Drug culture

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Drug cultures are examples of countercultures that are primarily defined by spiritual, medical, and recreational drug use. They may be focused on a single drug, or endorse polydrug use. They sometimes eagerly or reluctantly initiate newcomers, but their main functions are to share drug experiences, to reduce harm by providing knowledge of how to use drugs as safely as possible, and to exchange information on suppliers and avoidance of law enforcement.

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Drug subcultures are groups of people united by a common understanding of the meaning, value, and risks of the incorporation into one's life of the drug(s) in question. Such unity can take many forms, from friends who take the drug together, possibly obeying certain rules of etiquette, groups banding together to help each other obtain drugs and avoid arrest, [1] to full-scale political movements for the reform of drug laws. [2] The sum of these parts can be considered an individual drug's "culture".

Many artists, writers, and musicians have used various drugs to facilitate or enhance their creativity. Writers have explored their influence on human life in general and particularly on the creative process. There are many writings that portray drug culture. Hunter S. Thompson's 1971 novel Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas employs multiple drug use as a major theme and provides an example of the drug culture of the 1960s.

After various drug cultures came to prominence during the 1960s, 1980s and early 2000s, the internet provided a new location and medium where drug cultures could be born and propagate. Technologies like Tor were able to offer anonymous website hosting and browsing, which were used for the creation of the darknet market SilkRoad, the first of many to be used in the sale of psychoactive substances and other illegal goods. There are YouTube channels devoted to recreational drug use and harm reduction, with the most popular being PsychedSubstance. Except for forums (like Blue Light) where individuals can post and discuss the properties and experiences of psychoactive substances, there are websites and organizations specifically created to serve as encyclopedias of psychoactive drugs and drug culture, such as Erowid and PsychonautWiki.

Drinking culture

Alcoholic beverages contain ethanol (simply called alcohol). Ethanol is a psychoactive drug [3] [4] primarily found in alcoholic beverages. Alcohol is one of the most commonly abused drugs in the world (Metropol, 1996) [5] often used for self-medication, [6] and as recreational drug use. [7]

Cannabis culture

A man smoking cannabis in Kolkata, India. Ganja Smoking - Gangasagar Fair Transit Camp - Kolkata 2013-01-12 2646.JPG
A man smoking cannabis in Kolkata, India.

Cannabis has been used in the ancient past in places such as ancient India, Romania, Egypt, and Mesopotamia. [8] It was often used as medicine or for hemp. Its main route of consumption was smoking. Over time the culture became more international and a general "cannabis culture" formed. Cannabis culture has been responsible for the genre of films known as stoner films which has come to be accepted as a mainstream cinema movement. [9] [10] In the United States the culture has also spawned its own celebrities (such as Tommy Chong and Terence McKenna), magazines (Cannabis Culture and High Times ), and, in North America, its own distinct holiday: April 20 (420), which is marked as a day for calling for the legalization of cannabis and celebration of cannabis. [11] [12] The consumption of cannabis influenced many artistic movements such as jazz, electronic music and hip hop.[ citation needed ]

Hip hop and drugs

The hip hop, hardcore rap, and trap scenes, alongside their derivative subgenres and subcultures, are most notorious for having continuously celebrated and promoted drug trafficking, gangster lifestyle, and the consumption of alcohol and other drugs since their inception in the United States during the late 1980s–early 1990s. [13] [14] [15] [16]

Witchcraft and drugs

The drugs used in witchcraft are different depending on the culture. Most of the research done on drug use in witchcraft was done in the 60s during the hippie movement. Since then, the claim that ergot was taken in Salem has been disproven. However, because the research was done during the hippie and drug movement in the 70s, the theory is still a part of drug culture. [17]

Ancient Greek love magic used many rituals that show drug use in poisoning to deeper the emotion of love. Love magic would be used by ancient Greek women to gain or keep a man's love. Researchers of this period often look at the agency of the women. Greek love magic relates to drug culture as it deals with poisoning people. There can be similarities found in today's date rape drug. However, in ancient Greek time the women would slowly poison the men. Women would put the poisons on their robes to expose it to the men. [18]

Shamanism used hallucinogens to further their spirituality. These hallucinogens were used for different ceremonies of the Indians in the Northwest Amazon. These ceremonies include funerals and initiation of the young. Shamans had a wider range of use for these drugs. Shamans used these drugs to identify illnesses and find possible cures or to find an enemy. [19]

There is a theory, seemingly disproven due to timeline of events and number of those who experience the symptoms, that the Salem witch trials were caused by ergot poisoning. Ergot poisoning gives a similar effect to LSD, but like ergine the physical effects and dangers (including death due to higher toxicity of the ergolines in ergot) are much more substantial than the use of LSD for psychedelic research and ritual contexts. [20]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Recreational drug use</span> Use of drugs with the primary intention to alter the state of consciousness

Recreational drug use is the use of one or more psychoactive drugs to induce an altered state of consciousness, either for pleasure or for some other casual purpose or pastime. When a psychoactive drug enters the user's body, it induces an intoxicating effect. Recreational drugs are commonly divided into three categories: depressants, stimulants, and hallucinogens.

