mstakenidentity

"The second issue identified by the Select Committee was that petrol sniffing threatened to destroy completely the Aboriginal social system. In the past, drug use has been portrayed as being a threat to entire nations (Kohn,1987), and white observers have long been predicting that alcohol use threatens to make extinct the Aboriginal population (Spencer,1988). However, as Kohn observes, while there is a pervasive notion that drug use will somehow lay the body politic low from within, societies do seem ‘to display extraordinary resilience in the face of mass intoxication’ (Kohn,1987:28). A contributory element to the notion that Aboriginal people might ‘die out’ as a result of drug or alcohol use, is the myth that mood-altering substances were unknown before white contact (the formal invasion and settlement commenced in 1788). The historical record shows otherwise. Not only did Aboriginal people use powerful indigenous tobaccos, they chewed pituri (see Pamela Watson in this volume), and ingested a variety of ‘stupefying’ roots and concoctions, but they also (in some regions) prepared intoxicating beverages made laboriously from Eucalyptus sap, blossoms and wild honey, and the soaked cones of the grass tree (Plomley,1966; Carr & Carr,1981; Thomson,1939 .

Brady, M. (1992) Heavy Metal: The Social meaning of petrol sniffing in Australia. Canberra Australia: Aboriginal Studies Press

Did not know that.