Nicotine Stains
Europe went east and got tea. Europe went west and got tobacco and coffee. Continental Europe embraced coffee and tobacco. Insular Europe (a.k.a. U.K.) embraced tea and tobacco. Colonial Europe (a.k.a. the United States) embraced coffee and tobacco and (sub rosa) marijuana, the three plants which formed the primary mind-food group of culture indigenous to North America. Naively unaware of the effects of those drugs on consciousness, we consumed them in great quantities as we built a transplanted European culture here. Puff-puff, glug-glug, we smoked, we drank, and filled the bloodstreams of generations with caffeine and nicotine. Whatever your judgment of the resulting culture, it was profoundly shaped from the beginning by those two drugs. A vital part of the story of American history that remains to be written is the story of just what the effect was. The fact that the story has not been written only indicates how pervasive the drug culture is. Like fish in water, we are hardly aware that the very fabric of our lives was formed and filled by caffeine and nicotine. Sure, we joke about it, and we pretend-worry about it, but as far as the deep, formative effects on consciousness are concerned, we continue to be blithely ignorant. Now, with regard to one of the drugs-- nicotine-- we are at a place where the puritan baggage which we brought with us is weighing heavily, threatening to pull us down from our unexamined nicotine-high. But notice: the anti-smoking tide (the metaphors are coming thick and fast, aren't they) is directed NOT at the effect of nicotine on consciousness. No, the ONLY concern is with the effect on the body. And, yes, of course, the anti's are right: used in excess, nicotine (like most other ingested substances) has a destructive effect on the body (big surprise, right?). We've taken a drug that for the Indians was part pleasure-inducing, part mind-altering substance and turned it into a 24/7 habit. Some encouragement of control and moderation does seem called for. But what EVERYBODY fails to notice, much less think seriously about is: What will be the effect on American consciousness when true tobacco prohibition is in place? Given the potency of the drug, there can be little doubt that American consciousness will change when it is finally more or less tobacco free. Just as we have no idea what formative effect nicotine had on American civilization, we don't have a clue about what the change will be, or do when we eliminate nicotine from the American bloodstream. END
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Every culture gets the drugs it deserves.