People in Spain were taking drugs about 3,000 years before Pablo Escobar

Spanish people in Menorca, about 204 km southeast of Barcelona, were consuming hallucinogenic drugs about three millennia ago, new research has found. This was around 2,900 years before the birth of Spanish-speaking drug lord Pablo Escobar in South American nation Colombia.

According to a report published in the journal Scientific Reports, signs of human activity at the Es Càrritx cave on the south-western side of Menorca showed that ancient human civilisation there consumed drugs derived from plants and bushes.

The Es Càrritx cave has more than 200 human graves, and is believed to be a funeral site for about six centuries until 800 BCE.

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The research found that the substances had the potential to be quite strong. They were likely used as part of rituals held at the cave. These may have involved shamans "who were capable of controlling the side-effects of the plant drugs".

The scientific analysis of the hair locks, dyed red during the ancient rituals which could have come from more than one person, reportedly detected three psychoactive substances.

Along with hallucination-inducing atropine and scopolamine, scientists found ephedrine, which boosts energy and alertness.

The research also noted that containers found in the cave had spiral motifs carved on the lids. The way these motifs were created represent a person's "altered states of consciousness" while under the influence of hallucinogens.

In the history of ancient civilisations, evidence has been detected in the past, which indicates the human consumption of drugs and alcohol among others.

Ancient Egyptians used alcohol in 3500 BCE, while ancient Chinese people consumed cannabis (the source of marijuana) around 3000 BCE.

Ancient people in what is present-day Switzerland ate poppy seeds (the source of opium) in 2500 BCE.

Coca leaves (the source of cocaine), too, have been chewed for thousands of years by ancient Homo sapiensaround the world.

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