Behind the High: 40 Interesting Facts About Recreational Drugs

Naloxone (Narcan) has become a mainstay of hospital emergency rooms and medical wards. It can be injected or sprayed up the nose and can stop/reverse a heroin overdose in under two minutes. It's so vital that the World Health Organization placed the drug on its list of essential medications in 1983.

27. Tim Horton (Canadian professional ice hockey player) died at the age of 44 while attempting to drive from Toronto to Buffalo at 4 am with twice the legal Blood Alcohol Level, multiple drugs in his system, no seat-belt, and the police chasing him.

28. Less than 5% of the world lives in the U.S., but Americans consume about 37% of cocaine in the world.

29. Owsley Stanley (American chemist) singlehandedly ignited the psychedelic scene in the 60s by producing over 1 million doses of LSD from a makeshift bathroom laboratory in Berkeley between 1965 and 1967.

30. Carrie Fisher was addicted to cocaine and survived an overdose during the filming of The Empire Strikes Back.

In Denmark, there are facilities called "fix rooms" letting addicts inject a certain type of drugs under supervision.

32. When the makers of OxyContin were sued by Kentucky over the drug, a survey was run to see if a jury would be impartial. Almost 40% of residents knew someone with criminal trouble because of the drug, 33% said they knew someone who overdosed/was seriously hurt, and 29% knew someone who died.

33. In 1990, a police department in Michigan staged a fake wedding with undercover cops acting as the bride and groom and invited local drug dealers to attend. At the reception, they busted them all at once.

34. Coca-Cola still uses coca leaves in its syrup, and there is only one factory in the US with the unique DEA license required to remove the cocaine.

35. In 2013, a man named Romano Dias died after drinking $54,000 worth of methamphetamine, after mistaking it for fruit juice.

Anti-inflammatory drug Ibuprofen can neutralize a cannabis high and potentially eliminate short-term memory loss associated with cannabis use.

37. In 1972, 8 people accidentally snorted LSD at a party thinking it was cocaine, resulting in doses roughly 1000 times higher than normal. All recovered fully within 12 hours.

38. In 1969, Willie Nelson ran into a burning house to save his guitar, and a pound of Cannabis.

39. Drug overdose deaths, driven largely by prescription drug overdose deaths, are now the leading cause of injury death in the United States surpassing motor vehicle crashes.

40. According to the FBI Director, the FBI is having a hard time filling positions to help tackle cyber crimes because a lot of the nation’s top computer programmers and hacking gurus are also fond of marijuana.