Why animals eat psychoactive plants

http://boingboing.net/2015/01/20/why-animals-eat-psychoactive-p.html

by sethbannon • 11 years ago

264 174 11 years ago

Whenever I hear or read stories like this, I can't help but immediately think about Terence McKenna's "Stoned Ape" theory of human evolution. Due to some of his other theories, I tended to not take much heed, but perhaps he was on to something?

Even the article says, "Siegel had been confidently told by his supervisor that humans were the only species that seek out drugs to use for their own pleasure" but later "Snacks of “magic mushrooms” cause monkeys to sit with their heads in their hands in a posture reminiscent of Rodin’s Thinker."

Very interesting nonetheless.

For the curious: http://www.lycaeum.org/~sputnik/McKenna/Evolution/

PaulAJ• 11 years ago

Thanks for pointing this out; I've never heard that idea before.

But I don't think it holds water. The ability to talk and invent happens across our whole species regardless of recreational drug use. That means the explanations are to be found in genetics and evolution, not psychochemistry.

iooi2• 11 years ago

But did it, always?

Could it be that the primitive humans that used these substances adapted better to their environment compared to their non-indulging peers, and we're more likely to be direct descendants of them?

Not saying you are wrong, or right, but rather that it would be naive to dismiss this idea based on some notion of genetics and evolution. At some point the choices we made as a species in the past comes directly into play with the natural evolution our genes and culture.

atom_enger2• 11 years ago

That means the explanations are to be found in genetics and evolution, not psychochemistry.

Right, the point here is that perhaps the psychoactive substances aided our ancestors in making decisions or enlightening them(or straight up enhancing their senses) to withstand the test of evolution.

I'm not saying it gave them superpowers, but perhaps it enabled them to look at a particular challenge in a different perspective.

evincarofautumn4• 11 years ago

I’ve always found it fascinating that people don’t perceive socially sanctioned drugs as drugs at all. Saying “drugs and alcohol” to me is like saying “sandwiches and hamburgers”.

A person can drink a cup of coffee in the morning, smoke a cigarette on their lunch break, and drink a couple glasses of wine in the evening, and the only thing that keeps them from being called a “drug addict” is that these particular drugs are socially acceptable.

There are Yemeni families in California who get in trouble for possessing khat, a stimulant which in Yemen is not even questioned—imagine being a Brit and being told you couldn’t drink tea!

atom_enger2• 11 years ago

Once you see it this way, it's hard to stand in line at Starbucks and think "I'm not an addict." Everyone and their mother is addicted to something, it's just a matter of whether or not the authorities approve of your choice of substance.

Truth is we're humans and humans seek to alter their consciousness whether it be through meditation, prayer, exercise, spinning in circles or a through a shortcut -- a substance.

Unfortunately we're working against decades of misinformation and racism in this fight for our freedom to consume substances as we wish. It's unfortunate because I think there's a lot of medical value in a lot of the substances our government has deemed illegal.

Terr_• 11 years ago

Once you see it this way, it's hard to stand in line at Starbucks and think "I'm not an addict."

Except "addict" is a loaded term, which implies... well, unequivocally maladaptive behavior.

You seldom hear about people who lie to their loved ones about their hidden coffee stash, or steal from their child's piggybank to sustain their caffeine fix.

cappsjulian• 11 years ago

Yeah I'm inclined to not use the word addict - maybe go with what DFW said about everyone worshipping

MichaelGG3• 11 years ago

That's because we've somehow equated addiction with badness. When you read about opiates, for instance, the high addiction potential is called out as a major downside. Doctors get all nervous about it, try to prescribe little, don't allow refills, etc. Yet this is not the case when prescribed, say, antidepressants, which can be just as addictive.

What we need to do is realize that addiction is not a bad thing intrinsically. Sure, it has the downside of needing a supply of the addictive thing, but that might be a minor and perfectly reasonable price to pay. Just like popular medications that have a small chance of making all your skin die and fall off, or over time, frying your nerves and making you jerk around. Never, in my personal experience, have any medical personnel made a big deal about those side effects of "good" drugs like anti-psychotics, stabilizers, or anti-depressants. But mention "bad" drugs and they go nuts about similarly small tradeoffs.

derefr4• 11 years ago

More and more, I don't see addicts; I see people self-medicating for undiagnosed neurochemical imbalances.

Alcoholics are frequently people who don't realize they have anxiety disorders, and think they need alcohol to be calm. People who drink cup after cup of coffee/soda because it helps them to "focus" and "be productive" might do well with being tested for ADD. People with undiagnosed clinical depression get hooked on cigarettes way more often than other groups. Etc.

