Adolescent Drug Use in Cross-Cultural Perspective

Abstract

An analysis is made of adolescent hallucinogenic plant ingestion during initiation rituals among Australian Aboriginal males, Tshogana Tsonga females and among Chumash youth of Southern California. This use pattern contrasts with abusive patterns of drug abuse found among American adolescents. Findings indicate the existence of managed altered states of consciousness in the tribal societies studied, where plant hallucinogens are given by elders to youth as part of an intensive, short-term socialization for religious and pedagogical purposes. The use of hypersuggestibility as a cultural technique to "normalize" youth in the tribal societies understudy is analyzed in contrast to the role of pathology of drug ingestion patterns among Amefican adolescents.

A recent longitudinal study of adolescent drug use and psychological health in American society has argued that problem drug use is a symptom, not a cause, of personal and social maladjustment, and that the meaning of drug use can best be understood in the context of an individual's personality structure and developmental history (Shedler and Block 1990:612). Their argument asserts that current efforts at drug prevention are misguided to the extent that they focus on symptoms, rather than on the psychological syndrome underlying drug abuse (see Grob 1986). This contrasts with non-Western societies of the world where drug use among adolescents may not be viewed as problematic, and may be part of near-universal transitional rituals marking passage into adulthood (Dobkin de Rios and Winkelman 1989).

From a transcultural psychiatric view, surprisingly little has been done to examine the context of adolescent drug use and abuse which draws upon a wealth of ethnographic data from societies ranging from foragers and hunter/gatherers to incipient and advanced agriculturalists. This article will contrast the traditional role of hallucinogenic plants administered by adults to adolescents either individually or in groups in three distinct areas of the world - among the Australian Aborigines of the Central desert region, among the Chumash Indians of California and among the Shangana-Tsonga youth of Mozambique.

Our intent is to understand the way in which hallucinogenic drugs have historically played a major role in the transformation of adolescent boys and girls into fully participating members of adult society. This contrasts with contemporary patterns of adolescent drug abuse in Euro-American societies where "abuse" rather than "use" patterns prevail in the face of dysfunctional family life, dysphoria and self-medication. As numerous anthropologists have argued, legal constraints on drug use in Euro-American society contrast with ritualistic use of such plant drugs in traditional tribal societies of the world. This contrast will help to understand the role of "managed altered states of consciousness" initiated by tribal elders to adolescents, both male and female, as a culturally accepted, didactic device to prepare youth for new adult roles. The pattern of plant drug use among youth in tribal societies, to be examined in this article in the context of group or individual initiatory rituals at puberty, suggests the possibility in industrial societies for non-drug, integrative rituals at adolescence to deal with the societal problems of alienation, economic disenfranchisement, social status ambiguity and meaninglessness.

As Shedler and Block (1990) allude to, contemporary psychological studies of adolescent drug use wrenches out of context, or decontextualizes, such abuse from the cultural variables of societal breakdown, meaninglessness and social stress. Cultural variables such as those mentioned above, which create a set of problems for Western youth may not be coded into the survey research instruments that are used nationally to discern adolescent drug abuse patterns. In contrast, the cultural anthropologist investigating plant drug use patterns in non-Western societies by training and interest examines the total social and cultural context of meaning in which drug use occurs, where such use is generally sanctioned by adult members of the community (Dobkin de Rios 1984a, 1984b).

We will provide a psychoacultural approach to examine American adult drug abuse and contrast drug abuse patterns of American adolescents with plant drug use patterns of tribal adolescents. We will show how cultural contexts of meanings associated with hallucinogenic drugs in traditional societies, as well as the psychotechnologies of management of adolescent consciousness states by tribal elders, contrast dramatically with American drug use patterns and concepts of the self in Western societies. Finally, we conclude with an examination of some potential options to rectify the patterns of self-destructive drug abuse in contemporary American society.

