And The Gods Made Drugs - a cynical fairy tale or kernel of truth?
Long, long ago, before the advent of humankind - the gods of Nature made drugs. These simple substances were held in plants (herbs), for eventual use by man as required for the health of body and mind. Their efficacy was close to magical, once discovered, as women and men began compiling the wisdom of Nature, regarding their use and abuse.
From the aeons of time, rain has watered the rich soil needed to sprout tiny seeds to continue the efficacious herb propagation. For millennia wise women and men have held such plants in sacred esteem - becoming guardians of their proper use. And all was well for man's healing - effective vegetable matter to supplement and facilitate the miraculous self-healing properties of the human organism, at specific times of need.
Then, just several thousand years ago, a mere drop in the ocean of man's time on planet Earth, humans discovered a new means of exchange, other than bartering their produce. Today we generally refer to this as money. At first the benefits were obvious, with this more efficient means of exchange. The development of the idea of money, however, also allowed for another kind of seed to grow - the seed of greed. Whereas previously there would be no point in amassing anything beyond personal or communal requirement, with the advent of money a whole new world became possible - a world where some men would become powerful due to the accumulation of riches, whilst others became their servants or slaves, due to their poverty. Every kind of commodity or service now came under the hammer of trade - including miraculously healing drug-containing plants. And due to their magical potency, the value of such became disproportionate to other plants in the world - as the seeds of greed grew virulent and spread in the heart of mankind.
As time progressed new ways of obtaining wealth by means of such herbs were tried - and some proved successful. One such way involved extracting and separating out various substances from the original plant, in an attempt to discover ever greater benefits. Once success was perceived, an even higher value could be placed upon the derivatives - which all became obvious grist to the mill of greed.
Then, in order to keep a hold on their powerful ascendancy, devious men began to suppress knowledge of the original nature of the divine herbal provision, claiming their drugs to be more potent, more powerful, more efficacious - in order to further increase perceived value in the marketplace. Thus greedy manipulative men were enabled to amass even greater wealth and power - joining with others of like mind to form consortiums and conglomerates of power. Suppression of knowledge soon turned into oppression, ostracisation, annihilation and slaughter. During one period wise women in their myriads were murdered for their simple use of plants and natural remedies. Through the greed of some officials, civil governments became implicated, and legislation was gradually implemented in an attempt to control the price of substances, and to prevent ancient knowledge from turning the minds and purses of the populace away from those in power.
Further thought was given to the idea of keeping control, and the idea was hatched of attempting to synthetically manufacture substances that mimicked the divine original. Pockets of success in this regard began to spring up, making it more urgent than ever to eradicate from the minds of the people any leaning toward Nature, and to influence them away from the natural toward the manufactured product. Thus the natural often became outlawed, names of important plants publicly denigrated, being viewed as 'dangerous', and their exponents as enemies of the state - therefore public enemies. All this in order to uphold the lie - that what we have made is better than that which was provided. Thus power and wealth have been held by the few - those in greed; whilst those in need continued to suffer under the delusion that man is supreme.
But through all this the ancient natural lore was held in trust by the few who refused to pay homage to the beast of man's arrogance and greed - and slowly their determination was rewarded with the spread of Good News - in cases where man has failed to provide relief and efficacy for suffering individuals, Nature contained the answer all along - in the form of simple plants to use wisely in their natural ability to facilitate healing. This good news is worth spreading, and indeed must be spread as a matter of urgency, as thousands die unnecessarily daily - not knowing anything more than what the lesser gods tell them.
Some ideas to provoke thought anyway,
Steve 