Addicted to plants

To garden is to interact with plants. This sensory interaction can be as simple as germinating a seed or tending a flower garden but can also be a far more immersive experience, such as when we grow a food garden to sustain us.

Michael Pollan describes himself as a gardener. His approach to gardening is one of observation, experimentation and continuous learning, and many gardeners have connected with his writings through his works exploring themes of nourishment, including The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Food Rules and Cooked. It is from this perspective that he approaches the subject of human attraction to psychoactive plants in his latest work, This is Your Mind on Plants.

Care for a cuppa?

In order to consciously experience the impacts of caffeine on his day-to-day life, Pollan has to abstain from his daily addiction, an act that he admits contributed to a severe lack of motivation to finish the chapter. According to Pollan, “for most of us, to be caffeinated to one degree or another has simply become baseline human consciousness. Something like 90% of humans ingest caffeine regularly, making it the most widely used psychoactive drug in the world”.

Thankfully for the reader, he did manage to finish the chapter (which may be attributable to the fact that he called a halt to his caffeine hiatus after three months) and in so doing provides some fascinating insights into the relationship we have with this plant-derived substance, so much so that he raises the question of who is calling the shots here, plants or humans?

Pollan delves into a fascinating study of honey bee behaviour associated with caffeinated flower nectar. Researchers observed that some plant genera, including coffee, tea and citrus, produce caffeine in their flower nectar so they set about testing the impact of the ‘drug’ on the habits of the foraging honey bees. What they found was startling; the caffeinated nectar produced positive ‘pollinator fidelity’ whereby the bees remembered and returned more reliably to flowers that offered caffeinated nectar, even when there was no nectar left! In this instance, it seems the plant is benefitting more from the relationship, and the same could be said for our own addiction to coffee.

On the flip side, the impact of coffee on human civilisation and development has been profound. Initially embraced by the Islamic world as its use spread from Africa to the Arabian Peninsula and then to Europe, coffeehouses sprang up in the Arab world and into Europe with the Ottoman Empire. In both Arab and European settings, coffeehouses became public gathering places where ideas freely flowed. As this trend reached England it stood in stark contrast to the alcohol-fuelled taverns.

Pollan writes that “it is hard to imagine that the sort of political, cultural and intellectual ferment that bubbled up in the coffeehouses of both France and England would ever have developed in a tavern”. In fact, many of the modern commercial institutions of today have their origins in coffeehouse culture, including Lloyd’s of London, which was originally Lloyd’s Coffeehouse and the London Stock Exchange, which has its roots in trades conducted at Jonathan’s Coffeehouse.

Going a bit deeper

Discussing the everyday use of coffee and tea is a simpler conversation to have than that of other psychoactive plants and fungi, such as opium, peyote and psilocybin. Not because of the potency of the compounds, but rather the legalities of these products.

Pollan recounts writing an article on the cultivation and use of opium for Harper’s Magazine at the height of the drug war in 1997, which put him in danger of criminal prosecution and highlights the huge cultural and legal overlays that sit across our relationship with some plants. The opium story contains so many contradictions; from the conquest of Hong Kong by the English to the current crisis of addiction associated with the legal drug OxyContin.

Perhaps the most intriguing part of the book is the chapter that explores the role that psychedelic compounds found in some plants play in human cultural practice. Pollan focuses on Mescaline, the naturally occurring psychedelic protoalkaloid found in Peyote and San Pedro cactus, and how these plants are used ceremonially by First American Peoples as a sacrament that brings people together in a shared ritual experience, putting them in touch with a realm beyond the day to day.

Being mindful to avoid cultural appropriation of these religious ceremonies, there is a fascinating topic here on the interaction of the human mind with these powerful compounds. After a 25-year hiatus on the back of the drug wars, medical science is returning to an investigation of plants and fungi that have unique effects on the human mind and how we can harness their power to enhance humanity. The field of ‘psychedelic therapy’, including the use of psilocybin derived from mushrooms, is opening up new and unexpected treatments for addiction and mental illness.

As gardeners, we shouldn’t be surprised to learn of the powerful and profound impacts that plants can have on our minds, after all, gardening is a celebration of the plant world and our interaction with nature. The more we foster this connection, the better off we will all be.

Written by Tim Sansom, Diggers CEO.