Before examining American adolescent drug abuse issues, it is important to understand the ahistoric tendency in Western psychological science. Cushman (1990) argues that there is an implicit presumption or bias in favor of self-contained individualism as an unquestioned value. He argues that the current Western concept of self is that of the bounded, masterful self, an unchangeable transhistorical entity. While Cushman demonstrates that cultural conceptualizations and configurations of the self are formed by the economics and politics of respective eras, his analysis of contemporary American society as it impacts the "self" is important for our discussion of adolescent drug abuse. Titling his article, "Why the Self is Empty," Cushman maintains that since World War II, the configuration of an empty self has emerged in the U.S. middle classes, empty in part because of the loss of family, community and tradition. The self has to be filled up by consuming goods, calories, experiences, romantic partners and empathic therapists in attempts to combat the growing alienation and fragmentation of its era (Cushman 1990:600). The results of the changes in the self have led to a sense of meaninglessness in the West. Inner emptiness can be expressed in many ways, including low self-esteem, values confusion, eating disorders and drug abuse which Cushman argues is the compulsion to fill the emptiness with chemically-induced emotional experiences, as well as the absence of personal meaning and the hunger for spiritual guidance. What Geertz (1973) has described as the web of meaning - the tools of traditional cultures, such as stories, songs, beliefs, rituals, ceremonial objects, costumes and potions - no longer play an important role in Western society. The individual compelled to fill up the empty self, aggressively consuming in order to be soothed and integrated, must take in and merge with a drug or ideology or be in danger of fragmenting into feelings of worthlessness and confusion. Remedial attempts have resulted in such adaptive lifestyle solutions as that of the adolescent drug subculture.

In fact, it has become commonly recognized that psychotropic substance abuse among American adolescents has reached epidemic proportions over the last two to three decades. In spite of increasing attention given to this phenomena by the media, the government, as well as health and educational authorities and services, widespread misuse and abuse of drugs and alcohol by the young has persisted virtually unabated. Experimentation with unsanctioned intoxicants has become so widespread that it is now statistically normative for adolescents to engage in some degree of illegal drug taking.

This phenomenon can be easily observed when examining the precipitous rise of marijuana use, the most commonly used illegal substance, among successive cohorts of graduating American high school seniors. For the cohort born in 1945 and graduating from high school in 1963, there was a 2% lifetime prevalence of marijuana use by the age of 18. This figure increases to 19% for the class of 1968 (born in 1950), 48% for the class of 1973 (born in 1955) and 60% for the class of 1978 (born in 1960). Although more recent epidemiological surveys indicate a modest decline of adolescent marijuana use during the 1980s, (lifetime prevalence dropping to 54% for the class of 1985), the United States nevertheless remains with a more severe and pervasive substance abuse problem than any other industrialized nation. The most recent statistics reveal that 61% of our high school seniors have used an illicit substance at some time in their lives (Johnston 1987). Furthermore, the implications of earlier experimentation with psychotropic drugs are serious. In the late 1960s, the mean age of first use of an illegal substance was 19 to 20; by the late 1970s, it was 15. A consequence of this trend has been the increasing tendency for rapid progression to patterns of multiple drug abuse (Clayton and Ritter 1985).

Although most educational and media attention has been directed towards adolescent use and abuse of illicit psychotropic substances, alcohol and cigarette use have remained at alarmingly high levels. The lifetime prevalence by the senior years of high school of alcohol is 92% and cigarettes 69%. The 30-day prevalence of alcohol among high school seniors is 66%, with 5% daily drinkers, and 37% admitting to binge drinking of five or more consecutive alcoholic drinks in the two-week period prior to being surveyed. With cigarettes, 30% of high school seniors admit to smoking on an intermittent basis, with 20% smoking daily (Johnston 1987). As over the course of the lifespan, either alcohol or cigarettes alone will eventually cause significantly greater morbidity and mortality than all the illicit substances combined, the degree to which their use is sanctioned and even encouraged by prevailing societal attitudes at the expense of acknowledging and understanding "safer" psychotropic substances and traditions of use is alarming and even damaging to the health and longevity of younger generations.

The strongest predictor of substance abuse is having a peer group whose lives are centered around the acquisition and use of psychotropic substances, the lifestyle solution referred to by Cushman (1990). Many of the factors known to be associated with substance abuse including poor academic performance, rebelliousness, delinquency as well as low self-esteem and depression, all precede rather than follow the initiation of substance abuse (Kandel 1982).

The developmental phase of adolescence is often a period of considerable stress and insecurity. The attraction of "mind-altering" substances are frequently tempting as an escape from the painful and discordant processes of adolescence. Yet this attraction is deceptive; the habitual flight into drug-induced euphoria inevitably culminates in the failure to acquire the developmental tasks necessary for future psychological health. Furthermore, the chronic and compulsive use of powerful mood altering substances has a significant dulling effect upon cortical tone, thus impairing the attainment of 0 al cognitive function and impeding the path of developmental growth (Baumrind and Moselle 1985). Developmental fixation and regression are among the serious risks of chronic substance abuse in contemporary adolescence. The adverse developmental consequences of substance abuse in adolescence include persistent identify diffusion, lack of clarity about goals, creation of a false sense of autonomy, impaired capacity for deferred gratification and a fixation of the negative identity characteristics of early adolescence.

