fter studying a variety of online resources about the Vedic religion, I have come up with my own theory about the identity of the substance called Soma, the mysterious "juice" that seems to have inspired the creation of the Hindu faith. I almost hesitate to throw my hat into this ring as an American, however, because at least one online contender in this field, an apparently Indian blogger who went by the name of Swami_48 back in 2013, seems to believe that foreigners are slandering Hindus as drug addicts when they speculate on this topic, at least when they opine that Soma may have contained psychoactive substances such as Fly Agaric or psilocybin or opium.
"But foreign scholars sowed the seeds of doubts in the Indian minds. They dubbed it as hallucinative or psychotropic drug [sic]. They were very happy to dub the Vedic seers as drug addicts and drunkards."1
This is a reaction that I fully expected to encounter during my research on the topic of Soma, given that the Drug War has politicized the word "drugs" and so turned it into an implicit reproach. The angry Swami has taken America's pejorative definition of the word "drugs" to heart as being an unbiased description of Mother Nature's psychoactive bounty and so he refuses to admit that Soma could be such a substance. He has failed to realize that there are no such things as "drugs" in the evil sense of that word, except in the minds of pharmacologically clueless politicians who have an agenda to disempower minorities and to outlaw religious inspiration and ecstasy. Having thus swallowed the Drug Warrior's libelous lie about psychoactive medicines, however, Swami_48 is left with no way to whitewash his religious Soma except to invoke the Drug War apartheid of which Julian Buchanan2 writes, according to which some psychoactive substances are thought to be evil "drugs," while other psychoactive substances are considered to be beneficial "meds," or in this case, beneficial sacraments. And so our Swami tells us, "No, our Soma is not a drug, thank you very much, it is a sacrament!" The fact is, however, that psychoactive substances are psychoactive substances no matter what we call them, no matter how we brand them, no matter what kind of spin we place upon them as self-interested human beings. They are neither good nor bad. People are good or bad, not plants and fungi.
Our indignant Swami seems to think otherwise, however. He seems to suppose that yes, Soma inspires and elates, but it does so in just such a way as to put it off the radar of the DEA and Drug Warriors, or at least that it would do so "if things were done by rights." What he does not realize is that the Drug Warrior hates nothing so much as drugs that inspire and elate, regardless of their method of action. In fact, America's very definition of the word "drugs" these days is simply "substances that inspire and elate," as is clear from the fact that our long list of outlawed psychoactive substances here in the States have nothing in common as a group except for those twin attributes.
The point that I wish to convey here to the good Swami is this: that R. Gordon Wasson3 was not calling Hindus drug addicts when he identified Soma with the Fly Agaric Mushroom, Amanita muscaria; neither was Terence McKenna4 doing so when he pegged the active ingredient of Soma as the psilocybin mushroom, Psilocybe cubensis. That said, our Swami is partially correct just the same: Hindus are indeed being implicitly demonized by foreigners as drunkards and drug addicts, but they are being demonized by America's Drug Warriors, not by Wasson and McKenna. It is the Drug Warrior that insists that substances that inspire and elate are evil and can have no beneficial uses, religious or otherwise. According to that mindset, the Soma described in the Rig Veda5 was a drug in the worst sense of that word. In fact, if Drug Warriors had been in charge in the Punjab in 1500 BCE, there would be no Hindu religion today. Indeed, if William Bennett had been Drug Czar at the time, those who pressed the so-called Soma sticks6 for Indra and Agni et al. would have been beheaded as evil rotten horrible "drug dealers."7
To sum up then, the Swami is justifiably angry: Americans are implicitly hating on Soma. The problem is that the Swami is angry at the wrong Americans. But then that is the Drug Warriors' forte, after all: their ability to blame others for the problems that they themselves are creating.
Now, see what that Swami has done? He got me so rattled that I almost forgot to tell you guys my theory about the true nature of the Soma plant! Fortunately, "omittance is no quittance," as our buddy Shakespeare was fain to say.
My guess then is this: that Soma was a combination of plant medicines, with the chief ingredients consisting of opium, ephedra, and perhaps a dash of Cannabis sativa. Let me list a few of the reasons why I make this claim:
1) Opium inspires creativity and a great awareness of the intricate niceties of Mother Nature's bounty. It educates by allowing one to see one's problems metaphorically8.
