Quaaludes Used To Be a Household Name, Where Has the Drug Gone?

Not that long ago, Quaalude was a household name. The medication was prescribed frequently in the '70s and '80s, where its widespread use did everything from helping people to get a better night's sleep to dealing with muscle pains. However, the drug quickly found another market, and it turned into a massive hit amongst the club crowd, who abused the medication while partying.

In fact, the illegal use of the drug was so rampant that it actually earned itself the nickname of "disco biscuits."

What happened to Quaaludes? And how did a drug that used to be heavily prescribed in both the U.S. and Europe (albeit under a different name) suddenly disappear from the public eye? You'll have to keep reading to find out.

Quaalude was the brand name used for the drug methaqualone. The medication was marketed as a sedative/hypnotic, which was prescribed for use in treating insomnia. It was also commonly used as a muscle relaxant and sedative in a medicinal setting, and it was popular from 1955 until around the mid-1970s, according to Wikipedia.

Unfortunately for the drug manufacturers in the U.S., Quaaludes rose to popularity with those looking to take the medication for off-label use, specifically when it came to partying. Quaaludes, which sometimes also went by the nicknames disco biscuits and ludes, found a second life in the club scene, and people began using the medication both recreationally and to excess.

Because of this, the brand developed a stigma and saw a waning popularity amongst non-recreational users.

Eventually, the drug manufacturers pulled the product from production in 1985, citing the compound's addictiveness and abuse among its reasons for nixing the popular medication.

Like other sedatives, these drugs worked by targeting gamma-aminobutyric acid receptors (GABAA), according to PBS. The compound would bind to these GABBAs in the central nervous system, which then sent inhibitory signals to the brain.

This is similar to how other drugs on the market work (including alcohol), but in the case of Quaaludes, the drugs would bind to different GABAA receptors than the ones still in production.

There are no exact replicas of Quaaludes on the market, according to the BBC, but there are some medications that can produce similar effects. Among them is the drug Rohypnol. Rohypnol is also known as the date rape drug because of its sedative effects.

As for street drugs, the BBC notes that there could be a few modern replicas of Quaaludes out there, but they wouldn't be manufactured using the same formula of Methaqualone since it is no longer in production.

Instead, any street drugs claiming to be Quaaludes or Quaalude-like are most likely made with a different formula using a combination of barbiturates.

According to PBS, those drugs can still be found in Mexico, where it is manufactured as part of the illegal drug trade, and then trafficked to both India and South Africa, where it's sold on the streets under a different name.