People have been getting high for centuries. One of the most startling and naive revelations I ever had when I started smoking weed was how old my "new" ritual was. Instantly, I reframed all of the Indigenous peace pipe celebrations from my grandfather's Westerns through the lens of my wacky tobacco. The revelation broadened even further when I ingested magic mushrooms for the first time. I quickly became partial to Terence McKenna's theory that ancient apes consumed mushrooms to help create the brains we currently possess. When one thinks about how long drugs have been around, the next logical question becomes, "Which ones did ancient people like?"
In the video linked above, the YouTube channel Nutty history delves into the recreational drug habits of the ancient Chinese. Obviously, the first drug that will come to mind for anyone that wasn't stoned silly in history class will be opium, but that's not the oldest drug that the ancient Chinese people enjoyed. Check the video out to find out how ancient Chinese people got loaded.
