Leprechaun, alcohol is powerful medicine too - most 'experts' agree that in small amounts it aids relaxation and relieves stress. My grandmother used to swear by her evening oz. of brandy! And alcohol is (obviously) available for recreational purposes!

From the religious point of view, it's interesting to note that wine is found on ALL European altars, Christian and pre-Christian. And it's there for it's 'psychoactive' effects - the slight change of mood and perception that small amounts of alcohol produces, which are seen as conducive to experiencing things of a 'spiritual' nature.

This is the same purpose that cannabis served on the altars of the Goddess in ancient times - to open one to visions etc. The difference is that cannabis is a plant - and an extremely hardy, adaptive useful one that's easy for any average human being to access and cultivate. Unless of course, it's criminalized.   

Booze producers have enjoyed HUGE profits through the centuries in the production of the traditional European 'drug of choice', regardless of it's often disastrous effects on people's health and lives. Cannabis, being so easily grown anywhere by just about anyone, did not lend itself so well to commercial profiteering by a wealthy 'elite' - until the advent of criminalization.

And cannabis, being the traditional 'drug of choice' of the Arab, East Indian and African peoples (the very populations and continents that Europeans sought to dominate and exercise total control over for centuries) - became just another means of criminalizing and controlling the poorer, often non-white 'problem populations' who used it. That's the real reasoning behind the marijuana laws, imo. Opium as well.

daylia