Dan Smail from Harvard (previously a colleague at Fordham) has written a book on how psychotropic alteration (caffeine, tea, chocolate, tobacco, "drugs", benzos, computer games) have become a driving force in world culture since the 16th century.
I have tried coke and speed, and will not do them again (unless offered for free). Weed bores me. But I would try those new alertness drugs, and if the Brave New World Ever came I would take Soma.
And if there were decent ecstasy in Manchester I would try that - but all there is are piperazines and BZP.
I firmly believe everyone should try real E at least once.
As to LSD. I did it once, and found wallpaper turning into a waterfall really interesting for two hours, and then spent 12 hours waiting for it to stop.
As it is, I can be tested for anything and I will come up "clean" (I hate that word).
These are reasons I will never become an MP.
3 comments:
Interesting. I would have thought though that mind-altering drugs, other than alcohol, had been a major force in culture since culture began.
I'd be an opium man myself if and when it becomes legal again. Two weeks in a den of oblivion... peace.
@Jim
Dan's book is called Deep History and his categories of psychotropia include more than just alcohol and drugs.
But he also wants to treat as "history" other "mind-altering" phenomena - such a public religious and secular liturgies.
It's an interesting phenomenon.
As to opiates, as a historian I would not mind experiencing opium, but I find even cocodamol (for US readers a combination of Acetaminophen/Paracetamol and codeine available over the counter in the UK), which I have to use very occasionally for really severe migraines, makes me itchy.
@Paul,
Thanks for the clarification.
Yes, the opiates and their substitutes do have a tendency to act as itching powder. Dihydrocodeine is especially famous for that effect, I think. Cocodomol? Tried it. Doesn't hit the spot. I'm on the tramadol from time to time - on prescription, like. That stuff is worth getting back pain for if you ask me.
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