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Comment by yboris | Hacker News Reader

The Spice Melange ...

While cocaine, opium, and others are considered "drugs" - they are in a sensible sense spices too.

Opium is exactly how Alexander "the Great" kept his army marching...likely it wasn't his original idea.

I don't know about refined cocaine, but coca leaf (either chewed or boiled as a tea) has been part consumed by the people of the Andes for thousands of years.

Same thing with chewing tobacco, its a stimulant and used by people all over the world

off-topic: If you like reading about the historical use of the coca leaf, opium, tea, tobacco, khat, coffee, etc, I really recommend the 1855 book "Plant Intoxicants". The book describes both historical and contemporary usage, but owing to its publication date it's all historical now.

You can buy this in most of this countries legally.

I love coca tea and coca wine.

Real coca leaves? I don't think so, whole plant is banned basically everywhere apart from few places in South america. Unless you mean something altered that has no real cocaine alkaloid, like drinks with marihuana 'extracts' / seeds that contain 0% THC.

Not that I agree with this, had my share of teas and chew in Bolivia (with what locals called 'activator', at least thats how miners did it in Potosi), apart from local lack of sense in gum/jaw there wasn't any real effect... no more than a regular coffee (which doesn't have any tangible effect on me, but I enjoy the taste & ritual).

But from plant you can make cocaine, so I get the logic. Funny thing is, some botanical gardens in Europe have the plant, not marked in any obvious way apart from latin name. I can confirm that it contained alkaloid, the numbing gum sensation was quite strong.

Instead of just food, they add flavour to life itself :) Nutmeg is even better, doing both at once (as noted in the article).

Jokes aside, reading that article with all the examples of the scarcity and cost of spices it brought to my mind the modern day trade of various drugs.

Not sure if I'm missing some kind of pop reference here, but taking this comment at face value... how are cocaine or opium considered "spices"?

Surely spices are for, well, spicing food?

I'm not sure if you've ever tasted cocaine or opium, but I'm told they are not at all pleasant - definitely not the kind of thing you'd add to food to improve flavour.

Capital "Spice" refers to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melange_(fictional_drug)

Hah, I loved reading the Dune books as a kid, but had forgotten the name "melange", only remembering it as "spice"!

Cocaine comes from coca leaves. If you have ever had a Coca Cola, you have tasted extract from the coca leaf, though with the cocaine (hallucinogen) removed.

Opium is found in poppy seeds which are used to top bread. Some US military members will refrain from eating bread with poppy seeds because it can cause them to fail random drug tests required by military service. This can potentially get you booted with a dishonorable discharge.

And professionals who are around medicines. And pilots. And people in other jobs subject to random testing (refinery/powerplant crews).

Hmm, so, I somewhat take your point about opium, although the flavour of poppy seeds is vastly different from the bitter taste of opium.

I've tried coca leaves in Peru (supposedly they help with altitude sickness; I didn't get altitude sickness, but who knows!) - they are used by locals because they are a stimulant, not because they taste nice (they're not particularly bad, a kind of generic "herbal" taste, but certainly nothing you'd purposely add for flavour).

Lots of people drink coffee for the caffeine and don't actually enjoy the flavor. Chocolate is quite bitter if you don't add a bunch of sugar to it.

Do they though?

Everyone I know who doesn't like coffee drinks tea (or more rarely yerba mata).

> Chocolate is quite bitter if you don't add a bunch of sugar to it

But it does at least have a very desirable flavour when some sugar is added (it really doesn't need "a bunch" :)

Opium is like the essence of bitterness - in flavour terms, it had no redeemable qualities whatsoever.

Why would they use such a sloppy test to justify a dishonorable discharge? Surely you must have some other priors...

Cocaine isn't a hallucinogen, it's a stimulant.

Cocaine is a central nervous system stimulant that can, under some conditions, be a halucinogen.

https://www.answers.com/Q/Is_cocaine_a_hallucinogen_stimulan...

It was originally part of the Coca Cola formula and was removed because it is the psychoactive ingredient. They still use coca extract in Coca Cola, but it no longer makes you high.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/cocaine-coca-cola/

It was removed due to cost and caffiene being more stimulating, and addictive. Looming regulations also played a part.

The amount in cola, or in any generally unrefined state, aka, not powder, is highly unlukely to have any psychoactive effects.

Unrefined coca is less stimulating. Seeing as refined cocaine was being used in products marketed to infants and children and well understood (by professionals at least) to be fantastically habit forming, I think the pivot to caffeine was somewhere between 99-100% influenced by the impending narcotics regulations.

"The Spice Melange" is a reference to the last episode of south park. Season 23, Episode 8 - "Turd Burglars"

It's a reference to Frank Herbert's Dune. Fantastic read, and you should get to it when you have time.

Could be either.

It's of course a reference to Dune but given the fact that the episode with this joke aired just days ago, there's quite a chance that OP was making a reference to South Park's "spice melange" (shit)

“He who controls the spice controls the universe.”

brain spices.

The spice must flow.

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