British prime minister
Anthony Eden was prescribed Dexamyl; he was using it to treat abdominal pain. It has been suggested that the drug impaired his judgment during the
Suez Crisis. The failure of his Suez policies led to his ousting while he was recovering in
Jamaica. In Britain during the early 1960s the drug was taken by "tired housewives", and was also abused by youths who took excessively large doses and nicknamed the triangular blue tablets "purple hearts" or "blues." This became a celebrated part of the
Mod subculture. Dexamyl is the recreational drug of choice for the main character of the film
Quadrophenia, who eventually suffers from
amphetamine psychosis. Henry Grahn, a general practitioner from Philadelphia who also conducted a study on the usage and effects of Dexamyl among his patients, would pronounce the effectiveness of the drug with the quote “This is a Dexamyl age, an age of unrest; probably no other period in history has been dominated by a mood of uncertainty and disquiet.” A famous patient of
Sigmund Freud,
Sergei Pankejeff (also known as the Wolf Man), was supplied with these by
Muriel Gardiner from the United States which he, himself, felt was the only method for treating his depressive episodes. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Dexamyl spansules—a clear and green capsule containing green and white "beads"—became popular as a street-drug named "Christmas trees". In his autobiography
My Life of Absurdity, author
Chester Himes writes of his use of Dexamyl in the mid-1950s. He also writes that he stopped taking the drug after his friend Vandi Haygood died from "steady doses of Dexamyl".
George C. Nichopoulos was indicted in May 1980 for having improperly prescribed Dexamyl and
phenmetrazine (Preludin) to the singer
Jerry Lee Lewis, despite knowing he was addicted to them. Patrick A. Mazza,
team physician for the
Reading Phillies, said he prescribed Dexamyl,
Eskatrol,
Dexedrine, and Preludin for
Steve Carlton,
Larry Christenson,
Tim McCarver,
Pete Rose,
Larry Bowa, and
Greg Luzinski. The charges against Mazza were dropped after he contended that he had provided the prescriptions in good faith to the baseball players at their request. The pill was writer
Terry Southern's drug of choice for many years. == See also ==