This Is Your Mind on Plants

“There is scarcely a culture on earth that hasn’t discovered in its environment at least one such plant or fungus, and in most cases a whole suite of them, that alters consciousness in a variety of ways. Through what was surely a long and perilous trial and error, humans have identified plants that lift the burden of physical pain; render us more alert or capable of uncommon feats; make us more sociable; elicit feelings of awe or ecstasy; nourish our imagination; transcend space and time; occasion dreams and visions and mystical experiences; and bring us into the presence of our ancestors or gods.”

Pollan points out that engaging with plants beyond merely seeking nutrition is a universal phenomenon. Our ancestors engaged in what he calls “perilous trial and error” to find plants with molecules that prompt certain reactions in the human brain, from pain relief to hallucinogenic experiences.

“My wager in writing This is Your Mind On Plants is that the decline of the drug war, with its brutally simplistic narratives about “your brain on drugs,” has opened a space in which we can tell some other, much more interesting stories about our ancient relationship with the mind-altering plants and fungi with which nature has blessed us.”

The author positions himself in contradiction to the war on drugs, which he accuses of advancing a “brutally simplistic” story about the nature of drugs and their interactions with the human brain. He continues by acknowledging that some drugs can be immensely harmful to human health but that they can function as a “blessing” when used appropriately.

“And as a matter of public health, it has become obvious to anyone paying attention that, after a half century of waging war on drugs, it is the drugs that are winning. Criminalizing drugs has done little to discourage their use or to lower rates of addiction and death from overdose. The drug war’s principal legacy has been to fill our prisons with hundreds of thousands of nonviolent criminals—a great many more of them Black people than hippies.”

Pollan argues that the decades-long war on drugs in the US has not effectively reduced drug use or the harmful consequences of drug addiction. Indeed, he claims that this war has created significant social problems, including the mass imprisonment of many Americans convicted of nonviolent drug crimes. Black Americans are overrepresented in these drug-related convictions, a fact that ties into Pollan’s earlier analysis of Nixon’s anti-drug laws serving as a way to demonize and incarcerate Black people. This quotation helps Pollan lay the groundwork for his argument that the war on drugs is arbitrary, misguided, and harmful to Americans’ health and civil liberties.