In addressing society's ongoing debate over marijuana, one is struck by the incongruity of prohibition. On the one hand, you have a nontoxic inebriating substance, pot, that causes no health problems, but it remains illegal. On the other hand, you have a toxic substance, alcohol, that causes physical addiction and physical harm, but it is legal and even celebrated by our President, among others. Logical? Not in the slightest. Historical? Yes. It is because of history, and nothing else, that alcohol is accepted while marijuana is not.
The question then becomes, why did our ancestors choose alcohol in the distant past to such an extent that it became a celebrated tradition? I suspect the answer lies in the reluctance of ancient peoples to smoke. Drinking has an antecedent in diet, whereas smoking is an unpleasant experience for novices. Only with practice does smoking become palatable. Of course, this problem has been mitigated with the introduction of vaporizers, but in olden days, it may have been a deal-breaker for some.
Alcohol reduces inhibitions, which makes people more aggressive than would otherwise be the case. Drunk, we allow the amygdala more scope in controlling our behavior. This has proven useful for leaders that wish to persuade their followers to go to war. Hitler made his first grab for power in the Beer Hall Putsch.
Ancient Roman historians, who are our only guide for certain periods and locations of history, wrote of the barbarians living in northern Europe--yes, they would be among the ancestors of Hitler's followers--as spending their days in deep, dark woods, idle for the most part, fighting, drinking, and little else. Family feuds were common, as were feuds between individuals, and the Northerners would as soon fight among themselves as against the Romans. The reputation of the Northerner centered on courage and ferocity in battle, naivety and foolishness overall (in war or peace), and a fondness for beer. Perhaps these Romans were unfair observers given to stereotype, but even a stereotype may have a grain of truth in it. At any rate, there are insufficient records of the peoples dwelling in Northern Europe at the time of the Romans. Being for the most part illiterate, the barbarians left behind little other than artifacts such as jewelry and weapons of inferior craftsmanship. If you wish to leave behind a history, literacy helps, after all.
Romans preferred wine, with the exception of those troops serving on Hadrian's Wall, who adopted beer, the preferred beverage of the locals. Wine was consumed at almost every meal, unless one were poor or a slave, and even then, one usually had diluted wine as a beverage. With the possible exception of the New World and Amerindian nations, it would be difficult to find a civilization in human history where alcohol has not played a role, although any attempt to trace its precise influence would be difficult at best. This leads me to the next question, which presents a challenge for a good computer simulation. Any social scientists out there wish to take it up?
Here it is. What if our ancestors had chosen pot instead of wine and beer? Would there have been less war? Would the Roman Empire have endured to the present day? European history accuses our ancestors of a secession of bloody wars, often fought for little or no reason. You can scarcely find a century, between now and the birth of Christ, when a war did not erupt. Most of these wars were insipid. What was the logic behind the Crusades? The Spanish Armada, sent off to invade England during the reign of Elizabeth, was another huge blunder. Why invade? Why wage war? Why not wage peace? The first World War also comes to mind--millions dead, just because of the assassination of a prince. All these ills cannot be laid at the door of the pub, but is it just possible that alcohol played a contributing role?
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