20 Dangerous Things Teens Once Bought Without ID, No Questions Asked

Heroin was originally marketed as a cough medicine. In 1898, the German drug company Bayer, maker of aspirin, trademarked the name Heroin for diacetylmorphine. This compound had been resynthesized in 1897 by a Bayer chemist, Felix Hoffmann, as a more “non-addictive” version of codeine and morphine. Testing and its introduction were led by Bayer’s Heinrich Dreser. Heroin was sold freely in U.S. and European drugstores in elixirs, lozenges, and powders to treat coughs associated with bronchitis and tuberculosis. It didn’t require a prescription or a specific age. Then came tales of addicts getting hooked on heroin. In 1914, Congress began to curtail heroin sales, and by 1924, manufacturing of the drug in the U.S. was banned.

In 1950, Alfred Carlton Gilbert, creator of the Erector Set, released the U-238 Atomic Energy Laboratory kit, which contained an actual Geiger counter, a cloud chamber, a spinthariscope (a gadget used to observe the flashes made by alpha particles), and four vials of uranium ore. Anyone, young or old, could buy the U-238 at a department store for $49.50. It was never recalled for safety reasons. It was just too expensive, and it sold only to several thousand buyers before disappearing from the market.

Throughout the 1950s, surplus outfitters like Service Armament Co. and Golden State Arms advertised in gun magazines, selling off military surplus from World War II to anyone who had enough money to cover the price. They sold a Finnish Lahti anti-tank rifle that could shoot a 20mm round capable of punching through a tank’s armor for $99.95, and you could send them a coupon in the mail and have it shipped to your house via freight. There was no background check, no tax stamp, no need to prove you were of a certain age. It wasn’t until the passage of the Gun Control Act of 1968 that the federal government designated weapons like this as “Destructive Devices.”

From the late 1800s through the 1960s, commercial dynamite, fuse cord, and blasting caps were common farm and mining items, used to clear tree stumps and dig irrigation ditches. A farm teenager sent to the local hardware store to buy dynamite sticks with cash wouldn’t need an explosives license, a criminal background check, or a driver’s license to purchase the explosive product. Counter sales of commercial explosives ceased in 1970 with the passage of new federal legislation that brought these dangerous products under a permitting and record-keeping system.

Although William J.A. Bailey had no medical background, he sold Radithor, a tonic containing actual radioactive radium, to the public at drug stores and by mail order from 1918 to 1932, no prescription required. One industrialist, Pittsburgh’s Eben Byers, drank more than 1,400 bottles before succumbing to the effects of radiation in 1932. His high-profile death gave federal regulators their much-needed opening to crack down on radioactive patent medicines.

Asthmador, marketed by the R. Schiffmann Company, was available in the form of a loose powder or as pre-rolled cigarettes from the early 1900s to the 1960s. It was promoted as a rapid cure for asthma that one could purchase at any drug store without a prescription. Notably, there was no tobacco present. The substance was made of dried jimsonweed and deadly nightshade, both poisonous plants. It became popular in the 1960s with teens to smoke it as a means of producing hallucinations, but poisonings caused it to become a prescription drug.

In 1933, Smith, Kline & French began selling the Benzedrine Inhaler over-the-counter as a remedy for colds and hay fever. Each inhaler contained a paper wick saturated with 250 milligrams of amphetamine, a massive dose even today, and teenagers could buy it without a prescription. Benzedrine tablets were placed behind the counter, but the inhaler continued to be sold for another few years until Smith, Kline & French pulled it from the market voluntarily because of abuse by consumers. In 1959, the FDA banned all over-the-counter amphetamine inhalers throughout the nation.

In the early 1900s, Sears, Roebuck & Co. sold a complete car, the Motor Buggy, by mail order for $370 to $495. You’d mail the money to Sears and head down to the train depot where you’d pick up the crate containing the car. You’d fill the tank and drive away. No license, no title, no photo ID.

DDT was available to anyone from 1945 onward, in aerosol cans, dust powders, and liquid concentrates, with no license or ID required, at hardware and grocery stores. Teenagers could buy it to spray around the house, in the garden, or on crops without anyone asking a question. In her 1962 book, Silent Spring, marine biologist Rachel Carson wrote about its persistence in the environment and its effects on wildlife. Consumer use of DDT was banned by the US Environmental Protection Agency in 1972.

Seconal, made by Eli Lilly, and Nembutal, made by Abbott, were known as “goofballs” or “red devils.” At first, the federal government did not specifically require them to be dispensed only by doctor’s orders. The FDA printed a notice of that requirement in 1940, but it was rarely enforced. Up until 1951, a host of drug stores sold these pills without record or scrutiny. More overdose deaths led Congress to pass the Durham-Humphrey Amendment to the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act in 1951 to make the distinction between prescription and over-the-counter drugs clear.

