a coffin nail, and they say, hey,
you can't smoke in here, what if we say it's
for our Our asthma.
Speaker 3 (20:11):
And this is my emotional support dog. This is my
emotional support sig.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
Guys, come on. Leave me alone. Let me live my life.
What is this referencing, Ben?
Speaker 3 (20:21):
Is this a weird little flash in the pan, like
medical craze that took place long ago?
Speaker 1 (20:28):
Unfortunately, it is not little.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
It is weird.
Speaker 1 (20:33):
It did happen.
Speaker 3 (20:34):
Remember when they had like nine out of ten doctors
recommend you smoke this brand?
Speaker 2 (20:39):
Yes, yes, yes, yes.
Speaker 1 (20:41):
Truth be told, pretty much everybody, I think, knows that
cigarettes are not great these days. And sadly, most of
us know someone suffering from asthma. That chronic lung condition
makes it difficult at times, impossible to breathe. Zaret, Noel,
have you guys encountered asthma in your personal lives?
Speaker 2 (21:04):
Oh, yes.
Speaker 4 (21:05):
I've got a family who have asthma issues. Growing up,
I knew a lot of kids who had asthma that
seem to have changed now. Like people I know who
have children, they don't seem... to talk about asthma as
much as i did but apparently in certain areas depending
on industrial pollution levels you find a lot more asthma
so there is definitely that uh but it's not something
(21:26):
that i've personally experienced but i've watched people have asthma
attacks and it seemed terrifying it was like they're like
drowning in the air your.
Speaker 3 (21:33):
Chest tightens up the uh what is it bend What
are those particles in your lungs?
Speaker 2 (21:39):
Thank you. Alveoli. That's right. They contract, I want to say.
Speaker 3 (21:44):
And the reason that people are able to mitigate an
asthma attack almost like with an EpiPen when you're having,
you know, an attack.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
Anaphylactic shock.
Speaker 3 (21:52):
Yeah, anaphylactic shock is with an inhaler that's albuterol, if
I'm not mistaken, that literally causes those very, very important
parts of your lungs to expand again.
Speaker 4 (22:03):
Okay. You get the dilution.
Speaker 6 (22:04):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (22:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
Yeah. And let's cast our memory back there, by the way, folks,
to something totally unproblematic called the Columbian Exchange. The Europeans
had no idea what tomatoes or potatoes or llamas were
until that interaction occurred. That exchange brought with it many
(22:29):
horrible things, one of those being tobacco. We don't know
a ton about who invented the first cigarette, but guys,
it was probably a hobo in Spain.
Speaker 4 (22:41):
We do know that Walter Raleigh made it such that
you could smoke it without hacking the entire time. He
was the one who came into curing tobacco, and that's
how Europeans were able to suddenly be able to Stomach
it long enough to become a Joneser for it.
Speaker 3 (22:55):
Is he the guy that invented that dope, long cigarette
holder that you put it in that would make you
look like.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
A real aristocratic gentleman? Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
Who is that legend?
Speaker 2 (23:04):
What about filters? I guess this is probably pre-filters.
Speaker 4 (23:07):
Oh, yeah, definitely. That's much more of a 20th century invention.
Speaker 2 (23:10):
But you're right. The curing is what made it more palatable.
Speaker 4 (23:14):
Yes, exactly. Because otherwise you just retch and hack the
whole time and you're like, this is not.
Speaker 7 (23:18):
Going to work.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
This is fun.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
I like this. Yeah, because it was supposed to be
in indigenous land. It's like a ceremony.
Speaker 6 (23:27):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
Or they chew the leaves as well. Much like the
coca leaves.
Speaker 4 (23:31):
Also, you throw it in a pile, light it on fire,
then you just kind of fan some of the secondhand
smoke into your face as opposed to.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
That's what my father always threatened to do if he
ever caught me smoking.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
Oh, really?
Speaker 2 (23:39):
Put me in a closet and make... No, it's just
the old joke of like.
Speaker 3 (23:42):
I'm going to make you sit in a closet and
smoke the whole carton of cigarettes.
Speaker 6 (23:45):
Oh, yeah.
Speaker 4 (23:46):
I know kids whose dads did that. They made them
smoke the whole pack. It's a thing, man. Yeah, and
then they never wanted it. They turned green the whole thing.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
It is a thing, like Pinocchio.
Speaker 5 (23:54):
And to jump in here from my extensive research that
I've been doing for the last 45 seconds.
Speaker 6 (24:00):
It does not seem like any one person is attributed
for inventing the cigarette holder.
Speaker 4 (24:05):
Fascinating.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
It's to the point of this whole conversation.
Speaker 3 (24:09):
It's like people figured out how to consume stuff in
odd ways. And there's a lot of parallel thinking when
it came to like ingesting things that got you, you know, faded.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
And there was one, there were multiple people at some
point in history who said, I want my fingers not
to smell as much like tobacco.
Speaker 5 (24:28):
And the thing is, it was also because there was
no filter. And so it was just kind of came
out of necessity, just not wanting it to be nasty
and messy.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
Oh, I got you.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
Yeah. So we do have to give, by way of tangent,
we do have to give a reluctant shout out to
a guy named James H. Albury Bonsack.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
That's a name. I know, I know.
Speaker 1 (24:51):
Speaking of nutsack.
Speaker 6 (24:52):
We got sucking on nothing.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
Yep, we're a family show.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
Are we sure we're.
Speaker 6 (24:59):
Not doing a James Joyce episode?
Speaker 2 (25:01):
Oh, geez.
Speaker 1 (25:08):
Well, the reason we're shouting out our buddy James is
because historians believe he was the first guy to invent
the an automatic cigarette rolling machine way back in 1881.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
Those are dope. Have you ever invest with one of those?
A hundred percent. The little ones.
Speaker 1 (25:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
For rolling a joint or something. I mean, they're like
really great.
Speaker 3 (25:27):
You put the filter in on one side, you sprinkle
it in and it's almost like a little, uh, printing press.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (25:31):
It's a perfect analogy.
Speaker 7 (25:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (25:34):
And we used to use those for parties. Do the roll,
like just tons of joints.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
Copious joints.
Speaker 7 (25:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:38):
It's an assembly line. A lot of them.
Speaker 1 (25:41):
And, This popularized cigarettes, big deal for a long time.
A lot of people understand more about lung health and
cancer and cardiac issues and cool uncles and so on.
So cigarettes were before cigarettes. That point for decades, they
were portrayed as medicinal. Now, we mentioned earlier how this
(26:07):
zeitgeisty thing occurred in the world. We would actually have doctors.
recommending cigarettes, is it okay for us to play a clip?
Speaker 2 (26:17):
Oh my God, yeah.
Speaker 3 (26:17):
And I hope it involves like a pretty lady dressed
up as a cigarette showing some leg.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
That's all I'm going to say.
Speaker 1 (26:24):
It has a problematic series of doctors.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
Fair, fair. Here we go. Oh man. All right.
Speaker 7 (26:31):
You know, if you were to follow a busy doctor
as he makes his daily round of calls, you would
find yourself having a mighty busy time keeping up with him.
Time out for many men of medicine usually means just
long enough to enjoy a cigarette. And because they know
what a pleasure it is to smoke a mild, good-tasting cigarette,
they're particular about the brand they choose. In a repeated
(26:55):
national survey, doctors in all branches of medicine, doctors in
all parts of the country were asked, what cigarette do you.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
Smoke, doctor?