The famous Rat Park experiment showed that addiction is not nearly as common a thing, for neurotypical individuals living in an adaptive environment, as we assumed when we built our models of addiction epidemiology. Most addicts (sparing a few drugs like cocaine and heroin that create strong chemical dependence) are either not neurotypical, or in a mal-adaptive environment, or both. Fix the problem with the neurology or the environment, and the addiction becomes easy to break.

fit2rule2• 11 years ago

If weed were legal, I wouldn't use coffee, cigarettes, or alcohol. The ugly truth is, this is the case for a lot of people, and its quite well understood in the trillion-dollar coffee, cigarette and alcohol industries. I'd also be less likely to ask a stranger for industrial drugs to treat depression.

Plus, I could grow it myself for almost no cost.

Anything that upsets the economic and industrial consumption status quo is going to meet fierce and powerful resistance from those currently selling consumption every minute of their lives.

jamesbowman• 11 years ago

David E.H. Jones pointed out that the socially sanctioned drugs have something in common: they all taste bad. Or at least, they have a taste that is unappealing to children, and then must be acquired by special effort. Coffee, tea, tobacco, alcohol: all taste pretty awful to a ten-year-old.

mgkimsal• 11 years ago

Except sugar.

dragonwriter6• 11 years ago

David E.H. Jones pointed out that the socially sanctioned drugs have something in common: they all taste bad. Or at least, they have a taste that is unappealing to children, and then must be acquired by special effort. Coffee, tea, tobacco, alcohol: all taste pretty awful to a ten-year-old.

That's certainly not true of all of the popular forms in which those (particularly alcohol and caffeine) are consumed by adults. Sure, most kids might not like black coffee or straight black tea (but plenty of adults take it with cream and sugar resp. milk and honey), but they've got very little problem with, say, Coca-Cola.

peterwwillis2• 11 years ago

Well first i'd question calling tea a socially sanctioned drug given how little caffeine it contains. (Also, most teas are quite pleasant tasting, if you use premium tea and make it correctly, which 99% of people do not)

Second i'd note that virtually all foods that aren't fruits or vegetables must be 'acquired by special effort', and that a large number of them are fairly inedible or bland until you prepare or cook them. And don't children generally dislike pretty much all foods? And especially healthful foods?

hueving• 11 years ago

Soda seems to taste pretty good to them.

copsarebastards• 11 years ago

As far as I can tell that's true, but a lot of the taboo drugs taste awful, too. Psilocybin mushrooms taste like someone mixed stale almonds with household dust and a tiny touch of vomit. MDMA tastes like a mix of baking powder and metal.

The simplest hypothesis I can think of that explains this is that most things taste bad. We usually only eat the exceptions--the things that taste good. But we'll eat something that tastes bad if it gets us high.

kristofferR3• 11 years ago

I don't understand the argument. I'm pretty sure no illegal drugs taste good either, so what is the argument he was trying to make?

collyw3• 11 years ago

Plenty of alcopops / cocktails that will taste fine to a kid.

omegaham• 11 years ago

A lot of drugs are unpleasant to administer. It's difficult to think of something more unpleasant than injecting yourself with impure narcotics. Weed smells and tastes awful; stoners end up liking the scent only because it's associated with the experience.

Also, I think it's pretty easy to make all of those taste good, with the exception of tobacco (and menthol cigarettes take the worst of the bite out of that, too). Sweetened coffee, flavored dip, sweet mixers to go along with vodka, etc.

chrischen2• 11 years ago

Coffee served at starbucks is in much lower quantities and milder concentrations than what one would normally ingest or inhale in harder drugs.

They do boil tea out of coca leaves, which normally has a small amount of cocaine. It's only when it's concentrated, snorted, that it gives the temporary super high.

kaoD• 11 years ago

Coffee served at starbucks is in much lower quantities and milder concentrations than what one would normally ingest or inhale in harder drugs.

A common dose of LSD is about 50-150 ug (ug as in micrograms). A Starbucks Grande Coffee has 330mg of caffeine inside. That is THREE orders of magnitude!

So, to sum it up: you can't compare dosages from different substances.

Also: 330mg is a lot of caffeine.

hristov• 11 years ago

You can drink two glasses of red wine every day of your life and if you are healthy adult male of average weight, this will likely extend your life and improve your health. For a woman it is down to one glass. You can drink a glass of coffee or a cup of tea every day of your life and this will also probably improve your life and your health.

Trying doing that with cocaine or heroin. Actually do not try it because you will be addicted and have serious health consequences.

There are very few discrete things in nature. Like most things psychoactive substances have varying effects. But some substances have effects so different from others, they should be in a different category.