2) The amphetamine-like qualities of Ephedra would have counteracted the sleep-inducing tendencies of the poppy plant.
3) According to the Rig Veda (Viii.91.1), Soma is found "growing near water and flowing with a milky juice gained by crushing the plant 9." This is an interesting observation, given that the poppy plant oozes a milky white latex sap.
4) The combination of opium, ephedra and cannabis is mentioned as a Soma candidate in the following online sources:
--Wikipedia Botanical identity of Soma 10
--In Search Of Soma, An Elixir for Immortality of Soul 11
--Soma, an Enigmatic, Mysterious Plant of the Vedic Āryas: An Appraisal 12
More generally, I believe that it makes poetic sense to associate the time-honored panacea of opium with what the Rishi sages obviously considered to be the ne plus ultra of psychoactive medicine. Surely, we should seek out a superlative candidate to fill the roll of an ostensibly superlative mystery substance such as Soma. Moreover, opium clearly works for people on demand and in unmistakable ways, whereas psychedelics tend to have unpredictable results based on the individual consumer. Someone who is gloomy and depressed is not necessarily going to feel elation and inspiration when using psilocybin or Fly Agaric - or at least that is my impression given my own admittedly limited experience with such substances. The Rig Veda13 does not speak of Soma as a substance that works at times, or that even works frequently, but rather as a substance which, without fail, will bring about rapture, energy, and mental focus, at least when used by those for whom it was intended, at the times and in the manner that it was intended. In the words of the commercial blurb, Soma would seem to be a substance that works "first time, every time." This is something that cannot be said of psychedelics.
I should qualify these neophyte surmises of mine with the caveat that Soma was considered as far more than just a plant, or just a fungus, or just a combination of such flora. It was also considered to be a kind of inner principle associated with the pineal gland and capable of manipulation via yogic practice in such a way as to inspire a kind of drug-free ecstasy14 - although such ecstasy could presumably be traced to the DMT that we all seem to possess internally by virtue of our membership in the species Homo sapiens15. Soma is also the metaphorical incarnation of the Soma plant/fungi and its divine qualities and as such is itself a god, one that eventually came to be associated with the Moon God Chandra16.
Finally, a note about the largely unguessed-at power of drugs to inspire and elate in a religious manner - yea, even without causing addiction or dependence.
To illustrate this power, I ask the reader to consider my recent experience undergoing a gnarly dental operation in Harrisonburg, Virginia. I was unconscious during the procedure thanks to the administration of an unknown anesthetic. I "came to" shortly thereafter and was wheeled into the lobby where my brother-in-law was awaiting me. He then walked me out to his car and drove me home. Business as usual, right? But the point of this story is the way that the anesthetic's influence remained with me over the course of the week that followed. I found myself feeling more kindly disposed toward my fellow human beings over the next several days, as if the anesthetic had gotten me in touch with my "inner saint," so to speak. In contemplating this subtle but very real elevation in mindset, I had a bit of an epiphany about religion. Now, I still do not know the name or even the type of anesthetic that I received, whether it was a gas or an opiate, for instance. It occurred to me, however, that absent drug law, one could create a religious sect that administered such an anesthetic to its adherents as part of a weekly church service. During this service, the faithful would be adjured by the church leadership to "work with the substance" over the coming week in such a way as to promote the happiness of others. What a great way to help others -- and oneself -- to feel better about the world!
Assuming that the drug I had received in the dentist office was an opiate, such a church would ritualize the use of such drugs with the help of religious doctrine that had been created for that very purpose, thereby giving church members a way to benefit from a time-honored substance while avoiding problems with unwanted addiction and/or dependence.
The fact that Drug Warriors would never tolerate such a religion is proof that the Drug War is not about drug safety but rather about the outlawing of what Heidegger would have called new ways of "being-in-the-world.17" The bad faith of the Drug Warriors in this connection is glaringly obvious given their refusal to apply their unprecedented prohibitions to alcohol and guns, which kill approximately 178,00018 and 47,00019 every year respectively in the United States alone. This breathtaking hypocrisy shows that the Drug War has nothing to do with safety, that it is all about the outlawing of unwelcome world views, especially those that conduce to peace, love and understanding. The Drug Warrior is, in fact, a selfish hater. They have got THEIR religious liberty, and that is all that matters to them. The religious liberty of others is unimportant to them.
