Introduction
This is the first in a series of articles, touching on some highlights and alternating perspectives of the War on Consciousness or the War on Drugs depending on your perspective 😉. Over the past 60 years, as in any time in history our collective thoughts splinter and go in many directions. The case of drug use, and its effects are no different. In no way is this all of the perspectives and factors, but an attempt to tell some parts of this tricky narrative.
Drug Beginnings
First lets decide on what are drugs?
A drug is any substance that affects the psychology or physicality of the mind/body. These can be legal ( Coffee, Alcohol, Tobacco, Nootropics ) or illegal ( Cannabis, Psilocybin, DMT, MDMA ) also they can be medically prescribed (Fentalyal, Methadone, Xanax, Adderall).
Drugs have been used many different cultures for thousands of years. For example, the cultivation of cannabis seems to swim back through the millennium to the formation of civilization itself. Some 10,000 to 12,000 years ago. Now if you have read the work of Graham Hancock or others like him, you will question this date. More of that in a different post. Following the mainstream model it seems we have been seeking intoxicating substances back into the Archaic time of pre-history. Is it only humans that seek such intoxication? There is mounting evidence that many other species inhabiting the pale blue dot seek out intoxicating substances.
Such as cats, dolphins, deer, cows, and many others.
What conclusions can we draw from this,seemingly many forms of carbon based life like to get intoxicated. Surprised they haven't turned that into a beer commercial of some sort. Maybe to you that seems (logical), but if you subscribe to a mechanistic reductionist viewpoint of the world it can be a bit jarring. A hypothesis might be that through the sheer immensity of opportunity that these type of outcomes are bound to transpire. Given our current western model of drug education, through programs such as "DARE". That teach a template of absence starts to stand on wobbly legs.
Disclaimer
My case I am making, is not trying to make small the serious nature of mind and body altering substances. The pain caused by addiction and other such possibilities.
Moving forward.
I think the most logical place, to explore next is cultures and peoples that continue a strong relationship with mind altering plants or (Drugs) depending on your perspective. These groups, continue to this day to live a shamanic, hunter gatherer lifestyle. And have done so for the past several thousand years. For some people, these examples, studies and anecdotal evidence produced by the indigenous groups, and westerners who have studied with them. Was mostly discounted by the main stream of science after the duality split from the enlightenment period going forward. The lense of (European) modernism viewed them as, lets say not as advanced, to put it extremely mildly. You do not have to reach far back into the text books of history to see how indigenous groups worldwide have faired when coming into contact with cultures of higher technological progress.
Coming in the next post
Shamanism
Notes
If you enjoyed this post or disagree with it or perhaps have something you would like to add to the discussion. Your comment is welcomed. I will be getting into more modern times, in the coming posts, but feel it is important to paint the timescale of this narrative.
Have a wonderful day
Murph