
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, August 29, 1993                   TAG: 9308290141
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: LONDON                                LENGTH: Short

AT TURN OF CENTURY, ROYALS RECEIVED DRUGS

Members of the royal family and their guests were regularly supplied with cocaine, heroin and other narcotics while visiting the Scottish Highlands around the turn of the century, records published Saturday showed.

Evidence of the royal family's use of narcotics is contained in four ledgers, dating from 1897 to 1914, from A.R. Clark's drugstore in the village of Braemar, near the royal family's summer home, Balmoral, in northeast Scotland.

The records, published in the Aberdeen-based monthly Leopard, show that sleeping pills, bromides, chloroform and adrenalin also were supplied.

In 1906, Princess Louise received cocaine solutions and ointment.

In 1912, Winston Churchill, then a member of Parliament, was sold a cocaine solution while staying at nearby Invercauld House.

The Countess of Londesborough received a mixture containing heroin while staying at Braemar Castle.

The tiny drugstore was established in 1897, and was soon granted a royal warrant to supply medicines. The shop no longer exists, but the records were preserved by a woman whose husband took over the business in the 1960s.

- Associated Press

by CNB