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→Recreational Drugs in the New World
Recreational drugs also included other forms, including types of mushrooms. In Saharan and sub-Sahara Africa, mushrooms containing psilocybin were used as a hallucinogenic. They were used by nomadic populations and they could be found in the springtime. Rock art from 9000-7000 years ago may suggest that mushrooms were ingested in North Africa as part of rituals and visions seen and painted. Representations of mushrooms are also shown, which would suggest their use as part of the visions or drawings shown.
==Recreational Drugs in the Medieval and Early Modern PeriodNew World== While opium was likely the most common drug in the Old World, recreational drugs in the New World included cocoa leaves that were chewed in South America as early as about 8000 years ago. After 3000 BC, cocoa was commonly chewed and consumed by cultures east of the Andes. Later, it was introduced to the Incas and was added as part of tea or commonly chewed. The Incas considered it a divine plant and likely saw the psychedelic effects as a divine influence or ways to communicate with the gods. The Incas created a monopoly of production and was more limited in its use, probably the upper classes and nobles mostly used it. After the collapse of the Incas, the use of cocoa likely spread across South America. While cocoa was the likely dominate drug in South America, in North America peyote was the likely dominant drug. The earliest evidence of its use dates to about 3700 BC in the Rio Grande region of Texas. Evidence suggests it was used by Native Americans as potentially a recreational drug but also as a way to communicate with spirits. The use of peyote spread in use across much of the Western United States and Mexico. Interestingly, research on the Huichol, who may have been using the drug for over 1500 years, show no evidence of adverse effects on their chromosome that would suggest long-term genetic damage from continuous drug use.
==How Recent Trends Differed from the Past==
