Drugs/Alcohol

[spiff]

For how long has the human race taken some sort of herb/concoction to dull or highten it's senses? is there any evidence of primates or other mammals doing the same? I'm including alcohol in this one. Does anyone think that maybe sentience or awareness leads to a search for a way to numb it? Happy new 2005 style thing BTW!!! xx

[punkychicken]

*GAB* spiff.  My dogs eat grass to make themselves sick.  Is that the same as humans drinking alcohol to make themselves sick?  Happy New Year

[simms]

One school of thought in current studies of archaeology and anthropology is that modern humans in the middle / near east developed yeast-risen bread as a by-product of making an alcoholic drink or 'porridge'. In south america, the use of mescalin and peyote  in association with religious rites is well documented. There seems to me to be plenty of evidence to suggest people have a deep rooted instinct to experience alternative forms of consciousness, or simply get sh1t-faced.  If you can find a copy, Aldous Huxley's Heaven and Hell / the Doors of Perception is an interesting read on the subject - he calls it the human desire to reach 'the mind's antipodes'. (Yes, that's where Jim Morrison got 'The Doors' from.)

[tracymort]

i have read that babies in the womb like to squeeze their umbilical and then let go as it gives them a high!