Human cultures vary widely in the plants they use to gratify the desire for a change of mind, but all cultures (save the Eskimo) sanction at least one such plant and, just as invariably, strenuously forbid certain others. Along with the temptation seems to come the taboo. The reasons for drawing the bright line here and not there generally make more sense within the culture itself, rooted as they are in its values and traditions, than they do outside it. But the reasons cultures give for promoting one plant and forbidding another are remarkably fluid in both time and space; one culture’s
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