As the extent and duration of substance abuse and dependence increases, the afflicted adolescent will experience greater alienation and estrangement from the mainstream of cultural life. Intensified degrees of loneliness and isolation, along with pronounced feelings of hopelessness and helplessness, perpetuate the need for further drug-induced refuge and escape. As the process intensifies and the individual fails to respond to efforts aimed at internal control, self-esteem progressively deteriorates. The concurrent and cumulative effects of impaired developmental maturation, deteriorating psychosocial functioning, and declining self-esteem will place the adolescent at greater risk for dangerous and potentially lethal behavior, including explicit suicidal acts.

Intervention must identify those at greatest risk for progression from casual use to chronic dependence (Grob 1986). Pre-existing clinical depression is known to be a critical predictive factor in the transition from being free of drug use to drug experimentation and to later dependence on marijuana. Furthermore, persistent depression in habitual adolescent users will predict the development of poly-substance abuse (Paton, Kessler and Kandel 1977). Early identification and treatment of these depressed adolescents who are at risk for the initiation and evolution of serious drug abuse behaviors is critical.

The above analysis of contemporary American adolescent drug abuse will contrast dramatically with the data to follow among three tribal societies of Australia, Africa and North America.

Much data is available on adolescent initiation rites among Australian Aborigines at the time of European contact and before Westernization (see Eliade 1958, 1973; Durkheim. 1915; Berndt 1964; Basedow 1925; Spencer and Gillen 1899; Home and Aiston 1924). However, little has been done to examine the role of the hallucinogenic plant, pituri (Duboisia hopwoodii) in the genital operations that mark the transition to manhood among Aboriginal adolescents (Dobkin de Rios 1984a). Scopolamine and hyoscamine alkaloids of the plant, which give rise to hallucinations and illusions, were highly valued among these hunting and foraging peoples for their ability to quiet hunger and quench thirst (see also Johnston and Clelland 1933).

Aborigines lacked fixed settlements and had relatively few material goods. Their small nomadic social units were permeated by religious awe and reverence for their environment. Initiation rites at puberty had the important function of creating a cohesive cohort of males who would suffer inter-generational hazing and harassment and undergo plant hallucinogenic inductions that were integrated into death and rebirth symbology. As a cohort member, the youth would be reborn as a new individual, putting aside things of childhood and now able to marry, procreate and contribute to the economic surety of his group.

The pituri plant had enormous economic value to the Aborigines. Pituri roads existed with extensive trade networks that extended from northern to southern desert areas, which permitted Aborigines to trade the plant. Most of the Aboriginal weaving and written communications systems including nets, dilly bags and marker sticks, were used to carry the pituri plant or identify the trader in hostile territory. The pituri roads crossed rivers and high mountain ranges where natives would trade the plant over hundreds of miles. They were used as a token of friendship toward strangers, as a stimulant and social comforter to foster feelings of amity. The plant was used to trap emus, parrots and kangaroos in water holes. Elders who acted as seers to obtain power and riches would ingest the plant. Interestingly, it was used not only as payment to elders who circumcised and subincised(1) youth, but Johnston and McClelland (1933) document that the plant was taken by youths in native operations (such as circumcision and subincision.) By the 1950s, pituri use had disappeared, pushed out by Lutheran usurpation of the plant harvest (Hart, interview, November, 1983). This had the effect of bringing tribal members to mission settlements. Commercial tobacco was also introduced into Australia at the time of European contact and became popular among Aborigines, despite the availability of 1-3 different species of native tobacco that grew wild and was chewed as a wad.

Early commentaries by Durkheim based on the fieldwork reports of a variety of scholars describe pubertal rites of initiation and the sacred role that human blood played in the cult. After subincision took place among the Arunta, one tribal group of the Central Desert Region, the blood was collected and buried. The youth's mother drank the blood from the circumcision and the youth licked blood from the knife. Inter-generational conflict was expressed in scarification of the initiates, blanket tossing of these youth, their placement on a bed of leaves atop hot coals, and beatings on the scalp to "promote hair growth." The rites of circumcision -and subincision which have been of interest to the psychoanalytically-oriented scholar, were believed to confer power on the genital organs (Bettelheim 1954).(2) The painful mutilation of an organ was believed to give a sacred character to it, and through the experiences of pain, an individual was said to gain great power and strength. Aborigines symbolized this suffering as the sign that certain ties attaching the youth to his everyday, secular environment were broken.

