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Nitrous Oxide DRUG INVOLVEMENT IN PREVIOUS CENTURIES CAPE COD: The same author (the Rev. John Simpkins) said of the inhabitants [of Brewster], a good while ago: “No persons appear to have a greater relish for the social circle and domestic pleasures. They are not in the habit of frequenting taverns, unless on public occasions. I know not of a proper idler or tavern-haunter in the place.” This is more than can be said of my townsmen. “According to legend, Mohammed was cured of narcolepsy with coffee.” — Wolfgang Schivelbusch, TASTES OF PARADISE: A SOCIAL HISTORY OF SPICES, STIMULANTS, AND INTOXICANTS. NY: Pantheon Books, 1992, page 17.1 It seems to me that, every time I attend the HDT birthday party in Concord on the weekend closest to July 12th and take part in the “Thoreau Quiz” held in the basement of the 1st Parish Church after supper, some dork comes up with the “Thoreau-The-Hippie question,” the question about Henry’s attitude toward doing drugs. Hey, I’m tired of this sort of thing. For those of you who want to believe what you want to believe, go ahead, believe what you want to believe — and go sit around the pond and do your dope. All I ask is that you leave me out of your fantasy life, please. For those of you who believe that the decriminalization of dope is going to solve the problem of human inhumanity toward humans, I will offer some historical awareness and the following piece of logic: since the criminalization of dope did not begin to resolve that problem, there is no basis for hoping that the decriminalization of dope is going to begin to resolve it. Someone has commented that: “The fact is that no one knows what the ultimate result of a policy of drug legalization will be. I don’t know and what is more to the point, I don’t pretend to know. I only suggest that if and when drugs are made legal that some of the results will not be either anticipated or welcomed.” 1. Schivelbusch points out that this legend is a dubious one, since Mohammed died in AD 694; although coffee was in use as medicine “as early as the 10th century” its popularity as a beverage in Islam dates to “certainly no earlier than the 15th century” (nevertheless, might we not recommend this as a form of argumentative outreach, to the Pope?). HDT WHAT? INDEX DEALING DOPE DOING DOPE I’ve been studying America during the lifetime of Henry David Thoreau for more than a decade now. I’ve been paying full attention to what he said about substance production and substance use: “Most of the luxuries and many of the so-called comforts of life are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind.” I’ve been exploring, that is, in regard to the history of each of a variety of substances, how the luxury of creating and possessing quantities of this substance may be dispensable, and how in fact the history of production and use of this substance could be counted not as a benefit but instead as a positive hindrance to the elevation of mankind. That is not to suggest that anyone is in favor of prohibiting substances. It is merely to say that we need not be automatically in favor of legitimating relentless production and relentless consumption. In regard to non-prohibition: Is it really true that we don’t know what the ultimate result of a policy of drug legalization would be? It seems to me that I myself have come to know very well what an America, with all dangerous drugs perfectly legal, would actually amount to. It would be an America with all the drug problems that America and England had during the lifetime of Thoreau, 1817-1862. It would be an America in which any schoolkid with a penny could push it across the counter at any corner grocery, and buy himself or herself a buzz of just about anything. It would be an England in which a poet like Samuel Taylor Coleridge would need to get himself hospitalized because he couldn’t deal with his habit and his dependency. A drug ship like the Frolic would crash against some rocks on the northern California coast, and locals would swim out to the rocks and dive down and retrieve dope and teacups from the wreck and have a high time for literally generations. Many people would have very, very serious problems of alcoholism and of alcohol-related illnesses, and of nicotine and of tobacco-related illnesses. Meanwhile our government would be going about its business, abusing people in various interesting and inventive ways, for instance facilitating human slavery — but basically ignoring anything having to do with drugs or with drug abuse. In other words, it would be an America infinitely preferable to the one we have today. There would be problems, sure, problems aplenty, but