Someone might argue that sulfuric acid is just a more powerful version of lemon juice. But it's acidic effect is so much more powerful than that of lemon juice society quite correctly treats them as being completely different.

vinceguidry• 11 years ago

A once-daily dose of cocaine or heroin is not likely to lead to serious dependence or health effects. So long as the dose and frequency remain constant, one should be able to ride that horse forever.

Americans have forgotten just how ubiquitous drugs that are now illegal used to be, and how often they were used. Amphetamines used to be commonly prescribed by doctors, for just about anything. Hitler used to take crystal meth daily, he was reported to have taken nine shots during his last days in the bunker.

I read an article recently about a guy who became addicted to smoking opium. He said it took a long time and steady increasing doses before he finally reached the point where he was addicted.

Even alcohol was much more widely consumed during the Middle Ages, as it was safer to drink than water. Provisioning notes from the time period reveal shockingly massive quantities.

Devthrowaway802• 11 years ago

One of the 4 founders of Johns Hopkins Hospital was addicted to both cocaine and morphine and was able to remain functional while addicted for the rest of his life.

I think it's easy to mix up the effects of the illegality of certain drugs with the effects of the drugs themselves. Impurities and poor injection hygiene are probably a large part of the health effects of these two drugs currently, and they are a result of their black market status.

I'm not saying you should go out and pick up an opiate or coke addiction, just that the difference in effect is sometimes more a result of the war on drugs and less a result of the drug itself. Bathtub gin made people blind during Prohibition too.

I think the addictive potential of those drugs are overstated as well - most people who try heroin or coke do not wind up becoming addicted, just like having your two glasses of wine don't make you into a raging alcoholic. There appears to be a subset of people who are predisposed to becoming addicted to drugs, but that does not translate into "try heroin, become a junkie."

The basis of the drug war is not rooted in any sort of rational division of drugs by harm. Anti-opiate laws were enacted to target Chinese immigrants, anti-cocaine and marijuana laws targeted blacks and Mexicans, anti-everything else laws were enacted in the 60's in response to anti-hippie hysteria. If we really based things on harm, psychedelics and marijuana would be legal, and alcohol would be illegal - alcohol being a cause of more than twice the deaths in the US than all other substances combined, and is a factor in a huge number of violent crimes.

wwweston2• 11 years ago

You can drink two glasses of red wine every day of your life and if you are healthy adult male of average weight, this will likely extend your life and improve your health.

FWIW, I've never had alcohol, but after reading advice like this in the popular press, I asked both my cardiologist and GP whether this would be a good addition to my life.

Both said there probably wasn't any harm in it if I was already doing it, but that they would not recommend starting, and that of all the things I could do that might improve my health, improving my diet and regular exercise were better choices (and less likely to have negative side effects).

(A urologist I saw actively advised against alcohol consumption, but that advice seemed limited to easing specific conditions).

YMMV, and doctors don't know everything.

carb• 11 years ago

You can drink two glasses of red wine every day of your life ... this will likely extend your life and improve your health.

This is only seen in tests with small animals such as mice or rats. Please cite a source showing that this result is also seen in humans.

campers• 11 years ago

Not necessarily (getting addicted that is), or even likely

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/johann-hari/the-real-cause-of-...

Some interesting studies in that article. Environment and personality has a dominant role.

Rats in boring cage will prefer the drugged water, but put them in a cage with toys and other rats to be social with then their use of drugged water goes down significantly.

And we've seen the same in humans. A significant percent of US Vietnam war soldiers were on heroin, but 90% quickly kicked the habit on returning home to a better place. Likewise for medical patients on temporary strong opiates.

Sure that % of people who do get addicted is significant and need support, but definitely a change in the way of viewing the issue.

joesmo• 11 years ago

You're obviously not familiar with the effects of any of these substances. Plenty of people live normal lives taking opiates every day (in obviously large amounts due to tolerance). Likewise, alcohol is far from the harmless substance you paint a picture of, easily as damaging or more damaging than any illegal substance.

The point is that the only difference here is between social acceptability and social unacceptability. There is nothing inherent in heroin or cocaine that's more dangerous than alcohol (quite the opposite in fact, especially in regards to heroin and opiates). So no, these substances do not have effects so different from others that they need to be in a separate category. If they did, alcohol would be classified right along with them.

This socially acceptable/unacceptable classification is often mistaken for something else, in this case, a difference between the effects of chemicals themselves. That is, of course, as the powers that be want it to be.

richardw• 11 years ago

There is likely a continuum of risk associated with all of these substances, but our society thinks of them only in a binary fashion. X is ok, Y is illegal.

This becomes a problem when some teenager tries one and then thinks that "they've been lying to me about this", and assumes that everything goes. There are risks but binary thinking isn't the right way to manage them.

stplsd2• 11 years ago

Trying doing that with cocaine or heroin. Actually do not try it because you will be addicted and have serious health consequences.

