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An ancient vice

DRUG ADDICTION is not a modern age phenomenon for it seems even the ancients knew the pleasures of junkyism, claim scientists (The Lancet, Vol 341, No 8843).

Franz Parsche and his colleagues at the Institute for Anthropology and Human Genetics in Munich, Germany, examined hair and tissue samples taken from mummies found in Peru and Egypt and discovered the concentration of cocaine and nicotine in them matched that of modern German addicts.

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