Eliade (1958) described Bora rites in eastern Aboriginal society where young men were removed from the women's area, isolated in the bush, given religious teaching and floggings, and were circumcised and subincised. The boys remained in the bush for one year and were subjected to hypervigilant austerities -including sleep deprivation and fasting. They were kept in silence and darkness. The symbology of death and rebirth - the death of childhood and the rebirth of the individual into a new adult status - was prominently figured here. The initiates did not report negative experiences such as fear and anxiety, but rather revelations which allowed them to view the world and themselves as sacred. No doubt, the use of pituri in these genital operations in highly septic environments provided an amnesic experience, much as the alkaloid, scopolamine, played a popular role in obstetrics in the 1940s and 1950s, when "twilight sleep" was the predominant childbirth anaesthesia.

Male blood was seen as a symbol of strength and fertility. In order to separate men from their mothers, male blood was used through the initiation rites. Van Gennep's (1984) stages of transition in initiation rituals separation, liminality and reintegration - can be used to describe the rites among aborigines in which the hallucinogenic plant, pituri, traditionally played an important role, particularly in the third and fourth stages listed below

• Segregation of novices into special isolated camps.
• Education about sacred matters received from elders.
• Bodily operations such as circumcision and subincision.
• Disclosure of meanings of ritual objects presented to novices in secret ceremonies.
• Final cleaning of all traces of the sacred world and the ceremonial return to ordinary life.

The symbolic concept of death and rebirth, as the outcome of hallucinogenic plant drug use is widely found among traditional societies of the world (see Dobkin de Rios 1984a). It is so profound in Aboriginal societies that mothers behaved as if their sons were dead and mourned them accordingly. The Aboriginal elder who performed the circumcision was believed to be a designate of a supernatural being. Five or six weeks after the circumcision, subincision was performed and this custom of cutting the male urethra was believed to be done to rid the body of the mother's female blood. After a series of hazing and ordeals, the young man was thought to be a changed person, ready to fully participate in adult society.

Numbered among the tribelets of California that subsisted on acorn gathering, fishing and hunting, the Chumash Indians of the Santa Barbara region combined the vision quest at adolescence of many North American Indian groups along with a powerful hallucinogenic substance, Datura meteloides, commonly known as Jimsonweed or toloache. Rendered from the Spanish word, toloatzin, the Datura plant probably diffused northward as the result of Aztec trade and was incorporated into a common pubertal custom of austerities to mark the passage of the youth into adulthood.

The plant was taken in the form of a decoction, with the leaves, stems and even the roots pounded and soaked in water. As with other hallucinogens, the drug's visions were believed able to confer knowledge of the future or to make supernatural beings visible to the imbiber. Paranormal events such as clairvoyance were said to result from the drug's ingestion, and people were believed to be able to see things hidden from ordinary view or events at a distance or in the future (Driver 1969:114).

Much of the data here draws on ethnographic work of Harrington (1942) between 1912 and 1922 and the cultural analysis of Chumash narrative texts which feature Datura tales prominently (see Blackburn 1974). Gayton (1928) also wrote that a common feature of the drug's use at puberty was through group administration. Like other vision quests undertaken by North American Indian tribal peoples, the drug functioned to aid the individual to obtain a supernatural helper or guardian spirit. In the southern part of California among the Gabrielino and Luiseno youths, Datura was used in a puberty ritual integrated into a larger ceremonial complex called the Chingichnich cult, where initiates undertook ordeals and learned esoteric lore. Driver (1969) argues that the cult was named after the highest ranking god in the area. The central theme of the cult was to obtain contact with the supernatural through the medium of the hallucinogenic plant. After the plant was crushed in a sacred mortar reserved for this purpose, each initiate drank from the mortar directly. Occasional mortality occurred. The visionary pattern was principally that of animals who taught the initiate a song or dance. As in other vision quests recorded across the continent, the animal became a lifelong guardian spirit or helper of the boy, and was thought to be essential to his success as a hunter, shaman or any other activity that he engaged in. The ceremony was guided by an individual sponsor who instructed the boy in the religious lore of the tribelet and taught him various sacred songs and dances (Driver 1969:350).