one of our main problems would be entirely solved, one of our main problems would have just gone away and vanished, and the name of that problem which would be solved, the name of that problem which would have just gone away and vanished, is: the problem “War on Drugs.” Would our children be safe? No. Would our prisons be empty? No. Would very many things have gotten worse? No. Would very many things have gotten better? Well, a few, yes, you betcha! “NARRATIVE HISTORY” AMOUNTS TO FABULATION, THE REAL STUFF BEING MERE CHRONOLOGY “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Dealing Dope HDT WHAT? INDEX DOING DOPE DEALING DOPE 2,250 BCE In ancient Sumeria the poppy Papaver somniferum was referred to as “hul gil” or “plant of joy.” At about this point, Sumerians were beginning systematically to name the more prominent stars and HDT WHAT? INDEX DEALING DOPE DOING DOPE constellations and to link a scheme of constellations to the twelve calendar months. ASTRONOMY DO I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION? GOOD. Dealing Dope “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX DOING DOPE DEALING DOPE 1,552 BCE A 65-foot-long medical scroll from Egypt (discovered in 1884 by Georg Ebers and termed the “Ebers Papyrus”) lists about 800 medicinal drugs, including many herbs and spices, among them anise, caraway, cassia, coriander, fennel, cardamom, onions, garlic, thyme, mustard, sesame, fenugreek, saffron, and poppy- seed. Numerous mixtures involved opium, including one the manuscript stipulates was useful in the calming of obstreperous children. PLANTS HDT WHAT? INDEX DEALING DOPE DOING DOPE HDT WHAT? INDEX DOING DOPE DEALING DOPE 800 BCE In about this timeframe, Zoroastrians, Therapeutia, Coptics, Essenes, and other African and Eurasian religions were adopting the use of cannabis. PLANTS HDT WHAT? INDEX DEALING DOPE DOING DOPE CHANGE IS ETERNITY, STASIS A FIGMENT Dealing Dope “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX DOING DOPE DEALING DOPE 753 BCE From this point until circa 680 BCE, the life of Hesiod, the 1st major Greek poet after Homer, and the 1st of mainland Greece whose works have survived down to the present era. Two of his complete epics survive: • the WORKS AND DAYS, a description of peasant life • the THEOGONY, an attempt to resolve conflicting accounts of Greek gods ALEXANDER CHALMERS Hesiod mentioned a town near Corinth named Mekonê or “Poppy-town” (the present-day “Sikyon”): For when the gods and mortal men were divided at Mekonê, even then Prometheus was forward to cut up a great ox and set portions before them, trying to beguile the mind of Zeus. This happens to be the 1st record of the poppy in Western literature. PLANTS HDT WHAT? INDEX DEALING DOPE DOING DOPE HDT WHAT? INDEX DOING DOPE DEALING DOPE 700 BCE For three centuries Scythian horsemen would dominate the plains of central Asia. These dudes sometimes made the quiver for their arrows from something readily available to them, the skin of a human arm and hand. Their idea of saddle accessorization definitely included severed human heads — you didn’t want to meet one of these dudes in an alley on a dark night or anywhere else at any other time. They were potheads (each of these dudes had his own conical tent just big enough for him to sit inside, and while sitting inside his little conical tent to confine the fumes, he would burn coals of cannabis in a brazier) but they were not mellow fellows. HDT WHAT? INDEX DEALING DOPE DOING DOPE 600 BCE The Zend-Avesta made mention of cannabis’s “intoxicating resin.” HDT WHAT? INDEX DOING DOPE DEALING DOPE 500 BCE First known conference of Peloponnesian League. Empedocles. Threat of Persian Empire to Greece. Persian invasion of Greece defeated. In classical Greece and Rome the only drug that would present a significant drug- abuse problem would be alcohol. Although opium would be widely employed as a medicine, great caution would be being advised in its use, it would seldom be used alone, and there would remain no historic trace of any phenomenon of dependence and abuse. While cannabis was widespread in Asia Minor and Assyria, the Greek and Roman cultures would seem to us to have displayed remarkably little interest. NOBODY COULD GUESS WHAT WOULD HAPPEN NEXT Dealing Dope “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX DEALING DOPE DOING DOPE 25 CE The extreme value of spikenard, a fragrant emollient made from Nardostachys jatamansi, is highlighted in a Biblical episode that would appear in MARK 14:3-6. A believer is chastised by other supporters for anointing Christ with the expensive spikenard, which could have been sold for charity.
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