This only because heroin is illegal. Pure heroin is very gentle and harmless drugs. The worst you can get from pure heroin is constipation. While it may be unpleasant compare it to the effects of long term alcohol use which includes cirrhosis, serious heart problems, etc.

_nedR2• 11 years ago

You're confusing intoxicants with stimulants. Noone accidentally ran over a kid or beat up his wife because he drank too many cups of coffee or smoked one too many cigarettes. Alcohol on the other hand...

edit: If you are going to say that cocaine is primarily a stimulatant, You can't even compare the harmful effects/addictiveness of cocaine with coffee or cigarettes.

researcher88• 11 years ago

True. 6,000 people died of cocaine abuse in 2006. Another statistic said 17,000 died in 2000 from all illicit drugs. Now surely moderate cocaine abuse is causing deaths in people who aren't known addicts.

But tobacco is certainly far far worse at 443,000 annual deaths. Occasional responsible use of hard drugs is likely not that bad for you.

mc322• 11 years ago

To be fair, it is called a drug store. I think the reason we say drugs and alcohol is simply because alcohol was around way before we had a notion of 'chemicals which do harm to your body' kind of knowledge and alcohol has been an accepted beverage for millenia. It has been seen a vice, however, just like drugs, for quite some time.

wingerlang4• 11 years ago

“sandwiches and hamburgers”

I kind of get what you mean, but those are very different.

evincarofautumn4• 11 years ago

In what way? A hamburger is a sandwich, and alcohol is a drug. A hot dog is a sausage, too.

WickyNilliams• 11 years ago

A friend and I had a good laugh recently after spotting someone had posted a rant on FB declaring (amongst other misinformed nonsense) that "if someone is addicted to drugs they deserve to die". In the comments underneath more people chimed in with "yeah, bloody druggies, they deserve it", and other similar sentiments. Then the original poster commented, without a hint of irony, "I know, who would want to do drugs?! I'm bad enough after 10 jaegerbombs, i can't imagine what i'd be like on drugs". 10 jaegerbombs!! First, that is undeniably drug abuse. Second, these people don't realise that level of alcohol is far more intoxicating and dangerous (perhaps also addictive?) than many of the hardest drugs!

How are people's perspectives so off with this stuff? I understand education tells people "drugs are bad mmmkay" but to be as cold-hearted as to think addicts/users deserve to die, while ignoring the massive contradiction in your own beliefs? It absolutely astounds me

It's drug abuse which poses problems at social and personal levels, not drug use.

vidarh6• 11 years ago

Part of the reason is that they don't know how often they see people under the influence of drugs, because it's not something that will be paraded in front of someone who is clearly anti-drug - unlike alcohol - because of the legal risk.

So their image of drug users is drug addicts with so severe problems that they are "visible" in wholly negative ways, because outside of a few self-destructive people or activists, for the most part the only ones that will expose their use publicly, or to people who make it clear they are against drugs, are the ones unable to hide it.

I used to think all drug users were the kind of broken down addicts you occasionally see on the streets too, though I felt pity for them rather than express the kind of unfeeling anger you'r describing from that Facebook user.

That first changed over time as I over the years met more and more drug users who were fully functioning, and mostly entirely normal people (using drugs ranging from cannabis to heroin) and was forced to accept that not only were they not all broken down wrecks, but many of them were not even addicts. Including some of the ones using some of the hardest drugs.

finishingmove• 11 years ago

It's even worse, because the society-set standards demand of you to drink coffee every day, otherwise you will be seen as less productive than someone who drinks 3 cups a day.

fahadkhan• 11 years ago

I have worked with people that do not need caffeine to be far more productive than myself with caffeine. Also read research which claims caffeine only brings people with caffeine tolerance to a normal level of alertness, i.e. its counter productive to use caffeine frequently. Unfortunately I cannot fix the cause, lack of sleep, so I try to address the symptoms.

dragonwriter6• 11 years ago

Or the fact that mere use of a substance isn't the same thing as addiction/dependence.

Now, what stops them from being called a "drug abuser" is that their substances of choice are legal, so aren't subject to the use=abuse idea that applies to illegal drugs, but even illegal drugs aren't generally subject to a use=addiction idea.

TallGuyShort4• 11 years ago

> Only 10 percent of drug users have a problem with their substance

My politics generally agree with the author's main point, but this statistic seems disingenuous. Surely the percentage varies significantly depending on the drug. I know plenty of people who smoke marijuana and don't have a problem with it. Yet the only people I've known who had problems with methamphetamine or heroine have all ended up hitting rock-bottom or dying. Granted, people are more open about marijuana use than those other drugs, so my observations are biased. But I'm skeptical of the author's statements in that regard... I haven't read the full article yet, but she doesn't seem to address this.

