When we speak of conscious thought, we generally divide it into two principal modes of consciousness: perceptive consciousness, which is essentially conscious perception and which may comprise memories or thoughts directed toward objects or events as well as immediate sensory information, and reflective consciousness, which implies a form of introspection—that is, thinking about one’s own thoughts themselves.
Studies of animal behavior are providing ever more data in direct contradiction to behaviorism’s rejection of animal mentality, and more and more scholars and researchers are distancing themselves from the behavioristic paradigm and beginning to admit the possibility of perceptive consciousness in animals. They are coming up with evidence that animals can, at the very least, process simple forms of thought (Griffin 1999). The phenomenon of animals that drug themselves provides confirmation for this hypothesis.
It is difficult to comprehend what animals feel when they drug themselves. In certain cases it would seem clear that they experience sensory hallucinations, but this is not enough in itself to understand their drugged condition in its complexity. The same holds true for human beings. The hallucinations a person is subject to under the influence of a hallucinogen are, by and large, only marginal products of the whole experience and are interpreted as such by the experimenters themselves. The contents and sense of a human psychedelic experience reach far beyond the visual and auditory hallucinations that accompany them. We must therefore take care not to judge the state of a drugged animal solely by its hallucinatory component.
The best we can do for the moment is to humbly acknowledge our ignorance and seek to be as open as possible and as free from the moral dogmas and presumptions that afflict our species as we can. The fact that a human behavior such as drug use, so insistently denigrated and prohibited because it is considered unnatural and therefore immoral, is also to be found in the rest of nature and practiced by many animals should teach us to be more cautious in our evaluations and convictions.
Ronald K. Siegel, the only scholar so far to have shown interest in this question, as well as having the courage to confront it head-on, concludes that the search for intoxication via drugs is a primary motivational force in the behavior of living beings. According to Siegel, data gathered up to this point demonstrate “that drug seeking and drug taking are biologically normal behaviors. . . . The ability of a drug to serve as a reward or reinforcer for behavior is not dependent on any abnormalities in the brain. Rather, those drugs that animals select to use are those capable of interacting with the normal brain mechanisms developed through evolution to mediate biologically essential behaviors directed toward food, water, and sex. In a sense, pursuit of intoxicating drugs is the rule rather than an aberration (Siegel 1989, 100).” Taking it even further, Siegel reaches the conclusion that intoxication, in animals as in human beings, has “adaptive evolutionary value (ibid., 211).”
I arrived long ago at the same conclusions, though my path wound through somewhat different conjectures than Siegel’s. In one of my early works I underlined the importance of a certain biological concept: the “Provocative Operation (PO) factor” or, “depatterning factor” as defined and analyzed by the American doctor Edward De Bono during the 1960s.
Referring specifically to the human mind and its thought processes, De Bono defines the PO factor as that fundamental function whose purpose is to act as a “depatterning” tool to “throw consolidated models into disorder.” PO is an antiverbal concept: “The function of language is to reinforce existing models; the function of PO is to facilitate escape from these models (De Bono 1965, 208).” The depatterning factor shares strong similarities with humor and intuition in the human mind. Like both humor and intuition, “PO gives a person permission to use ideas that are not coherent with experience. With PO, rather than rejecting these ideas, a person can use them as springboards toward other ideas. PO therefore allows for the use of ‘intermediate impossibilities.’ Since these ‘impossible’ ideas do not fit established models, they render possible a certain distance from existential experience. PO is a liberating device that frees [the mind] of the rigidity of established ideas, schemes, divisions, categories and classifications. PO is an instrument for insight (De Bono 1969, 246–65).”
In my own considerations, I added that “PO heightens the level of uncertainty and therefore the possibilities of finding new mental pathways; it augments its own entropy,” and noted the strict similarities between De Bono’s depatterning factor and the effects of LSD and hallucinogens in general (Samorini 1981).
The depatterning factor that De Bono discovered in the human mind could well be a function specific to all living beings. All living species are characterized by a few primary functions, such as nutrition and reproduction, which are indispensable to their preservation. But these alone are not enough; for the species to be able to preserve itself over time it must include the capacity to evolve, adapting and modifying itself in response to continual environmental changes. The principle of conservation (of that which has been acquired) tends to rigidly preserve established schemes and patterns, but modification (the search for new pathways) requires a depatterning instrument, or function, capable of opposing—at least at certain determined moments—the principle of conservation. It is my impression that drug-seeking and drug-taking behavior, on the part of both humans and animals, enjoys an intimate connection with the factor PO depatterning.
Since it is almost always only a certain percentage of members of any given species that engages in such behavior, this percentage may perform a depatterning function not only for itself but for the species as a whole.
