History of Substance Use: Alcohol, Tobacco, and Cannabis
Historical Background of Substance Use
Alcohol
Drug addiction is considered one of the most ancient issues of our civilizations, as its existence has been known for thousands of years. However, historical references can be altered by the considerations set out in seniority in the determination of what was bad and what was not.
Alcohol is one of the substances consumed since the beginning of time. It is deeply rooted in most cultures, except the Islamic one. Etymologically, “alcohol” comes from the Arabic word al-khul (eye drops), a word that refers to all beverages derived from distillation. The first alcoholic beverage was mead, made from the distillation of fermented honey and water.
Alcoholism and morality are an association that still lingers in our times, which is why even today, health professionals collide head-on with a custom that is difficult to remove from socially accepted behaviors. In the twentieth century, the concept of alcoholism developed. It was not accepted in the scientific world until 1951 when the American Medical Association announced that it was regarded as a treatable disease.
Although alcoholism is difficult to define, it is the loss of control over the chemistry of alcohol. The alcoholic has lost the ability to monitor their consumption or even to avoid purchase. Considering biological psychiatry, alcohol consumption is due to the adverse and harmful effects of severe pathological symptoms of alcohol withdrawal. Once the dependency process is established, the concomitant symptoms of withdrawal are avoided.
In our current culture, alcohol is used as a problem evader to relieve discomfort. This remains constant since Jellinek introduced the idea that alcohol was producing various manifestations secondary to losing control over consumption.
Tobacco
At the beginning of 1492, coinciding with the arrival of Columbus on the coast of Cuba, he recorded in his diary, “They found the two Christians on the road, a lot of people going through their people, women and men with a firebrand in their hands, herbs to take their smokes, to which they were accustomed.” These brands were tobacco, which was then used by these people as gifts to the Spanish colonists in America, who claimed it to be sacred and valuable to the Indians.
Tobacco possessed a spiritual, ritual, and ceremonial value, and was related to magic rituals, religious, and medicinal properties. It spread quickly among the pre-Columbian people during the following 16th century. In fact, several scientists wrote about its healing properties. It was not until the discovery of this substance in 1500 by other European nations, like Jean Nicot, the French ambassador in Portugal, that consumption was introduced in 1970 to Queen Catherine de’ Medici. Powdered leaves of tobacco were used to relieve her severe headaches, making it popular at the French court. Tobacco became the most important currency of the seventeenth century.
Cannabis
Its use began, in profusion, in the Neolithic revolution around 8000 BC in Asia, including the development of basketry, according to prehistoric data. The first documented reference to the use of hemp is in the Chinese pharmacopoeia of Emperor Shen Nung, in the eighteenth century BC. As a medicinal use of cannabis, it was recommended to relieve the pains of childbirth for young first-time mothers, disorders associated with menstruation, gout, beriberi, constipation, malaria, rheumatism, and lack of concentration. Because of this, there was a wide diffusion of hemp throughout the Mediterranean and the Far East, but it did not gain maximum publicity until the Arab culture adopted it.