Alex39172• 11 years ago

Surely the percentage varies significantly depending on the drug.

It actually doesn't, which is one of the key findings of addiction research. The reason is that people don't abuse drugs because of the physical discomfort of withdrawal, but rather because they have a psychological dependence on drug use. And that psychological dependence is caused by things like previous life trauma; any given drug is just an interchangeable object that's being fit into a slot.

The one drug-related variable that is important though is route of administration. Because addiction involves linking an action with a reward, the faster a drug takes effect the more likely a user will form a problem with that substance. So basically in terms of addictiveness:

smoking > mainlining > snorting > eating > topical

This is why different drugs seem like they have different addictiveness potentials.

wk_end• 11 years ago

By this reasoning smoked marijuana is equally as addictive as nicotine and more addictive than snorted cocaine or orally ingested opiates (i.e. prescription painkillers). That seems pretty suspect to me.

TallGuyShort4• 11 years ago

Any links to such research? It's hardly presented in a scientifically rigorous way, but take this for example: http://bakadesuyo.com/2012/08/whats-the-most-addictive-drug/. It supports the notion the delivery significantly impacts behaviour, but it also cites highly variable addiction rates - not a consistent 90%. Still Googling for better research, but suffice it to say I'm a bit skeptical of the claims...

iooi2• 11 years ago

Yet the only people I've known who had problems with methamphetamine or heroine have all ended up hitting rock-bottom or dying.

Have you known anyone who hasn't had a problem with either of those drugs but still used them at some point in their life?

I would recommend reading TFA, the statistic isn't something the author made up, its from a leaked copy of a United Nations Office on Drug Control report.

For those interested in the statistic:

"Only 10 percent of drug users have a problem with their substance. Some 90 percent of people who use a drug—the overwhelming majority—are not harmed by it."

TallGuyShort4• 11 years ago

So, I've read TFA, I see no citation, and I'm still Googling to track down the original research. They may not have made it up, but they may have taken it out of context or omitted details.

> Have you known anyone who hasn't had a problem with either of those drugs but still used them at some point in their life?

No, I haven't. That's why I'm curious about whether the statistic is uniformly true, or averaged, or what. I'm not saying they made it up, I'm saying I'd like to see more details about how they arrived at that number.

edit: for instance, let's say 90% of "drug users" are marijuana users. Okay, then I'm not surprised, but that would only speak to the danger of marijuana compared to other drugs. Or is it 90% of the users of any given drug? I'd be surprised about the latter. Coming from the United Nations is not a shining banner of truth and unbiased facts.

kristofferR3• 11 years ago

Found it:

"Globally, it is estimated that in 2012, between 162 million and 324 million people, corresponding to between 3.5 per cent and 7.0 per cent of the world population aged 15-64, had used an illicit drug — mainly a substance belonging to the cannabis, opioid, cocaine or amphetamine-type stimulants group — at least once in the previous year.

The extent of problem drug use - by regular drug users and those with drug use disorders or dependence remains stable at between 16 million and 39 million people."

http://www.unodc.org/documents/wdr2014/World_Drug_Report_201...

destructaball• 11 years ago

I don't think that's true. I think in most western countries the kind of people who end up taking meth are already people who have a drug problem, making the makeup of meth users be generally people with serious issues.

New Zealand has been particularly good at prohibiting the import of drugs like MDMA and Cocaine, which has made them prohibitively expensive. As a result, if you're a drug user you either smoke cannabis, take pills which are generally a mix of mephedrone and meth or just straight up take meth. There's no middle ground.

As a result the kinds of people who would normally take MDMA on a night out in London would take Meth on a night out in Auckland. I know a good number of young professionals who take it from time to time without it being a big part of their lives. Strangely the meth snorters stigmatise meth smokers in the same way a normal person would stigmatise a meth user.

drhodes• 11 years ago

I don't think the first sentence of this article still holds. In 2011, the UN convened a global commission on drug policy which stated: "The global war on drugs has failed, with devastating consequences for individuals and societies around the world."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Commission_on_Drug_Poli...

kristofferR3• 11 years ago

The Global Commission on Drug Policy was completely independent, it had nothing to do with the UN (unfortunately).

ris2• 11 years ago

I note that this is written by Johann Hari http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Hari

simplexion3• 11 years ago

So? Does it change the value of this recently published article because of previous bad behaviour? Keep your logical fallacies to yourself.

panzagl2• 11 years ago

Really? I mean really? Of course it changes the value of the article- articles written by unreliable sources are less valuable than those written by reliable ones. Or does it not matter as long as you like the message? If the CIA/NSA comes out and says "Oh it's ok y'all should totally get stoned" does that mean you trust them all of a sudden?

