Quaalude

In England, it has been sold legally under the names Malsed, Malsedin, and Renoval. In 1965 Methaqualone and an antihistamine combination were sold as the sedative drug Mandrax by Rousell Laboratories.

At about the same time (1965) it was starting to become a popular recreational drug named mandies or mandrake. In 1972 it was the sixth best selling sedative on the market in the United States, where it was legally sold by the name of Quaalude, and "luding out" was a popular college pastime.


Effects
Usual effects include relaxation, euphoria, and drowsiness, also reducing heart rate, respiration, increased sexual arousal (aphrodisia) and parasthesias (Numbness of the fingers and toes).Larger doses can bring about respiratory depression, slurred speech, headache and photophobia (pain in the eyes when exposed to light).
An overdose can cause delirium, convulsions, hypertonia, hyperreflexia, vomiting, renal insufficiency, coma, and death through cardiac or respiratory arrest. Toxicity is treated with diazepam and sometimes other anticonvulsants.
Illegal use as a recreational drug
Quaaludes became increasingly popular as a recreational drug in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

The drug was more tightly regulated in Britain under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 and in the U.S. It was withdrawn from many developed markets in the 1980s, being made a Schedule I drug in the US in 1984.
Smoking methaqualone, either alone or as an adulterant added to various legal and illegal smoking mixtures, gained popularity in the United States during the mid-1970s.When smoked, methaqualone gives the user an immediate trance-like euphoria that quickly wears off. Smoking methaqualone pills can lead to emphysema and other chronic lung disorders, most notably talcosis.
South Africa
Commonly known as Mandrax, M-pills or buttons, it is not taken orally but is crushed and mixed in a pipe (or in the neck of a broken bottle) with marijuana.