Classical Drug Use: Greek and Roman Drug Freedom

Classical Drug Use

As Dr. David Hillman writes in his book, The Chemical Muse (2008):

The Greeks and Romans used opium, anticholinergics, and numerous botanical toxins to induce states of mental euphoria, create hallucinations, and alter their own consciousness; this is an indisputable fact. (p. 87)

This fact has been intentionally ignored and covered up by historians. (See previous post.) Recreational drugs have been translated out of classical literature in the same manner as bawdy sexual references were until recent decades.

This has occurred with individual words. Opium has been translated into poppy seeds even where it makes no sense. But it has also occurred with entire concepts.

Drugs, Sex, Magic

Classical literature abounds with sorcerers, magicians, and witches. Translators rarely reveal that their power stemmed from their great expertise in drugs. Sorcerers were classical drug dealers and the effects of drugs were seen as magical in those times. Drugs and magic were one.

Medea, the wife of Jason the Argonaut, is frequently portrayed as a witch. She aided Jason by putting fire-breathing bulls asleep and giving him amazing courage. Hillman shows how translators mistranslate polypharmakon and pharmaka to present her as being skilled in the “magical arts” and a possessor of “charms.” Medea was actually “drug-savvy” and possessed “drugs.” She gave the bulls and Jason drugs, not spells.

Sorcerers were honored and respected members of society. They and the more run-of-the-mill drug sellers, “root cutters,” had to know how to extract desired chemicals from plants and animals. This was an exact science for the wrong amount or the wrong extraction could kill. For example, mandrake in minute doses could generate euphoria and stimulate libido, at low doses it was an anesthetic, and at regular doses it was lethal.

Symposia and Spiked Wine

The Greeks and Romans favored method of drug administration was to mix them with wine. This has allowed history teachers to present ancient revelers as merely drinkers – not “illegal drug” users. As the scholar, Dr. Carl A.P. Ruck has written:

Ancient wine, like the wine of most early peoples, did not contain alcohol as its sole inebrient but was ordinarily a variable infusion of herbal toxins in a vinous liquid. Unguents, spices, and herbs, all with recognized psychotropic properties, could be added to the wine. (pp. 176-177)

This gives an entirely different purview of the Greek symposia. At these “riotous drinking parties” great minds like Socrates and Plato debated and developed their theories on the great philosophical questions. Another clue tells even more. Altered states of consciousness were viewed as divinely provided madness. Plato wrote:

But he who without divine madness comes to the doors of the Muses, confident that he will be a good poet by art, meets with no success, and the poetry of the sane man vanishes into nothingness before that of the inspired madmen. (p. 177)

Source:

D.C.A. Hillman, The Chemical Muse: Drug Use and the Roots of Western Civilization (2008). LINK

Noted Historian: Cultural Trance Behind Our Drug Paranoia

Jennifer Michael Hecht

In her popular 2007 book, The Happiness Myth: Why What We Think Is Wrong, historian Jennifer Michael Hecht calls our current demonization of drugs a “cultural trance.” (p. 71) Just like past irrational attitudes the modern view of drugs may eventually reveal itself as, “bossy, shaming, controlling nonsense.” (p. 2)

People follow the conventional wisdom of their era in pursuing happiness. Hecht points out that experts have been proven wrong throughout history and that there is no reason to believe the current batch will fare any better. She reveals numerous “nonsensical cultural assumptions” about drugs, the primary one being that drug induced happiness is inferior to sober happiness. (p. 7)

It wasn’t until the early 20th century that pleasure via drugs was characterized as “naughty.” All cultures have had favorite chemicals to feel better. (The Bible repeatedly advocates using alcohol for joy.) This history has been whitewashed in America. For example, few know that marijuana has been smoked from braziers in Europe since the onset of agriculture roughly 5,000 years ago or that the French Renaissance literary character, the giant Pantagruel, was named after marijuana and smoked it constantly.

Hecht dares to point out that even addiction can be pleasurable. Much of America is addicted to caffeine and looks forward to their “boosts.” They do not suffer because caffeine is freely available. In other cultures and times opiates and cocaine were used in a similarly benign fashion, i.e. laudanum in the West and coca chewing in South America.

