People have long experimented with drugs.
Some of the earliest evidence of human drug use can be traced back to 8,100 BC. An archaeological dig in Asia uncovered cannabis seeds dating back to that time.
In the Western world, the experimental use of drugs for scientific purposes only gained momentum in the 19th century.
Author and cultural historian Mike Jay has researched how well-known doctors and scientists, such as Sir Humphry Davy and Sigmund Freud, got high in the name of science.
He describes these scientists as "psychonauts", a term coined by German novelist Ernst Junger, who wrote a futuristic novel in the 1940s about scientists who synthesised new drugs to explore the hidden reaches of the mind.
But not all of the experiments of the real life psychonauts that Jay discusses in his new book, Psychonauts: Drugs and the Making of the Modern Mind, led to sound advice.
Take Freud for example, who endorsed cocaine in the 1880s.
"At the early stage in his career — this is before psychoanalysis — [Freud] became very interested in cocaine," Jay tells ABC RN's Late Night Live.
It was at a time when cocaine started to become a popular pharmaceutical remedy.
"It was sold in pharmacies everywhere … as a cough medicine, as an antidepressant, as a pick-me-up sort of stimulant-like energy drink," Jay says.
"Freud was right at the beginning of this and writing papers describing what cocaine did. And he based this on his own experiments with it.
"He described the kind of euphoric sensation it produced. He talked about how good it was for helping him to work, for mental energy."
These experiments led Freud to become an advocate, endorsing various companies who used cocaine in their pharmaceutical products. And while the neurologist continued to take the drug in small doses from time to time, he was oblivious to how addictive it could be.
"Freud was a pretty sober, serious person ... When he'd taken one [dose], he didn't feel like taking another one. So he was totally blindsided when people started injecting huge amounts of it and going crazy," Jay says.
"When it became obvious a few years later that cocaine in large doses was extremely bad for you, then people pointed the finger back at Freud."
Discovering laughing gas
Other drug-related discoveries by scientists have stood the test of time.
In 1799, celebrated chemist Sir Humphry Davy gained notoriety after working as a chemist at a gas laboratory in Bristol. This is where he began experimenting with nitrous oxide, also known as laughing gas. At the time, people believed nitrous oxide to be poisonous.
"But he inhaled a bit and discovered, not only was it not poisonous, but it produced a rather pleasant sensation," Jay says.
"He carried on inhaling it and eventually had this disembodied experience where he found his mind … floating around in this dimension he'd never encountered before."
More than 200 years later, Sir Davy's discovery is still used as a medical sedative.
Then there's James Young Simpson — Queen Victoria's former physician — who also took a liking to nitrous oxide.
At the time, he was one of Britain's leading obstetric surgeons and delivered Queen Victoria's babies.
But, in the 1840s, he was also fascinated with the use of ether and nitrous oxide as anaesthetics.
"He adopted them very quickly. But he was convinced there had to be something better than ether, which is pretty rank [and] kind of petrol-smelling and very flammable," Jay says.
So in 1847, he experimented at home in Edinburgh with all kinds of different gases and solvents, including chloroform.
It was while sitting around his mahogany dining room table with friends that he discovered its effect on the mind. After inhaling chloroform, one by one they fell to the floor.
"They all went, 'Wow, this stuff really works,' and they just sat down to do it again."
Not long after that, he started using chloroform on Queen Victoria as a sedative during childbirth. According to Royal College of Physicians Edinburgh, Simpson "must be attributed with the discovery of the use of chloroform as an anaesthetic".
Different state of mind
There were doctors who believed that self-experimenting with drugs could help them gain insight into the troubled minds of their patients.
In the mid-19th century, Jacques-Joseph Moreau was working as a resident physician at a psychiatric hospital outside Paris. A lot of his work involved treating people suffering from delirium and hallucinations.
He had developed a fascination with hashish after he visited Egypt, where he'd witnessed people using it. Moreau believed in walking as far as he could in his patients' shoes, which led him to recommending hashish to other doctors.
"If you take a large dose of hashish, you can experience [hallucinations] yourself. And you get all these classic symptoms, the distortions of time and space, the paranoid ideation," Jay says.
"[Moreau] said, 'You know, we're trying to understand these states of mind, and we can't experience them … we could take a large dose of hashish and get a sense of what this is like, and then come back to reality safely'."
But by the early 20th century, many of the drugs Moreau and other "psychonauts" had been experimenting with became prohibited.
"This is actually the point at which the word 'drugs' as we've been using it emerges," Jay says.
In the 19th century, 'drug' simply referred to the medicine purchased at a pharmacy, he explains.
"Around the early 20th century, people start[ed] to recognise drugs as a problem, including, of course, alcohol. And this word 'drug' comes along and has all these negative connotations [like] dangerous drugs or addictive or often foreign drugs."
However, the use of drugs for medical benefits continues to interest doctors and scientists, particularly in Australia.
Recently the TGA approved the use of psilocybin and MDMA for treating depression and PTSD.
Some psychiatrists and psychologists in the field remain cautious, pushing for stricter regulations and thorough training when using drugs such as psilocybin.
But Jay says there's a current "wave of interest and fascination".
"Back in the original psychedelic era of the 1950s and 1960s, we started to introduce the idea that drug experiences might not always be bad, they might be beneficial, they might lead to personal growth, they might be therapeutic," Jay says.
"Psychedelics have detached themselves from this bigger stigmatised category of drugs and become something kind of futuristic and scientific."
Cocaine, laughing gas and other drugs can be addictive and have dangerous side effects, including a risk of permanent and irreversible damage to heath.
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