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Reaching back into history, into antiquity, we can again conclude that nothing has changed in this respect. In pre-historic times, the European flora offered a large variety of plant and fungal species with psychoactive properties, such as the opium poppy (Papaver somniferum L.), canna-bis (Cannabis sp.), ephedra (Ephedra sp.), some members of the Solanaceae family, e. g. belladonna or deadly nightshade (Atropa belladonna L.), henbane (Hyoscyamus niger L.), mandragora (Mandragora officinarum L.); and also ergot (spores of the fungus Claviceps purpurea (Fr.) Tul.) and hal-lucinogenic fungi such as the liberty cap (Psilocybe semilan-ceata (Fr.) P. Kumm.) or even the fly agaric (Amanita mus-caria (L.) Lam.)4.

The history of Mediterranean civilisations is, after all, marked not only by the consumption of wine. “The ancient Greeks ate and drank opium, but the custom went nowhere beyond ancient Rome, whose users also kept this custom to themselves”5. The sentence quoted above even suggests un-equivocally that stimulants other than alcohol in antiquity were reserved for the world of Mediterranean civilisation. The barbarians living outside its borders were expected to content themselves with consuming alcoholic beverages

www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/…/html

It’s open access.

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rumschlumpel@feddit.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Hm, which of these are actually stimulants (i.e. substances that increase alertness)? The ones I know seem to be depressants, painkillers and hallucinogens, which seem less useful immediately before battle than stimulants.

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- GiveMemes@jlai.lu ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  The ephedrine plants would be precursors to stims but still need quite a bit of preparation as far as I know. You might be able to get ephedrine extracted from a plant but that’s not a stimulant in the way qee would think of adderall or cocaine or something today, having a more similar effect to caffeine.
  
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  - user134450@feddit.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Both caffeine and ephedrine are stimulants.
    
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    GiveMemes@jlai.lu ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Yes. That’s why I compared the two. However when comparing caffeine to stimulant like cocaine or amphetamine, they have incredibly minor effects. Its like comparing <1% thc hemp and a 90% thc concentrate imo
    
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Donkter@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
This always made me wonder. Why don’t we hear more about these psychoactive substances in modern day drugs. I know the nightshade family is usually poisonous as well as psychoactive but surely people have experimented with extracting/filtering these plants to get the desired effect like we extract cocaine from coca leaves or opium from poppies.

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- Obi@sopuli.xyz ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Dunno about the US but these pants are all alive and well in Europe, it’s just that the experiences they provide tend to be petty extreme (in the case of datura/belladone for example), and/or too weak or impractical compared to the modern offerings. But yeah any psychonaut worth their salt would at least know about them if not tried some of them.
  
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- fossilesque@mander.xyz ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  erowid.org exists.
  
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- rumschlumpel@feddit.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  I looked up ephedrine, as far as I could tell the side effects were quite heavy compared to caffein or cocaine (though cocaine makes up for it by being very addictive).
  
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