Psychoactive plants

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Psychoactive plants
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• "No one has yet written the natural history of
  world religion, but we have some idea of the
  story such a book would tell. Among other things,
  it would force us to rethink the relation of
  matter and spirit - specifically, plant matter
  and human spirituality. For it would tell of how
  a select group of psychoactive plants and fungi
  (among them the peyote cactus, the Amanita
  muscaria and psilocybin mushrooms, the ergot
  fungus, the fermented grape, ayahuasca, and
  cannabis) were present at the creation of several
  of the world's religions. One of the world's
  earliest known religions was the cult of Soma,
  practiced by the ancient Indo-Europeans of
  central Asia according to its sacred text, the
  Rig Veda, Soma was an intoxicant with the powers
  of a god. People worshiped the drug itself -
  which ethnobotanists now think was Amanita
  muscaria, the mushroom sometimes called fly
  agaric - as a path to divine knowledge."

Botany of Desire, Michael Pollan
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Psychoactive Drugs

• Where did they come from?
• What part of the plant are the active
  ingredients?
• Role in History
• Current use

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Psychoactive Drugs

• Three categories of response
• stimulants
• hallucinogens
• depressants
• pain killers

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Alkaloids

• Herbaceous dicots
• Fabaceae (legume family), Solanaceae (nightshade
  family), Rubiaceae (coffee family)
• Characteristics contain N, alkaline (basic),
  bitter taste
• Affect nervous system (physiological and/or
  psychological)
• Some are medicinally important, others are
  hallucinogenic or poisonous
• Difference is usually dosage
• Examples caffeine, nicotine, cocaine, morphine,
  quinine, ephedrine

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Marijuana

• 5 major uses by humans
• fiber (ropes, fishnet, clothing)
• Seeds are eaten
• Oil extracted from seeds (varnish)
• Medicinal properties
• Hallucinogenic properties

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Marijuana

• Cannabis sativa
• C. indica
• Annual herb
• Smoked dried crushed leaves and flowering tops
• Hashish resin from flowers, smoke, eat or drink
• active component varies in different varieties
• THC (tetrahydrocannibol)
• Male and female flowers on separate plants
  (dioecious)
• female plants have more THC
• requires long hot growing season

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Marijuana

• Origin
• native to central Asia
• cultivated by humans
• used extensively in China for fiber and
  medicinally

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History of Modern Use

• Used by western literary figures
• 19th century around Paris used by writers
• Hashish club in Paris
• numerous works written about it or while under
  the influence

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United States experience

• Planted in Virginia in 1611
• used for fibers for sails and ropes, critical for
  the navy
• used for paper
• prescribed as a drug1900 came into the US from
  Mexico with workers
• spread to cities especially musicians, jazz
• after 1937 all states have laws regulating it
• pressure from the liquor lobby to ban it

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United States

• 1930s major crime wave in New Orleans
• attributed the increase to Marijuana use
• hysterical, hints of racism
• warning by the FBI becomes a savage with
  caveman tendencies
• uncontrollable sexual desires

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Federal Marijuana Act 1937

• Persons using it for industrial or medical
  purposes must pay a tax
• Others tax of 100 per ounce
• Violators are subject to penalties and jail term
  of 5 years.

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Reefer Madness

• an anti-marijuana propaganda film produced by the
  government in the 1930s that is considered a camp
  classic because of its over exaggeration of the
  dangers of pot smoking
• 1936 financed by a small church group, and was
  intended to scare the living bejeezus out of
  every parent who viewed it

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Assassins

• 11th century, Moslem leader Hassan sent out army
  to terrorize Christian crusaders
• 100 loyalty
• Initiation ritual vision of paradise
• Hashish, beautiful gardens, sumptuous delicacies,
  gorgeous maidens
• Story became corrupted to infer that hashish was
  responsible for the merciless crimes
• hashishins and later changed to assassins
• 1930s morality twist marijuana unleashes human
  inhibitions, thereby endangering Western
  civilization

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1484 Pope Innocent VIII

• issues papal condemnation of witchcraft,
  specifically condemning use of cannabis instead
  of wine in worship, a pagan sacrament in a
  counterculture that sought to undermine the
  establishment church.

