Not too many people on the planet are intentionally ingesting
nightshade plants containing atropine and scopolamine. However,
psychoactive drugs (or their associated plants) are being intention-
ally ingested by very large numbers of people throughout the world.
Which poses a question: what are the most widely used psychoactive
drugs in the world? Before turning the page, take a moment to ponder
this question and venture a guess. What is number one? Number two?
Number three? Number four?
If you said caffeine for number one, you are correct. Caffeine, identi-
fied as the principal psychoactive chemical in a variety of plants, is by
far the most widely used psychoactive drug in the world. It is found
in coffee, tea, cacao (the plant source of chocolate), kola, guarana,
yerba mate, and other plants. Easily over half the adult population on
the planet consumes caffeine on a regular basis for its psychoactive
effects. So caffeine is solidly in first place as the most widely used psy-
choactive drug in the world. What’s next?
The second most widely used psychoactive drug in the world is
likely to be ethyl alcohol (ethanol). Certainly it is number two in the
United States. While not directly from a plant, ethyl alcohol comes