Speaker 7 (27:05):
Once again, the brand named most was Camel. Yes, according
to this repeated nationwide survey, more doctors smoke camels than
any other cigarette. Why not change to camels for the
next 30 days and see what a difference it makes
in your smoking enjoyment? See how camels agree with your throat.
Speaker 1 (27:25):
And we'll stop it there.
Speaker 3 (27:27):
Not dressed as a cigarette, but a very pretty lady
smoking and puffing away at a dart.
Speaker 1 (27:30):
Jesus Hubert Christ.
Speaker 6 (27:33):
If I could jump in here.
Speaker 2 (27:34):
I'm sold. I mean, you know.
Speaker 5 (27:37):
As somebody who smoked camels for 15 years and quit
four years ago, I never found them soothing on my throat.
Speaker 4 (27:45):
That's why you gotta smoke the menthols.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
You gotta smoke the menthols.
Speaker 1 (27:50):
Turkish domestic.
Speaker 2 (27:51):
Oh my gosh. It's like a lozenge in cigarette form.
Speaker 4 (27:54):
Oh my god, menthols. My uncles used to smoke those
and I definitely caged one or two from them and
that cool breeze afterwards was always kind of shocking to me.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
It's super shocking.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
It wakes you up. This is not an advertisement. I
feel like legal is gonna get us. This is not
an advertisement for cigarettes, but we have Right. We have
to remember that at the time before people figured out
this stuff, medicated cigarettes were quite the rage, just like
we were talking about with vapes or indeed, Zaret, with
(28:27):
f * * * ing hummus, you could add extra flavors.
And one of the most infamous ones we found comes
to us courtesy of Pharmacy Times. It's something called pages, inhalers,
and we've got a couple of photographs of their medicated cigarettes,
(28:52):
which does sound pretty crazy. Noel, can you give us
just a couple of quotations from this box?
Speaker 2 (29:00):
Oh, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 3 (29:02):
Oh, and let me just say, can I also just say,
and this is more of a collector's thing, like a
Pokemon type situation. The laws in other countries surrounding the
sale of cigarettes, to Zarin's earlier point about how it
is in San Francisco or in the Bay Area, fascinating
because when you buy any brand of cigarettes in Europe,
or other countries, they're going to have a picture of
a withered fetus on the pack or a limp penis
(29:27):
or some sort of person wasted away, emaciated in a
hospital bed and with often these captions that are very
like guilting you into quitting smoking. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2 (29:38):
So I like to buy them just for collecting.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
As a completionist. A hundred percent. The favorite one, by
the way, that I've ever seen, the most heartbreaking one,
is from South Korea. There's a picture of a small child,
old enough to stand, and the parents are only waist down.
And there's smoke everywhere and they're arguing and the child
(30:03):
is crying. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (30:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:05):
That's a gnarly one. I've also seen one with amputated limbs.
Speaker 3 (30:09):
Another one, a very popular one, is, again, the kind
of guilting you about how you're killing your child. Really,
I mean, I think it's a good thing. I don't
know how effective it is, to be honest. You've got
to be interested to see stats about that. But, Ben,
I bring that up because what we're talking about here
is the exact opposite of that.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
Oh, yeah.
Speaker 3 (30:30):
Page's inhaler, 95 medicated cigarettes for the temporary relief. of
the paroxysms of asthma and to aid in the relief
of the discomforts due to excessive secretions in the nasal
passage associated with hay fever and simple nasal irritation.
Speaker 1 (30:46):
And if you turn the pack around, you will see
step-by-step instructions, which, by the way, don't make anything better.
They go this way. Exhaust the lungs of air, then
fill the mouth with smoke and take a deep breath
drawing the smoke down into the lungs hold a few
(31:09):
seconds then exhale through mouth and nostrils prescribed dosage for Well.
Speaker 3 (31:17):
That's conservative. At least they're not telling you to smoke
the whole pack. And then also, then peek over your
cool guy sunglasses.
Speaker 2 (31:26):
Right, right. And then roll the pack up in the
sleeve of your leather jacket.
Speaker 4 (31:32):
Do we know what they were medicated with? Is this
like in the era of cocaine lozenges? Is this like
the same? We do, actually.
Speaker 1 (31:37):
It's pretty close. They had alkaloids from stromonium leaves, and
then they had chestnut leaves, tea leaves. Cola nuts.
Speaker 2 (31:46):
Yeah. So, you know, Cokie stuff. Yes.
Speaker 4 (31:49):
Cokie and Cokie Jason.
Speaker 3 (31:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
Cokie Jason, kissing cousin. And these were not necessarily, as
we can tell, meant to be recreational, but it's not
like a doctor had to prescribe you a specific brand.
You could just roll up to, you know, your soda
jerk and say, I saw an ad and a lot
(32:12):
of doctors are telling me. these smokes are perfect for asthma.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (32:18):
I love the idea of doctors taking smoke breaks, too.
I just, the concept of that is just really funny
to me.
Speaker 4 (32:24):
Or, like, you go to see the doctor, you're in, like,
you know, his, like, his little room with him and, like,
the nurse, and he's just, like, leaned over smoking on you,
ashing right above you.
Speaker 2 (32:31):
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. You could smoke in hospitals back
in the day.
Speaker 6 (32:35):
Oh, yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
In the waiting rooms, especially.
Speaker 7 (32:37):
Yeah. I mean.
Speaker 3 (32:38):
I think we're all, we're at, we're of an age
where we probably vaguely remember being able to smoke in airports.
Speaker 4 (32:43):
Oh, on, on airplanes. I remember the ashtrays being filled
with like the cigarette butts.
Speaker 2 (32:48):
Definitely.
Speaker 1 (32:48):
What you, uh, you real quick, Zarin, uh, Gut check.
You did fly on planes where you could smoke?
Speaker 4 (32:56):
Oh, yeah. It was much later than people remember because
the first time I flew was 1989. And there was
still cigarettes allowed in the plane in 1989. There was
a section. There was a smoking section. And the ashtrays
still had cigarette butts in them if you weren't in
the now new smoking section. So, yeah. And I also
remember in restaurants— people have in the smoking section and
there's like nothing there's wasn't like filtration and like you
(33:19):
get in casinos now instead it was just smoke wafting
over while you're eating your your you know your breakfast.
Speaker 3 (33:26):
Casinos, by the way, the last bastion of indoor smoking.
And they do have insane filtration systems. And now most
of them are moving away from, you know, just, you know,
open smoking to like they have one little casino room
with slot machines and, you know, where all the smokers go.
Speaker 1 (33:44):
Before we continue, Max, I see you, man. You're having
like 17 million ideas at once. What's going on?
Speaker 5 (33:51):
Okay, so I looked it up to back up Zarin's point.
1988 is when the ban of smoking on planes first
came in. It was for flights under two hours. And
then in 1990, it was banned on flights under six hours.
It wasn't until 2000.
Speaker 6 (34:12):
2000 is when it banned for all flights.
Speaker 1 (34:13):
So they're saying in 1988, they're saying, Well, you know,
two hours and one minute in the air. What the
hell are we going to do? Tell people not to smoke?
Speaker 2 (34:23):
Smoke up, Johnny.
Speaker 3 (34:24):
They're great.
Speaker 4 (34:25):
Got a bunch of jonesing passengers? No, thank you.
Speaker 6 (34:29):
So like you go to New York, you're screwed. But
you go into Seattle, absolutely light up.
Speaker 1 (34:33):
And Noel, you were going to say you traveled a lot.
Speaker 3 (34:36):
Oh, just when I was little, my mom was an
opera singer and she would be singing in different countries
and I would go and visit her. So I actually
flew by myself a decent amount when I was pretty little.
