History of Drugs

In today's day and age, drugs are a taboo in most cultures. However, this has not always been the case. Drugs have played an important and often overlooked role in the history of mankind. I will start off with a few examples that come to mind:

1. The drug soma or haoma has played a very important part in the religion of Vedic India as well as pre-Zoroastrian Iran. Considered, the drink of the gods, it was even venerated. We currently don't know exactly which drug it was, though various theories abound.

2. Cannabis has a history stretching back to the dawn of human history. The oldest evidence of its consumption dates back to over 7000 years ago in neolithic Romania. Cannabis seeds were found in Egyptian and ancient Chinese tombs. It has been a traditional tools of various Indian ascetics. Such people as the Scythians and Dacians consumed iot for religious purposes and evn when going to war. One of its derivatives, hashish, is supposed to have been instrumental in the success of the Hashasheen, or Assassins: a militant Islamic group important in the 11th to 13th centuries. It is also a crucial component in the Rastafari religion.

3. Cocaine has been traditionally used by the people of Peru to combat altitude sickness, as well as a way to provide energy to workers. Indeed, cocaine may have played a huge part in the history of mankind: much of the silver which was to eventually fuel the Industrial revolution was mined by Inca and other native slaves in Potosi, for the benefit of the Spanish. Though the Spanish were in theory against any drugs, they allowed the native slaves to chew coca leaves, as it was the only way they could work long hours in those brutal conditions. Thus it might be said that the infusion of Potosi silver in the European economy, with everything that that entails, would have been impossible without cocaine.

4. Many tribal populations across the Earth, in all different eras, have been using various hallucinogenic plants in their religious rituals.

5. Who can forget the role that drugs played in the cultural revolution of the 1960's? Without them, we probably wouldn't have the music of the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin or the Doors.

6. Beer in the Middle Ages was prepared with a mixture of herbs called gruit instead of hops, which was hallucinogenic in larger doses. The Protestant princes of Northen Europe, where most Europe was produced, outlawed gruit, partly because of its effects and partly because it was the Chruch that controlled gruit production (thus they deprived the Catholic Church of an important source of revenue).

7. One of the important events related to drugs are the two Opium wars between Britain and China, in the 1840's. Opium was important to Britan as it was one of the only goods, other than precious metals, which China was willing to import. Without opium, Britain would have been drained of silver, due to the enormous demand for Chinese luxury goods such as tea, silk, fine china and art. The Chinese used opium as a pretext for driving out the British who were draining China of more and more resources, but lost the wars.