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Why animals eat psychoactive plants


Christopher O'Brien

Back in the Saddle Aginn
Staff member
[Interesting facts concerning psychoactive plants and why animals seek out and use them. The varied number of species that seek out and use consciousness-altering substances, and why, may surprise you... —chris]

By Johann Hari, (author of Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs, learns about drunk elephants, the stoned water buffalo, and the grieving mongoose.)

Article HERE:

The United Nations says the drug war’s rationale is to build “a drug-free world — we can do it!” U.S. government officials agree, stressing that “there is no such thing as recreational drug use.” So this isn’t a war to stop addiction, like that in my family, or teenage drug use. It is a war to stop drug use among all humans, everywhere. All these prohibited chemicals need to be rounded up and removed from the earth. That is what we are fighting for. [Isn't that right Randall? ;)]

I began to see this goal differently after I learned the story of the drunk elephants, the stoned water buffalo, and the grieving mongoose. They were all taught to me by a remarkable scientist in Los Angeles named Professor Ronald K. Siegel.

The tropical storm in Hawaii had reduced the mongoose’s home to a mess of mud, and lying there, amid the dirt and the water, was the mongoose’s mate — dead. Professor Siegel, a silver-haired official adviser to two U.S. presidents and to the World Health Organization, was watching this scene. The mongoose found the corpse, and it made a decision: it wanted to get out of its mind.

Two months before, the professor had planted a powerful hallucinogen called silver morning glory in the pen. The mongooses had all tried it, but they didn’t seem to like it: they stumbled around disoriented for a few hours and had stayed away from it ever since. But not now. Stricken with grief, the mongoose began to chew. Before long, it had tuned in and dropped out.

It turns out this wasn’t a freak occurrence in the animal kingdom. It is routine. 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. But Siegel had seen cats lunging at catnip — which, he knew, contains chemicals that mimic the pheromones in a male tomcat’s pee —so, he wondered, could his supervisor really be right? Given the number of species in the world, aren’t there others who want to get high, or stoned, or drunk? REST OF ARTICLE HERE
 
I like the whole bit about the neurochemistry of orgasms. Indeed the world has so many interesting hallucinogens and look at how interesting and hallucinatory the UFO event is. That's a kind of mental orgasm you just never forget. And indeed, you want more.

There are some interesting connections here that I don't quite understand how to string together. Hallucinogens also produce these very intense magic theatre visions, like the DMT alien experience that some users have reported. Proximity to the UFO has drug inducing effects that last for quite some time and even leave permanent witness alterations in some cases.

Is it all just mental, our own endorphins soaring out of control as the adrenaline based experience courses through our sensory veins? Nowhere else in nature do we see imagery creating such effects on the witness. This is definitely targeting us humans with their trippy brand of sight seeing. And what sights they are.
 
Interesting article. Thanks Mr. Chris.

I love Blue Bell Butter Pecan ice cream. I don't eat it every day because that would be unhealthy.

I also love Heroin. You have not ever really been high until you've jacked a tube of Heroin and had Baby Jesus swaddle you in a warm, soft cloud of unimaginable Love.

Shooting Heroin and drinking alcohol is unhealthy. It should be done very, very rarely.
 
I was listening to a social worker who works with prostitutes, the homeless and ex-bikers. All his clients said exactly what you said about heroin. And when asked about their addiction (not very, very rare use) they explained that it felt like love, or as one person put it: "You know when you're sick and your mom sits you on your lap and wraps you in a blanket and gives you some warm soup...? Well that's exactly what heroin feels like." People without a lot of love in their childhood end up turning to heroin to get the love later on in life. That's the problem with most drugs - you try to dose your problems with them, replace your problems with them and then you just end up with a lot more problems.

Interestingly, though, you don't see a lot of people turning to psychoactive substances as a love replacement.

People should seek their love through themselves and other people instead of these injectable substitutions.
 
I once had a chihuahua who could teleport from one side of the room to the other if a beer got spilled.
You couldnt just go and get a towel, you had to grab her first.
If she did get any she would get all wobbly and silly. But it was obvious she enjoyed it.
 
Yeah, dogs love their beer and so do I so I make sure narry a drop of good ale is ever spilled. It would just make my dog hoppy and give him the runs. I do like the image of the teleporting chihuahua though. Wish I could get mine to teleport me refills to the backyard.
 
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