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October 29, 2020 12:05 PM Subscribe
Cocaine Ads of the 70s and 80s (slimgur)
(Hank Hill voice) Technically, these are not ads for cocaine, but ads for cocaine accessories.
(Hank Hill voice) Technically, these are not ads for cocaine, but ads for cocaine accessories.
What, no McDonalds coffee spoon?
posted by fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit at 12:30 PM on October 29, 2020 [9 favorites]
posted by fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit at 12:30 PM on October 29, 2020 [9 favorites]
I remember when I was a kid and went to state fairs or carnivals, I wondered why so many of the prizes were small mirrors with logos printed on them. They didn't seem big enough to see much of yourself in, and how could you do your makeup with an AC/DC logo in the way?
posted by Countess Elena at 12:47 PM on October 29, 2020 [31 favorites]
posted by Countess Elena at 12:47 PM on October 29, 2020 [31 favorites]
Also, DARE and Just Say No seem even stupider and more short-sighted when they came ten years or less after this kind of freedom.
posted by Countess Elena at 12:49 PM on October 29, 2020 [5 favorites]
posted by Countess Elena at 12:49 PM on October 29, 2020 [5 favorites]
Just Say No
Just Say Now. Someone I know took this product (which is amazing!) repackaged it and advertised in High Times, under the tag line: "Toot toot! You're good for more!". She made some pocket money on that.
This was back when you could buy explosives from the back of comic books, with more power than a stick of dynamite.
posted by StickyCarpet at 1:14 PM on October 29, 2020 [4 favorites]
Just Say Now. Someone I know took this product (which is amazing!) repackaged it and advertised in High Times, under the tag line: "Toot toot! You're good for more!". She made some pocket money on that.
This was back when you could buy explosives from the back of comic books, with more power than a stick of dynamite.
posted by StickyCarpet at 1:14 PM on October 29, 2020 [4 favorites]
They are all missed opportunities for a "Snort Cuts Without Short Cuts" tagline.
posted by meinvt at 1:33 PM on October 29, 2020
posted by meinvt at 1:33 PM on October 29, 2020
This is how we got The Star Wars Holiday Special, kids.
posted by bondcliff at 1:39 PM on October 29, 2020 [21 favorites]
posted by bondcliff at 1:39 PM on October 29, 2020 [21 favorites]
“Heroin reconsidered.”
posted by mhoye at 1:48 PM on October 29, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by mhoye at 1:48 PM on October 29, 2020 [2 favorites]
DO IT ORALLY WITH THE GASPER
this sounds like a cronenberg movie
posted by benzenedream at 1:52 PM on October 29, 2020 [2 favorites]
this sounds like a cronenberg movie
posted by benzenedream at 1:52 PM on October 29, 2020 [2 favorites]
The "snowstrain" is still sold today (with the cup, but not the pestle) as a tea strainer, the oblong shape supposedly to enable it to sit atop a cup or mug.
So, which came first? Was drug paraphenalia repurposed into a tea strainer, or vice versa?
posted by cheshyre at 2:24 PM on October 29, 2020
So, which came first? Was drug paraphenalia repurposed into a tea strainer, or vice versa?
posted by cheshyre at 2:24 PM on October 29, 2020
DO IT ORALLY WITH THE GASPER
this sounds like a cronenberg movie
And it looks like the front of my next t-shirt!
posted by The Card Cheat at 2:37 PM on October 29, 2020 [1 favorite]
this sounds like a cronenberg movie
And it looks like the front of my next t-shirt!
posted by The Card Cheat at 2:37 PM on October 29, 2020 [1 favorite]
Oh my; I thought that the vacuum-cleaner shaped coke straw wielded by Mona Ramsey in the first Tales of the City miniseries was a sly joke on the tackiness of the whole cocaine scene, but no — this gallery shows that The Hooter was a thing. Is a thing, if my image search is correct, alas.
Most of these images were ganked from a Daily Mail listicle. I feel no remorse about that.
posted by scruss at 3:00 PM on October 29, 2020 [2 favorites]
Most of these images were ganked from a Daily Mail listicle. I feel no remorse about that.
posted by scruss at 3:00 PM on October 29, 2020 [2 favorites]
>This is how we got The Star Wars Holiday Special, kids.<
Certainly how we watched it...
posted by twidget at 3:08 PM on October 29, 2020 [1 favorite]
Certainly how we watched it...
posted by twidget at 3:08 PM on October 29, 2020 [1 favorite]
What, no McDonalds coffee spoon?