It's no wonder every decent novel about a dystopean society has some type or psychoactive available-everybody trusts their dealer I guess.

ris2• 11 years ago

Yes. There is such thing as "reputation". Logical fallacy? What logical fallacy?

chrischen2• 11 years ago

Some drug use causes horrible harm, as I know very well, but the overwhelming majority of people who use prohibited drugs do it because they get something good out of it — a fun night out dancing, the ability to meet a deadline, the chance of a good night’s sleep, or insights into parts of their brain they couldn’t get to on their own.

Just because 90% of drug users aren't being harmed, doesn't mean it's necessarily helping. If the mongoose is taking drugs to avoid facing reality, it is simply helping him avoid the problem at hand: his mate is dead. Ideally the mongoose should face the problem, and solve the problem (get a new mate and move on). As for other uses, most stimulant drugs provide false signaling. And this false signaling doesn't really have any positive effects apart from the false signaling (dopamine release) itself. And so what is left is for the false signaling to really cause harm to the 10% of vulnerable people who become addicted, creating an downward spiral of false signaling.

I also don't accept the argument that we should accept our own defects. Humans are genetically susceptible to cancer, depression, but that doesn't mean we should accept them and not fight it. Those are ailments that are easily seen as harmful though, unlike the false signaling of substance use.

That being said, most of what I said apply only to stimulant drugs like cocaine, ecstacy, meth, and not to marijuana or LSD.

eropple2• 11 years ago

You view it as taking drugs to "avoid facing reality". A less judgmental and, frankly, less jerkish way of putting it would be "stress relief." Because we are not a bunch of meat-puppet robots, able to turn off emotions with a blood-curdling scream of the lambda effing calculus. Combating stress is a positive effect. External signals that are internalized are not false, they are externally derived, and the idea of a blanket claim of negativity based on this idea that any avoidance is inherently a negative is wacky.

If you think the solution to a dead mate is to sack up and move on (and no, I'm not putting words in your mouth, I'm just getting at the inescapable conclusion of your line of thinking), I don't think you're particularly well-qualified to pontificate about either stress or grief.

(And I don't touch anything stronger than the occasional beer, I just don't like your tone or your presumption.)

grasstomouth• 11 years ago

Even you argue that 90% of drug use isn't "helping," the bigger problem that we have today is that criminalizing drug use makes it that much worse. The American Medical Association declared drug addiction "a primary, chronic disease of brain reward, motivation, memory and related circuitry" in 1987. Why then are we sending drug users to prison and ruining their chances for future employment? This only exacerbates the problem and is essentially a lifetime punishment.

We need to be treating it as a disease and a social problem, not a criminal one, with an appropriate and measured response.

visarga3• 11 years ago

It's hard to treat drug use as a social or medical problem because vilifying it is so tempting for evert aspiring moralist. It's as if there was a category of people who were addicted to demonizing addiction.

MichaelGG3• 11 years ago

I like how you just gloss over how one should "solve the problem". All they have to do is "move on". Well... perhaps drug use is a good way to move on. Drugs are part of reality, so it's rather silly to say they're only used to "avoid reality".

If I get cut in the leg, the doctors put me on morphine while things heal up enough. Am I avoiding reality? Should I just grit my teeth and be tough? For what benefit?

Likewise, if I cannot concentrate, doctors give me stimulants to help, and most folks view this as OK. But if I want to have an extra-fun night out and use the same medication, all of a sudden I'm a speed freak escaping reality?

And if I'm suffering mentally, why can't doctors give me the same morphine as they do for my leg?

How are drugs any more false signalling than doing other activities like seeking out a new mate, meditation or religion, or whatever other things you'd consider as "facing reality" and "moving on"?

visarga3• 11 years ago

Just because 90% of drug users aren't being harmed, doesn't mean it's necessarily helping.

Why would people use drugs that are not helping them? They avoid substances that make them feel bad. They use only substances that are helping them cope in some way or another. To say drugs aren't helping them is to dismiss their suffering and appetites for release.

saiya-jin2• 11 years ago

do-not-agree. my example - after breaking up with girls, smoking pot make me come to terms with it rather quickly, gaining different perspective (ie that necessary step back that you don't have when deep in it). I see too many people dwelling in the past long gone, strong negative reactions when meeting previous lover etc (if one really moves on, meeting an ex is a "meh" experience no matter what happened... how many times did you see the opposite?). Curing grief, and I mean really curing for good, instead of being depressed has a net positive effect for me. If this thing would be completely legal, I wouldn't be destroying my lungs by smoking it, but apply some nasal spray, eye drops or similar with no side effects.

