Addiction, Intention, Ceremony, Rituals... Dissolving the Line

 It wasn't this bad simply because of the lack of industrialization, but people still became addicted. Granted, addiction was approached differently, and there were much more effective community-oriented methods of "helping wrest one of our brothers/sisters from the grip of tobacco."

But if you go down to South America today you'll find that tribes imbibe tobacco (natural tobacco, mapacho tree bark, rapè snuff, etc) just like they always did. It's a lot harder to get addicted to tobacco when you have to go through the ritualistic process of preparing it and.

Most likely unless you were entrusted as a medicine holder you wouldn't just have tobacco sitting around. The shaman down the trail wouldn't be willing to sell you a pack of mapacho bark pre-rolls for 10 bags of coca leaves, either. Plus tribal lifestyle involves a bond of community that I doubt (m)any of us are familiar with That alone is probably enough to discourage someone from sneaking off into the bush to try and blast some snuff up their nose and risk being exposed and questioned as to why they weren't paying the proper respects to the spirit, which would turn into a whole process with correction ceremonies and yadda yadda.

So again, totally possible. Nowadays more so. It's become less taboo and you do see tribal members blasting rapè snuff.

Plus it gets more complicated when you dissolve the boundary between ritual, status, intention, and addiction. For example, the Mamos (elders) and actually I believe most adult men in Colombian tribes chew coca leaves all day, every day. Them shits is powerful. I start to crave them pretty bad after a week of chewing them. I can't imagine doing it all day every day to the point where I have green stains all over my face.

But they're not doing it to get high. They carry a gourd called a poporo with them along with a handwoven bag. Both are made and gifted by the tribe's women, who are also the only ones allowed to harvest coca; they serve as coming-of-age gifts and the poporo represents the woman that the man will carry for the rest of his life. The poporo holds ground shells (among the coastal tribes) or ash or lime (central) which is mixed with coca leaves to raise pH and facilitate absorption; the resultant substance is then deposited upon the gourd. Over the period of years, what starts out as a thin film becomes several inches thick, with each addition said to contain whatever thought the individual was thinking at the time.

So in this case we might just look down and think "omg coke tree addict lel needs rehab probably" but for them the coca leaf has tremendous significance. It represents their adulthood, their successful initiation into one of the tribe's men. As they age, the poporo and the calcite mass is considered to be a sort of book of the elder's life, containing dozens or perhaps hundreds of thoughts recorded, day in and day out, for their entire adult life.

"“Coca is a sacred plant that the Gods gave to us and all communities throughout the Andes and it represents the tongue of the Creator,” he said. “Through the coca plant you can talk the word of the Creator. So when we put the leaf on our tongue we are connected to the gods and we can transmit messages through the spiritual world and also the physical world to keep the equilibrium of our physical bodies. When people try it in its raw form, they will understand that it’s not harmful, it’s an ancient tradition,”"

Sorry, went on a bit of a tangent there. I just fucking love the Arhauco people in Colombia