I was surprised on of the jewelry pieces was for a pop-top. Which upon reflection makes sense, but I wouldn't have thought of using a pop-top as a spoon, but I was a kid when they were phased out.
posted by mikelieman at 3:27 PM on October 29, 2020
I was surprised on of the jewelry pieces was for a pop-top. Which upon reflection makes sense, but I wouldn't have thought of using a pop-top as a spoon, but I was a kid when they were phased out.
posted by mikelieman at 3:27 PM on October 29, 2020
Coke spoons and tooters made of ivory is the most destructive-yet-amazing part here to me. The past truly is a foreign country, even the rather recent.
posted by zinful at 4:10 PM on October 29, 2020 [6 favorites]
posted by zinful at 4:10 PM on October 29, 2020 [6 favorites]
I have no idea what the Blue Lady ad is trying to sell and I used to have bowls of cocaine Elton John 1977 style.
posted by geoff. at 4:21 PM on October 29, 2020 [6 favorites]
posted by geoff. at 4:21 PM on October 29, 2020 [6 favorites]
I remember when I was a kid and went to state fairs or carnivals, I wondered why so many of the prizes were small mirrors with logos printed on them. They didn't seem big enough to see much of yourself in, and how could you do your makeup with an AC/DC logo in the way?
That is a connection I was clearly too sheltered to ever figure out.
posted by Dip Flash at 4:51 PM on October 29, 2020 [4 favorites]
That is a connection I was clearly too sheltered to ever figure out.
posted by Dip Flash at 4:51 PM on October 29, 2020 [4 favorites]
Funny how they don't even try to be cagey about what these devices are used for, whereas the weed vapourizer I bought fifteen years ago came with a manual that said something like "...and this is where you put the, uh... lavender mixture."
posted by Crane Shot at 6:21 PM on October 29, 2020 [4 favorites]
posted by Crane Shot at 6:21 PM on October 29, 2020 [4 favorites]
"Approved by NASA (National Aeronoseical and Spaced Avocation)"
Stoner humor never gets old.
posted by Harvey Kilobit at 6:27 PM on October 29, 2020 [2 favorites]
Stoner humor never gets old.
posted by Harvey Kilobit at 6:27 PM on October 29, 2020 [2 favorites]
Well it took me awhile to figure this out. Blue Lady is an advertisement for Mannite Conoscenti used to cut cocaine. What doesn't make sense and what confused me about the advertisement is that obviously why would you want to cut cocaine?
Well this is really dating these articles because asking my friends why you'd want to cut cocaine and believe it or not there was a time in which it was so pure that you'd need to cut it to get it in powder form which also makes some of these other advertisements make sense -- especially about drying out cocaine. Ah the 70s where your biggest problem was how pure your coke was.
posted by geoff. at 7:58 PM on October 29, 2020 [8 favorites]
Well this is really dating these articles because asking my friends why you'd want to cut cocaine and believe it or not there was a time in which it was so pure that you'd need to cut it to get it in powder form which also makes some of these other advertisements make sense -- especially about drying out cocaine. Ah the 70s where your biggest problem was how pure your coke was.
posted by geoff. at 7:58 PM on October 29, 2020 [8 favorites]
"I sell cocaine and cocaine accessories..."
posted by Ian A.T. at 9:03 PM on October 29, 2020 [7 favorites]
posted by Ian A.T. at 9:03 PM on October 29, 2020 [7 favorites]
I remember when I was a kid and went to state fairs or carnivals, I wondered why so many of the prizes were small mirrors with logos printed on them. They didn't seem big enough to see much of yourself in, and how could you do your makeup with an AC/DC logo in the way?
Yeah, I didn't piece this one together until I was an adult, too. I was so confused about why my dad's surfer friends spent so much money and were so emphatically energetic trying to win some dumb looking mirror printed with a Led Zeppelin logo or something.
I also remember an incident about one day when my dad and brother and I were idling away a weekend visit making stickers on day glow paper for our bicycles, and since I had a Columbia branded bike I wanted a big sticker that said "Columbia" on it to put on the frame.
I was super confused about why my dad awkwardly said something like "Yeeeaah maybe pick something else your mom might not like it" and spending years half-sheepishly wondering why she wouldn't like the name of my bike.
posted by loquacious at 10:08 PM on October 29, 2020 [3 favorites]
Yeah, I didn't piece this one together until I was an adult, too. I was so confused about why my dad's surfer friends spent so much money and were so emphatically energetic trying to win some dumb looking mirror printed with a Led Zeppelin logo or something.
