Drugs and medicines have always been with us.  Where there were plants with psychoactive properties, there were people willing to use them, for pleasure or relief, or to kill.

Recorded history is filled with descriptions of potent psychopharmaceuticals, but some have been outstanding.  Alcohol has been nearly universal in use, and was already presenting itself as a problem among ancient Greeks and Romans.  There are records of cannabis use in the ancient Middle East.  Opium was known to the ancients, but seems to have been restricted to medicinal use.  Hemlock was certainly known -- Socrates met his death with a cup of hemlock.

More exotic substances were also available.  An extract of the nightshade or belladonna plant called atropine was used everywhere from Rome to India as a poison -- and as a cosmetic device:  women sometimes put a drop of weak solution in their eyes to dilate their pupils!  It is still used for the same reason today by eye doctors.

Another favorite was the extract of the foxglove plant, called digitalis.  A powerful poison, it was also used to treat various ailments.

And mushrooms provided many of our ancestors with interesting hallucinogenic experiences (and serious illnesses!).  Some believe that the holy drink of the ancient Aryans mentioned in the Vedas -- soma -- was a concoction involving mushrooms.