<i>Cannabis</i> Genus of flowering plants

Cannabis is a genus of flowering plants in the family Cannabaceae. The number of species within the genus is disputed. Three species may be recognized: Cannabis sativa, C. indica, and C. ruderalis. Alternatively, C. ruderalis may be included within C. sativa, all three may be treated as subspecies of C. sativa, or C. sativa may be accepted as a single undivided species. The genus is widely accepted as being indigenous to and originating from Asia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Psychopharmacology</span> Study of the effects of psychoactive drugs

Psychopharmacology is the scientific study of the effects drugs have on mood, sensation, thinking, behavior, judgment and evaluation, and memory. It is distinguished from neuropsychopharmacology, which emphasizes the correlation between drug-induced changes in the functioning of cells in the nervous system and changes in consciousness and behavior.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cannabis edible</span> Food item containing cannabis extract or cannabinoids

A cannabis edible, also known as a cannabis-infused food or simply an edible, is a food item that contains decarboxylated cannabinoids from cannabis extract as an active ingredient. Although edible may refer to either a food or a drink, a cannabis-infused drink may be referred to more specifically as a liquid edible or drinkable. Edibles are a way to consume cannabis. Unlike smoking, in which cannabinoids are inhaled into the lungs and pass rapidly into the bloodstream, peaking in about ten minutes and wearing off in a couple of hours, cannabis edibles may take hours to digest, and their effects may peak two to three hours after consumption and persist for around six hours. The food or drink used may affect both the timing and potency of the dose ingested.

Substance intoxication is a transient condition of altered consciousness and behavior associated with recent use of a substance. It is often maladaptive and impairing, but reversible. If the symptoms are severe, the term "substance intoxication delirium" may be used. Slang terms for the state include: getting high (generic), and being stoned, cooked, or blazed.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Entheogen</span> Psychoactive substances that induce spiritual experiences

Entheogens are psychoactive substances that induce alterations in perception, mood, consciousness, cognition, or behavior for the purposes of engendering spiritual development or otherwise in sacred contexts. Anthropological study has established that entheogens are used for religious, magical, shamanic, or spiritual purposes in many parts of the world. Entheogens have traditionally been used to supplement many diverse practices geared towards achieving transcendence, including divination, meditation, yoga, sensory deprivation, asceticism, prayer, trance, rituals, chanting, imitation of sounds, hymns like peyote songs, drumming, and ecstatic dance. The psychedelic experience is often compared to non-ordinary forms of consciousness such as those experienced in meditation, near-death experiences, and mystical experiences. Ego dissolution is often described as a key feature of the psychedelic experience.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cannabis (drug)</span> Psychoactive drug from the cannabis plant

Cannabis, also known as marijuana or weed among other names, is a psychoactive drug from the cannabis plant. Native to Central or South Asia, the cannabis plant has been used as a drug for both recreational and entheogenic purposes and in various traditional medicines for centuries. Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) is the main psychoactive component of cannabis, which is one of the 483 known compounds in the plant, including at least 65 other cannabinoids, such as cannabidiol (CBD). Cannabis can be used by smoking, vaporizing, within food, or as an extract.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Deliriant</span> Class of psychoactive drugs

Deliriants are a subclass of hallucinogen. The term was coined in the early 1980s to distinguish these drugs from psychedelics such as LSD and dissociatives such as ketamine, due to their primary effect of causing delirium, as opposed to the more lucid and less disturbed states produced by other types of hallucinogens. The term generally refers to anticholinergic drugs, which are substances that inhibit the function of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine. Common examples of deliriants include plants of the genera Datura and Brugmansia as well as higher than recommended dosages of diphenhydramine (Benadryl). A number of plant deliriants such as that of the Solanaceae family, particularly in the Americas have been used by some indigenous cultures to reach delirious and altered states for traditions or rituals, such as rites of passage, divination or communicating with the ancestors. Despite their long history of use, deliriants are the least-studied class of hallucinogens in terms of their behavioral and neurological effects.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cannabis and religion</span> Entheogenic use of marijuana

Different religions have varying stances on the use of cannabis, historically and presently. In ancient history some religions used cannabis as an entheogen, particularly in the Indian subcontinent where the tradition continues on a more limited basis.