And I absolutely flew in the late 80s and remember
exactly what Zarin's talking about. And weirdly, even after the cutoff,
(34:57):
obviously they didn't just immediately retrofit those planes to get
rid of the ashtrays.
Speaker 4 (35:00):
Those ashtrays were around for years. Yes, totally true.
Speaker 1 (35:04):
It's like seeing signs at your local gas stations that
say unleaded only.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
Right. I want the leaded, man.
Speaker 1 (35:11):
Like at this point, what's going on?
Speaker 2 (35:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:15):
It's also, we also have to admit that around the world,
Smoking cigarettes is more normalized than it would be in California.
So you go to international airports, et cetera. There's always
that one little room, right? Good place to meet weirdos.
Speaker 2 (35:34):
That's for sure.
Speaker 6 (35:35):
It's a great place to meet weirdos.
Speaker 1 (35:38):
So we're going to pause here for a moment. This
is a two-part episode. We've got the entire week with Zarin. Zarin,
thank you so much. for coming on the show. Now, obviously,
through the magic of editing, you know everything that's going
to happen in episodes.
Speaker 2 (35:56):
That pause for a moment was several days for you
out there.
Speaker 4 (35:59):
Yes, pause for the cause. No, I'm stoked to be
part of this. Thank you all for having me.
Speaker 2 (36:03):
The best, man. So much fun.
Speaker 3 (36:04):
Huge thanks to Zarin, our guest. Huge thanks to Max.
Say no, just say no, Williams. Alex Williams, who composed
our theme.
Speaker 1 (36:14):
Big, big thanks to A.J. Bahamas Jacobs, a.k.a. The Puzzler.
A tepid I know what you did to Jonathan Strickland, a.k.a.
Speaker 2 (36:22):
The Quister.
Speaker 3 (36:23):
Ben, did you know that if you lick Jonathan Strickland's
bald head, nothing happens?
Speaker 6 (36:29):
I to the test. That is true.
Speaker 1 (36:31):
Well, thank you. Thank you guys for being first to
the post.
Speaker 2 (36:34):
You had to try.
Speaker 1 (36:36):
That's saving Zarin and I at a party for sure.
Speaker 4 (36:40):
Instead of getting high, you get nigh.
Speaker 1 (36:41):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (36:41):
Got to remember that. Exactly. He talks in a funny voice.
He does. He does.
Speaker 4 (36:47):
Oh, my gosh.
Speaker 1 (36:47):
And he listens just for the credits, Zarin, by the way. Also,
at the end of every episode, we love to shout
out Ridiculous Crime.
Speaker 3 (36:56):
And the Rude Dudes over at Ridiculous Crime.
Speaker 2 (36:58):
If you like us, you'll like them, is what Ben
will say.
Speaker 6 (37:00):
If you dig.
Speaker 1 (37:02):
Us, you will love the Rude Dudes. So Zarin, how
would you describe the show to someone who's never heard it?
Speaker 4 (37:09):
Well, as we always, we have our tagline. It's 99%
murder-free and 100% ridiculous. So it's true crime without the gore,
without the blood. And we focus on Much more of
like art crimes, book thefts, heists, forgeries, ridiculous scenarios, people
who think they're somebody that they are not, people who
pretend that they are somebody that they are not. And
(37:29):
it gets to the funny side of true crime.
Speaker 3 (37:32):
And it turns out there's more than enough of these
kinds of stories to sustain your podcast for many years.
Speaker 4 (37:37):
Oh, my goodness.
Speaker 7 (37:37):
Are there?
Speaker 4 (37:38):
It is a literal treasure trove. And they keep making more.
I mean, it doesn't stop.
Speaker 3 (37:44):
I just remember when we first started this show, I
was worried that we were going to run out of
silly history stories. And the more you do this kind
of thing, these podcasts, the more you realize that life
just creates more weird stories for you.
Speaker 2 (37:55):
Exactly.
Speaker 1 (37:57):
Hey, Zarin, real quick, what are you, Elizabeth, and Dave
working on next? Like, what's in the queue if you
got some spoilers?
Speaker 2 (38:04):
Oh, OK.
Speaker 4 (38:05):
Let's see. I just did one recently about the Black
Tuna Gang, which is a bunch of people who were
the pot smugglers in the Florida area who set the
precedent for the cocaine dealers and the cocaine era of
the late 70s and early 80s. So it turns out.
A bunch of like quasi hippies from the Philadelphia area
went down to Miami and introduced the idea of like,
(38:28):
you know, we need some go fast boats and we
need to go into these coves that nobody ever goes
to on the western side of Florida. And then we
can just spread this stuff around. We'll get a bunch
of big, nice houses. Nobody will look twice. It was
like most of what the cocaine people then said, you
know what? That's a great model. Let's do that. But
with a drug that's easier to move.
Speaker 3 (38:46):
Yeah, and also a little more innocuous and probably involved
a lot less, like, gun crime.
Speaker 2 (38:51):
Oh, God, yes. That was the big difference.
Speaker 4 (38:53):
Suddenly the murder rates went ratcheting up, and that's when
everyone was like, let's throw billions of dollars at stopping this.
Because before it was like, maybe we got, like, four
DEA agents in Florida, and now it's, like, you know, hundreds.
Speaker 1 (39:04):
I can't wait.
Speaker 2 (39:05):
I didn't know about that at all, Zarin. I can't
wait to check that out.
Speaker 1 (39:07):
Yeah, I can't wait to check that out. Thank you
again so much, Zarin, and everybody tune in later this week.
If you are feeling like an irritated reindeer or a
fussy baby, boy, do we have news for you.
Speaker 2 (39:22):
We'll see you next time, folks.
Speaker 3 (39:30):
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
(00:27):
the show, fellow ridiculous historians. Thank you, as always, so
much for tuning in. Everybody listening now, please don't do drugs. Okay,
so now that we have that legal stuff out of
the way, we got to shout out our super producer, Mr.
Max Williams.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
Max, just say no Williams. Max, dare to dream Williams.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
Ben, which is your name, I'm Noel, and I am
sad that I'm not wearing it because it's in the laundry,
but I have a really sick vintage D.A.R.E.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
Shirt. Remember D.A.R.E.? Oh, yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Oh, my gosh. Yeah, you dare to keep a kid
off drugs by showing them how to use drugs.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
And here's all the fun ones.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
And identify them in high school. I'm Ben Bullen. You're
Noel Brown. And we know, we know for sure, folks,
that earlier this year, we learned, despite the puritanical attitudes
toward recreational substances in the modern day, people and non-human
animals alike have been kind of trying to get high
(01:31):
on all sorts of things.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
Shout out stoned ape theory, by the way, that's a
conversation for another day.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
Well, before the dawn of recorded history. And, you know,
we quickly realized that we had to make this a
continuing series and we are not going into it alone.
You may have heard a legendary voice, uh, Big up
in us. At the intro here, we are thrilled to
welcome not only a returning guest, our brother in podcast arms,
(02:02):
the award-winning journalist, author, activist, and podcaster, Zarin Burnett.
Speaker 4 (02:08):
Yo, what up, gentlemen? Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
Oh, man.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
I love that you chimed in. I love it when
a guest chimes in before they're introduced. It just adds
to the mystery of it. I fully support that.
Speaker 4 (02:18):
I couldn't help myself. No, it's the best.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
It's like on one of my favorite pods, Blank Check
with Griffin and David, they'll do a whole intro and
talk for 20 minutes, and the person will just be talking,
and then they'll finally introduce them. And I just, I'm
a big fan of that. But we couldn't be more
thrilled to have you, man.
