ABSTRACT
World travel is now so easy, however, that regardless of where one lives one can find access to virtually the full menu of psychoactive substances without too much difficulty. This creates problems since substances now become available which are not part of indigenous culture, and which are not surrounded by sets of established mores and codes of social practice concerning their use. They are not part of the accepted ‘ceremonial chemistry’ (Szasz, 1985). At this point, logic flies out of the window, and the label ‘drugs’ is applied pejoratively to the new and strange substances coming from outside, simply because they are strange and new and therefore objects of fear. In the process they become imbued with properties and powers which they either do not have or which become much exaggerated.
