BBC Sherlock Fan Forum - Serving Sherlockians since February 2012 » Drugs

Sherlock Holmes · February 17, 2012 12:00 am

In the original stories Sherlock takes opium...it's hinted at in these stories that modern Sherlock has also had experience with drugs or has had a habit in the past:

1. the drugs bust in Study In Pink..and John says "he doesn't take drugs" etc and Sherlock's like "john...shut up".
2. in Scandal when Sherlock and Mycroft are in the hospital, Mycroft gives Sherlock a cigarette then rings John and I'm pretty sure this is a reference to drugs, and that they're worried Sherlock will "fall off the wagon"...John says something like "are you sure this is a danger day?"

I think those are the only references to it...anyone know anything more about it or what drugs it's supposed to be that he was on?

angelwings9 · February 17, 2012 2:53 am

i think those are the only refs but i'm hoping they'll be many more in the next series, its nice to see Sherlock being human. in the books he was also a user of Coke so perhaps that's something the new series will carry on as it's so readily avaliable. he obvously likes stims due to the nicotine patches - i tried them , blimey what a stim! and it makes sense that he'd want to make his mind sharper & quicker for a time. xx

Sherlock Holmes · February 17, 2012 1:15 pm

Yeah, I should imagine he'd be into stimulants and "uppers" rather than say marijuiana that makes you dopey.

kazza474 · February 17, 2012 1:26 pm

If you listen to the commentary ( I think it's the Scandal one) it is explained there about how the whole drugs idea has been blown out of proportion.

kazza474 · June 15, 2012 11:28 pm

I've been thinking of posting this for ages but kept forgetting where the thread was.

To explain fully the drug use issue, please read this link. I know people don't like to click on links here but for copyright purposes I am not going to post all of the article here.

http://www.siracd.com/work_h_cocaine.shtml

An excerpt to summarise though would be sufficient I feel:

Today we understand the horribly addictive qualities of cocaine. However these stories were written in the late 1880s. At that time cocaine was a new drug. It was used as a local anesthetic and as a nerve tonic. Cocaine or cocaine derivatives were used in throat lozenges, gargles, wines, sherries and ports. It was thought to be perfectly harmless.

Also at the time these stories were written artists were expected to have addictions. And certainly Sherlock Holmes was an artist skilled in the art of deduction. Holmes played the violin, kept his tobacco in a Persian slipper and had a cocaine addiction to help him "escape from the commonplaces of existence.

Please take the time to read the whole article however, it's short but very good.

Davina · June 16, 2012 7:35 am

So he could live somewhat of a Bohemian existence.

hypergreenfrog · June 16, 2012 12:32 pm

The article is very good, thank you for posting the link.
I also remember reading somewhere that for the modern adaptation, the writers figured that because of the different public perception of drug taking, they could not show Sherlock actually sniffing coke or doing other drugs. Viewers today would consider it a weakness, rather than a slightly eccentric, exotic habit, that ACD intended it to be.
But I think Moffat and Gatiss wanted to stay as close to the original as possible, so they decided to include the "drug habit past" and the nicotine patches.

hepzibah · June 16, 2012 3:53 pm

Love is the drug and I need to score. - Bryan Ferry

Words to live by

Last edited by hepzibah (June 16, 2012 3:53 pm)

Davina · June 16, 2012 3:58 pm

Bryan Ferry...sigh. This now belongs In the music topic....

kazza474 · June 16, 2012 10:02 pm

hypergreenfrog wrote:
The article is very good, thank you for posting the link.
I also remember reading somewhere that for the modern adaptation, the writers figured that because of the different public perception of drug taking, they could not show Sherlock actually sniffing coke or doing other drugs. Viewers today would consider it a weakness, rather than a slightly eccentric, exotic habit, that ACD intended it to be.
But I think Moffat and Gatiss wanted to stay as close to the original as possible, so they decided to include the "drug habit past" and the nicotine patches.

Yes, very true.
Not only would it be irresponsible for them to portray drug use, those drugs have changed over time. Today's drugs are more powerful. more dangerous than they were back then.

Thr whole drug thing then was more of an experiment. Today it is simply a cruel habit.

Sentimental Pulse · June 20, 2012 10:11 pm

Sherlock Holmes wrote:
Yeah, I should imagine he'd be into stimulants and "uppers" rather than say marijuiana that makes you dopey.

He is too skinny to be smoking pot. He'd be getting "the munchies" if he did

Sentimental Pulse · June 20, 2012 10:13 pm

We need him to be a cocaine user or we are insulting and disrespecting the canon, which none of us would want

Wholocked · June 20, 2012 11:56 pm

Sentimental Pulse wrote:
We need him to be a cocaine user or we are insulting and disrespecting the canon, which none of us would want

I disagree, and in fact Moftiss have also covered this which Kazza has touched on. They chose to have him addicted to smoking rather than cocaine because smoking cigarettes is today's equivalent of what using cocaine meant at the time that ACD wrote the stories.