Datura was used principally by men, and then only once in their life, attesting to the general concern among North American Indians who used Datura regarding their ability to control the effects of the plant. In other areas of California, there were Datura drinking rituals held every spring where individuals could chose to imbibe as often as they liked. Tribal groups further east including the Mohave, Yuma and Desert Cahuilla had no well-developed Datura ceremony and individuals took the plant whenever they wished.

Most data is available on the Chumash (Appelgate 1975), who drank Datura after the onset of puberty on an individual basis and not as part of group activity. Throughout North America, individual puberty initiations existed, so that a youth could obtain a tutelary spirit as the result of this personal quest. By means of a personal religious experience which elsewhere consisted mainly of withdrawal into solitude and a break with the community of the living, the novice had a personal experience through dreams and visions that were provoked by a course of ascetic practices. The vision quest included fasting for four days after purification by purges, dietary prohibitions and ascetic exercises (e.g., steam baths in icy water). Among the California and Northwest Coast tribal groups, however, we see a variance with the introduction of the Mexican toloache plant, Datura. Among the Chumash, both men and women took Datura individually any time after the onset of puberty, although there was no formal initiation rite. This was done in the village rather than in an isolated spot. A guardian spirit was believed to come to a person who was under the effects of Datura. At a later time, the youth might take the plant again to strengthen his/her bond with the dream helper. The function of the plant was for specific culturally determined goals such as to communicate with spirits of the dead, or to divine the future - all of which were individual rather than collective goals. This contrasted with the mountain Cahuilla Indians of Southern California, for example, where there was a group initiation with Datura when enough boys reached an age suitable for the ceremonies. In all cases, it was believed that the drug permitted the individual access to supernatural power and engendered strength, courage and success in later life. Women could obtain courage from drinking the plant potion, particularly in childbirth and to obtain immunity from danger.

As with other traditional societies that used plant hallucinogens, the Chumash recognized the need for purification, abstinence from sex and a moderate diet consisting of thin, unsalted acorn gruel and abstinence from salt, sweets, meat and fats. The Chumash youth were expected to be reverent and concentrated, and careful not to offend the Datura spirit by talking too freely about his experiences. Appelgate (1975) argues that Datura was incorporated into an already existing vision-seeking complex among the California tribes such as the Chumash. Other extreme practices found elsewhere in North America like self-torture, mutilation or solitary vigils at a remote spot, interestingly enough were missing from the Chumash pattern.

A religious specialist, called the toloachero or Datura giver, prepared and administered the drink. Often, five old men who assembled to administer the potion questioned the youth afterwards. The Datura giver received payment for his services. While the drug was considered to be dangerous and required great skill to prepare, its dosage was a key issue to differentiate between a toxic or lethal dose and one sufficient to provide the response of a spirit helper. The spirit of Datura was propitiated in an attempt to ensure that the individual sting the substance would not sicken and die.

The first Chumash Datura experience was seen to be the most carefully controlled. When elders thought that the adolescents were strong enough to stand the treatment, they were given the plant. This probably took place a few years after puberty, but before they were sexually experienced. The five Datura givers assembled together in the youth's house and administered the potion to him. He was told to pay attention to his dreams, and when he awoke he was sung to and instructed to see beyond surface appearances, "to see the other world beyond this world" (Applegate 1975). It was important that the youth receive an animal spirit helper like a Hawk or Coyote to offer him lifelong protection and guidance. After the intoxication ended, the old Datura givers asked the youth what he had seen in his visions and in turn, they interpreted them for him. The elders "moralized," and in the youth's heightened hypersuggestible state, they were able to inculcate culturally important moral systems and values. Other cultural uses of the plant included that of medicine, and as part of the quest for shamanistic power should the individual wish to become a knower of spirits, to acquire a multiplicity of spirit helpers or to harm his enemies.

Johnston (1972, 1976, 1977) published a series of articles on the Shangana Tsonga of Mozambique and the then Northern Transvaal based on fieldwork carried out during 1968-1970. These people are a Bantu-speaking group numbering about 1.2 million in Mozambique and 700,000 in N. Transvaal. They are a patrilineal society who largely worship spirits of their ancestors. Practicing maize horticulture, they grow squash, groundnuts and sugar cane and keep a few goats and cattle. They live in an unfertile and and environment where horticultural subsistence is hazardous and where, due to the migrant labor situation, all of the arduous horticultural tasks are performed by women.

