[lifthearth]

I think the comment above is understated. There is evidence that psychoactive compounds have been used since at least 3000BCE in Mesoamerica. Looking into it it seems lead was first mined around the same time in Greece but the lead sweetener idea wasn't popular until the roman empire. Note that there were reports even back then of health issues associated with the practice.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2173580814...

Do you have any other examples on the thousands of years timescale?

[jlebar]

> There is evidence that psychoactive compounds have been used since at least 3000BCE in Mesoamerica. Looking into it it seems lead was first mined around the same time in Greece but the lead sweetener idea wasn't popular until the roman empire.

Well, the Wikipedia page says that lead was being used as a sweetener as late as the 1850s, and this page suggests that we have records of the practice going back to at least 160BCE, so "thousands of years" doesn't seem inaccurate?

http://penelope.uchicago.edu/~grout/encyclopaedia_romana/win...

> Do you have any other examples on the thousands of years timescale?

Off the top of my head, tobacco? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tobacco#Traditional_use

Opium? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium#Ancient_use_.28pre-500_C...

Bloodletting? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloodletting#In_the_ancient_wo...

I dunno, I'm not an anthropologist, but I'm not trying too hard...