In the 1950s, non-medical use of stimulant and sedative drugs was widely accepted and promoted in the mainstream media– so widely in fact that they even made it into a children’s Walt Disney 1951 comic book starring Mickey Mouse as a speed dealer who just loves his own product.
In ‘Mickey Mouse and the Medicine Man’, Mickey and Goofy try a new medicine called ‘Peppo’, representing a brand of amphetamine (speed). In a time of fierce commercial competition between pharmaceutical companies that helped drive amphetamine consumption higher, Mickey and Goofy become brand evangelists for Peppo and end up pushing the drug in Africa! While trying to hustle their product, the pair run into some drug rivalry with another local dealer, ‘the medicine man’, who has doped his entire village on “hash”.
You’ll have to read it to believe it, so get ready for a Walt Disney adventure with Mickey Mouse, or should I say Mickey Meth?
Read the full comic here
