286 Methaqualone
vomiting, and diarrhea. Instances are known of methaqualone causing people
to act as if injury has occurred to nerves affecting the arms and legs. Poisoning
by methaqualone is associated with bleeding, and a case report revealed that
an overdose can even cause bleeding inside the eye. Research with rats
showed the drug impeded learning ability.
Although fatal overdose with methaqualone or any other drug is possible,
a 1983 study found that methaqualone users in that era were primarily dying
from accidents involving poor decisions while under the drug’s influence
rather than from the poisonous effects of the drug itself. Also, if someone is
intoxicated with the compound, driving skills are known to be impaired, an
effect that does not involve poisoning but can have serious consequences. A
study of emergency room admissions found that methaqualone poisoning
cases typically involved some other substance as well, a finding indicating a
certain recklessness among abusers. The same polydrug habit was observed
among methaqualone abusers in the U.S. Army during the 1970s. That finding
is unsurprising; most drug abusers use more than one substance.
The drug is fast acting, and persons unprepared for the speed with which
methaqualone takes effect have been injured while engaged in ordinary activ-
ity that becomes dangerous if a person passes out, such as taking a bath or
being near a fire. Methaqualone has the disturbing capability of causing flat
brainwave readings, a standard sign that medical caregivers rely upon to ver-
ify a person’s death and that could therefore cause them to stop efforts that
are keeping the methaqualone patient alive.
Abuse factors.In Europe methaqualone was initially a nonprescription item.
In the United States the drug was first put in Schedule V, but as methaqualone
became popular among illicit users seeking euphoria and relaxation, more
restrictions were placed on its legal accessibility. The drug became a Schedule
II substance in 1973. When President Jimmy Carter’s drug policy adviser Dr.
Peter Bourne wrote a methaqualone prescription that violated regulations, that
incident started a series of events that hounded Bourne out of office. Even-
tually concern about the drug grew so high that it was reclassified in 1984 as
a Schedule I substance having no recognized medical function.
One study found that patients using methaqualone against insomnia readily
changed to some other drug on advice from a medical practitioner; apparently
they did not find methaqualone particularly attractive. Tolerance and depen-
dence can develop, although one study was able to confirm tolerance only
among heavy abusers. Withdrawal symptoms are similar to those with bar-
biturates and can include weakness, nausea, vomiting, heartbeat abnormality,
tremors, seizures, and delirium tremens.
In the 1970s researchers surveyed college students who were using metha-
qualone, a broader population group than persons who have so much trouble
with the drug that they seek medical treatment. Survey answers showed drug
use to be the main difference between students who used methaqualone and
those who did not; as a whole the methaqualone users were ordinary people.
Investigators found that a cross section of Midwestern users had positive at-
titudes about themselves.
An exception to such a self-portrait emerged when someone interviewed
users who claimed to be using methaqualone as an aphrodisiac. They turned