People do use it as a drug (well they have, I don't think too many people do it though, especially not these days). Have you never seen/read Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas?
"We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a saltshaker half-full of cocaine, and a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers... Also, a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether, and two dozen amyls. Not that we needed all that for the trip, but once you get locked into a serious drug collection, the tendency is to push it as far as you can. The only thing that really worried me was the ether. There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge, and I knew we'd get into that rotten stuff pretty soon."
That's like saying marijuana isn't a drug....it's a plant.
drug
- a medicine or other substance which has a physiological effect when ingested or otherwise introduced into the body.
- administer a drug to (someone) in order to induce stupor or insensibility.
By those definitions it is indeed a drug.
And...
http://www.erowid.org/chemicals/ether/
"Ether is a volatile liquid that's vapors act as an anaesthetic when inhaled. It has been used both medically and recreationally since the late 1800s."
at dude who said it's an old timey drug. WTF drug was he thinking about?
