Defining Drugs

The Definition of "Drugs" varies from culture to culture

• deconstructing "drugs" is the first step towards understanding the complex history of the consumption of psychoactive substances.
• A category of substances taken into the body other than for the purpose of nutrition (food versus drugs)
• two categories: those taken for medicinal purposes, and those taken for psychological (hedonistic) purposes
• regulated by "law" so that illegal use (or unacceptable use) becomes ABUSE
• described as NARCOTICS (and further vilified because they are associated with marginal or criminal individuals)
• very new definition grounded in a capitalist culture were nations have the technology to produce and then sell substances to consumers
• New definition and use: unconstrained by traditional uses in cultures (commodification)
• social practices with meaning
• cultural context of consumption
• Bifurcated definition leaves no room for things we consume on an everyday basis without question
• caffeine
• nicotine
• smoking, sniffing, 
• sugar
• opium/morpheme?
• Anthropological studies remove these culturally constructed categories and look at the way in which consumption is a SOCIAL ACTIVITY and focus on practices (etiquette) which surround their use (Schivelbusch). 
• Example: Italians used to consume a number of herds to stave off hunger and even altered their bread with these substances during time of famine. (Camposese)
• caffeine, wine, and other rituals of intoxication in Italian culture he theories come from this adaptation to uncertain harvest

Anthropology and the Study of Drugs 

• categories outlined above must be put aside (as constructions of recent consumerism) so that we might look at the ways in which substances are understood today.
• looks for INDIGENOUS MODES OF CLASSIFICATION instead
• The SOCIAL CONTEXT OF CONSUMPTION is of great importance and the CONSUMPTION RITUALS associated with them.
• have created mocktails and other expensive concoction to replace the socially unacceptable effects of alcohol, for instance, while retaining the ritual (and its importance)
• Curious Elixirs
• Kin Euphorics
• Seedlip Grove
• Changing social norms
• alkaloids (morpheme and cocaine), Opioids (laudanum) replaced by aspirin, SOCIAL TENSION led to the restricting of drug use through laws. For example, munitions workers needed to be clear to do dangerous work, so UK wrote first laws against drug use. Drunk driving regulations were unforeseeable before the car. (ETC)
• UK Dangerous Drug Act in 1924 put an end to legal drug use
• INCREASED SOCIAL and POLITICAL CONTROL OVER CONSUMPTION with the rise of capitalism.
• Association with undesirable ethnic groups (immigrant populations) could also lead to categorization-(alien drugs)
• Cannabis (West Indians)
• Opium (Chinese)
• tea, coffee, cacao ---all welcomed from these areas BEFORE this time being associated with the monarchies of other nations (not immigrants)
• become associated with the working classes and other undesirables. 

The Anthropology of Consumption

• In stead of looking simply at food versus drugs, we need a broader view we will term the anthropology of consumption.
• includes many common "ingestibles" which are not food (spices, medicines, flavorings and colorings, non-staple food s) as well as non-ingestible substances (body paints, cosmetics, soaps, ointments, incense, perfumes).
• How these are used is closely connected to notions of the human body and treatment of the human body (notions of transitions, cleanliness, proper function) and have changed over the years as cultural attitudes and beliefs shift.
• water used to be considered dangerous during medieval times, and so Europeans did not bathe (for example)
• Sugar: used to be a rare medicinal preparation which had supernatural import. Became a marker of high status consumers and royalty. Only the rich and powerful had access to sugar.--later it became a mass produced commodity and a stable of the Western diet during the Industrial Revolution. lso a sign of the connections and dependency between European colonizers, the colonized new world, and the Africans exploited as slaves. (like tea and coffee and tobacco- same trajectory)

The Social and Experiential Aspects of Substances

• emphasis in anthropological inquiry
• But drugs have always been lucrative economically, even before the rise of international trade routes and consumer capitalism. 
• source of revenue (and power) which societies attempted to regulate.
• Creates political associations with certain substances
• tea (US/England)
• Trajectory:
• Opium (production in India by the East India Company)- 
• Shipped to China- consumed by masses
• Chinese immigrants bring these consumption habits to Europe. 
• Opium is vilified as an "alien drug" in UK.
• Outlawing of opium spreads worldwide with global capitalism
• Drug companies meanwhile make "legal" compounds of opioids for sale in trademarked products commanding high prices
• illegal drug market is born
• Interweaving of cultural and economic factors is emblematic of the "peculiar substances" which we will explore throughout the articles in this text and other course materials.
• Look for an understanding of the SOCIAL ROLE of drugs in the past, we will better understand the factors leading to the contemporary problems associated with drug use:
• value
• dependence and control
• nexus of relationships between industry, private enterprise, state intervention and crime, 

Indigenous drugs:

• Ayahuasca
• khat
• beetlenut
• coca
• cacao
• tabacco
• salvia
• cannabis
• krantom
• mescaline (peyote)

of illegality.

1

The fact that they are often associated with a range of socialand medical problems, through their use by deprived or disturbed groupswithin society, colours the terms in which the substances themselves aredescribed