I also remember an incident about one day when my dad and brother and I were idling away a weekend visit making stickers on day glow paper for our bicycles, and since I had a Columbia branded bike I wanted a big sticker that said "Columbia" on it to put on the frame.
I was super confused about why my dad awkwardly said something like "Yeeeaah maybe pick something else your mom might not like it" and spending years half-sheepishly wondering why she wouldn't like the name of my bike.
posted by loquacious at 10:08 PM on October 29, 2020 [3 favorites]
Also that Lamborghini mirror is fucking hilarious.
posted by loquacious at 10:09 PM on October 29, 2020
posted by loquacious at 10:09 PM on October 29, 2020
Well this is really dating these articles because asking my friends why you'd want to cut cocaine and believe it or not there was a time in which it was so pure that you'd need to cut it to get it in powder form which also makes some of these other advertisements make sense -- especially about drying out cocaine.
David Carr described getting some really pure cocaine in "Night Of The Gun", and it was basically a big rock that you'd cut chunks off of. I think he was smoking it by then, so I guess there's then no need to cut it so you can even chop up yer lines. I'm glad I never got into it in a serious way, I don't think it would have gone well for me.
posted by thelonius at 10:43 PM on October 29, 2020
David Carr described getting some really pure cocaine in "Night Of The Gun", and it was basically a big rock that you'd cut chunks off of. I think he was smoking it by then, so I guess there's then no need to cut it so you can even chop up yer lines. I'm glad I never got into it in a serious way, I don't think it would have gone well for me.
posted by thelonius at 10:43 PM on October 29, 2020
As someone born in the 80s, I thought these ads were photoshopped until I read the comments here.
posted by fizzix at 4:58 AM on October 30, 2020 [4 favorites]
posted by fizzix at 4:58 AM on October 30, 2020 [4 favorites]
Shit, as someone born in 1970, I also thought these ads were photoshopped until I read the comments here.
posted by cooker girl at 7:03 AM on October 30, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by cooker girl at 7:03 AM on October 30, 2020 [1 favorite]
I'm so old I didn't have to wonder what the Blue Lady was selling.
@geoff, it wasn't that the coke was "too pure" and you had to cut it (though keeping it dry could be a problem if it was the really good stuff), it was more like if you got an ounce you could get straight-from-the-lab grade, and use the Blue Lady to make it into five quarters. Each of which you'd sell to somebody who might step on it again to make 10 grams.
Grams were $80-100 in 1970s dollars. People bought grams.
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 8:12 AM on October 30, 2020 [4 favorites]
@geoff, it wasn't that the coke was "too pure" and you had to cut it (though keeping it dry could be a problem if it was the really good stuff), it was more like if you got an ounce you could get straight-from-the-lab grade, and use the Blue Lady to make it into five quarters. Each of which you'd sell to somebody who might step on it again to make 10 grams.
Grams were $80-100 in 1970s dollars. People bought grams.
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 8:12 AM on October 30, 2020 [4 favorites]
In re: the "DARE and Just Say No so soon after this!" comments:
DARE and Just Say No were in large part because of stuff like what's in the gallery. Thirty-something Boomers with teenaged kids were freaking the fuck out in the late '70s, when Cheech and Chong were making mainstream movies and, in places like college towns, people just walked down the street in the daytime openly smoking joints. There's a notable story about a woman named Joyce Nalepka whose 14-year-old had a slumber party/backyard campout, after which Nalepka found roaches in the yard, and started what would be a 40-year crusade against reform of the pot laws. At least, the slumber party is the version I remember of her origin story, but I see two sources out there that mention going to a concert in the late '70s with her early-teen kids, and being horrified by the dope-smoking and booze-drinking. At any rate, she got a meeting with the Reagan Administration in the early days IIRC, and was instrumental in getting Nancy in front of the cameras to Just Say No.
It really was amazing, though, kind of a whiplash, going from "Carter would sign decrim if Congress would pass it" to "oh shit, Ronald Reagan is President and the idiot is making a serious effort to shut down the pot trade from Columbia!" In my opinion, this last was partly responsible for cocaine going from "expensive novelty luxury for rich white kids, entertainers, and successful criminals" to "community blight addictive mass-market commodity."
By cracking down on tramp freighters and C-47s loaded with bricks of commodity weed, Reagan's edition of the War on Drugs ensured the Columbians would look for something easier to smuggle. And cocaine was right there, and there was already a market where the goods were going for an incredible markup, compared to weed. This is where crack came from IOW.
At the same time it stimulated the development of domestic sources of weed, which culminated in the insanely-potent greenhouse indica hybrids that now make up the high end of the market.