Carl A. P. Ruck, is a professor in the Classical Studies department at Boston University. He received his B.A. at Yale University, his M.A. at the University of Michigan, and a Ph.D. at Harvard University. He lives in Hull, Massachusetts.

Many religions have expressed positions on what is acceptable to consume as a means of intoxication for spiritual, pleasure, or medicinal purposes. Psychoactive substances may also play a significant part in the development of religion and religious views as well as in rituals.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ethnomycology</span> Study of the human use of fungi, especially psychedelics

Ethnomycology is the study of the historical uses and sociological impact of fungi and can be considered a subfield of ethnobotany or ethnobiology. Although in theory the term includes fungi used for such purposes as tinder, medicine and food, it is often used in the context of the study of psychoactive mushrooms such as psilocybin mushrooms, the Amanita muscaria mushroom, and the ergot fungus.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Drug</span> Substance having effect(s) on the body of an individual

A drug is any chemical substance that when consumed causes a change in an organism's physiology, including its psychology, if applicable. Drugs are typically distinguished from food and other substances that provide nutritional support. Consumption of drugs can be via inhalation, injection, smoking, ingestion, absorption via a patch on the skin, suppository, or dissolution under the tongue.

Entheogenic drugs have been used by various groups for thousands of years. There are numerous historical reports as well as modern, contemporary reports of indigenous groups using entheogens, chemical substances used in a religious, shamanic, or spiritual context.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cannabis culture</span> Culture relating to cannabis

Cannabis culture describes a social atmosphere or series of associated social behaviors that depends heavily upon cannabis consumption, particularly as an entheogen, recreational drug and medicine.

Hallucinogens are a large and diverse class of psychoactive drugs that can produce altered states of consciousness characterized by major alterations in thought, mood, and perception as well as other changes. Most hallucinogens can be categorized as either being psychedelics, dissociatives, or deliriants.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cannabis consumption</span> Methods of marijuana administration

Cannabis consumption refers to the variety of ways cannabis is consumed, among which inhalation and ingestion are most common. All consumption methods involve heating the plant's THCA to decarboxylate it into THC, either at the time of consumption or during preparation. Salves and absorption through the skin (transdermal) are increasingly common in medical uses, both of CBD, THC, and other cannabinoids. Each method leads to subtly different psychoactive effects due to the THC and other chemicals being activated, and then consumed through different administration routes. It is generally considered that smoking, which includes combustion toxins, comes on quickly but lasts for a short period of time, while eating delays the onset of effect but the duration of effect is typically longer. In a 2007 ScienceDaily report of research conducted at the University of California–San Francisco, researchers reported that vaporizer users experience the same biological effect, but without the toxins associated with smoking. Δ9-THC is the primary component when inhaled, but when eaten the liver converts this to the more psychoactive 11-hydroxy-THC form.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Psychoactive drug</span> Chemical substance that alters nervous system function

A psychoactive drug, psychopharmaceutical, psychoactive agent, or psychotropic drug is a chemical substance that changes the function of the nervous system and results in alterations of perception, mood, cognition, and behavior. These substances may be used medically, recreationally, for spiritual reasons, or for research. Some categories of psychoactive drugs may be prescribed by physicians and other healthcare practitioners because of their therapeutic value.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Entheogenic use of cannabis</span> Marijuana used spiritually

Cannabis has served as an entheogen—a chemical substance used in religious or spiritual contexts—in the Indian subcontinent since the Vedic period dating back to approximately 1500 BCE, but perhaps as far back as 2000 BCE. It was introduced to the New World by the Spaniards in 1530-1545. Cannabis has been used by shamanic and pagan cultures to ponder deeply religious and philosophical subjects related to their tribe or society, to achieve a form of enlightenment, to unravel unknown facts and realms of the human mind and subconscious, and also as an aphrodisiac during rituals or orgies. There are several references in Greek mythology to a powerful drug that eliminated anguish and sorrow. Herodotus wrote about early ceremonial practices by the Scythians, thought to have occurred from the 5th to 2nd century BCE. Itinerant Hindu saints have used it in the Indian subcontinent for centuries. Mexican-Indian communities occasionally use cannabis in religious ceremonies by leaving bundles of it on church altars to be consumed by the attendees.

