9 Mind-Altering Plants

The beautiful opium poppy is native to Turkey and is a common garden plant in the United States. When the unripe seed capsules are cut, they exude a milky latex that is the source of raw opium and can be processed into morphine, codeine, and heroin. Known as opiates, these drugs exert their main effects on the brain and spinal cord. While their principal action is to relieve or suppress pain, the drugs also alleviate anxiety, induce relaxation and sedation, and may impart a state of euphoria or another enhanced mood. Heroin is especially known for generating an intense ecstatic reaction that spreads throughout the body as a warm glowing sensation. Opiates also have important physiological effects: they slow the heartbeat and respiration, suppress the cough reflex, and relax the smooth muscles of the gastrointestinal tract. Chronic users develop a tolerance and require progressively larger doses to achieve the same effect. Heroin and morphine overdoses often result in death.

Peyote is a small cactus found only in the Chihuahuan Desert of southern Texas and northern Mexico. The tops of the cactus can be dried to form “mescal buttons,” which are well known for their hallucinogenic effects and contain the alkaloid mescaline, among others. The hallucinatory effects vary greatly among individuals and even for a particular individual from one drug experience to the next. The variations seem to reflect such factors as the mood and personality of the individual and the setting in which the drug is administered. Hallucinations are usually visual, less often auditory. Side effects include nausea and vomiting. Peyote, like most other hallucinogenic drugs, is not considered to be addictive and is reputed by cultists and some observers to promote morality and ethical behavior among the Native Americans who use it ritually.

An unassuming member of the mint family, the herb salvia has made headlines for its growing popularity, including its use by American singer Miley Cyrus. Native to Mexico, the plant is hallucinogenic and has historically been used by shamans to achieve altered states of consciousness. Currently legal in both the U.K. and the U.S., the leaves can be eaten or smoked and feature an active ingredient known as salvinorin A, which activates specific nerve cell receptors. The effects are intense but short-lived and include changes in mood and body sensations, visions, feelings of detachment, and altered perceptions of self. Advocates of the plant emphasize that the effects are spiritual and claim that those who try to use it as a “party drug” will be disappointed by its effects.

Grown all over the world, cannabis (marijuana) is probably the most-widespread plant with psychoactive properties. Known for its characteristic leaves, the plant is used in religious practices in India and Africa (and probably elsewhere) and is sometimes used illicitly in the United States and Europe, though its legal status is changing in many places. The active ingredient, tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), is present in all parts of both the male and female plants but is most concentrated in the flowering tops of the female. These buds are usually dried and crushed and put into pipes or formed into cigarettes (joints) for smoking but can also be added to foods and beverages. Psychological effects tend to predominate, with the user commonly experiencing a mild euphoria and alterations in vision and judgment that result in distortions of time and space. Acute intoxication may occasionally induce visual hallucinations, anxiety, depression, paranoid reactions, and psychoses lasting four to six hours. Marijuana’s physical effects include reddening of the eyes, dryness of the mouth and throat, moderate increase in rapidity of the heartbeat, tightness of the chest (if the drug is smoked), drowsiness, unsteadiness, and muscular incoordination. Hashish, a more-powerful form of the drug, is made by collecting and drying the plant’s resin and is about eight times as strong as the marijuana typically smoked in the United States.

Ayahuasca is a South American vine used as the primary ingredient for a psychoactive drink of the same name. Culturally important to a number of Amazonian peoples, the brew has grown in popularity among tourists seeking a spiritual awakening, particularly in Peru. Ayahuasca is said to generate intense spiritual revelations, with users often reporting a sensation of “rebirth” and a deeper understanding of themselves and the universe. However, some users experience significant psychological distress under the influence of the drug, and a number of deaths have been reported. Ingestion is commonly followed by vomiting or diarrhea, which shamans deem to be the purging of negative energies.

Although not well known in the West, betel chewing is a habit of an estimated one-tenth of the world’s population, and betel is considered to be the fourth most-common psychoactive drug in the world (following nicotine, alcohol, and caffeine). Betel nuts grow on the areca palm and are cultivated in India, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Malaysia, and the Philippines. For chewing, a betel quid is formed by wrapping a small piece of the areca palm seed (the betel nut) in a leaf of the unrelated betel pepper plant, along with a pellet of slaked lime (calcium hydroxide). Betel chewing releases a number of addictive alkaloids that cause sensations of mild euphoria, and regular users often have red-stained teeth and lips. Although it is important in many cultural traditions of southern Asia, betel chewing is linked to a number of serious health problems, including oral and esophageal cancer, and is of growing concern for health officials.

Native to the Americas, the tobacco plant bears distinctive large leaves that are a particularly concentrated source of nicotine. Nicotine is the chief active ingredient in the tobacco used in cigarettes, cigars, and snuff and is an addictive drug. The drug has a unique biphasic psychoactive effect: when inhaled in short puffs it acts as a stimulant, but when smoked in deep drags it can have a tranquilizing effect. This is why smoking can feel invigorating at some times and can seem to block stressful stimuli at others. When ingested in larger doses, nicotine is a highly toxic poison that causes vomiting and nausea, headaches, stomach pains, and, in severe cases, convulsions, paralysis, and death. Tobacco use causes a number of health problems, including cancer and emphysema, and is responsible for more than five million deaths per year.

Jimsonweed grows throughout much of North and South America. It is a weedy annual plant with striking white tubular flowers and spiky seed pods. The leaves and seeds contain potent alkaloids (hyoscamine and hyoscine) that cause hallucinations. Used ceremonially by a number of indigenous peoples, jimsonweed acts as a deliriant and can produce intense spiritual visions. However, it is highly dangerous, and careless use can easily result in fatalities. Users often report terrifying hallucinations and paranoid delusions under its influence and may experience prolonged side effects such as blurred vision after its use. Many do not try it a second time.

Coca is a tropical shrub native to certain regions of Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador. Its leaves contain the alkaloid cocaine and have been chewed for centuries by the Indians of Peru and Bolivia for pleasure or in order to withstand strenuous working conditions, hunger, and thirst. However, the leaves can also be processed into a potent white crystalline powder that is injected, smoked, or otherwise consumed. When ingested in small amounts, cocaine produces feelings of well-being and euphoria along with decreased appetite, relief from fatigue, and increased mental alertness. Cocaine is habit-forming, and, when taken in larger amounts and upon prolonged and repeated use, cocaine produces depression, anxiety, irritability, sleep problems, chronic fatigue, mental confusion, and convulsions. A toxic psychosis can develop involving paranoid delusions and disturbing tactile hallucinations in which users feel insects crawling under their skin. Cocaine abuse, which had been a marginal drug problem throughout much of the 20th century, grew alarmingly in the late 20th century in several countries, and cocaine became responsible for a markedly increased proportion of drug-induced deaths.