Our earth is covered with plants of all sizes. Some large, some small, some colorful, and some drab. However, one cannot deny that these plants have played a considerably large role in shaping human society and culture as we know it today. As long as there has been humankind, there have been plants for some purpose. Whether it is for food, medicine, religion, or recreation, plants have contributed in innumerable ways to the world. Ethnobotany is the study of just that: how plants have interacted with people. However, one should delve deeper into a more specific aspect of ethnobotany: tunnel into the past, and discover the relationship between psychoactive plants and how they have come to shape today’s modern drug culture. Most of the substances which have come to be part of today’s drug culture were once entheogens, or plants whose purpose lies in shamanistic or religious acts, though not all are. Some plants, as mentioned previously, may have been used as remedies or for recreation.
Marijuana
Possibly one of the most well known psychoactive plants in the world is marijuana, or cannabis sativa and cannabis indica. Consumption of marijuana has been dated back as far as 3000 B.C. when archeologists found the burnt remains of cannabis seeds inside a ritual brazier within a burial ground in modern day Romania (Wikipedia Cannabis). Although it is uncertain to what use the substance had to the culture, it is certain that this is the earliest discovered usage of inhaled marijuana smoke. Some 3000 years prior, the cannabis plant had been used as a spice and as textile in ancient China (Wikipedia Cannabis). Regardless of its non-psychoactive uses, for the next five thousand years marijuana would come to spread across the globe and hundreds of cultures, each providing their own use for it. The most noted users of the cannabis plant are the Hindu cultures from India. The Hindu religious texts, the Vedas, even include accounts of cannabis usage, and some scholars presume that marijuana may have been one of Hinduism’s sacred substances known as soma. However, the Hindu cultures were not the only ones to have included cannabis as part of their religion and culture. Ancient Norse cultures, Muslims, ancient Hebraic cultures, and even modern Rastafarian practitioners include marijuana and hashish as an integral part of their customs (Wikipedia Entheogen).
Although cannabis has undergone few transformations through the ages, it has deeply and profoundly changed our modern society. When one thinks of popular drugs, one of the first to come to mind is undoubtedly marijuana. This notoriety is due in large part to the anti-narcotic movements of the 1930s. Since then, marijuana’s psychoactive effects and ease of cultivation have allowed the plant’s usage to flourish within numerous subcultures. Cannabis has become so entangled with society that it is doubtful that it will ever be removed: it has already affected modern music, movies, humor, laws, and for some individuals, how free time is spent.
Cocaine
Not all plants have become popular in their natural state like marijuana has. One such example is Erythroxylon coca, or more commonly, the coca leaf. This plant, which is native to South America, was frequently chewed by the indigenous cultures of the region for general anesthesia and relief from fatigue. To the Incan culture, the coca plant was a gift from the gods, and was commonly buried with mummies as early as 3000 years ago (Wikipedia Cocaine). For a considerable amount of time, the coca plant remained isolated from the rest of the world, that is, until the Spanish began their conquests in South America. Upon the discovery of its excitatory effects, the Spanish began to trade the plant and apply a 10% tax to all trade of the coca leaf in the region.
Unlike marijuana, the popularity of the coca plant wasn’t widespread until the isolation of its active alkaloid, cocaine, was achieved in 1855. Once cocaine had become popular, it was used for and as part of a great deal of things. Most frequently was cocaine used for medicinal purposes: it was used to treat sores, headaches, menstrual pains, and even morphine addiction.
It was not without recreational usage though; even Sigmund Freud advocated cocaine usage, claiming it induces “exhilaration and euphoria” along with “an increase in self-control and vitality” (Wikipedia Sigmund Freud). Much later in the United States, racial tensions between the white and the black population grew to a boiling point. One of the grounds of attack taken against the black population was the illegalization of cocaine in 1914 with the passing of the Harrison Narcotics Tax Act. The banning was based and backed by claims that “most of the attacks upon the white women of the South are the direct result of a cocaine-crazed Negro brain” (Wikipedia Cocaine). It wasn’t until the 1980s that cocaine caught the population’s attention with the debut of crack cocaine, a smokeable form of cocaine. Cocaine and crack cocaine now come to symbolize the harsh addiction side of the drug usage due to its high rates for substance abuse. It has been estimated that more money is made annually in the black market for cocaine and crack, an estimated $75 billion, than money made by some large companies like Starbucks (Havoc Scope). Because of the coca plant’s inability to be grown in most regions, a large part of this money ends up in South America, helping to grow and expand the international drug market.
Opium
In today’s culture, there are three main ethnobotanicals which have shaped our current drug culture: cannabis, the coca plant, and papaver somniferum, more commonly known as opium. Not only is opium one of the oldest known medicinal ethnobotanicals, but it is also one of the most diversified in the modern era. Opium usage is arguably one of the oldest examples of ethnobotanicals in existence, with its usage dating back to 4200 B.C. and its cultivation dating back to 3400 B.C. (Schiff). The medicinal effects of opium were quite obvious to ancient cultures, as were the plant’s potential to induce euphoria. It is not until the widespread usage of opium in China during the 15th century A.D. that opium abuse became more prevalent (Schiff). Originally reserved for the wealthy, elite, and medical practitioners, opium, with time, grew to be more common and accessible by all walks of life. Opium abuse began to grow as international trade increased. First was Southeast Asia, then Great Britain, then gradually the United States via Chinese immigrants. The abuse of the poppy plant’s euphoric sap caused a great deal of internal struggle within China and caused tension with the British for continuing their opium trade. Eventually, the struggles reached a head with the Opium Wars, where the United Kingdom continued to smuggle opium into China despite the nation’s laws against opium usage (Levinthal 120-123). Problems like these would continually reemerge in the upcoming centuries, most notably during the Vietnam War.