Remember that the BBC Sherlock is not just taking the canon as is and dumping it into modern day. It's about finding modern day equivalents to the cases, issues, concepts etc that are used in the canon.

So they do actually have him "be a cocaine user" in that they have decided the modern equivalent to what using cocaine meant in the 1880s was to have him be a cigarette smoker today.

Make sense?

Sentimental Pulse · June 21, 2012 12:38 am

Wholocked wrote:
Sentimental Pulse wrote:
We need him to be a cocaine user or we are insulting and disrespecting the canon, which none of us would want
I disagree, and in fact Moftiss have also covered this which Kazza has touched on. They chose to have him addicted to smoking rather than cocaine because smoking cigarettes is today's equivalent of what using cocaine meant at the time that ACD wrote the stories.

Remember that the BBC Sherlock is not just taking the canon as is and dumping it into modern day. It's about finding modern day equivalents to the cases, issues, concepts etc that are used in the canon.

So they do actually have him "be a cocaine user" in that they have decided the modern equivalent to what using cocaine meant in the 1880s was to have him be a cigarette smoker today.

Make sense?

I am sorry Wholocked. You wasted a wonderful thoughtful post on my inability to draft witty recognizable sarcasm. Sorry youi took me seriously. I was just teasing the strict canonites. I agree. 19th century cocaine use is to modern cigarettes as Victorian lack of expressed emotion is to modern man with emotional baggage.

sherlockskitty · June 21, 2012 1:47 am

In the ACD stories and the time period, SH was a morphine/cocaine user. sometimes he did dabble in opium, such as in the story THE MAN WITH THE TWISTED LIP. AS Others have pointed out, those drugs were new and legal at the time.

In today's london, I know from family and friends who live there that smoking is banned in most places, just as it is for USA. But, I think the writers wanted to keep that 'drug habit' of Sherlocks in the televised series, so they found VERY clever ways to insert the references into their dialogue, and they wanted to stay true to ACD as much as possible. 'I need something 7 % stronger than Tea!!' They just didn't want to SHOW him doing it. As for the nicotine patches, well....they HAD to put that one in there, and I guess the censors at BBC allowed it. "well, it's a 3-patch problem".

Besides, smoking and drug use is no longer allowed on most tv programs, so all they can do, is make references to the fact. And I for one LOVE how the writers are doing this show.

Last edited by sherlockskitty (June 21, 2012 1:56 am)

kazza474 · June 21, 2012 3:13 am

This is good to see that people understand how this drug issue has been translated from then to now. I don't feel like I'm on an island on this one.

And Sentimental Pulse, I kinds figured you may have been joking , but honestly if you've seen as much as I & others have ever since Feb this year, you'd understand why we sometimes 'miss' the joke part.
There have been some wild ideas floated around, lol.

Skitty, Sherlock DOES smoke at the morgue remember, and Henry Knight does at the start of Baskerville.
I'm sure there may be a few other times, I will have to think about that now.

**warning** This is simply a point of curiosity, in no way am I suggesting that smoking a cigarette has any hint in it relating to the unsolved Reichenbach Fall episode. I do occasionally think of other things besides solving the 'problem.**

imane nikko · June 21, 2012 3:26 am

I wonder... if cocaine and heroin were so new, perhaps modern Sherlock would have experimented with qat and salvia. Or maybe Ritalin.

kazza474 · June 21, 2012 4:05 am

imane nikko wrote:
I wonder... if cocaine and heroin were so new, perhaps modern Sherlock would have experimented with qat and salvia. Or maybe Ritalin.

No.
The difference with drugs then & now, in whatever form is that today's society has an addiction to be extreme in everything. (Don't get me started on that one, but it is true believe me). So ANY drug use these days when it is not prescribed legally will turn into drug abuse. And to portray drug abuse is something that is NOT along the lines of the canon.

imane nikko · June 21, 2012 4:15 am

I don't know. Use of Ritalin and similar drugs is very common in fields that require extensive concentration on small details. Med students, researchers, etc. are notorious for using chemical aids to assist in their work. And Sherlock's reaction to John's disbelief in the "drug bust" scene indicates that even if he was not addicted, he certainly has experience with drugs other than nicotine.

kazza474 · June 21, 2012 4:19 am

imane nikko wrote:
I don't know. Use of Ritalin and similar drugs is very common in fields that require extensive concentration on small details. Med students, researchers, etc. are notorious for using chemical aids to assist in their work. And Sherlock's reaction to John's disbelief in the "drug bust" scene indicates that even if he was not addicted, he certainly has experience with drugs other than nicotine.

The jury is out on whether or not Sherlock dabbles in anything.
And as for researchers/med students etc I don't quite follow you. I am hoping you are saying they use these drugs in legitimate experiments that have been sanctioned by the authorities. Yes?