According to Salvador Nasralla, known locally as El señor de la television, legalizing cannabis would create at least 17,000 jobs in Honduras and go a long way in addressing the chronically high level of unemployment in the country.

Honduras is bordered by Guatemala, El Salvador, and Nicaragua. The country’s history has been frequently defined by the bloody and terrible conquests on its soil that have included the eradication of the local Maya by the first invaders (the Spanish). Honduras also became one of the locations of the United and Standard Fruit companies in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, giving rise to the writer O. Henry’s infamous description of the country as a “banana republic.” American troops have invaded the country multiple times including during the 1980’s during the war between El Salvador and Nicaragua.

For this reason, it is even more ironic that cannabis reform, proposed as a solution to help the mostly agricultural population of the country, might be opposed by anyone in the administration of the current president (the first woman to hold the office), the left-leaning Xiomara Castro, or her husband, Manuel Zelaya. Castro was sworn in on January 27, 2022, filling a job that Zelaya held between 2006 and 2009.

However, that is the battle that is currently raging over cannabis reform.

Nasralla, proponent of the cannabis reform proposal now in front of the government, is the first vice president of the country, appointed by Castro. He is also the former CEO of Pepsi Honduras. He has been a fierce critic of sitting governments here since the 1980s, citing corruption as one of the main reasons Honduras is in such dire economic circumstances today.

His cannabis proposal, however, has attracted the ire of Castro’s husband, Zelaya, who recently said, “We do not support the idea of starting to plant drugs as has been proposed. The president of Honduras (his wife) has made the firm decision to combat drug trafficking and will combat its consumption,” he told local media. “If there is drug trafficking, there are drug traffickers and if there are drugs, then there are consumers, so that must be eradicated from the country.” 

Since Zelaya is also a presidential advisor, it would seem that the current cannabis reform proposal by the country’s new Veep may cause a bit of marital strife.

A “Cannabis Republic”?

What makes this contretemps so interesting is not only the politics but the motivation of all involved. 

This is a fight essentially over not only living standards but a country’s legacy. There are currently 350,000 Hondurans out of work, and 2.4 million are underemployed. That is a significant percent of the population in a country with almost 10 million people. Merely employing them in the cannabis industry is not necessarily the answer to the country’s problems.

Here is the first reason why. Many developing countries are moving rapidly into the cannabis industry with similar hopes. See the many African nations who have announced they are on the same trajectory, if not Latin American countries. Honduras would be competing with such efforts and is already behind.

Beyond this, however, there are other considerations. Exporting bananas and other tropical fruit in the past did nothing except support the profits of large, non-Honduran companies as well as cemented their noted anti-democratic control of the country for many decades.

A Continuation of The Status Quo?

Beyond these considerations, the most valuable cannabis currently available in the global market is not grown outside, as has been proposed by Nasralla, but rather inside. Building a competitive export cannabis crop here means that Honduras would have to find places to erect such structures and build the infrastructure necessary to support indoor cultivation. That means capital investment that the country clearly does not have. It would have to come from foreign companies—just like in the past. The ”united” fruit companies of yore were owned by North American investors who cared only about profits, not the welfare of the indigenous population.

For this reason alone, “cannabis reform” here may in fact spell bad news. 

Beyond these problems, there is the environmental impact of outdoor cultivation itself, very similar to the situation in Brazil. Both countries have fragile, rainforest environs that are disappearing fast thanks to the invasions of both landless farmers and illegal drug traffickers.

Because of the destruction of its rainforest, beyond international culprits also responsible for global warming more generally, Honduras is also one of the countries most at risk from climate change. The frequency of natural disasters in the country, including floods, mudslides, tropical storms, and hurricanes, is already increasing dramatically. This scenario is hardly ideal for any kind of commercial cultivation, no matter the environs or the crop.

Driving “illegal” traffickers out of the country will also take more than legalizing the cannabis trade—and there is no guarantee that the legal cannabis industry here will be any more climate-friendly.