Although opium had been used recreationally for centuries, it wasn’t until the invention of injectable morphine in 1853 and heroin in 1874 that widespread opiate misuse gained an international foothold. Previous to this, the smoking of opium as a pastime was regarded as barbaric because of its association with the Chinese culture. With these two new injectable substances, the average person felt that they could indulge in euphoria without stooping to barbarism.
As worldwide knowledge of chemistry increased, so did the number of opiate derivatives. By the 20th century, there were over 10 forms of opiates, and in modern times, there are over 50 opiates and opiate derivatives (Leventhal 136-139). With the rise of modern medicine, and society’s growing need for “quick fixes,” it is no surprise that prescription drug abuse began to incline. Its also is little surprise that opiate painkillers are the most commonly abused prescription drugs (Meadows). Of all the ethnobotanicals, opium is one of the few plants more closely linked to medicine than religion or tradition. It is because of this that opium has stayed readily available for misuse and abuse internationally.
In Search of Legal Ethnobotanicals
It is quite awe inspiring that just these three plants – marijuana, coca, and the opium poppy – and their respective derivatives, have generated and continue to provide the support for the international and local black drug market. Each is exemplarily of the different facets of drug use, from the recreational high, and the horrors of dependence, to the oblivion of abuse. Each of these plants has all been considerable parts of cultures throughout history and continues to shape modern cultures and society. Ignoring the direct social effects of these drugs and their contributions to the black market, they all share a common factor: illegality. The illegal nature of these substances has caused quite an unexpected stir within today’s modern culture: there are now groups and subcultures who seek the thrill and exhilaration of highs through legal means, and once again turn to ethnobotany for a solution. It is interesting to think that the source for the global illegal drug market would just as easily provide a loophole to current drug laws.
Salvia Divinorum
One such a substance which has been gaining popularity in the recent decades is salvia divinorum, or “diviners sage”. This plant, native to Mexico and used by the indigenous Mazatec tribes, provides the partaker with hallucinatory and dissociative effects. These properties were commonly used by the Mazatecs who would chew on the plant’s leaves to receive visions (Rätsch 94-96). Modern entheogen enthusiasts took the plant and made it noticeably more potent through a process of extraction. The current usage is with extracts ranging from 5 to 60 times potency and is usually smoked for strong hallucinogenic effects. Salvia divinorum is not the sole legal hallucinogen though. It is accompanied by amanita muscaria, a mushroom used by the Viking berserkers, and Hawaiian Baby Woodrose seeds, native to Hawaii (McKenna 287). Users of these ethnobotanicals frequently seek to experience the shamanistic visions which amazed cultures since ancient times.
Leonotis Leonurus
It is not just hallucinogens which have legal counterparts. Marijuana even has its own legal ethnobotanical sisters, such as leonotis leonurus – “Lion’s Tail” – and leonotis nepetifolia – “Klip Dagga”. Both of these plants are entheogens used by the Khoikhoi tribe of South Africa to induce a calm, meditative state, along with dream enhancement and euphoria. Many users of Lion’s Tail claim that the effects are not entirely unlike those of marijuana and some advocate it as a viable legal alternative. Others claim that the euphoria effects of marijuana are not present, so to compensate, they indulge in extracted forms of the plants to experience more potent effects.
Mitragyna Speciosa
As a final example for legal alternatives to illegal drugs, we have mitragyna speciosa, more commonly known as kratom. Although many species and strains of kratom can be found throughout regions of Africa, it is most commonly used in Southeast Asia where the plant is native. The inhabitants of this region commonly chew the kratom leaves for a mild stimulating and numbing effect, similar to the effects brought on by coca leaf chewing. However, the type of experience a user receives is very dependant on the amount of kratom consumed. At lower amounts, the user receives a stimulating effect, while at higher amounts, an opium high is achieved. As it would later be found, the active alkaloid in kratom, mitragynine, is an agonist for the opiate receptors in the human brain. Because of this, and its legality, some opiate users suffering withdraw symptoms turn to kratom as a legal means to sooth their symptoms. Others simply use kratom as a means to achieve the blissful effects of opium consumption.
Throughout time humanity has used plants for a variety of purposes. Every culture has used some variety of floras in their history, whether it is for medicine, food, religion, tradition, or recreation. The effects that these herbs have had on human society and culture are vast and innumerable, as many of the consequences for ethnobotany are profound and sometimes subtle. Ethnobotanicals have created medicine, wars, economies, and pastimes, and is held responsible for the modern drug culture as we know it. Without plant and human interaction, it would not be impossible to imagine that humankind would be considerably different, potentially for the worse. Long before there were humans on this planet, there were plants. There exists, and existed, plants of all shapes, sizes, breed, and chemistry which have grown in parallel to civilization. It makes one wonder; perhaps it is the plants which seed societies, not humanity which plants seeds.