Hecht explains how easily our drug attitudes could have been formed differently and how arbitrary our drug categories are. If coca leaves transported easier, chewing may have caught on in Europe and there may have been more resistance to the cocaine prohibitionists. Likewise if caffeine is “chemically goosed” to provide an intense high, caffeine might become a target of the drug war. (p. 92)

In Native American culture there were periodic festivals involving dancing and the closely supervised administration of drugs which brought about spiritual revelation and euphoria. Teenagers participated. A longing for these experiences still exists as, “many people, especially young people, say they are never happier than when they are a little high and listening to live music, or dancing.” (p. 118) However, in current American culture this behavior has been criminalized due to our “pharmacological Calvinism” so young adults who persist must get their substances from the black market and consume them without supervision. (p. 119)

Hecht lists circumstances in which she suggests one consider using drugs. Some of them are:

1. If you long for a break from your “symptoms” or merely from your personality.
2. If you want to know more about the nature of reality and how the mind creates it.
3. If you want to have an intense communing experience with someone.
4. If you want to have a good time on a given evening.
5. If you want to dance and be social, but you are too inhibited.

Hecht cautions people against using illegal drugs in the current environment and recognizes their dangers. However, she writes that life is full of risky behaviors, e.g. driving cars, mountain climbing, living a sedentary life. The risks and benefits are balanced when deciding whether to regulate or criminalize these activities, but with drugs modern policy makers completely discount the happiness that drugs bring.

Modern pundits who claim we are dosing ourselves too freely are not speaking with historical knowledge or philosophical sense. Keeping your mind in only one place is not a very assertive way to relate to life, to search it for happiness, or for truth. (p. 127)

The Happiness Myth: Why What We Think Is Wrong also covers false cultural assumptions in the areas of wisdom, money, bodies, and celebration.

Hidden History: The DEA, Nixon’s Pills, and Black People

The DEA, Nixon's Pills, and Black People

An assistant to Egil Krogh, a member of President Richard Nixon’s administration imprisoned in the Watergate scandal, explained, “If we hyped the drug problem into a national crisis, we knew that Congress would give us anything we asked for.” (Epstein, p. 140)

Nixon’s statistical deceit regarding heroin addict numbers is explained in Agency of Fear: Opiates and Political Power in America. (pp. 174-177) When Nixon later wanted to show his War on Drugs was working the addict population was magically sliced by 25%.

The cartooned quotes are from Dan Baum’s Smoke and Mirrors: The War on Drugs and the Politics of Failure. (pp. 13 & 21) Baum took the “blacks” quote from the diary of Nixon’s Chief of Staff, H.R. Haldeman.

Nixon’s generous use of drugs – prescribed and not prescribed (Dilantin) – and alcohol is detailed in Anthony Summers’ The Arrogance of Power: The Secret World of Richard Nixon.

Sources:

1. Robert Arthur, You Will Die: The Burden of Modern Taboos (2008).
2. Dan Baum, Smoke and Mirrors: The War on Drugs and the Politics of Failure (1996).
3. Edward Jay Epstein, Agency of Fear: Opiates and Political Power in America (1977).
4. Anthony Summers, The Arrogance of Power: The Secret World of Richard Nixon (2000).

Dr. Drew Is Wrong

Drew PinskyDr. Drew Pinsky is a celebrity doctor who has doled out medical advice on the radio for over 25 years. He is now a media franchise and has become the nation’s popular expert on addiction with his television shows Celebrity Rehab and Sober House. Unfortunately, several of his proclamations are wrong.

