Drugs

Drugs?

Yes, drugs.

We got the idea for this post when we overheard a babyboomer friend saying something like:

"Whatever happened to mescaline? Remember, back in the early 70s, that stuff was almost as popular as acid!  Now it's like nobody ever heard of it!"

We've never heard of mescaline.  We've heard of LSD, of course.  Why is it called mescaline, anyway?

We then started to realize how many drugs in the US are originally from Mexico, and have permeated US culture so thoroughly, you don't really notice them.  We're willing to bet that every Census Designated Place in America has at least some familiarity, with some drug, that comes from Mexico.

So we decided to delve into the topic...not from a criminal aspect, but an informative, cultural aspect.

As we speak, we know almost nothing about this topic either, so here we go . . .

We'll start with the relatively little known sage, Salvia Divinorum (sage of the diviners, yerba de la pastora)  This plant is native to Mexico, meaning botanists haven't been able to find a source outside Mexico.

It's native habitat is cloud forest in the isolated Sierra Mazateca, of Oaxaca, Mexico.  It is there known as the method in which "visions" are induced in the ritual ceremonies of Mazotec shamans.

via mexicofuckyeah.tumblr.com

salvia divinorum via sagewisdom.org

Scientists have not concluded how many thousands of years this plant has been ingested for it's hallucinogenic properties, but it has been suggested that it may have been used by the Aztecs, where it was referred to as "poyomatli".

At this point, we need to comment on what we've noticed regarding the US perspective on this.

By and large, US media has seized upon this plant that has been used for thousands of years by our neighbors to the south, in near hysterical fashion, as the latest scourge that will kill your children.

It's far beyond our ability to understand why this happens, so we'll defer to the sociologists, or whatever academic who studies that kind of thing for a living.

On a related note, we had originally planned to include the legal status of the drugs we'll be writing about, but it's just all over the place depending on jurisdiction, it's daunting and not really relevant anyway, so we'll avoid it altogether.

Next we have our first cactus-sourced mind-altering substance, Peyote.

Wikipedia says:

". . .peyote is a small, spineless cactus with psychoactive alkaloids, particularly mescaline."

So our babyboomer friend was dropping peyote.  Won't she be surprised.

While mescaline has dropped out of favor, here are some interesting facts via this exhaustive article:

The Third Wave: Peyote

Mescaline was first isolated in 1897 by German chemist Arthur Heffter, and synthesized by Austrian chemist Ernst Spath in 1919.

We mention this only because the US Navy eventually found out about the "Nazi Truth Serum" and decided they wanted to do some experiments, too, circa 1947-1953.  The US Military certainly was into the psychedelic experience during that era!

Also, in 1953, author Aldous Huxley ingested mescaline and wrote about it in The Doors of Perception

This seems to have been something of a fad among intellectual types of the day.  Go on a trip and write about it.  Timothy Leary probably the most well-known, but hardly alone.

What hasn't dropped out of favor is the far simpler method of peyote ingestion, the "buttons".  Like salvia divinorum, the buttons can be chewed and made into a tea, although not smoked, that we are aware of, for a less intense hallucinogenic effect than from mescaline.

To continue on with cute and fanciful names like "buttons" for psychoactive plant-based substances, we move on to the "magic mushroom", psilocybin.

This one goes back thousands of years, and there is no "maybe" about it.  Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica.

Psilocybin 'shrooms are not native to Mexico, but historically, were weaved into the culture of the day, pissed off the Spanish conquistadors enough to impose a ban on it's use by the native people, and most likely is the source from which the drug is obtained today, so it's included on our list.

We've seen references to Guatemalan statuettes, stone engravings, and cave art that may possibly be depictions of the psilocybin mushroom, but unfortunately there are scant details, such as pictures, showing these artifacts.

We do know the Aztec name for the mushrooms, "teonanácatl".

Here's a good summation from a blog we found:

 Nothing But Lists

"Probably the most well-known of the native drugs, Peyote has appeared time and again in pop culture. Flowering in southern Texas and Mexico between March and May, this little cactus is world renown for its psychoactive properties. Archaeologists believe peyote use began thousands of years ago and gradually spread from Mexico to the SW United States where the Apache adopted its use. They in turn spread it to the Comanche and Kiowa. This drug was apparently so powerful that many tribes saw it as a portal into the world of the Gods. While traditionally used in ceremonies, peyote saw a spike in popularity during the Native American Church movement in the 1800’s. Today peyote is an illegal substance, but can still be bought illegally or found on reservations."

Isn't this a lovely cactus?

It's the blue agave.  It's major claim to fame is that it's the source for tequila, and as it turns out, several lesser known alcohol-containing beverages.

We here in the US don't think of alcohol (ethanol, ETOH) as a drug.  But we think if we shed the cultural viewpoint, alcohol is psychoactive and sedative at the very least, and it's history and use is very interesting, so we're going to write about it.

Agave tequilana.  Product of Jalisco, Mexico.

Rather than go into great deal of detail regarding the growing, harvesting, and manufacture of tequila, were going to refer you to this really wonderful blog devoted entirely to the subject:

In Search of the Blue Agave: Tequila and the Heart of Mexico

But here are some fun facts:

Forget about the worm, the blue agave flower is pollinated by a bat!

Tequila is produced by removing the heart (piña) of the plant in its 8th to 14th year.  Harvested piñas normally weigh 80–200 pounds.  That's impressive!

Tequila is not the only alcoholic beverage derived from the blue agave.  There is pulque, and there is mezcal, (not to be confused with mescaline, Wikipedia warns).

Neither one looks very appealing, but we discovered both have a following, and both are still available for sale today.

Mescalero men enjoying their pulque

We saved the most obvious cross-border drug for last.  Marijuana.  Mary Jane.  Clearly, like tequila, this stuff is everywhere in the United States.

It's known worldwide as marijuana, so it's got to be native to Mexico-- like salvia and blue agave, right?  No!

Research shows that marijuana actually can be traced to Turkey, where it's use spread throughout Europe, down to South America, through Central America, Mexico, and finally, the United States.

Giant weed plant growing wild in Great Britain 

Turns out, marijuana has only been called marijuana since 1910.  Prior to that, it was known by it's Latin name, cannabis.

Once again, we find there are people who are experts on everything, somewhere, if you look hard enough.

Marijuana and America have had a rocky relationship to say the least.  See this article from leafly.com for all the details:

Where did the word marijuana come from, anyway?

This concludes our whirlwind overview of cross-border drugs.

We've learned what you'll never hear in a DARE class or from your local TV news in the process of writing this post!

'Til next time!

Looks like paper bag mezcal