Speaker 4 (02:32):
I'm stoked to be here. So thank you guys for
having me back. Always a fun time with my fellow
ridiculous historians.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
Now, as everybody knows, you have created so many shows,
Black Cowboys, Ridiculous Crime, very special episodes. I think I
still owe you a script about New Coke.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
Not the, I mean, not the drug.
Speaker 4 (03:01):
Yes, we've been looking forward to that one. It sounds awesome.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
We did a new Coke episode on Ridiculous, didn't we, Matt? Yeah,
we did.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
And I'm cribbing it for another show.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
As well you should.
Speaker 3 (03:10):
And also, just not to bury the lead too much,
but Ridiculous Crime, technically part of the extended Ridiculous universe.
So we're brothers in extended franchise universes as well.
Speaker 4 (03:21):
Totally. We are your sister or brother show, depending on
how you want to look at it.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Indeed.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
Yeah, how's it going, man, out west?
Speaker 4 (03:27):
Oh, going really well. It's a beautiful day. We've had, obviously,
a bunch of challenges this summer, but right now it
is looking really nice going into the autumn. So all
things considered, it's going well.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
You know, we have a game show together on the way,
not too long from now, probably toward the end of
this year. And Zarin, we came across a study a
while back that argued people have been habitually partying as
far back as 25,000 years ago, which, as you recall,
(04:01):
is a little bit earlier than when we got into podcasting.
Speaker 4 (04:05):
Yes, just a little bit earlier.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
And I believe, Ben, it was a good, significant jump
from what had been thought prior. Like, is this number
coming from that recent study that we talked about on
Strange News on our other sister show, Stuff They Don't
Want You to Know?
Speaker 1 (04:21):
Yes, yes. We've got a Brady Bunch here, and we realized, Zarin,
that we have to get back to the mission of
this series. We had that episode in the past, earlier
this year. Weird things people used to get high off of,
and we're continuing the mission to uncover strange old substances.
(04:44):
To boldly smoke, snort, and chew.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
What?
Speaker 1 (04:48):
So many have done before that uh star trek parody
for our producer max.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
Did they do do they do drugs on star star
trek was that.
Speaker 3 (04:55):
Oh yeah they did okay well i love the magazine
resolutely yes no hesitation.
Speaker 5 (05:02):
Oh yeah there's a lot i mean there's there's the
episode in the original series where they all get like
horny and so he gets his shirt off and then
the second episode of tng they do that same episode
again which is a really weird time to do that
episode and it's really bad and then Data, for some reason,
gets really horny despite the fact that he's immune to
it because everyone else is so horny.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
I guess his job is just to adapt to the vibe,
you know? Yeah, he's just reading the room.
Speaker 6 (05:27):
Seriously, explain to us, it's a contact high.
Speaker 4 (05:30):
Yeah, he's right on the high.
Speaker 6 (05:31):
It's a really bad episode. It's the second episode of
the show.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
Now, Zarin, we previously, in that earlier episode, we looked
at stuff like Nutmeg, Henbane, you know, possible inspiration for
the witch broomstick trope. We looked at Belladonna. We looked
at Urgot. And for some reason, I was just re-listening, guys,
(05:55):
for some reason, toward the end of the first episode,
we spend a ton of time talking about hummus. So
your demanding fans, sir, creator of Black Cowboys, very special episodes,
Ridiculous Crime, they have to know Zarin Burnett, the third,
what's your hummus stance?
Speaker 4 (06:16):
My hummus stance. You know, I don't think I've ever
been asked that. And I actually do have an answer,
not one prepared, but I have one ready in the
back of my mind, which is I'm pro hummus, right?
I'm a big hummus fan. I'm not so big into
all the flavored hummus. It's like they have a lot
of varieties now that are not really my bag, but
I love hummus. I put it on sandwiches all the time.
I was raised a vegetarian. So the idea of like
(06:37):
sneaking proteins in that you can is always been something
I've done forever. So Hummus is something that I still
put on all my like cheese sandwiches. Absolutely love it. Big,
big fan. And by the way, I was thinking when
you were talking about earlier about how people have been
getting high for a long time. I find it interesting
that we'll get high before we'll like satiate ourselves. Like
there's evidence that. We were making beer long before we
(06:58):
were making bread out of the same materials. We were like, oh, yeah,
this grain stuff is awesome. You know, if you ferment it,
you can get drunk. And they were like, huh, you know,
you could actually make bread. And it was like 10,
maybe 20,000 years later, they were like, oh, hey, by
the way, we could also make bread out of that stuff.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
20,000 years.
Speaker 6 (07:14):
Yeah, don't quote me on the years.
Speaker 4 (07:16):
It's a long period of time. I don't remember exactly,
but yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:19):
All right.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
So we're pre-gaming now and we have to ask you
another question. You and I, Noel and Max, we're talking
a little bit off air. Zarin, what is the weirdest
quote unquote drug you have ever heard of?
Speaker 4 (07:34):
Okay. I've got two. I've got a modern one and
I've got more of an ancient one. The modern one
is people huff disc cleaner. Like, you know, the stuff
you use and like, you know, for cleaning a computer,
like the compressed air. but it's like the ones that are,
they have like a propellant in there and people use it.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
They call it duster.
Speaker 4 (07:49):
Yes, exactly.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
That's the street name. I've heard.
Speaker 4 (07:54):
And then also like they use the same idea with
spray paint. So you'll see guys like in the parks
who spray paint like silver paint into a paper bag
and then they huff it and you see them and
they have silver teeth.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
Shout out charlie day on us uh always sunny yes.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
Shout out mad max fury road yeah oh right shiny
and chrome yeah the duster thing though guys it's like
um again i've read about this phenomenon as well it is.
Speaker 3 (08:16):
This very similar high to uh nitrous oxide yes yes with.
Speaker 4 (08:20):
It yes it burns holes in your brains because i've
known people who do it and they they are not
the same after doing it it really is it messes
up your brain real bad real quick much like huffing
paint does and That's something I used to see in
San Francisco, like in Dolores Park back in the day.
It was like these kids with like silver teeth. And
I was like, oh, man, that guy's not going to
be able to drive a car soon. Now, as far
(08:41):
as a more ancient one, one that always tickled me because,
you know, OK, in the old fairy tales, a princess
would kiss a frog and they would turn into a prince. Well,
people also lick frogs to get high. Bofo?
Speaker 2 (08:55):
What's it called?
Speaker 4 (08:56):
Yeah, bufotoxin. So like the Colorado river toad, aka the
Sonoran desert toad, it secretes these bufotoxins and then people
go and either lick the frog or some people who
are not so into like getting intimate with the frog back.
they'll scrape the frog and then use that later on.
But once again, not recommended because it can be toxic.
(09:16):
It can literally kill you. But people try to get
just the right amount because usually, you know, it's the
dose that makes the poison. So they're like, if I
get just a little bit, maybe I can get off.
And it has a high, apparently, like ayahuasca or DMT.
And people see all sorts of crazy stuff. So licking
the back of a frog, I think, has to be
one of the weirder ways I've ever heard.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
So we're saying that in... ancient days of yore, there
would be some like grizzled frog licking veteran who would,
who was saying, Oh buddy, you can't lick it too hard.
Speaker 4 (09:51):
Give it three good licks, but not five.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
I had a really good Peking duck dinner at this
restaurant in Flushing Queens last night.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
And on the menu, they had bullfrog.
