Ritual gave way to marketplace. In ancient times, intoxicants carried symbolic and spiritual meaning—wine poured for gods, hallucinogens shared by shamans, sacred plants used to bridge the human and divine. Over centuries these same sacraments became commodities: measured, taxed, traded, and exploited by powers that saw not holiness but revenue. We explore the transformation of the sacred into the profitable, from Mesopotamian beer rations to medieval monopolies, and how commerce changed the meaning of intoxication itself. In the process, society began treating altered states not as mysteries but as products to be consumed, controlled, and sold.

By Niklas S. Osterman BHPRN, MA Addiction Specialist