In this rural traditional society, infertility and infant mortality are very high, and malnutrition and diseases such as syphilis are prevalent. Generally it is not determined whether a husband or wife is the infertile partner. Swiss doctors have estimated infertility in Tsonga women to be about 30% and infant mortality during the first year of fife as 35%. Tsonga brides who prove childless are in great trouble, not only because cattle have been paid for them as bridewealth and would have to be returned, but often the cattle have already been spent to bring the girl's brother a wife, thus involving a chain reaction. Therefore, a barren woman may expect a lifetime of disgrace and working for others. A fertility school for nubile adolescent girls is mandatory and takes place periodically after the May harvest when the hallucinogenic plant, Datura fatuosa is given to induce visions of a fertility god. Rituals emphasize the newly acquired adulthood status of initiates and the possibility for motherhood. A chief's primary wife officiates at the ceremony and inserts porcupine-like straws between the legs of initiates which represent the regrowth of pubic hair that is shaved off before the rites. A tree is climbed and as the young woman clings to it with her legs wrapped around the trunk, it is believed that she is learning to mimic sexual intercourse. This is so, since the tree yields a white sap of the tree, likened to semen. The officiant attempts to combat the possibility of sterility from witchcraft by mixing human fat or powdered bone (probably dug up from a cemetery) with the Datura plant as an antidote. During the girl's initiation rite, music plays an important role in evoking stereotypic visionary patterns linked to the presence of the fertility god. Novices are expected to see bluish-green color patterns under the effects of the plant, Johnston's sample of 12 women reported seeing green snakes, worms, whirlpools and river banks. These blue green snakes are found under the eaves of Tsonga huts and are believed to be ancestor gods. Water is a symbol customarily associated with fertility. The main goals of the rituals is for the girls to hear the voice of the fertility god, stimulated largely by the suggestions of the officiant who is knowledgeable about Tsonga ritualistic lore. Johnston argues that the officiant psychologically manipulates the group of novices to ensure group conformity during the rituals. The plant enforces a diminution of the girls' critical faculties, there is a decreased reality testing and hypersuggestibility. The author suggests that the dissolution of self boundaries under the plant's influence evokes primary process thinking where external suggestions assume a concrete reality and a supramotivational state ensues.

[The officiant] becomes the silent inner voice. Manipulating the novices with powerful music, she leads them into the various consecutive mimes and dances ... it is she who suggests the music-color association, the hearing of voices and the fertility vision (Johnston 1977:229).

Each of the ritual situations fall within the tripartite sequence of separation, liminality and reincorporation of the novices which involves progressive stages of socially recognized Tsonga identify. Thus, the focus of the hallucinogenic experience by adolescent females at puberty is to establish a group social identity which takes precedence over that of individual identity. All of the rites marshal biochemical, psycliophysiological, musical and cultural mechanisms and are directed toward a group status-defining goal. Johnston argues that the African sociomusical behavior in the context of adolescent drug use is pragmatic and problem solving and is "a culture's adaptive response to ecological and environmental pressures and their particular mode of manifestation is determined by deep-rooted historical and psychological factors (Johnston 1977:234).

This Tsonga girls' Datura ingestion during the puberty school rituals is linked to the social goal of obtaining fertility and to protect women against barrenness by witchcraft. The novices are led firmly and authoritatively through a series of preparatory stages into the hallucinogenic rite. They are psychologically attuned to this rite by the women coaching them to achieve specific social goals. They see and hear what is expected of them at the appropriate time and place while they are under the influence of the Datura plant. When the rituals are terminated, Tsonga girls are viewed as mature women of their group who can fulfill the social role demanded of them in their society. Once they emerge from the special Datura rituals, they are marriage eligible and thus bring cattle to their fathers. The rituals teach and reinforce the social role of women to please the husband, bear his children, keep the home and till the soil. Inter-generational activity includes the officiant deflowering each girl with a long, twisted antelope horn which is a symbol of authority.

There are some important similarities that recur in the data presented above on the Australian Aborigine, the Shangana-Tsonga and the Chumash. In all cases, we can conclude that the hallucinogenic plants were used to create states of consciousness, particularly hypersuggestible ones, in order to enculturate the adolescents with a fast-paced educational experience necessary for their survival and bonding as an adult member of the community. This was congruent with the goals and values of the societies in question. These states were created to heighten learning and to create a bonding among members of the cohort group, when appropriate, so that individual psychic needs would be subsumed to the needs of the social group. This was done to ensure survival. Cohort identity might be fostered by the austerities and painful consciousness changes that accompanied genital mutilation, sleeplessness and beatings - a sort of aboriginal "boot camp" - where one would share and identify with one's cohorts upon whom survival success might often depend. In the process, the use of hallucinogens that created an amnesiac state) which heightened a death and rebirth experience, served cultural goals of "whipping into shape," in a manner of speaking, the youth who died in his/her role as child only to be reborn as a fully participating adult member of society who now can procreate and produce.