From the 1800s to the mid-1900s, both pure strychnine powder and pure arsenic trioxide were standard farm implements used to protect grain against pests and kill rats. You could be a teenager running errands in town, hand over some bills, and purchase either one of these deadly compounds. Some pharmacies maintained a handwritten record of buyers of poisonous substances, but there was no government ID to prove that the buyer’s name on that page was actually their own. Following the passage of federal pesticide regulations, both compounds are now only obtainable by those who are authorized to use them.

From the late 1800s to the 1950s, liquid mercury was sold in tiny glass bottles in pharmacies and hardware stores. It was a bit of a novelty, a science experiment. Kids used it to turn copper pennies into silver pennies, or to do simple chemistry experiments. It was cheap, only a few cents, no age limit, no permit needed to buy toxic substances. It was eventually banned from sale as more and more was learned about the effects of mercury on the nervous system.

From the 1850s to 1937, major pharmaceutical companies such as Eli Lilly, Parke-Davis, and Squibb sold cannabis fluid extract and marijuana cigarettes for treatment of migraine headaches, neuralgia, and insomnia. Cannabis was included in the US Pharmacopeia, the official list of recognized medicines. The preparations were available in pharmacies for purchase by anyone over the counter without a prescription and without any age restrictions. This commercial market for cannabis was effectively ended by the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937.

The chemistry sets marketed by A.C. Gilbert and Porter Chemcraft in the 1920s through the 1960s were designed to inspire future scientists. Potassium permanganate, ammonium nitrate, iodine crystals, calcium carbide, and concentrated acids were available for purchase at toy and department-store counters with no ID check or parental oversight. These chemicals could be replenished with replacement packs. With increasing incidents of burns and domestic explosions, a series of federal safety laws passed between 1960 and 1969 forced these chemicals out of kids’ kits.

White lead made house paint opaque and durable. It was available at the hardware store as paint, powder, and paste well into the 20th century. A young apprentice painter or kid who just wanted to help out could walk into a hardware store and buy raw lead paint off the shelf without a permit, age check, or ID card. As the evidence linking childhood exposure to lead poisoning and brain damage mounted, the federal government banned lead paint for residential use in 1978.

Post-war surplus dealers were advertising demilitarized World War II-era relics ranging from hand grenades to mortar tubes to inert artillery shells in the back pages of magazines at prices ranging from about $19.95 to $29. No ID or pictures were required. Kids could send in a mail-order coupon to get one. Sometimes, though, they weren’t sufficiently deactivated, and weapons came with live primers or traces of explosive residue that could be set off. That prompted tighter explosives regulations in 1970.

Cigarette machines could be found in diners, filling stations, bowling alleys, train stations, and other public places since the 1920s. You put in some coins, pulled a lever, got a pack of cigarettes, and left. No cashier, no questions. And no age requirement and no ID, because there was no one to ask for an ID. Unattended vending machines were for decades one of the major sources of tobacco for underage buyers, before federal and state regulations brought the machines under tighter restrictions, limiting their use to controlled, adult-supervised settings.

Sulfanilamide was the first synthetic antibacterial drug to be marketed in quantity. However, the federal government didn’t require companies to test for safety before they put a new drug on the market. In 1937, the S.E. Massengill Company made a liquid version of the drug by dissolving the sulfanilamide in diethylene glycol, a highly toxic chemical similar to antifreeze. Over 100 people died from taking the drug. After these deaths, Congress passed a 1938 law that required safety testing and prescriptions.

Paregoric was a liquid preparation of opium, camphor, and other ingredients to treat cramps, severe diarrhea, and teething. Because its opium content was low, the Harrison Narcotics Tax Act of 1914 permitted pharmacists to dispense up to two ounces without a prescription, provided that purchasers recorded their names in a ledger. There were no photo IDs to cross-check signatures. In the 1950s and 1960s, teenagers started buying the drug for the morphine content, and in 1970 it was finally made available only by prescription.

Right up until 1968, you could still order a rifle through the Sears and Montgomery Ward catalogs. There was no distinction between a firearm and any other piece of hunting or farming equipment. A child could simply fill out the order form, mail a check, and have a gun shipped directly to their door. No questions asked, no ID required. In 1963, John F. Kennedy was assassinated with an Italian-made rifle that Lee Harvey Oswald had ordered by mail from a U.S. sporting goods company. When Congress passed the Gun Control Act in 1968, it made mail-order sales illegal.

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