Ancestors ‘used drugs to survive’: “Mind-altering drugs may be so popular because they were once used by our ancestors to survive, two leading anthropologists have argued. Dr Roger Sullivan, of the University of Auckland, and Edward Hagen, of the University of California at Santa Barbara, say there is plenty of evidence that humans have sought out so-called psychotropic drugs over millions of years.” BBC

In emphasizing only the adaptive properties of mind-altering drugs, this theory ignores speculation, most prominently that of Andrew Weil (and, as Miguel pointed out in an email, Terence McKenna as well), that humankind’s perennial relationship to psychotropic substances may represent instead a universal and innate affinity for their consciousness-altering properties. Think, for example, of how children love to spin to get dizzy, Weil observes. He argues that drug-taking becomes a problem in society only when pharmaceutical techniques intruded into the process to produce more concentrated and purified psychoactives. In contrast, natural mind-altering substances are full of impurities that act to self-limit the extent and frequency of drug-taking (because you’ll get sick from too much). Think of the difference between chewing coca leaves and freebasing cocaine, or between taking peyote and taking LSD, he notes.