Such a scenario is also complicated by one more large problem. Local sources have long claimed that previous governments have participated actively in illicit drug trafficking and cattle ranching along with illegal logging of both mahogany and cedar.

The question is, will the current government, many of whose leaders have campaigned against government corruption in the past, find a sustainable way through the morass of contradictions now afloat in the legalization debate?

Cannabis legalization is an urgent global reform way past its due date. However, cannabis reform just by itself, it is clear, is not a panacea for deeply entrenched issues that frequently surround it in many countries now considering the same.

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Leaders of a historic South American empire used a beer mixed with a psychedelic drug to maintain political control over their society and surrounding communities, according to research published on Wednesday. 

In a study published by the journal Antiquity, archaeologists revealed that leaders of the Wari people served a beer-like beverage made from the fruits of the molle tree combined with the seeds of the vilca tree and served the mixture to guests at communal feasts.

“The resulting psychotropic experience reinforced the power of the Wari state, and represents an intermediate step between exclusionary and corporate political strategies,” the researchers wrote in an abstract of the study published online by Cambridge University Press. “This Andean example adds to the global catalog documenting the close relationship between hallucinogens and social power.”

The Wari built their empire in the highlands of the Andes mountains in current-day Peru, ruling the area from about 600-1000 A.D. and predating the Inca empire by four centuries. Archeologists excavating at Quilcapampa in Southern Peru from 2013 through 2017 discovered the first evidence of psychedelic vilca seeds found at a Wari site. 

Matthew Biwer, a visiting assistant professor of archaeology at Dickinson College in Pennsylvania and the lead author of the study, said that the discovery sheds light on how South American indigenous civilizations made use of psychoactive substances.

“This was a turning point in the Andes in terms of politics and use of hallucinogens,” Biwer said, as reported by CNN. “We see this kind of use of hallucinogens as different use context than in prior civilizations, who seem to have closely guarded the use of hallucinogens to a select few, or the latter Inca Empire who emphasized the mass-consumption of beer but did not use psychotropic substances such as vilca at feasts.”

Pre-Columbian civilizations used vilca, often inhaled as snuff, as long as 4,000 years years ago. The seeds contain the psychedelic drug dimethyltryptamine, as well as bufotenine, a substance similar to the neurotransmitter serotonin. 

“What I’ve read from ethnographic sources is that you get a very strong sensation of flying,” Biwer told Inverse.

Party Hosts Rule the Empire

Previous research has revealed that the Wari used feasting and beer as a way to exercise political control over guests from surrounding communities. Researchers at the Quilcapampa site discovered evidence that the Wari were making molle beer, called chicha, in substantial quantities. Botanical remnants of molle and vilca were found and ceramics were discovered at the center of the site, an indication of where feasts were held, according to the study’s authors.

“The Wari added the vilca to the chicha beer in order to impress guests to their feasts who could not return the experience,” Biwer said. “This created an indebted relationship between Wari hosts and guests, likely from the surrounding region.”

“We argue that the feasting, beer, and vilca thus served to create and cement social connections between Wari affiliated peoples and locals as the Empire expanded,” Biwer continued. “It also was a way for Wari leaders to demonstrate and maintain social, economic, and political power.”

Biwer explained that the guests would experience social pressure to recognize the power of their Wari hosts and feel an obligation to reciprocate the favor in the future. 

“There’s political power in being able to acquire and use these hallucinogenic substances and providing these experiences,” Biwer said. “I think it provides a really good example of the connection between politics, drug use, intoxication and the social bonds.”

Researchers have not yet discovered why the Wari civilization eventually failed. But as they continue to study sites inhabited by the pre-Columbian civilization, they are learning more about how the early inhabitants of Peru lived.

“​The Wari Empire stretched from northern Peru to the far south near the Chilean border, and from the coast to the mountainous areas of the Andes,” Biwer explained. “It is the first example of an empire in South America, having collapsed around 400 years prior to the rise of the Inca Empire.”

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