Speaker 3 (10:03):
So you got to wonder, like, you know, with frog
being a staple cuisine in some parts of the world,
like the trial and error that it must have taken
to find the frog that you licked and it got
you mad high.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
I'm always fascinated by that.
Speaker 4 (10:16):
How many things were you licking before that?
Speaker 7 (10:18):
Right.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. The old mushroom trope, right?
Speaker 3 (10:24):
Jordan Firstman, who's a comedian, he was an Instagram sort
of star. And now he's got a new film coming
out called Club Kid that's supposed to be really, really fantastic.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
He was in that show. I love L.A.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
Anyway, he I saw an interview with him doing some
press rounds and he said that he had a really
crazy year ahead where he had to film it. final
season of a TV series shoot his first directorial feature
and a handful of other things and so he said
he lit he took He took that drug and it
made him see himself as he thinks maybe others see him.
And he had like a total, you know, like existential
(11:00):
realism kind of moments.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
And he was able to figure out how he was
going to tackle the year. So, you know, hey.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
He got a lick.
Speaker 4 (11:07):
Takes all kinds.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
Right. We will introduce our first drug that people used
to get high off of. and still do today. In fact,
roughly 1 in 10 people across the planet ingest betel
nut in some form. It probably originates somewhere in the Philippines. Yeah,
(11:39):
if we're going to be fancy and put a tie on,
it's the areca nut, the seed of a palm called
areca nut. And I don't think any of us have
personally ingested betel nut, but I have seen a lot
of inexplicably weird mouths.
Speaker 3 (11:58):
I am going to red mouths for my purposes, call
it betel nut.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
Cause it's just more fun. You can go betel nut,
betel nut, betel nut. And no, you're right, Ben.
Speaker 3 (12:08):
And this was actually the, the substance that came up
in the strange news article. We don't stuff they don't
want you to know about how scientists have discovered that
people were getting high on purpose way farther back than
they had previously realized.
Speaker 4 (12:24):
And betel nut was the thing that they were getting
the thing.
Speaker 7 (12:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
It is still to this day, as we record in 2026,
the fourth most commonly consumed drug. Can we guess the
other three most.
Speaker 4 (12:39):
Commonly consumed drugs?
Speaker 2 (12:40):
Caffeine.
Speaker 5 (12:42):
One.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
Nicotine?
Speaker 6 (12:43):
Marijuana.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
I would hope, but I bet it's nicotine.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
I would hope as well. It's caffeine, alcohol, and nicotine.
Speaker 4 (12:52):
Oh, okay.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
Nicotine, valium, vicodin, marijuana, ecstasy, and alcohol. That was a
Queens of the Stone Age reference.
Speaker 3 (12:58):
Ben, I think you mentioned the red mouth situation, the
chewing of this nut or sucking on this nut.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
Let's go ahead and we'll leave the jokes at the door. Causes.
Speaker 3 (13:08):
This is, it turns out, an archaeological boon. It's what
allowed them to figure out what was going on with
these red stained, you know, remains.
Speaker 4 (13:17):
Of course, it leaves behind definitely an indicator of like, oh, yeah,
they'd be getting high. So did they crush it in
their teeth or did they like make it like, you know,
pistol and mortar style?
Speaker 1 (13:29):
So originally what what we see, thanks to a study
led by a guy named Adam Brum over in Australia,
Griffith University, Brisbane University. if I'm saying that correctly.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
I think you are. Queensland. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
They have a study, kid you not, guys, the title is,
Betel Nutsucking is the Earliest Recorded Evidence for the Habitual
Use of a Neuroactive Plant Drug.
Speaker 3 (13:55):
Scientists be so literal, man.
Speaker 2 (13:57):
They didn't want to run that through an edit.
Speaker 4 (13:59):
They have to know what they wrote.
Speaker 6 (14:01):
Betel Nutsucking.
Speaker 4 (14:02):
Nutsucking is how we first got on.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
Betel Nutsucking. So, Zara, to your question there, these folks, like,
Now you can find a betel nut in something called
betel quid or pond like non with a P and,
and it's essentially big league chew. Uh, it's wrapped in
a leaf and you, you just sort of chew on
(14:25):
it with a slaked lime and calcium hydroxide. But back
in the day, uh, according to this study, uh, These
guys didn't have bigly chew technology, so they would just
grab a betel nut and they would put it in
their mouths, right? They'd tuck it in their cheeks.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
Like a dip.
Speaker 7 (14:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
Or like a snooze.
Speaker 3 (14:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
Like a snooze, yes. And they would– what's the word?
Not quite masticate? Macerate?
Speaker 2 (14:58):
I can't remember.
Speaker 3 (14:58):
I mean, it would also, if I'm not mistaken, Ben,
one of its properties is that it– increases the flow
of saliva oh naturally yeah naturally so you just hold
it in there and all of a sudden you're gonna
be spitty as hell and then you're swallowing up that
you know the red spit juice so it really is
like all of a sudden yeah 100 yeah.
Speaker 4 (15:17):
Very much between your cheek and gum and then all
of a sudden you're good to go okay.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
Yeah and it's due to ericoline uh that's the functional
substance a kissing cousin of nicotine but uh like you
guys were pointing out this stuff does have an impact
on people's dentation, right? They call it dental pathology. And
they're like, hey, why are these teeth bizarrely red?
Speaker 4 (15:44):
Do we know what kind of high? Is it like nicotine?
Speaker 2 (15:48):
I think it's a mild amphetamine type.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
Oh, okay.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
So some euphoria, alertness.
Speaker 3 (15:54):
I don't think it goes so far as to become
truly psychedelic in any way.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
But I think it is like, you know, sort of
like chewing on a cocoa leaf.
Speaker 4 (16:01):
Okay, I got you.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
Or sucking on a chili dog.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
Sure. Very much so.
Speaker 6 (16:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
It's like a strong cup of coffee, you know, and
it doesn't, the, the thing is it's somewhere between, between
coffee and alcohol, right? It doesn't get you too wonky. Like,
you know, if you, not calling anybody out but if
you smoke too much cannabis you might feel a little
(16:29):
weird about the world and if you drink too much
booze you might be stuporific yeah you might get intoxicated
this won't do it it just uh keeps you up
for a while apparently thousands of.
Speaker 3 (16:42):
Years which makes sense uh why it was so popular
and it remains popular today because it's just kind of
gives you a little give you a little zing a
little pep in.
Speaker 4 (16:50):
Your stick a labor aid i'm surprised we don't have
it here Labor aid.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
Someone should make a joke, a product called labor aid.
That's very funny.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
Oh, God, we're so close, you guys. We're so close.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
For the proletariat.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
For the proles. Oh, my gosh. Man, we're also going
to have to talk about another problematic relative of the
betel nut, obviously, tobacco, nicotine. Now, Zarin, you and Elizabeth
often record videos out in California, right?
Speaker 6 (17:24):
Correct.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
And I, I, I am of the mind or from
what I understand, uh, smoking cigarettes is way worse than
smoking cannabis in California.
Speaker 4 (17:36):
Yes. Uh, well, like places like, uh, and I think
San Francisco County, they have banned the sale of vapes.
So like, you can't get like vape cartridges in stores,
but you, You can obviously go and get marijuana pretty
much on every corner store if you want because they
have all sorts of like both dispensaries and then legal
work around so you can sell it in corner stores.