As I was just telling our Swami friend several paragraphs ago, this is why Drug Warriors are the real enemies of the Hindu people when it comes to their religion. If the Drug Warriors' oppressive attitude toward godsend medicines had been in force in the Punjab in 1500 BCE, Hinduism would not exist today. The property of the Rishi would have been confiscated, their Soma plants burnt, and their right to earn a living in the Indian subcontinent would have been revoked. Today, the Vedic religion would just be a footnote in our history books, where it would be described as a rebel movement that had been ruthlessly suppressed by the Drug Warriors of yore.
"Arrest made in Matthew Perry death." Oh, yeah? Did they arrest the drug warriors who prioritized propaganda over education?
People groan about "profiling," but why is profiling even a "thing"? There would be little or no profiling of blacks if the Drug War did not exist.
The Cabinet of Caligari ('62) ends with a shameless display of psychiatric triumphalism. Happy shock therapy patients waltz freely about a mansion in which the "sick" protagonist has just been "cured" by tranquilizers and psychoanalysis. Did Robert Bloch believe his own script?
Materialists are always trying to outdo each other in describing the insignificance of humankind. Crick at least said we were "a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules." Musk downsizes us further to one single microbe. He wins!
The sad fact is that America regularly arrests people whose only crime is that they are keeping performance anxiety at bay... in such a way that psychiatrists are not getting THEIR cut.
It's amazing. Drug law is outlawing science -- and yet so few complain. Drug law tells us what mushrooms we can collect, for God's sake. Is that not straight-up insane? Or are Americans so used to being treated as children that they accept this corrupt status quo?
There's a run of addiction movies out there, like "Craving!" wherein they actually personify addiction as a screaming skeleton. Funny, drug warriors never call for a Manhattan Project to end addiction. Addiction is their golden goose.
So much harm could be reduced by shunting people off onto safer alternative drugs -- but they're all outlawed! Reducing harm should ultimately mean ending this prohibition that denies us endless godsends, like the phenethylamines of Alexander Shulgin.
The UN of today is in an odd position regarding drugs: they want to praise indigenous societies while yet outlawing the drugs that helped create them.
Just think how much money bar owners in the Old West would have saved on restoration expenses if they had served MDMA instead of whiskey.
Buy the Drug War Comic Book by the Drug War Philosopher Brian Quass, featuring 150 hilarious op-ed pics about America's disgraceful war on Americans
You have been reading an article entitled, What Was Soma?: another westerner chimes in, published on May 10, 2025 on AbolishTheDEA.com. For more information about America's disgraceful drug war, which is anti-patient, anti-minority, anti-scientific, anti-mother nature, imperialistic, the establishment of the Christian Science religion, a violation of the natural law upon which America was founded, and a childish and counterproductive way of looking at the world, one which causes all of the problems that it purports to solve, and then some, visit the drug war philosopher, at abolishTheDEA.com. (philosopher's bio; go to top of this page)
fter studying a variety of online resources about the Vedic religion, I have come up with my own theory about the identity of the substance called Soma, the mysterious "juice" that seems to have inspired the creation of the Hindu faith. I almost hesitate to throw my hat into this ring as an American, however, because at least one online contender in this field, an apparently Indian blogger who went by the name of Swami_48 back in 2013, seems to believe that foreigners are slandering Hindus as drug addicts when they speculate on this topic, at least when they opine that Soma may have contained psychoactive substances such as Fly Agaric or psilocybin or opium. 
You have been reading an article entitled, What Was Soma?: another westerner chimes in, published on May 10, 2025 on AbolishTheDEA.com. For more information about America's disgraceful drug war, which is anti-patient, anti-minority, anti-scientific, anti-mother nature, imperialistic, the establishment of the Christian Science religion, a violation of the natural law upon which America was founded, and a childish and counterproductive way of looking at the world, one which causes all of the problems that it purports to solve, and then some, visit the drug war philosopher, at abolishTheDEA.com. (philosopher's bio; go to top of this page)