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 9:00 AM on October 30, 2020 [12 favorites]
DARE and Just Say No were in large part because of stuff like what's in the gallery. Thirty-something Boomers with teenaged kids were freaking the fuck out in the late '70s, when Cheech and Chong were making mainstream movies and, in places like college towns, people just walked down the street in the daytime openly smoking joints. There's a notable story about a woman named Joyce Nalepka whose 14-year-old had a slumber party/backyard campout, after which Nalepka found roaches in the yard, and started what would be a 40-year crusade against reform of the pot laws. At least, the slumber party is the version I remember of her origin story, but I see two sources out there that mention going to a concert in the late '70s with her early-teen kids, and being horrified by the dope-smoking and booze-drinking. At any rate, she got a meeting with the Reagan Administration in the early days IIRC, and was instrumental in getting Nancy in front of the cameras to Just Say No.
It really was amazing, though, kind of a whiplash, going from "Carter would sign decrim if Congress would pass it" to "oh shit, Ronald Reagan is President and the idiot is making a serious effort to shut down the pot trade from Columbia!" In my opinion, this last was partly responsible for cocaine going from "expensive novelty luxury for rich white kids, entertainers, and successful criminals" to "community blight addictive mass-market commodity."
By cracking down on tramp freighters and C-47s loaded with bricks of commodity weed, Reagan's edition of the War on Drugs ensured the Columbians would look for something easier to smuggle. And cocaine was right there, and there was already a market where the goods were going for an incredible markup, compared to weed. This is where crack came from IOW.
At the same time it stimulated the development of domestic sources of weed, which culminated in the insanely-potent greenhouse indica hybrids that now make up the high end of the market.
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 9:00 AM on October 30, 2020 [12 favorites]
Thanks for that context, Aardvark, I appreciate it. I wished I knew more about the responses of the drug market to legislation, aside from the ineffectiveness of crackdowns and the increase in cartel wars and bad outcomes.
As I admitted in a Metatalk thread once, I've never smoked pot. When I was a wean, I believed what I was told by my teachers, because I was that kind of kid and I wanted to be Good. Then by the time I was a teenager and I had some nerve, I could also see that I would ruin my future just by trying drugs -- I was in a school where you had to avoid drugs entirely or face expulsion. (Or, of course, have enormously rich parents, which was not an option open to me.) And I was worried about my future, just as I was in college, and then I got brain problem situations, and now I can't try pot because of my meds. And so I must Just Say No forever.
I feel like we Xennials missed all the good parties. Too young to really enjoy the '80s and early '90s, too old for the foolishness in the 2000s.
posted by Countess Elena at 9:24 AM on October 30, 2020 [2 favorites]
As I admitted in a Metatalk thread once, I've never smoked pot. When I was a wean, I believed what I was told by my teachers, because I was that kind of kid and I wanted to be Good. Then by the time I was a teenager and I had some nerve, I could also see that I would ruin my future just by trying drugs -- I was in a school where you had to avoid drugs entirely or face expulsion. (Or, of course, have enormously rich parents, which was not an option open to me.) And I was worried about my future, just as I was in college, and then I got brain problem situations, and now I can't try pot because of my meds. And so I must Just Say No forever.
I feel like we Xennials missed all the good parties. Too young to really enjoy the '80s and early '90s, too old for the foolishness in the 2000s.
posted by Countess Elena at 9:24 AM on October 30, 2020 [2 favorites]
Loving how the manufacturer--or distributor, it's unclear--of the "no strain snow strain" coke strainer is American Paper Company, based in Santa Monica. I'm picturing a sideburned, wide-belted, plaid-jacketed Michael Scott and Dwight Schrute exclaiming"Baby, it's time to cash in on the coke game" and jumping headlong in to this wicked deviant world.
posted by Gordion Knott at 10:20 AM on October 30, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by Gordion Knott at 10:20 AM on October 30, 2020 [1 favorite]
"There's a lot of money in that white powder."
I say that to myself when I put Stevia in my tea every morning.
posted by kirkaracha at 1:59 PM on October 30, 2020 [2 favorites]
I say that to myself when I put Stevia in my tea every morning.
posted by kirkaracha at 1:59 PM on October 30, 2020 [2 favorites]
> I have no idea what the Blue Lady ad is trying to sell
Ankle splints.
posted by The corpse in the library at 3:52 PM on October 31, 2020
Ankle splints.
posted by The corpse in the library at 3:52 PM on October 31, 2020
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posted by ryanrs at 12:26 PM on October 29, 2020 [10 favorites]