> There is evidence that psychoactive compounds have been used since at least 3000BCE in Mesoamerica. Looking into it it seems lead was first mined around the same time in Greece but the lead sweetener idea wasn't popular until the roman empire.
Well, the Wikipedia page says that lead was being used as a sweetener as late as the 1850s, and this page suggests that we have records of the practice going back to at least 160BCE, so "thousands of years" doesn't seem inaccurate?