This Is Your Mind on Plants

Jim Hogshire is an American author who features prominently in Pollan’s article “Opium, Made Easy.” Pollan discusses Hogshire’s zine Pills-A-Go-Go, which Pollan calls a libertarian approach to drugs and their effects. He also explores Hogshire’s book Opium for the Masses, which gave practical advice to everyday gardeners on how to grow poppies and brew an opium tea from their seedheads. Hogshire is an important figure in Pollan’s article; he begins as a source of information and ends as a victim of the war of drugs who is prosecuted for possessing poppies and sharing his knowledge about their potential as a drug. Pollan particularly emphasizes how frightened he is at the prospect of being investigated by law enforcement in the same way Hogshire was.

Quanah Parker was a Native American leader in the late 1800s. After unsuccessfully resisting government efforts to confine Native American peoples to reserves, Parker became a successful rancher and proponent of peyote use. Pollan explains that Parker’s positive experience using peyote as a healing medicine greatly influenced his decision to spread the plant to other Native communities and encourage its ceremonial use, marking the beginning of the Native American Church and its relationship with peyote.