Why Intelligent People Use More Drugs. The human consumption of psychoactive drugs , such as marijuana , cocaine , and heroin, is of even more recent historical origin than the human consumption of alcohol or tobacco, so the Hypothesis would predict that more intelligent people use more drugs more frequently than less intelligent individuals. The use of opium dates back to about 5,000 years ago, and the earliest reference to the pharmacological use of cannabis is in a book written in 2737 BC by the Chinese Emperor Shen Nung.
Opium and cannabis are the only “natural” (agricultural) psychoactive drugs. Other psychoactive drugs are “chemical” (pharmacological); they require modern chemistry to manufacture, and are therefore of much more recent origin. Morphine was isolated from opium in 1806, cocaine was first manufactured in 1860, and heroin was discovered in 1874. Pleasure & Intelligence Drugs Adopted By Society. By Roger Highfield - Science Editor, The Telegraph - UK 7-15-5 Mind-altering drugs could be as common as coffee within a couple of decades to boost performance at school and at work, to "unlearn" addiction and to erase memories of distressing events such as a terrorist attack, according to a government think-tank.
Society may end up realising Aldous Huxley's vision of a Brave New World in which people take a supposedly perfect pleasure-drug, Soma - though the report shies away from discussing whether future governments will be tempted to encourage the use of "happy pills" for social control. The Foresight think-tank points out that psychoactive substances have been part of society for thousands of years. It heralds the development of new recreational drugs, some of which might be less harmful than those already costing society around £13 billion annually, mostly due to crime.
"We have not reached a ceiling for recreational drug use," it said.