References

  1. ↑ Grund, Jean-Paul (2010-11-20). "subculture of injecting drug use". Thebody.com. Retrieved 2013-03-15.
  2. ↑ Armentano, Paul. "norml.org". norml.org. Retrieved 2013-03-15.
  3. ↑ Robinson, DL; Howard, EC; McConnell, S; Gonzales, RA; Wightman, RM (2013-03-25). "Disparity between tonic and phasic ethanol-induced dopamine increases in the nucleus accumbens of rats". Alcohol. Clin. Exp. Res. 33 (7): 1187–96. doi:10.1111/j.1530-0277.2009.00942.x. PMC   2947861 . PMID   19389195.
  4. ↑ Drugs and society - Page 189, Glen (Glen R.) Hanson, Peter J. Venturelli, Annette E. Fleckenstein - 2006
  5. ↑ "Medscape: Medscape Access". medscape.com. 16 October 2021.
  6. ↑ Crum, R. M.; La Flair, L; Storr, C. L.; Green, K. M.; Stuart, E. A.; Alvanzo, A. A.; Lazareck, S; Bolton, J. M.; Robinson, J; Sareen, J; Mojtabai, R (2013). "Reports of drinking to self-medicate anxiety symptoms: Longitudinal assessment for subgroups of individuals with alcohol dependence". Depression and Anxiety. 30 (2): 174–83. doi:10.1002/da.22024. PMC   4154590 . PMID   23280888.
  7. ↑ "Alcohol: The World's Oldest Recreational Drug - OUPblog". OUPblog. 27 January 2010.
  8. ↑ Rudgley, Richard (1998). Lost Civilisations of the Stone Age . New York: Free Press. ISBN   0-684-85580-1.
  9. ↑ Peters, Jon. "top ten stoner movies". Killerfilm.com. Archived from the original on 2014-01-09. Retrieved 2013-03-15.
  10. ↑ "top ten stoner movies". Ign.com. 2008-08-08. Retrieved 2013-03-15.
  11. ↑ "report on 420 holiday". NBC News. 2008-04-16. Retrieved 2013-03-15.
  12. ↑ "Marijuana rally in trouble". Foxnews.com. 2012-04-20. Retrieved 2013-03-15.
  13. ↑ Gonzales, Matt (2 March 2020) [27 November 2017]. "Rap Culture's Evolution from Glorifying to Decrying Drug Use". Orlando, Florida: DrugRehab.com. Archived from the original on 16 January 2021. Retrieved 10 January 2022.
  14. ↑ "Can Hip-Hop Separate Itself From The Drug Culture It Helped Build?". CULTR. 18 December 2019. Archived from the original on 5 December 2020. Retrieved 10 January 2022.
  15. ↑ Granovsky, Josh (23 November 2018). "Emo rap needs to end". The Queen's Journal . Kingston, Ontario: Alma Mater Society of Queen's University. Archived from the original on 24 July 2021. Retrieved 7 August 2022.
  16. ↑ Smiley, Calvin J. (2017). "Addict Rap?: The Shift from Drug Distributor to Drug Consumer in Hip Hop" (PDF). Journal of Hip Hop Studies. Richmond, Virginia: VCU Scholars Compass (Virginia Commonwealth University). 4 (1): 1–24. doi: 10.34718/ZBWC-RN03 . ISSN   2331-5563. Archived from the original on 6 July 2021. Retrieved 10 January 2022.
  17. ↑ Breslaw, Elaine G., ed. Witches of the Atlantic World: A Historical Reader & Primary Sourcebook. (New York: New York University Press, 2000), 427-511
  18. ↑ Faraone, Christopher A.. Ancient Greek Love Magic. Cambridge, US: Harvard University Press, 2009. Accessed April 27, 2016. ProQuest ebrary.
  19. ↑ Reichel-Dolmatoff, Gerardo. "The Cultural Context of an Aboriginal Hallucinogen: Banisteriopsis Caapi.. Flesh of the Gods: The Ritual Use of Hallucinogens. ed. Furst T., Peter. (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1972).
  20. ↑ Spanos, Nicholas P.; Gottlieb, Jack (1976). "Ergotism and the Salem Village Witch Trials". Science. 194 (4272): 1390–94. Bibcode:1976Sci...194.1390S. doi:10.1126/science.795029. JSTOR   1743999. PMID   795029.
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