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US Policy now

• Currently debated about whether to be allowed as
  a medicine
• glaucoma
• cancer, relieves nausea from chemotherapy
• appetite stimulant

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coke

• 1900 smokeless fuel derived from coal burnt
  when impurities in tar sulfur fraction of coal
  undesirable
• Brewing, baking
• 1950 soft-drink, Coca-Cola
• Today chemical derivatives of concentrate
  isolated from Erythroxylon cocaine

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Coca plant

• small tree or shrub
• native to the Andes Mts of S. America
• used for 3500 years
• Incas used extensively
• Centralized government hierarchy
• upper classes, religious leaders, reward for good
  deeds
• Sacred, divine manifestation
• Reward for ruling class, army officers, priests
  manager of labor initiation ceremony for young
  nobles, winners of races
• Increased respiratory efficiency and warmth,
  essential at high elevations with low oxygen
  cold
• alleviate hunger and thirst
• no casual consumption only men could consume

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Picking the best leaves

• Young leaves
• Smell like fresh tea leaves
• When chewed have pungent taste produce sense of
  warmth comfort
• Lower cocaine concentration
• Older leaves
• Smell like camphor
• Not tasty nor give sense of warmth comfort
• Higher cocaine concentration

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Cocaine vs. coca leaves

• Purity concentration make any drug more
  effective but also much more dangerous when
  abused or when the stress of modern life creates
  more of a demand for a quick fix

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Spanish conquest of the Incas

• Most Amerindians died of newly introduced
  diseases, smallpox measles
• special, dreadful divine punishment for the
  Amerindians
• European diseases helped make the Europeans rules
  of the Earth, whether the impact was in the
  Americas, Southern Africa or Australasia
• found the workers could work harder when they had
  coca leaves and required less food
• Each chew lasted about 45 min marked length of
  travel by number of coca-chewing periods or
  cocada
• The native culture, based on a hierarchy with an
  exclusive right to chew coca, is destroyed the
  natives fully enslaved, not only in status but
  bound to their work through new dependency on
  coca leaves as an alternative to sufficient food

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Historical uses

• Local anesthetic
• Surgery, toothache
• Military troops performed better
• Greater acuity, enduring fatigue, greater
  intelligence, less food drink
• Sigmund Freud
• Over the counter
• Supplied it to patients, fellow doctors
  students at Medical Faculty at Vienna University
• Rapidly published a public essay in 1884 under
  the influence and was unwilling to withdraw it
  despite critics urging

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US

• WW I followed by prohibition (against alcohol)
• Lead to development of Coca-cola soft drinks
• Accepted by musicians, songwriter, singers and
  smart film/theatre set
• 1936 Charlie Chaplin film, Modern Times
• Popeye opens a can of spinach, eats it uncooked
  and immediately acquires an unheard-of-strength
  and does great deeds which he apparently could
  never perform without spinach
• After WWII, cocaine traffic curtailed, pooled
  with narcotics, opium and marijuana

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legalization

• Drugs would be cheaper
• Reduce crime
• Reduce drug scene
• Less money-laundering
• Addicts could get medical treatment
• Reduce prison population by half

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addictions

• Compulsive habits
• Sugar, tobacco,chocolate, tea, coffee
• Coffee beans chewed by Arabs keep awake during
  tedious sermons in mosques combat
  journey-fatigue in desert
• Coffee permitted in Islam but not alcohol
• Turks turned coffee into hot drink geared to
  social relations

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OPIUM

• What plant does it come from?
• Large annual herb
• showy flowers
• active ingredient comes from the capsule
• milky latex
• dried latex is the crude form

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Opiates

• ACTIVE INGREDIENT 20 alkaloids
• morphine-used to relieve pain but addictive
• soldiers disease
• codeine
• heroine

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OPIUM2

• Where does it come from?
• Native to the middle east
• originally take in wine
• Dissolved in alcohol it is called laudanum
• popular with the upper classes
• Berlioz Symphonie Fantistique

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OPIUMHistory of Usage

• Very important in Chinese History
• introduced by Arab traders
• originally smoked with tobacco
• spread rapidly, many became addicted

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Opium Trade

• British wanted a favorable trade balance with
  China for silk, tea and porcelain
• Chinese wanted silver, but draining silver out of
  GB
• British traded opium instead
• Cultivate it in India and smuggled it into China
• Chinese govt wanted to stop it
• 1839 destroyed Opium in Canton harbor

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Opium wars

• I 1839-1842
• British won the right to trade opium, got paid
  for the destroyed opium, got Hong Kong
• II 10 years later
• 1913 pressure to stop by then 25 addicted

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TOBACCONicotiana sp.

• widely used
• annual herb
• Considered Sacred by many American tribes
• Mayan priests thought that smoke carried messages
  to the gods
• Warao tribe of Venezuela use it in initiation
  rites

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Historical use

• Columbus brought to Queen Isabelle
• British started growing tobacco in the Colonies
  to ensure a supply
• 1 acre of tobacco yielded 4X the revenue of corn
  so it spread to more land

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Medicinal uses

• remedy for female problems
• lung strengthener
• ulcer remedy
• cure for the plague
• aphrodisiac

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Cigars to cigarettes

• New drying method increased its popularity
• milder form but needed to be inhaled to have a
  response
• Cigarettes more addictive than cigar smoking
  because of inhalation