By: GIORGIO SAMORINI
When scholars in the humanistic and scientific fields of research encounter drug-related topics, they express moral judgments dictated by a series of paradigms concerning drugs that emerged in the 20th century. Their cultural and psychological conditioning influence both methodologies and the interpretation of data, and consequently, research results. Limiting the focus here to humanistic research, the paradigms of “shamanic purity”, “yogic purity”, and “mystical purity” are analysed. These ideological constructs are based on confusing, if not erroneous, assumptions about drugs, that have profoundly influenced the thinking not only of scholars but also of the common man.
