Four-legged 420 Club: New Book Asserts Animals Get Stoned Too

07/01/2011

Apparently humans are not the only ones who enjoy a little mind-altering substance from time to time, according to neuroscientist David J. Linden in his new book, “The Compass of Pleasure,” which has a rather lengthy subtitle: “How Our Brains Make Fatty Foods, Orgasm, Exercise, Marijuana, Generosity, Vodka, Learning and Gambling Feel So Good.”

In his new book, Linden writes about many examples in nature of animals seeking, enjoying and even fighting over mind-altering substances and getting stoned on pretty much whatever they can get their claws on.

Linden asserts that intoxication with psychoactive drugs is not an exclusively human proclivity. Animals in the wild will also voluntarily and repeatedly consume psychoactive plants and fungi and Linden highlights the following examples :

Pass the Iboga on the Left Hand Side

1) Birds, elephants, and monkeys have all been reported to enthusiastically seek out fruits and berries that have fallen to the ground and undergone natural fermentation to produce alcohol.

2) In Gabon, which lies in the western equatorial region of Africa, boars, elephants, porcupines, and gorillas have all been reported to consume the intoxicating, hallucinogenic iboga plant (Tabernanthe iboga).

3)  In the highlands of Ethiopia, goats cut the middleman out of the Starbucks business model by munching wild coffee berries and catching a caffeine buzz.

Reindeer Games Are Indeed More Fun

The most dramatic example of nonnutritive animal intoxication is found among domesticated reindeer. The Chuckchee people of Siberia, who are reindeer herders, consume the bright red hallucinogenic mushroom Amanita muscaria as a ritual sacrament. Their reindeer also indulge. Having discovered the mushrooms growing wild under the birch trees, they gobble them up and then stagger around in a disoriented state, twitching their heads repeatedly as they wander off from the rest of the herd for hours at a time.

What do you think?

Are these wild animals consuming these hallucinogens due to an inborn need for intoxication or are they just willing to put up with them as a side effect of consuming a valuable food source?

Comments

[Barbara]

Sounds to me like the animal is willing to put up with the discomfort due to the deliciousness of the food. A reindeer straying away from its herd is thinking she'll die... the head twitching doesn't sound too good either.

[NeoTechni]

Can't believe you left out Cats + Catnip

[Hilary]

What do we really know?? As for the deer wandering off, that is costly to it's very life, especially in a place that is thick with wolves, and yes, the head twitching doesn't look so good either. I do think that foods with alcohol in them might be pleasing to some animals. Especially with fermented fruit, it does something to the natural sugars, and may even have a healthful effect. I'm willing to bet, that when it comes to the natural world, that animals have a kind of knowledge that domesticated beasts like humans are not privy to. So therefore, how could we possibly know exactly what they mean to do?

[Spacebat]

A similar book that has been around for ages is The Natural Mind by Andrew T. Weil M.D.
There are examples of animals using ingenuity and effort to obtain psychotropic foods when other foodstuffs are plentiful and easily obtained. Whether this is "good" or "bad" is subjective and probably depends on the long term effects of the substance.
What it does indicate is that in yet another way, humans are not special; the drive to "get out of it" is a natural one, and this is why the war on drugs has failed. After all those billions spent and lives wasted in jail, how much has the government spent on researching safer recreational drug alternatives to ethanol?

[Oremus]

Rams are crack heads.

[WaxNoo]

lol, Animals are jsut cool like that.

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[Andy]

they like eating, sleeping and mating as much as we do, of course they will feel good like we do if they do as we do in these other matters also.

[carver]

The brains of all mammals utilize pretty much the same neurochemistry that controls brain function; it's not surprising then that they can be effected, and drawn to, perception altering plants (if they could roll a joint they would probably smoke dope). As far as the Reindeer getting stoned on the
Amanita muscaria, if it was that hazardous it would have been bred out of the gene pool long ago.
...As an aside, the Reindeer, Mushroom and ancient No. European shamanism are a significant part of the Santa Claus mythology - found at....
http://www.cannabisculture.com/articles/3136.html

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[Spudfed]

Cows that consume marijuana give more milk, plus it helps to get rid of evidence. No cows were harmed in this observation.

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