A key feature of such rituals for adolescents at puberty was the cultural utilization of the hypersuggestible-causing effects of the drug plants themselves (see Ludwig 1969). In the altered state of consciousness managed by adult tutors, the framing of adolescent behavior patterns and the inculcation of religious and secular values and the emotional patterns appropriate to the culture would be modeled for the youths by their elders. This was done in a short-term learning milieu created during the altered state itself. While we would not expect to find homogeneity in outcomes of all youths subject to such rituals, it is certainly one way that a culture has available to it to inculcate conformity patterns in young people that might contribute to group survival and harmony. Fernandez (1982), in fact, argues that among another African group, the Fang of Gabon, youth are given more and more of the plant hallucinogen, Iboga, until they have the culturally-desired vision and some youth have been reported to die if they do not measure up to their culture's expectations of their ability to experience the preternatural.

A recent article by Simon (1990) focusing on a mechanism for social selection and successful altruism argues that human docility and bounded rationality is implicated in the evolutionary success of altruistic behavior. Simon argues that docility - receptivity to social influence - contributes greatly to fitness in the human species; it will be positively selected. We can argue here that the use of plant hallucinogens to create docility states in adolescents for the purpose of maturity preparation is a powerful psychotechnology implicitly used in tribal societies such as the ones under discussion.

Zoja (1989) has recently examined the critical role of initiation rites in traditional societies and the degree to which they have become stultified, meaningless and pathologized in contemporary society. In such tribal settings, initiation of the individual provides personal regeneration and radical change, and is essential to the process of growth and maturity and the acquisition of meaning. All people possess an innate, archetypal need for initiation according to Zoja, but modern life denies us access or awareness of this integral need for renewal. Drugs often become the desperate, albeit futile, attempt at initiation which we see among Western youth.

Psychotropic drugs have played an important role in the lives of men and women since recorded history. The incorporation of these plants in group or individual initiation rites in tribal societies are widespread. Such drugs have been accepted to be of sacred origin and have been treated with awe and reverence. In tribal societies, plant hallucinogens were in limited supply and protected from abuse and profanation by deviants insofar as they remained under adult control and administration. One particular recurrent theme that is found among such societies where plant hallucinogens are used that is important in our discussion is that of release into initiatory death followed by the emergence into initiatory rebirth (see Dobkin de Rios 1984a). The life of the child/adolescent undergoes sharp changes in the succession of a new identity which is richly imbued with meaning that merits societal respect and attention.

In Western society, we lack initiatory and transitional rites and traditions. Instead, the synthetic and manufactured drugs that are available are recognized to have become a major problem with which contemporary society must contend. The sacred and reverent utilization of psychoactive substances among tribal peoples has become a profaned and pathological phenomenon now defined as drug abuse.

In the tribal societies discussed in this article, the pubertal initiation rites typically were collective and shared experiences, although the lack of economic resources among the Chumash made group rituals difficult, and individual plant drug ingestion in the village was the case. Plant hallucinogenic use was thoroughly embedded in the set and setting of the milieu, and was of utmost importance. Its goal was to facilitate individual growth and development, allowing society to benefit from the sacred experiences of its youth. Culturally expected visions were provoked by shamanic manipulation of set and setting to provide revelation, blessings, healing and ontological security for those using the sacramental plants. Ethical principles were deeply embedded in the sacramental use of these psychoactive substances which emphasized cohort identify and identification, procreative and vocational success. Prevarication and licentiousness, in turn, were repudiated. With the advent of state-level societies, the vision and ethics integral to the sacred traditional use of these plants may have been sacrificed as part of the sumptuary absorption of altered states for state-level hierarchic functionaries (Dobkin de Rios and Smith 1977). In their place, we find the mindless destruction of values and lives left in the wake of the scourge of contemporary drug abuse.