simbaepet• 11 years ago

Very interesting

lovemenot• 11 years ago

Another example of self-medication in the animal world is reindeer, which may travel many kilometers to eat fly agaric mushrooms: those red and white ones. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkCS9ePWuLU

jrockway• 11 years ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_Park

panzagl2• 11 years ago

When did 'animals do it' become a justification for anything? Animals are violent, self-centered, racist, misogynistic assholes.

blakeja• 11 years ago

And eat their own shit, but hey, whatever floats your boat man...

elwell• 11 years ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalistic_fallacy

lightyrs• 11 years ago

The naturalistic fallacy should not be confused with a fallacious appeal to nature, a mistaken claim that something is good or right because it is natural (or bad or wrong because it is unnatural).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_nature

faitswulff• 11 years ago

So are we!

What we learn from animals doesn't make it justified, but it might explain our own quirks. For instance, homosexuality is well-documented in animals, which is a neat counter to the position that sex is only "naturally intended" for procreation. And studying animal behavior may expose evolutionary reasons for said behaviors, which helps us understand and sympathize both with animals and with our fellow human beings. For the latter, it may lead to more effective treatment. For the former, it's just really funny. Because who doesn't want to see a drunk elephant or a stoned water buffalo?

collyw3• 11 years ago

We are a form of animal, in case that had escaped you.

jostmey• 11 years ago

So why do animals eat psychoactive plants? As far as I can tell, the article doesn't answer this question.

interdrift• 11 years ago

For relief of stress

ommunist2• 11 years ago

For the account - earthworms have endorphins too. But whether they dig for cannabis roots is still unknown. This needs additional research.

(UPD: see Nature. 1979 Jun 28;279(5716):805-6.)

bambax• 11 years ago

As a young scientific researcher, Siegel had been confidently toldby his supervisor that humans were the only species that seek out drugs to use for their own pleasure

This upsets me to no end. How do they know? People constantly proclaim that "only humans do this or that" which means "animals don't do that", which means... well, nothing, since "animals" is not really a relevant category. Animals is short for "living things that are not modern humans", and in order for any phrase starting with "animals" to be true you need to examine ALL ANIMALS.

A very popular French author from the 16th century (Rabelais) once said "rire est le propre de l'homme" (only humans laugh); this sentence is taught in school here in France and repeted constantly; it's considered both insightful and obvious (which is a contradiction in itself; what's obvious and undisputable shouldn't be very interesting).

I was told this as a teenager and always considered it a gratuituous affirmation with nothing to back it up.

Why wouldn't some animals like to get high?

mc_hammer• 11 years ago

i think youre right

theres one type of monkey that commonly scavanges for rotted fruit for its alcohol

domenzain• 11 years ago

That echoes statements that seek to prove homosexuality is unnatural since only humans do it—which is demonstrably false.

How often would gratuitous affirmations like that arrive in your schooling? Did they ever stop?

In my experience the French educational system is very formal and structured; also strongly focused on the chronology of the ideas it teaches.

I feel it pushes many inaccurate ideas to later (while staying on topic) challenge them formally. Would you agree with this?

vidarh6• 11 years ago

I'm reminded of an incident when I was a kid, when a freeway in Sweden was closed because of falling geese.

They'd gotten drunk by eating fermented berries, so much so that apparently quite a number were unable to continue flying, or make a safe landing. Some cars were hit before the local freeway was closed (I don't think there were any human casualties; not so sure about the geese).

Of course that could have been an aberration, but as it turns out, in places where fermented berries or fruit is regularly available, animals do often explicitly seek it out.

bradleysmith• 11 years ago

This is also the delineator between humans and animals presented in Robert Heinlein's "Stranger in a Strange Land", and I had a knee-jerk reaction against it. It is NOT obvious to me at all.

I've seen my cats play 'jokes' on my dog. I've seen the squirrels tease her too by jumping down in the yard, then laugh-bark for minutes, taunting her from the the trees. Don't even get me started on blue jays.

I've repeatedly seen animals engage in behavior similar enough to laughter to make me doubt this claim or those making it.

greggman• 11 years ago

I'm firmly on the "legalize drugs" side if only to get rid of the crime since that's more relevant to me.

That said, one of the "keep drugs illegal" guys from this debate (http://www.intelligencesquared.com/events/versus-drugs/) basically claimed legal drugs kill people. Tobacco is used by 1/3 of humanity and kills 5 million people a year. Alcohol is used by 1/4 of humanity and kills 2.5 million people. 1/20th of humanity uses illegal drugs, that includes people who claim to only use it once a year, and the drugs kill 0.5 million people a year. In other words legal drugs kill 10x the people of illegal drugs. So he extrapolates that if we legalize drugs real deaths by them will go up by as much as 10x.

