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.

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

Richard Mack’s story is taken from his chapter, “Prohibition: The Enemy of Freedom,” in the book, The New Prohibition: Voices of Dissent Challenge the Drug War (2004).

The above story of Salvia divinorum demonstrates how anecdotal evidence is bizarrely abused to create and foster the war on drugs. In modern America’s narcophobic climate one death out of millions of users can cause all adult users to be deemed criminals worthy of prosecution and incarceration.

In covering the marijuana legalization debate the mainstream media is prone to comparing marijuana addictiveness to alcohol, cocaine, and heroin. A much more appropriate comparison would be to caffeine.

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)