So there's obviously a predilection for giving people marijuana as
(18:00):
opposed to tobacco, nicotine. So it's much easier to be
a pot smoker than a cigarette or a vape smoker
in a lot of parts of California. But generally– You
can't smoke it outside. A lot of places like apartment
complexes have rules where you can't smoke it in your apartment,
so you can't smoke it outside. There's large parts of
(18:21):
downtowns where there's no smoking and you can be fined
if you are smoking. So there's a big push to
ban cigarettes, vapes. There's a lot of places where they'll
be illegal. you will be fined heavily for it. So
there's definitely a push. And whereas you can pretty much
walk around most of California and smell pot smoke in
(18:41):
the air.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
For sure.
Speaker 3 (18:43):
It's becoming the case in a lot of places. Like
I'm here in New York City and in a lot
of boroughs.
Speaker 2 (18:49):
It is illegal. I mean, I think in the entire
state to sell like flavored vapes. Oh, yeah, definitely.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
Oh, sure.
Speaker 4 (18:55):
They're down to like just normal vapes like you can't.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
A hundred percent.
Speaker 3 (18:58):
But my point is that, you know, weed is also
decriminalized here and recreationally. So it is kind of becoming
that similar kind of vibe. But there are, to your
point about the workarounds for corner stores, now the workarounds
are for vapes and cigarettes where they're trying to figure
out how to low-key under the table sell you, you know,
(19:20):
a geek bar or a freaking elf bar that tastes
like pina colada. Like that is now becoming the contraband.
Speaker 1 (19:27):
This cotton candy caramel-flavored vape is definitely for people in
their 50s.
Speaker 2 (19:33):
What do you want? I got you. You want Coco Crispy?
What do you want?
Speaker 1 (19:37):
Well, it's interesting. We're bringing this up because we know
that the world is learning more about the dangers, right,
of inhaling anything, right?
Speaker 2 (19:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
We have to get to a bizarre hypothetical. Riddle us this, guys,
if we're walking into a bar in, say, Oakland, right,
and we're smoking a coffin nail, and they say, hey,
you can't smoke in here, what if we say it's
for our Our asthma.
Speaker 3 (20:11):
And this is my emotional support dog. This is my
emotional support sig.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
Guys, come on. Leave me alone. Let me live my life.
What is this referencing, Ben?
Speaker 3 (20:21):
Is this a weird little flash in the pan, like
medical craze that took place long ago?
Speaker 1 (20:28):
Unfortunately, it is not little.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
It is weird.
Speaker 1 (20:33):
It did happen.
Speaker 3 (20:34):
Remember when they had like nine out of ten doctors
recommend you smoke this brand?
Speaker 2 (20:39):
Yes, yes, yes, yes.
Speaker 1 (20:41):
Truth be told, pretty much everybody, I think, knows that
cigarettes are not great these days. And sadly, most of
us know someone suffering from asthma. That chronic lung condition
makes it difficult at times, impossible to breathe. Zaret, Noel,
have you guys encountered asthma in your personal lives?
Speaker 2 (21:04):
Oh, yes.
Speaker 4 (21:05):
I've got a family who have asthma issues. Growing up,
I knew a lot of kids who had asthma that
seem to have changed now. Like people I know who
have children, they don't seem... to talk about asthma as
much as i did but apparently in certain areas depending
on industrial pollution levels you find a lot more asthma
so there is definitely that uh but it's not something
(21:26):
that i've personally experienced but i've watched people have asthma
attacks and it seemed terrifying it was like they're like
drowning in the air your.
Speaker 3 (21:33):
Chest tightens up the uh what is it bend What
are those particles in your lungs?
Speaker 2 (21:39):
Thank you. Alveoli. That's right. They contract, I want to say.
Speaker 3 (21:44):
And the reason that people are able to mitigate an
asthma attack almost like with an EpiPen when you're having,
you know, an attack.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
Anaphylactic shock.
Speaker 3 (21:52):
Yeah, anaphylactic shock is with an inhaler that's albuterol, if
I'm not mistaken, that literally causes those very, very important
parts of your lungs to expand again.
Speaker 4 (22:03):
Okay. You get the dilution.
Speaker 6 (22:04):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (22:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
Yeah. And let's cast our memory back there, by the way, folks,
to something totally unproblematic called the Columbian Exchange. The Europeans
had no idea what tomatoes or potatoes or llamas were
until that interaction occurred. That exchange brought with it many
(22:29):
horrible things, one of those being tobacco. We don't know
a ton about who invented the first cigarette, but guys,
it was probably a hobo in Spain.
Speaker 4 (22:41):
We do know that Walter Raleigh made it such that
you could smoke it without hacking the entire time. He
was the one who came into curing tobacco, and that's
how Europeans were able to suddenly be able to Stomach
it long enough to become a Joneser for it.
Speaker 3 (22:55):
Is he the guy that invented that dope, long cigarette
holder that you put it in that would make you
look like.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
A real aristocratic gentleman? Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
Who is that legend?
Speaker 2 (23:04):
What about filters? I guess this is probably pre-filters.
Speaker 4 (23:07):
Oh, yeah, definitely. That's much more of a 20th century invention.
Speaker 2 (23:10):
But you're right. The curing is what made it more palatable.
Speaker 4 (23:14):
Yes, exactly. Because otherwise you just retch and hack the
whole time and you're like, this is not.
Speaker 7 (23:18):
Going to work.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
This is fun.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
I like this. Yeah, because it was supposed to be
in indigenous land. It's like a ceremony.
Speaker 6 (23:27):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
Or they chew the leaves as well. Much like the
coca leaves.
Speaker 4 (23:31):
Also, you throw it in a pile, light it on fire,
then you just kind of fan some of the secondhand
smoke into your face as opposed to.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
That's what my father always threatened to do if he
ever caught me smoking.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
Oh, really?
Speaker 2 (23:39):
Put me in a closet and make... No, it's just
the old joke of like.
Speaker 3 (23:42):
I'm going to make you sit in a closet and
smoke the whole carton of cigarettes.
Speaker 6 (23:45):
Oh, yeah.
Speaker 4 (23:46):
I know kids whose dads did that. They made them
smoke the whole pack. It's a thing, man. Yeah, and
then they never wanted it. They turned green the whole thing.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
It is a thing, like Pinocchio.
Speaker 5 (23:54):
And to jump in here from my extensive research that
I've been doing for the last 45 seconds.
Speaker 6 (24:00):
It does not seem like any one person is attributed
for inventing the cigarette holder.
Speaker 4 (24:05):
Fascinating.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
It's to the point of this whole conversation.
Speaker 3 (24:09):
It's like people figured out how to consume stuff in
odd ways. And there's a lot of parallel thinking when
it came to like ingesting things that got you, you know, faded.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
And there was one, there were multiple people at some
point in history who said, I want my fingers not
to smell as much like tobacco.
Speaker 5 (24:28):
And the thing is, it was also because there was
no filter. And so it was just kind of came
out of necessity, just not wanting it to be nasty
and messy.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
Oh, I got you.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
Yeah. So we do have to give, by way of tangent,
we do have to give a reluctant shout out to
a guy named James H. Albury Bonsack.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
That's a name. I know, I know.
Speaker 1 (24:51):
Speaking of nutsack.
Speaker 6 (24:52):
We got sucking on nothing.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
Yep, we're a family show.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
Are we sure we're.
Speaker 6 (24:59):
Not doing a James Joyce episode?
Speaker 2 (25:01):
Oh, geez.
Speaker 1 (25:08):
Well, the reason we're shouting out our buddy James is
because historians believe he was the first guy to invent
the an automatic cigarette rolling machine way back in 1881.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
Those are dope. Have you ever invest with one of those?
A hundred percent. The little ones.
