The twentieth-century prohibition of drugs, like that of alcohol under Islam, was succeeded by a culture of substitution. New substances nudged drug use away from pleasure and towards medical need. Pharmaceuticals, from aspirin to barbiturates, took over the role of opium, while amphetamines plugged the gap left by cocaine. Alcohol, after the collapse of Prohibition in the USA, was tamed by licensing and regulation. But witf the consumer boom and youth counterculture of the 1960s, the mass demand for chemical re-enchantment generated yet another social form: the drug subculture.
Aspirin, launched by Bayer in 1899, offered a less potent and non-euphoric alternative to opiates as an everyday painkiller. (Courtesy Bayer)
Like drug prohibitions, drug subcultures are not a modern invention; nor do they require a legal ban before they emerge. The buzzing social network that revolved around coffee houses in eighteenth-century London, for example, was regarded by both insiders and outsiders as a drug subculture. It originated with a small but influential group whose preference for an exotic stimulant provided the motive to hive themselves off from conventional society and create a new and exclusive space where they could enjoy like-minded company. Formed in opposition to the mainstream tavern culture of the day, it proliferated through an ‘in-crowd’ of initiates and generated its own world of stimulant-fuelled literature, subversive humour and progressive political opinions.
In the eighteenth-century British coffee house, the new stimulant drink was associated with a distinctive subculture of smoking, pamphleteering, gossip and vigorous political debate. (© The Trustees of the British Museum)
Traditional societies are equally capable of generating drug subcultures, particularly in times of cultural dislocation. During the i86os, for example, as the traditional Native American way of life was entering its tragic and terminal decline, a ‘peyote cult’ spread from its traditional territory in Mexico through the tribes of the northern plains; some, but not all, tribal members adopted and developed a ritual based around the vision-inducing cactus. The ‘cult’, a synthesis of indigenous practices with aspects of the Christian message, offered an alternative to the harsh choice between persisting with a self-destructive warrior ethic and being absorbed into an oppressive foreign culture. It survived official persecution to become a force for stability and peace among the displaced tribes; it eventually became established as the Native American Church, and still thrives today.
The coexistence of modern and traditional cultures can also generate innovative subcultures of drug use such as the Santo Daime churches of modern Brazil, which combine Catholic forms of worship with the ritual consumption of the DMT-containing jungle brew ayahuasca. Santo Daime emerged in the 1930s from the experiences of a black rubber-tapper named Raimundo Irineu Serra who encountered ayahuasca while working among indigenous Amazon groups. His version of its rituals, based around hymns that he channelled during his visions, spread rapidly through the working neighbourhoods of cities such as Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo, where congregations now number in the tens of thousands. For the urban poor, whose parents or grandparents belonged to an indigenous jungle culture of which they themselves have no experience, Santo Daime enriches the Catholic faith with a distinctively Brazilian syncretism of African and Amerindian influences.
An official of the Santo Daime church brings sacramental Daime, or ayahuasca tea, to a ceremony in Brazil. During the powerful intoxication it produces, the participants pray, dance and sing hymns that were transmitted to the church’s founder, Raimundo Irineu Serra, during his Daime trances. (Photo Stijn Aelbers)
World History
