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Happy pills

Posted by ESC on March 27, 2009 at 20:55

In Reply to: Happy pills posted by Mark Walker on March 27, 2009 at 14:07:

: I look for the origin of the term 'happy pills'.

I first heard it in the 1990s referring to students at the local middle school and high school who were on meds. Found this:

happy pill -- 1950s+ tranquilizer or stimulant. happy juice -- 1920s-1950s. Good humour arising from alcohol or drug intoxication.
happy stuff - 1920s. Cocaine.
Cassell's Dictionary of Slang by Jonathon Green (Wellington House, London, 1998). Page 562.

happy dust or powder -- cocaine. Early 1900s to present. "Slang and Euphemism: A Dictionary of Oaths, Curses, Insults, Ethnic Slurs, Sexual Slang and Metaphor, Drug Talk, College Lingo and Related Matters" by Richard A. Spears (New American Library, Penguin Putnam, New York, Third Edition, 2001)Page 169.

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