>And yet in Asia the dominant crop, rice, was one without opioids.
>If the proliferation of agriculture was driven by opioid
>intoxication, it doesn't make much sense that they would switch.

Good point.

I think that agriculture begat specialization of labour which then would
have ensured agriculture's continued existence.

I'm not convinced that early man would be affected in ways similar to that
of the people of the Amazon cited in an earlier post. The comparison is not
applicable since it was stated that the Amazonians ate junk food and not
fresh, whole grains which would have been consumed by very early man. The
germ of the grain contains 95% of the goodness and if rancid (meaning a few
days old) is somewhat toxic to the body. Most commercial breads nowadays
come with the germ entirely stripped out in order to render the loaf safe
from rancidity (although nutritionally voided).

Also, I consider stress an extremely important factor and it should be noted
that there must be a huge difference in stress between our enormously
complicated lives of today compared to the simple lifestyle of the early
hunter gattherer?

This difference must have a significant impact on digestion, growth and life?

Marilyn