Speaker 1 (25:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
For rolling a joint or something. I mean, they're like
really great.
Speaker 3 (25:27):
You put the filter in on one side, you sprinkle
it in and it's almost like a little, uh, printing press.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (25:31):
It's a perfect analogy.
Speaker 7 (25:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (25:34):
And we used to use those for parties. Do the roll,
like just tons of joints.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
Copious joints.
Speaker 7 (25:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:38):
It's an assembly line. A lot of them.
Speaker 1 (25:41):
And, This popularized cigarettes, big deal for a long time.
A lot of people understand more about lung health and
cancer and cardiac issues and cool uncles and so on.
So cigarettes were before cigarettes. That point for decades, they
were portrayed as medicinal. Now, we mentioned earlier how this
(26:07):
zeitgeisty thing occurred in the world. We would actually have doctors.
recommending cigarettes, is it okay for us to play a clip?
Speaker 2 (26:17):
Oh my God, yeah.
Speaker 3 (26:17):
And I hope it involves like a pretty lady dressed
up as a cigarette showing some leg.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
That's all I'm going to say.
Speaker 1 (26:24):
It has a problematic series of doctors.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
Fair, fair. Here we go. Oh man. All right.
Speaker 7 (26:31):
You know, if you were to follow a busy doctor
as he makes his daily round of calls, you would
find yourself having a mighty busy time keeping up with him.
Time out for many men of medicine usually means just
long enough to enjoy a cigarette. And because they know
what a pleasure it is to smoke a mild, good-tasting cigarette,
they're particular about the brand they choose. In a repeated
(26:55):
national survey, doctors in all branches of medicine, doctors in
all parts of the country were asked, what cigarette do you.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
Smoke, doctor?
Speaker 7 (27:05):
Once again, the brand named most was Camel. Yes, according
to this repeated nationwide survey, more doctors smoke camels than
any other cigarette. Why not change to camels for the
next 30 days and see what a difference it makes
in your smoking enjoyment? See how camels agree with your throat.
Speaker 1 (27:25):
And we'll stop it there.
Speaker 3 (27:27):
Not dressed as a cigarette, but a very pretty lady
smoking and puffing away at a dart.
Speaker 1 (27:30):
Jesus Hubert Christ.
Speaker 6 (27:33):
If I could jump in here.
Speaker 2 (27:34):
I'm sold. I mean, you know.
Speaker 5 (27:37):
As somebody who smoked camels for 15 years and quit
four years ago, I never found them soothing on my throat.
Speaker 4 (27:45):
That's why you gotta smoke the menthols.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
You gotta smoke the menthols.
Speaker 1 (27:50):
Turkish domestic.
Speaker 2 (27:51):
Oh my gosh. It's like a lozenge in cigarette form.
Speaker 4 (27:54):
Oh my god, menthols. My uncles used to smoke those
and I definitely caged one or two from them and
that cool breeze afterwards was always kind of shocking to me.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
It's super shocking.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
It wakes you up. This is not an advertisement. I
feel like legal is gonna get us. This is not
an advertisement for cigarettes, but we have Right. We have
to remember that at the time before people figured out
this stuff, medicated cigarettes were quite the rage, just like
we were talking about with vapes or indeed, Zaret, with
(28:27):
f * * * ing hummus, you could add extra flavors.
And one of the most infamous ones we found comes
to us courtesy of Pharmacy Times. It's something called pages, inhalers,
and we've got a couple of photographs of their medicated cigarettes,
(28:52):
which does sound pretty crazy. Noel, can you give us
just a couple of quotations from this box?
Speaker 2 (29:00):
Oh, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 3 (29:02):
Oh, and let me just say, can I also just say,
and this is more of a collector's thing, like a
Pokemon type situation. The laws in other countries surrounding the
sale of cigarettes, to Zarin's earlier point about how it
is in San Francisco or in the Bay Area, fascinating
because when you buy any brand of cigarettes in Europe,
or other countries, they're going to have a picture of
a withered fetus on the pack or a limp penis
(29:27):
or some sort of person wasted away, emaciated in a
hospital bed and with often these captions that are very
like guilting you into quitting smoking. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2 (29:38):
So I like to buy them just for collecting.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
As a completionist. A hundred percent. The favorite one, by
the way, that I've ever seen, the most heartbreaking one,
is from South Korea. There's a picture of a small child,
old enough to stand, and the parents are only waist down.
And there's smoke everywhere and they're arguing and the child
(30:03):
is crying. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (30:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:05):
That's a gnarly one. I've also seen one with amputated limbs.
Speaker 3 (30:09):
Another one, a very popular one, is, again, the kind
of guilting you about how you're killing your child. Really,
I mean, I think it's a good thing. I don't
know how effective it is, to be honest. You've got
to be interested to see stats about that. But, Ben,
I bring that up because what we're talking about here
is the exact opposite of that.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
Oh, yeah.
Speaker 3 (30:30):
Page's inhaler, 95 medicated cigarettes for the temporary relief. of
the paroxysms of asthma and to aid in the relief
of the discomforts due to excessive secretions in the nasal
passage associated with hay fever and simple nasal irritation.
Speaker 1 (30:46):
And if you turn the pack around, you will see
step-by-step instructions, which, by the way, don't make anything better.
They go this way. Exhaust the lungs of air, then
fill the mouth with smoke and take a deep breath
drawing the smoke down into the lungs hold a few
(31:09):
seconds then exhale through mouth and nostrils prescribed dosage for Well.
Speaker 3 (31:17):
That's conservative. At least they're not telling you to smoke
the whole pack. And then also, then peek over your
cool guy sunglasses.
Speaker 2 (31:26):
Right, right. And then roll the pack up in the
sleeve of your leather jacket.
Speaker 4 (31:32):
Do we know what they were medicated with? Is this
like in the era of cocaine lozenges? Is this like
the same? We do, actually.
Speaker 1 (31:37):
It's pretty close. They had alkaloids from stromonium leaves, and
then they had chestnut leaves, tea leaves. Cola nuts.
Speaker 2 (31:46):
Yeah. So, you know, Cokie stuff. Yes.
Speaker 4 (31:49):
Cokie and Cokie Jason.
Speaker 3 (31:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
Cokie Jason, kissing cousin. And these were not necessarily, as
we can tell, meant to be recreational, but it's not
like a doctor had to prescribe you a specific brand.
You could just roll up to, you know, your soda
jerk and say, I saw an ad and a lot
(32:12):
of doctors are telling me. these smokes are perfect for asthma.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (32:18):
I love the idea of doctors taking smoke breaks, too.
I just, the concept of that is just really funny
to me.
Speaker 4 (32:24):
Or, like, you go to see the doctor, you're in, like,
you know, his, like, his little room with him and, like,
the nurse, and he's just, like, leaned over smoking on you,
ashing right above you.
Speaker 2 (32:31):
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. You could smoke in hospitals back
in the day.
Speaker 6 (32:35):
Oh, yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
In the waiting rooms, especially.
Speaker 7 (32:37):
Yeah. I mean.
Speaker 3 (32:38):
I think we're all, we're at, we're of an age
where we probably vaguely remember being able to smoke in airports.
Speaker 4 (32:43):
Oh, on, on airplanes. I remember the ashtrays being filled
with like the cigarette butts.
Speaker 2 (32:48):
Definitely.
Speaker 1 (32:48):
What you, uh, you real quick, Zarin, uh, Gut check.
You did fly on planes where you could smoke?