Traditional societies commonly incorporated extensive preparatory and purification exercises preceding the actual psychoactive substance-facilitated initiation rite. The long period of time spent in preparation and the reverence with which the process was approached served as limiting factors for its use. As long as the pre-state level society remained inured from external destructive forces such as warfare, conquest, and so on by state-level civilizations, such initiation rites continued to be regarded as sacred experiences. In state level and stratified societies, such rites of passage played an insignificant role (Dobkin de Rios and Smith 1977). Thus, psychoactive substances in tribal societies were not abused, but perceived as sacraments facilitating controlled entry into valuable states of consciousness in which "visions" essential for the continued existence of the society could be assessed.

While plant drug use took on esoteric ritual significance in ancient Greek Elyusinian mysteries (Wasson and Rueck 1977), non-state level tribal societies achieved an optimal appreciation and productive use of psychoactive substances, while keeping their destructive potential to a minimum. As Harner cogently argues (1973), medieval European society found a particular role for the hallucinogenic plants in witchcraft and the magic-medica of alchemy.

Contemporary Western society, on the other hand, has acquired a destructive non-sacred use of drugs. The respect and reverence with which psychoactive sacraments have been used in tribal society has been abandoned. Drug initiation has become drug addiction. Circumscribed and protected rites have been forgotten, while frenetic and out-of-control drug use has proliferated. The sacred visions which served a socially enriching function have been lost. Repetitive, compulsive and habitual drug use, emerging from both individual and societal pathology has led to ever-increasing dangers to drug users and to society at large.

Public Policy Implication

Shedler and Block (1990) have identified important implications in public policy from their research on drug use and abuse among American youth. They suggest that current drug education may be addressed more successfully by efforts aimed at encouraging sensitive and empathic parenting, at building childhood self-esteem, at fostering sounder interpersonal relationships and promoting involvement and commitment to meaningful life goals. Their conclusions that there are serious inadequacies with the conventional wisdom that no level of drug use is considered safe, and that it is dangerous to suggest otherwise, is reinforced by the data on traditional non-Westem societies that have been presented in this article, just as those authors found that occasional experimentation with marijuana is not personally or socially destructive (Shadler and Block 1977:628). Adolescents who are in drug treatment do not represent the general population of adolescents but a specially constituted subpopulation. Thus, for some adolescents, experimentation with drugs is highly destructive because drugs easily become part of a broader pathological syndrome. The cross-cultural data, too, shows that drug experimentation does not have to have psychologically catastrophic implications. This is especially true when there is a cultural context of meaning that gives pattern and structure to the drug experience. The reporting of stereotypic visionary patterns that serves as a vehicle to reinforce cultural religious goals demonstrates this phenomenon (see Dobkin de Rios 1984a, 1992).

Why have drugs assumed such a grave danger to the continued health and well-being of our society? Why is drug abuse for young people in particular such a disconcerting and frightening problem? Contemporary society no longer possesses viable, pre-established paths to initiation. The tribal process of initiation culminates as rebirth into a new life, endowed with special qualities and new meaning. The coming of age in non-state level tribal societies was a solemn rite of passage with the initiates consecrated into adulthood. In the absence of such initiation, we are left with widespread alienation and despair. Perhaps we must view the process of drug addiction in contemporary life as an intrinsic quest - a search by the individual for transcendent experience, for meaning and for personal identify, or else in Cushman's words (1991) a way to fill up the empty self. In this approach, we may be better equipped to address the tragedy of contemporary drug abuse and to rediscover a path to lead us from the alienation and malaise of industrial societies into a symbolic initiation and rebirth experience. A future effort in this direction will allow us to seek to define initiatory rituals for adolescents to meet this need.

1. The operation involved slitting the ventral surface of the penis to expose the underlying urethra.

2. Explanation of this custom ranges from Bettleheim's (1954) psychoanalytic approach to Cawte (1964) who suggests that the goal of such operations was to create a totemic likeness to the Kangaroo bifid penis, a mammal of summary importance in aboriginal life.

Charles Grob, M.D., is assistant professor of Psychiatry and Human Behavior, and director of Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychiatric Education at the University of California, Irvine. Marlene Dobkin de Rios, Ph.D., is professor of Anthropology at California State University, Fullerton and Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the University of California, Irvine. Dr. Grob and Dr. de Rios have team taught a graduate psychiatric residency course on adolescent psychiatrky, which resulted in the development of the current article, examining similarities and differences in adolescent drug use and abuse patterns in global perspective. The paper was read at the 1991 annual meeting of the Society for the Study of Psychiatry and Culture in Timerline, Oregon.

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