He also believes after you legalize it the full force of big pharma and VCs and banks and big tobacco will be unleashed on promoting and marketing it. He claims you can google these plans and you can google the lobbyists talking to politicians about all the tax revenue that will come in by making it as big as alcohol etc.

I'm not saying I agree. I have no idea. The idea of it being promoted can be argued away by saying only the government will sell it. Maybe? Here in California there are plenty of shady stores offering instant consultation with a doctor to get your medical approval so you can then buy from them. The point being businesses are popping up. I have no idea what it would take for a giant company to decide to run this stuff.

Others claimed the crime deaths offset the drug deaths although if you check the stats they arguably won't be close. Even a doubling of drug deaths will be far more than drug related crime deaths.

You can also just claim you're more interested in a reduction in crime and even if more people die from drug related accidents. Of course if it's a reduction in theft related crime that's great but of course more intoxicated people could mean more unintentional deaths like drunk drivers?

Anyway, like I said I'm still firmly on the "legalize" side. This was just one of the first arguments against that made me pause.

vidarh6• 11 years ago

There are lots of flaws in his argument.

For starters, from your account, he appears to be assuming that 90% of the potential market for illegal drugs stays away from them because they are illegal. We have good reasons to assume that is flat out wrong, by looking at Portugal (where use appears to have dropped after decriminalisation) for example.

Secondly, there's reason to assume that a substantial proportion of deaths related to illegal drugs (and lets just take the numbers you cite at face value) are a direct result of criminalisation. Heroin, for example, is a very safe drug when it is pure, in predictable doses and safely administered. It becomes massively more dangerous when it is impure - mixed with who knows what (brick dust being one common example..), comes in unpredictable doses with according risk of overdoses, and is administered with potentially unclean syringes, in unsanitary conditions (clean syringes, or low enough prices for people to afford sufficient doses for oral use would both make a huge difference).

There is every reason to assume that number of deaths per 100,000 users for illegal drugs as a whole would plunge if well regulated legal sources were available, combined with less judgemental health care options for actual addicts. We have clear evidence of this from heroin treatment, where programs to provide clean syringes and safe places to shoot up on its own provides drastic harm reduction, even when addicts are still dealing with the dangers of massively impure drugs.

Moreover, many of these drugs are only used as more easily obtainable (cheaper, often) alternatives to safer, more harshly regulated illegal drugs. E.g. shooting up heroin is often the "low cost" alternative to obtaining prescription opiates that are safe enough for routine prescriptions on the black market.

As such, legalising the safest drugs - including "hard" ones like heroin that are quite safe in pure forms - and treating addiction to prescription drugs like oxycodone as a health problem rather than cutting people off and pushing them to illegal alternatives, may be assumed to reduce the number of deaths from some of the genuinely highly dangerous illegal drugs or mixes by shifting use away from the worse alternatives.

Another reason it doesn't make sense to extrapolate like that is that even if the number of deaths from now-illegal drugs would go up 10x, what matters would be the increased total harm, and for that to go up 10x there would need to be no replacement effect. That is, if 50% of those extra deaths are people who would otherwise be abusing, and dying from, alcohol, then the actual increase in mortality would be equivalent to 5x as many deaths as currently.

But it's even more complicated than that: Some of the illegal drugs are demonstrably substantially safer than drugs like alcohol. Depending on the size of replacement effects, and the effect of legalization on relative popularity of different drugs etc., actual effect on overall harm could be vastly different.

This before you even start looking at things like crime reduction.

Consider that when looking at crime reduction, it is not just theft to finance purchase, but also outright war-like conditions in many of the places the drugs are produced. As in, army units being used to try to contain manufacture, and failing, with associated huge number of deaths.

SnacksOnAPlane• 11 years ago

The really interesting thing about this story, to me, is that many of the animals don't actually want to do the drugs unless they're put in situations that stress them out.

However, many humans seem to want to do drugs all the time.

Isn't this indicative that there's something fundamentally "wrong" about our society? We've set up a system where we constantly feel existential angst and want to numb ourselves to it.

runeks• 11 years ago

Don't forget wasps!

Here in Denmark, some time in the fall -- when all the apples have fallen off the apple trees, and have been lying on the ground for a while, fermenting -- wasps (that will die soon, because the winter is coming) gorge themselves on these half-rotten, alcohol-rich apple leftovers.

So they fly around, intoxicated by alcohol, bothering everyone, acting very aggressive, which is a real pain to humans since it kind of hurts getting stung by them. It is kind of funny though. Drunk wasps.

Why animals eat psychoactive plants

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