Speaker 4 (32:56):
Oh, yeah. It was much later than people remember because
the first time I flew was 1989. And there was
still cigarettes allowed in the plane in 1989. There was
a section. There was a smoking section. And the ashtrays
still had cigarette butts in them if you weren't in
the now new smoking section. So, yeah. And I also
remember in restaurants— people have in the smoking section and
there's like nothing there's wasn't like filtration and like you
(33:19):
get in casinos now instead it was just smoke wafting
over while you're eating your your you know your breakfast.
Speaker 3 (33:26):
Casinos, by the way, the last bastion of indoor smoking.
And they do have insane filtration systems. And now most
of them are moving away from, you know, just, you know,
open smoking to like they have one little casino room
with slot machines and, you know, where all the smokers go.
Speaker 1 (33:44):
Before we continue, Max, I see you, man. You're having
like 17 million ideas at once. What's going on?
Speaker 5 (33:51):
Okay, so I looked it up to back up Zarin's point.
1988 is when the ban of smoking on planes first
came in. It was for flights under two hours. And
then in 1990, it was banned on flights under six hours.
It wasn't until 2000.
Speaker 6 (34:12):
2000 is when it banned for all flights.
Speaker 1 (34:13):
So they're saying in 1988, they're saying, Well, you know,
two hours and one minute in the air. What the
hell are we going to do? Tell people not to smoke?
Speaker 2 (34:23):
Smoke up, Johnny.
Speaker 3 (34:24):
They're great.
Speaker 4 (34:25):
Got a bunch of jonesing passengers? No, thank you.
Speaker 6 (34:29):
So like you go to New York, you're screwed. But
you go into Seattle, absolutely light up.
Speaker 1 (34:33):
And Noel, you were going to say you traveled a lot.
Speaker 3 (34:36):
Oh, just when I was little, my mom was an
opera singer and she would be singing in different countries
and I would go and visit her. So I actually
flew by myself a decent amount when I was pretty little.
And I absolutely flew in the late 80s and remember
exactly what Zarin's talking about. And weirdly, even after the cutoff,
(34:57):
obviously they didn't just immediately retrofit those planes to get
rid of the ashtrays.
Speaker 4 (35:00):
Those ashtrays were around for years. Yes, totally true.
Speaker 1 (35:04):
It's like seeing signs at your local gas stations that
say unleaded only.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
Right. I want the leaded, man.
Speaker 1 (35:11):
Like at this point, what's going on?
Speaker 2 (35:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:15):
It's also, we also have to admit that around the world,
Smoking cigarettes is more normalized than it would be in California.
So you go to international airports, et cetera. There's always
that one little room, right? Good place to meet weirdos.
Speaker 2 (35:34):
That's for sure.
Speaker 6 (35:35):
It's a great place to meet weirdos.
Speaker 1 (35:38):
So we're going to pause here for a moment. This
is a two-part episode. We've got the entire week with Zarin. Zarin,
thank you so much. for coming on the show. Now, obviously,
through the magic of editing, you know everything that's going
to happen in episodes.
Speaker 2 (35:56):
That pause for a moment was several days for you
out there.
Speaker 4 (35:59):
Yes, pause for the cause. No, I'm stoked to be
part of this. Thank you all for having me.
Speaker 2 (36:03):
The best, man. So much fun.
Speaker 3 (36:04):
Huge thanks to Zarin, our guest. Huge thanks to Max.
Say no, just say no, Williams. Alex Williams, who composed
our theme.
Speaker 1 (36:14):
Big, big thanks to A.J. Bahamas Jacobs, a.k.a. The Puzzler.
A tepid I know what you did to Jonathan Strickland, a.k.a.
Speaker 2 (36:22):
The Quister.
Speaker 3 (36:23):
Ben, did you know that if you lick Jonathan Strickland's
bald head, nothing happens?
Speaker 6 (36:29):
I to the test. That is true.
Speaker 1 (36:31):
Well, thank you. Thank you guys for being first to
the post.
Speaker 2 (36:34):
You had to try.
Speaker 1 (36:36):
That's saving Zarin and I at a party for sure.
Speaker 4 (36:40):
Instead of getting high, you get nigh.
Speaker 1 (36:41):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (36:41):
Got to remember that. Exactly. He talks in a funny voice.
He does. He does.
Speaker 4 (36:47):
Oh, my gosh.
Speaker 1 (36:47):
And he listens just for the credits, Zarin, by the way. Also,
at the end of every episode, we love to shout
out Ridiculous Crime.
Speaker 3 (36:56):
And the Rude Dudes over at Ridiculous Crime.
Speaker 2 (36:58):
If you like us, you'll like them, is what Ben
will say.
Speaker 6 (37:00):
If you dig.
Speaker 1 (37:02):
Us, you will love the Rude Dudes. So Zarin, how
would you describe the show to someone who's never heard it?
Speaker 4 (37:09):
Well, as we always, we have our tagline. It's 99%
murder-free and 100% ridiculous. So it's true crime without the gore,
without the blood. And we focus on Much more of
like art crimes, book thefts, heists, forgeries, ridiculous scenarios, people
who think they're somebody that they are not, people who
pretend that they are somebody that they are not. And
(37:29):
it gets to the funny side of true crime.
Speaker 3 (37:32):
And it turns out there's more than enough of these
kinds of stories to sustain your podcast for many years.
Speaker 4 (37:37):
Oh, my goodness.
Speaker 7 (37:37):
Are there?
Speaker 4 (37:38):
It is a literal treasure trove. And they keep making more.
I mean, it doesn't stop.
Speaker 3 (37:44):
I just remember when we first started this show, I
was worried that we were going to run out of
silly history stories. And the more you do this kind
of thing, these podcasts, the more you realize that life
just creates more weird stories for you.
Speaker 2 (37:55):
Exactly.
Speaker 1 (37:57):
Hey, Zarin, real quick, what are you, Elizabeth, and Dave
working on next? Like, what's in the queue if you
got some spoilers?
Speaker 2 (38:04):
Oh, OK.
Speaker 4 (38:05):
Let's see. I just did one recently about the Black
Tuna Gang, which is a bunch of people who were
the pot smugglers in the Florida area who set the
precedent for the cocaine dealers and the cocaine era of
the late 70s and early 80s. So it turns out.
A bunch of like quasi hippies from the Philadelphia area
went down to Miami and introduced the idea of like,
(38:28):
you know, we need some go fast boats and we
need to go into these coves that nobody ever goes
to on the western side of Florida. And then we
can just spread this stuff around. We'll get a bunch
of big, nice houses. Nobody will look twice. It was
like most of what the cocaine people then said, you
know what? That's a great model. Let's do that. But
with a drug that's easier to move.
Speaker 3 (38:46):
Yeah, and also a little more innocuous and probably involved
a lot less, like, gun crime.
Speaker 2 (38:51):
Oh, God, yes. That was the big difference.
Speaker 4 (38:53):
Suddenly the murder rates went ratcheting up, and that's when
everyone was like, let's throw billions of dollars at stopping this.
Because before it was like, maybe we got, like, four
DEA agents in Florida, and now it's, like, you know, hundreds.
Speaker 1 (39:04):
I can't wait.
Speaker 2 (39:05):
I didn't know about that at all, Zarin. I can't
wait to check that out.
Speaker 1 (39:07):
Yeah, I can't wait to check that out. Thank you
again so much, Zarin, and everybody tune in later this week.
If you are feeling like an irritated reindeer or a
fussy baby, boy, do we have news for you.
Speaker 2 (39:22):
We'll see you next time, folks.
Speaker 3 (39:30):
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History News
Hosts And Creators
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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