Fascinating and frightening facts and legends.

• Position: Drugs - Narcotics - Brief Article - Statistical Data Included

Illegal Drugs: A Complete Guide to Their History, Chemistry, Use and Abuse, by Paul M. Gahlinger, published by Sagebrush Press, includes a number of facts and anecdotes concerning drug use through the ages. Typical are the following:

* The U.S. has four percent of the world's population, but consumes 65% of its supply of hard drugs.

* Drugs were used by the Neanderthal people long before modern humans had evolved, as shown by archaeological remains discovered in the Shanidar cave in Iraq dated to 50,000 years ago.

* Some biblical scholars claim that the Bible makes reference to marijuana and that the manna mentioned in Exodus may have been a hallucinogenic mushroom.

* More than 4,000 plants yield psychoactive substances. About 60 have been in constant use for thousands of years.

* Founding Father Benjamin Franklin died while addicted to opium, which he had started taking for his gout. During colonial times, opium dependence was considered to be mostly harmless, like addiction to tobacco.

* In 1848, the first practical hypodermic needle was invented. This device was followed, not long after, by the first morphine addict--the wife of the inventor.

* Author Robert Louis Stevenson used cocaine for inspiration and is said to have written The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in a single six-day-and-night binge. The story of a talented physician turning into a crazed madman may have been an early glimpse of cocaine psychosis.

* World War I veteran addicts scrounged for money to buy drugs, often picking...