Review of 'This Is Your Mind on Plants' by Michael Pollan

I read Michael Pollan's book on psychedelics and really liked it - this is a sort of companion volume, though rather slighter. It only covers a few psychoactive plant derivatives really - opium, caffeine and mescaline. But I enjoyed all three chapters. The one on opium mainly focuses on some of the weirdness of drug policy, which in the US resulted in the authorities deciding to ban the growing of freely available poppies (though not the seeds, because they had a culinary use) and the possession of freely available dried poppies, popular with flower arrangers - but then not to tell anyone, for fear of encouraging the use of the poppies to make opium, which is apparently quite easy. 

The chapter on caffeine has some interesting stuff, especially the personal account of an attempt at abstinence and the chemistry of how caffeine works, but it feels a bit padded with historical stuff that I knew already and I think is widely written about.

The mescaline one was shorter, less padded, and took on some interesting issues about the relationship between drug reform advocates who want to 'decriminalize plants', and Native Americans who want to preserve their own privileged and restricted access to the mescaline-bearing cacti, which is culturally and spiritually significant to them (but as part of a relatively recent made-up religion). Again, a great read, and of course he writes brilliantly about his own mescaline and peyote experiences, while acknowledging the difficulty of writing about such things.