Karl Marx described religion as the opium of the people, forgetting that opiates not only dull pain but can also produce poetry and revolution (cultural, that is). Puritans aside, the people have a long tradition of livelying up their lives with whatever comes to hand – or rather nose. As Consuming Habits (Routledge, £35, ISBN 0 41509 039 3) points out, smoking and sniffing preceded alcohol drinking by thousands of years. As Andrew Sherrat, one of the editors of this scholarly study, says, psychoactive substances are an integral part of civilisation and “they are, indeed, peculiar”. Buyers will be serious historians and anthropologists. Shopbrowsing or library recommended for the rest.
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