As for cocaine, Schultes wrote as recently as 1990, in a magazine article, that in Richard Spruces day it had been recommended in Western medicine as an excellent local anesthetic, and he added, It is still valuable, especially in ophthalmological and ear, nose, and throat surgery. He did feel constrained to explain, for the benefit of those unfamiliar with the nuances of narcotics, that it is the use of the purified alkaloidnot the aboriginal employment of the leaves or powder as a masticatory among South American Indiansthat may lead to dangerous addiction. And in 1972 he had asked, with a wistful eye to the future, Could we ever have dared predict that the intensely poisonous false hellebore, employed by certain North American Indians to choose a new chieftain through a dangerous and sometimes fatal intoxication of young braves, would yield a valuable hypertensive agent? NOW seventy-seven and retired from on-the-spot jungle research, Schultes lives in suburban Massachusetts

[55] There is little data about their safety, and a considerable variety of liquids are used as carriers, [56] and thus are present in the aerosol delivered to the user
The 5 As: (1) Ask about tobacco use
PMID 24330705