What is the boundary between a “herb” and a “drug”.?
And does your religious/spiritual path inform your opinion?
Damiana, valerian, chamomile can all be legally purchased in most health food stores and pharmacies, but opium, kava kava, and marijuana are illegal or restricted.
Ginger, mace and fennel are sold as food flavourings, but salvia*, peyote and psilocybin are illegal.
So at what point does a herb become a drug, and is your decision based on science, the law, or your religion?
*at least most states.
Hi Kc. Nutmeg, mace and fennel have mind altering effects too, but I can buy them in the produce section of any grocery store….
btw, sorry I meant nutmeg, not ginger in the original question.
I would say drugs cause altered mental states.
Some drugs are illegal because they aren’t safe to use. And this can be argued with alcohol and nicotine as well.
The legality of certain drugs in the US was definitely based on the “culture” that was associated with each drug at the time of legislation. It was based on ethnicity, socioeconomic class, etc.
To add:
I guess I don’t know about the altered states of the ones you’ve listed. It depends on how it’s used and how easy the “high” is to achieve.
Those herbs that are considered illegal are because they can cause bodily harm to those involved. Not because they are drugs. Many of those were put on the illegal list because the drug companies can’t control things from nature so they either say they don’t work or that they are harmful.
Study is my my decision, I study herbs for health reasons.
Probably what local laws say about certain herbs/plants etc. So if the law allows it, it’s a herb, if it outlaws it they consider it a drug.
No problem buying kava kava in Canada, also marijuana is a prescribed drug as well as generally available and even home grown with personal quantities nearly decriminalized; salvia is likewise legal for sale so perhaps the difference between a herb and a drug is geographical.
If it is used to alter your mind so that you can not think normally, then it is illegal. If it is used to alter your tongue (the flavor of the food you’re cooking), then it’s legal.
It’s based on common sense.
People distort their ability to think, but they still believe they are thinking rationally when they aren’t, and everybody around them sees this, but they are blind to what they are doing, because even when they are doing insane things, they looks rational. Like the guy who decided to step off the roof of a 5 floor apartment building because he “KNEW” he could appeal the laws of gravity. And even when he was plummeting to his death, he still didn’t realize what he was doing.
If your perceptions are altered, you don’t realize that your perceptions are altered, and you can put other people into jeopardy as well as yourself, such as driving down a one-way street – going in the wrong direction – and thinking it’s funny how that all the other cars are driving backwards coming towards you!
You get it yet? Drugs that alter your perceptions are dangerous because people do stupid crazy insane things and never even realize they’re doing it – putting a loaded gun into their mouth because they think it’s candy; eating rat poison to try to understand how rats feel, etc – those things are illegal.
Herbs, on the other hand, when used by a chef who knows what he’s doing, can make your dinner taste especially good.