Lately I've been a lot into plants, especially wild edible plants, and also, all plants that have "interesting" effects not only on the human body, but also on the mind, that are completely legal (and there are many). It's a fascinating field and I hope to learn more about that, especially through the visits to organic farms that I am planning for the next years.After reading quite a lot about plants, I found out so many interesting things, and I was also forced by facts to do some political considerations. I had thought many times that the State "regulations" of many countries banning the use of some plants are highly questionable, but most importantly, they do not have anything to do with the alleged concern about the health of the population. In fact, the feeling that the informed individual gets, is that those guys up there strive to keep the people unaware of many things that should be for example taught at school. It's amazing how many wild and common plants growing nearly everywhere could be used for food, medication or prevention against diseases, and for recreational purposes (that doesn't necessarily mean to "get high"...). If you look at the State monopoly of medical and recreational drugs (think of alcohol and tobacco) under this light, it's easy to understand how the State makes easy money on people's fun or, at the worse, people's crave for (and dependence from) something to "spice up" their empty lives of slaves of the Machine which is Progress.How many of us will not drink or smoke any more than they do, if the price of this stuff were its real price, and not pumped up by taxes? Is it really only a question of money ("I don't because I have better ways to spend my money than...") or is also a question of time and how we actively conceive our existence ("I don't because I have better things to do than... all the time")? I believe it's the latter case in most cases, but many people just never thought about it. Take alcohol - the pink liquid that you buy in the store has been denatured, that means it's just the same as very expensive drinkable alcohol, but it has been made undrinkable. Why should I pay much more money to buy drinkable alcohol, if that's its real price? Assuming that people living in a country where you don't need to worry too much about money would use nearly the same amount of inebriating substances more or less regardless of their price, it's impossible not to realize that someone is just making easy money on you. Maybe some people will drink much more, true - but why? because of the situation that this process has created, because it has become cool to drink. There hasn't always been a State monopoly on alcohol, tobacco or a ban on other inebriating substances. And yet, nobody would say that people in past centuries used more of them than today (just as much as people didn't do it any less under prohibitionist regimes). For centuries and even millennia, the population of most parts of Europe and middle East have drunk beer instead of water, because it's was safer than water; it was a light beer (the term in English is small beer) but it was much better than any beer on the market today, made of pure ingredients, sugar free and naturally fermented. It was more importantly a good source of nourishment, than being just a drink. And it was even given to small children. Did you know that in most kinds of wine and beer today there is fish? It's a cod jelly called Isinglass and it's used to accelerate the process of clarification, i.e. something that happens anyway but it's made faster. Time is money.On the contrary, we are more "doped" today than ever before. But what is it, that is really doping us as a society? Is it the "stuff", or is it our model of society, where the governments basically tells you that you can die, but before we want your money?I'm making it a bit too simple, I know. But let's look deeper into it. Take tobacco. The problem is the nicotine, OK, but what about the other substances? There is a huge number of other - sometimes even more - dangerous additives than (natural) nicotine in commercial cigarettes, that are consciously put there by manufacturers and their are not banned by any state (the only exception being Bhutan that has a total ban on tobacco products...). They make them more addicting (in nearly all brands, tobacco is treated with sugar or maybe even more dangerous sweeteners, and in some there is even cocoa) and the State doesn't do anything. Albeit questionable, George Ohsawa (the formalizer of the Macrobiotic Diet) thought that tobacco smoke was not carcinogenic, and like other plants used in macrobiotics, he explained its usage in terms of a naturally balanced diet and, most importantly, in the cultural context of those native peoples who first made moderate use of organically grown, additive-free tobacco. The legend that he died after a life spent smoking and his lungs were perfectly clean probably goes a bit too far (like the claim that lung cancer is caused by diary products), but his studies of the incidence of lung cancer in countries where the population smoked additive-free tobacco (at his time, mostly middle East, India and Soviet Union) and ate in a more simple, light and traditional way, compared to the rich and "developed" West, should not be forgotten (there is an interesting link between lung cancer and dietary fats that is very little talked about). And by the way, there are many other plants that can be smoked, like horsetail (equisetum arvense), that are extremely easy to find and grow, and that are not only harmless, but even very good for human health (coltsfoot or Tussilago farfara is even a cough suppressant when smoked). Why don't governments force cigarette manufacturers to popularize them and gradually (at least partially) replace tobacco?But the real point of this post was sugar. Sugar (sucrose), yes sugar the white crystalline thing in every kitchen, is one of the most dangerous and widespread drugs of our time. Everything contains sugar, from bread (when the flour is a bad quality one) to beer, cigarettes, and nearly all soft drinks that we start drinking at a very early age. Sugar rots your teeth, is generally bad for your health, is highly addictive/appealing, and makes children hyperactive (= more stress for the adults that have to look after them). Sugar is good as a quick energy supply, but just as anything containing natural sugar (fructose or other similar substances). Honey presents similar risks as sugar, but it also has so many good qualities, whereas sugar has none. Do you think that the State, that you think cares so much about our health, has regulated the use of sugar in food? Has forced manufacturers not to exceed a certain amount of sugar in the products that most people daily eat?Not at all. They are more concerned about other things, like heavily taxing wine in Italy - where wine producers are massively switching to kiwis, because the plant is similar to vine and grows in the same way, but forgot that kiwi is a subtropical plant (originating in South-East China) that needs a huge amount of more water than vines do. If Italy's water resources are drying up, it's mainly because Italy has become in recent years the major kiwi producer in the world (and that's why I choose not to buy kiwis unless I am in China of course). Our grandparents used to drink a glass of wine at every meal (extremely healthy habit, proving once again that everything can be good if not abused), and they were as poor as some underdeveloped countries today. Wine was cheap and so much better (no pesticides until the advent of industrial agriculture in the 50's), and people drank it to enjoy it and not to show their hangovers to their friends.Back to sugar. Have you ever heard of Stevia? Probably not, and the reason why is that it's forbidden in most Western countries. Why? It's not inebriating or allucinogenic. Stevia Rebaudiana is a beautiful plant from Central America that has up to 300 times the sweetening power of sugar, but zero calories. You don't even need to modify it industrially like sugar beets, you just dry up the leaves! It's amazing! And it has been banned, because its use would seriously threaten the industry of sugar and artificial sweeteners. Of course, some pseudo-scientists have been paid to demonstrate some made-up health threat, but the main fact is that very few know about the controversy around this wonder of nature. Where is the information? So, our State will take good care of us and they will continue feeding us aspartame. Why?Because the show must go on. We must go to work and earn our keep, and shop the things that they tell us to buy, whose manufacture creates job for other fellow citizens. Sometimes we want things cheaper, so the quality sucks, dangerous pesticides or ingredients have been used, and/or we exploit cheap labour force that has come from far away following the glitter of the money that is so sadly produced, and that produces such a great sadness in our modern societies. When you generate more money than you actually need, the risk is that you will start working less, becoming less productive for the system: ergo, you need someone to tell you how to spend your money, and trick you into thinking not only that you need those things, but that you need much more than that. Who is really poor, who has enough wealth to substain himself, or those who swim in money but are victims of a mental slavery comparable to drug and alcohol addiction?
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