Willpower Does Work

Pinsky is a champion of the disease theory of addiction. In his words, “Addicts have intense neurobiological patterns in the brain that have a grip on them, and willpower doesn’t work.” (Hochman)

Studies have found the legal drug nicotine to be the most addictive substance. Yet roughly half of those who have ever smoked have quit without treatment. The percentage of former heroin, cocaine, and alcohol addicts who have quit without professional assistance is even higher. (Peele, p. 1)

As Dr. Stanton Peele, an addiction expert, explains, “an enormous treatment/recovery industry, backed by a large government bureaucracy” insists on perpetuating the myth that curing addiction cannot possibly take any route but their own. (Peele, p. 2)

The Damage Dr. Drew Causes

“Disease” centered treatment helps many people, however, by damning any other route to stability Dr. Drew does a great disservice. A 1996 study that tracked subjects in outpatient alcohol treatment found that “belief in the disease model of alcoholism” was one of two primary factors in predicting relapse. (Peele, p. 38)

This is common sense. If you brow beat someone into thinking they are a life-long addict with no will power is it surprising that they are more likely to behave like someone with no willpower?

Dr. Drew and Artie Lange

The addiction theory is an attractive concept to addicts as it excuses their actions and frees them from responsibility. But one addict who is not buying it is Artie Lange of The Howard Stern Show. (Read post about Lange’s addiction here.) On a Pinsky appearance on The Howard Stern Show (1/12/09) Pinsky said of Lange, “You have to see Artie as a heroin addict. Everything’s bullshit.” Lange responded re Pinsky’s rehab shows, “You wanna be famous and you’re exploiting people to get there.” Later adding, “[Pinsky's] taking advantage of the biggest fuck ups in LA right now …. They’re not getting proper treatment.”

Lange has recently devised a new program for himself to stay off heroin which involves exercise and keeping two ex-cops by his side. Dr. Drew called Lange’s plans “self-will run riot” and said that as long as Lange is calling the shots for himself he will fail. Dr. Drew said Lange needs a six-month spiritual program of recovery and that his life depends on it. (Dell’Abate, 5/7/09) Lange was infuriated about this damnation and questioned Pinsky’s motives revealing that Lange had been offered $250,000 to do three weeks on Pinsky’s show, Celebrity Rehab.

Other Dr. Drew Myths

“Heroin addiction has a worse prognosis than cancer.” (Dell’Abate, 1/12/09) – A study of heroin users found the annual death rate to be 1%. Taken out of the criminalized context, in a three year heroin maintenance program with over 1,000 patients no one died.

“One out of ten heroin addicts beat it.” (Dell’Abate, 1/12/09) – I do not know Pinsky’s source but drug abuse studies are almost always skewed in that they focus on people in treatment. (Imagine how alcohol would be portrayed if all media and research coverage was of those in rehab.) One study that was drawn from a more general population of users was that of heroin addicts returning from Vietnam. Very few received treatment, and yet after leaving Vietnam only 12% continued to be addicted. (This cannot be attributed to availability as six in ten of those addicted in Vietnam used a narcotic after returning.) The relapse rate was actually higher for veterans who were treated for their addiction than those who were not.

If my kids ever did heroin I would load up their car with heroin and call the cops. (Dell’Abate, 1/12/09) – This claim led Lange to call Pinsky a “bullshitter.” I too question whether Pinsky would want his son to be imprisoned for years as a dealer and burdened with a criminal record so that every future employer would know about it. (How would George W. Bush and Barack Obama turned out if their relatives took the same tact with their cocaine use? LINK) As a public defender I saw many people who viewed drug use as a criminal matter quickly change their minds when their loved one was the one facing prison time.

“That part of the body wasn’t made for doing [anal sex], and I dread to see what will happen to these women down the line …. it won’t be pretty.” (Hochman) – According to Dr. Jack Morin, an expert in anal health, there is “no convincing evidence” that safe and responsible anal sex causes disease. (Morin, p. 223) In addition, the sphincter is a muscle and stretching it is no more damaging than stretching exercises are to any other muscles in the body.

More recent post on Dr. Drew Pinsky: Did Dr. Drew Lie About His Drug Use?

Sources:

  1. Robert Arthur, You Will Die: The Burden of Modern Taboos (2008).
  2. Gary Dell’Abate, The Howard Stern Show, Sirius XM Radio.
  3. David Hochman, “Playboy Interview: Dr. Drew Pinsky,” Playboy, 1 July 2008.
  4. Jack Morin, Anal Pleasure and Health (1998).
  5. Stanton Peele, Seven Tools to Beat Addiction (2004).

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