The Low-Down On Sopors

Sopors, the drug for the young who think down, are the latest entry into the illicit pill sweepstakes. The name is both a specific brand of down, and a vague catchall used to describe Quaalude, Pararest and Optamil as well. Sopors have been on the legit market for about three years, on the illicit street market for almost as long; what is known about the genre the term represents is often matched by what isn’t.

The Physicians’ Desk Reference (PDR — it’s the bible of pharmacology for the medical profession and pill pushers alike) will confirm that sopors are a sedative and mild hypnotic agent, unrelated to most other sedative hypnotics. To a large extent, the clinical significance of the sopor (short for soporific, by the way) family’s differences from barbituates or glutethimide (the other common sedative hypnotics) has not been clearly demonstrated. The official function is to produce sleep or daytime sedation both of which, Quaalude kids can attest, they do well with or without prescription.

They aren’t addicting, of course, but both Sopors and Quaaludes present well-defined dangers to the amateur ingester. Pediatric use is, in terms of the medical profession at least, contraindicted, and operation of cars and other mechanical equipment is risky, if not downright suicidal. Besides that, use beyond three months is inadvisable and laboratory tests conducted on the usual pregnant rats revealed a definite link between large doses of Quaalude and skeletal abnormality in the offspring.

A representative of the Arnar-Stone Labs (the firm manufactures brandname sopors) indicated that much of the illicit traffic in Sopors may be traced to counterfeit operations outside the U.S. He cited microscopic differences in the “AS” (another street name) imprint, and conjectured that, regardless of what controls are initiated, widespread counterfeiting would render them useless. Unusually large orders for the round, white pills are checked for legitimacy, he continued, but once the drugs have left the plant there is literally no way that A-S can control the situation.

A spokesman for William H. Rorer (the manufacturer of Quaalude — which on the street is pronounced kwa-lude) painted a somewhat different picture. He stated that his company has no evidence to indicate counterfeiting, hijacking or any flagrant misdirection of shipment. The Rorer system of order surveillance involves an IBM summary control and despite the rise in street abuse, their figures show no dramatic baloon in sales. (Maybe the whole scam is being run out of somebody’s mother’s medicine chest?)

The Rorer spokesman guessed that the prime offenders might be doctors who over-prescribe, and pharmacists not strict enough in scrutinizing prescriptions. He indicated that were the current amphetamine controls extended to the sopor-related pills, the net effect would be little more than massive inconvenience for legitimate hypnotic users. “It’s a hell of a dilemma,” he understated. “Sleep is a disturbing problem for millions and millions of people. Such controls [as those on amphetamine] would place an administrative burden on doctors and a financial burden on patients who’d be forced to pay office visit fees simply to get their prescriptions extended. But we’ve got to try more controls than we’ve currently got.”

Both the official Quaalude spokesman and the certified Sopor spokesman indicated that under the law which authorizes them to give medical directions only to doctors, their hands are tied. “Drugs,” said the Rorer man, “are only a side-effect. It’s a problem of youth and I’m at a loss as to what to do. Have you got any answers?”