Returning to the human arena, we must take into account the fact that all human behaviors, including the primary functions of nutrition and reproduction, are mediated by culture.
Having identified a natural component in the human impulse to take drugs—by observing the same impulse made manifest in the animal kingdom—the problems linked to human drug use must be found in the cultural component that mediates this behavior. In other words, the drug phenomenon is a natural phenomenon, while the drug problem is a cultural problem.
The development of new, amoral interpretations of the drug phenomenon is very recent; like all dawning ideas, they are still imperfect and imprecise. Yet given time and mental space, an open-minded approach, they will coalesce into a more complete formulation, which will bring us ever closer to a true theory of drugs, to a more mature paradigm than Leo Tolstoy’s.
The drug problem in modern society is not so much due to the existence of drugs or the natural impulse to take them as to the deculturization of the human approach to them. To ensure that human drug use does not debase itself and become “bestial,” it is important that it, like all other human behaviors, be mediated by appropriate cultural understanding and knowledge. Depriving the individual and his or her society of this knowledge—an understanding, above all, of how to use drugs and in which contexts their use is appropriate—paves the way for improper approach and use and, consequently, for the drug problem.
Tangible improvement of the drug problem can only come about by means of scientific study of the drug phenomenon and identification of the variables that regulate this phenomenon in the context of the intimate relationship between nature and human culture.
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Index
Adaptogens, 80
Alán, xii
Alchornea cordifolia, xii
Alchornea floribunda, xii
Alcohol, 5. See also Durian
butterflies and, 65–66
hedgehogs and, 31
pachyderms and, 27
slugs and, 31
snails and, 31
Amanita muscaria. See Fly agaric
Animal behavior. See Ethology
Animal awareness
human awareness distinguished
from, ix
Antiparasitics, xii
Ants, beetles and, 66–67
Aphrodisiac, xii
beetles as, x
Asceticism, 78
Aspilia, leaves of, 15
Astragalus lambertii. See Locoweed
Astragalus mallissimus. See Locoweed
Astrophytum myriostigma. See Cactus
Ayahuasca, 7, 81
Baboons, 56
Balanites aegyptica, 16
Bees, orchids and, 64–65
Beetles
ants and, 66–67
as aphrodisiac, x
Lomechusa, 66–67
stag, 65
Berries, 11
Birds. See also Canaries;
Pigeons, pink; Robins;
Sparrows
firethorn and, 51–53
Tartarian honeysuckle and, 51–52
Boars, iboga bush, 57
Bodily mortification, 78
Borassus (palm trees)
pachyderms and, 27
Bufo bufo, 75. See also Toads
Butterflies, alcohol and, 65–66
Cactus, rabbits and, 60
Caffeine, spider webs and, 13
Canaries, hemp seeds and, 54
Canines, psilocybin mushrooms and, 41
Cannabis. See Marijuana
Caribou, fly agaric and, 40
Carpenter moth, 65
Cat civet, x
Catalepsy, 73
Catasetum orchid, 64
Catha edulis (khat), 45
Catnip, 4, 32–36, viii
Cats. See Felines
Chachaquilia. See Locoweed
Charaxes jasius. See Butterflies
Chipmunks, fly agaric and, 40
Cigarettes, smoking tobacco, viii, 9
addiction to, 6
Cocaine, forced administration of, 10
Cod liver oil, x
Coffee berries, goats and, 43–47
Columba meyeri. See Pink pigeon
Consciousness, 82
alteration of, 76–78
Cossus cossus. See Carpenter moth
Cows
locoweed and, 19
marijuana and, 59–60
Cultural environment, effects of
drugs on, 7, 87–88
Cycadaceae, 56
Cynoches orchid, 64
Cystium diphysum. See Locoweed
Datura flower, nectar of, 11
moths an
d, 63–64, 73
Datura meteloids. See Datura flower,
nectar of
Deconditioning, ix
Deer
marijuana and, 60
musk, x
“Dewatering factor,” 85–86
Deschematizzazione, ix
Dogs. See Canines
Dolphins, LSD and, 14
Donkeys, addiction to locoweed, 19
Dream fish, x
Drosophilia. See Fruit flies
Drug(s), animals and, 1–17
accidental ingestion of, 10–12
addiction to, 2
of animal origin, x
cultures and, 79–80
definition of, 4–6
effects of, 7
feelings of, 83
forced administration of, 9–10
intentional ingestion of, 10–12
intentions of animals and, 8
medicine and, x
laboratory, 9–10
phenomenon, 87
Animals and Psychedelics Page 7
