ADVICE ON SMOKING AND DRINKING
Smoking and drinking are the most common and widespread forms of so-called recreational drugs that are used throughout the world today. If we’re going to discuss these issues rationally within the context of human health and longevity, then we must be perfectly clear about two basic points. The first is the fact that tobacco and alcohol are potent, habit-forming drugs, and smoking and drinking are essentially methods of delivering these drugs into the human system. Most people who use tobacco and alcohol daily wince when reminded that these substances are “drugs,” and many of them deny it on the assumption that because tobacco and alcohol are legal and don’t require a prescription, they are neither drugs nor dangerous. This is wishful thinking, and anyone who smokes or drinks on that basis tends not to exercise the caution and selfdiscipline that should govern the use of any potent drug.
The second point we must bear in mind here is this: the distinction people make between recreational and therapeutic use of drugs, including tobacco and alcohol, is tenuous at best, and the difference between the recreational and therapeutic effects of a particular drug is usually more a matter of semantics than substance. Who’s to say whether a woman sitting in a cafe and lighting up her third cigarette over her second cup of coffee is smoking “like a chimney” because smoking is so much fun and tastes so good (recreational), or because it instantly relieves her tension, calms her nerves, and helps her think more clearly (therapeutic)? And who can tell whether a man drinking his third martini during “Happy Hour” at his favorite bar after work is doing so as a friendly social gesture and an epicurean experience (recreational), or as a quick-fix remedy for stress, anxiety, or depression (therapeutic)?
From the viewpoint of health, it doesn’t matter whether the reason people smoke or drink is recreational or therapeutic, because the basic effects they have on the body and mind are the same either way. Both tobacco and alcohol belong to a class of drugs known as intoxicants, and as the name clearly indicates, they are not only intoxicating but also toxic. The reason that people take such drugs, despite the fact that they are toxic to the body, is because a side effect of these substances is to intoxicate the mind by altering brain chemistry. All intoxicants have a strong natural affinity for brain and nerve tissues, and the “high” (or “low”) that they produce in the mind is a direct result of their toxic effects on brain and nerve cells; that’s why this psychoactive effect is known as intoxication. By altering the body’s brain chemistry and interfering with nerve transmissions, intoxicants change the way the mind experiences the world through the body’s physical senses, thereby producing an altered state of mind. People who use intoxicants do so because the way they normally experience the world causes them to feel pain, anger, sadness, fear, anxiety, or sheer boredom, and they know that they can alter these unhappy feelings instantly with a quick nip of whatever turns them on.
Among the many intoxicants found in nature, modern societies have chosen, for reasons that we shall not speculate upon here, to make tobacco and alcohol the primary and only legal forms of recreational drugs. The point remains, however, that like all toxic substances that have intoxicating side effects on the mind—including some of the most potent medicinal plants and minerals in traditional herbal medicine—tobacco and alcohol also have very specific physiological effects in the body, and these effects can be used beneficially as therapy for relieving the symptoms of various ailments and correcting internal imbalances, particularly in the nervous system. Therefore, like all toxic substances that have both therapeutic and recreational applications, tobacco and alcohol should always be used with caution and moderation to insure that the user may enjoy the benefits of the desired effects, regardless of why the substances are used, without causing permanent damage to the body.
“SMOKE SIGNALS”
From the point of view of health, the best advice on smoking is this:
“Don’t!”
While not every substance that’s smoked is addictive, smoking itself is highly habit-forming, and while some forms of smoking may be marginally more or less harmful than others, the real damage to health is caused by smoking itself, not by the particular substance smoked. Smoking involves the inhalation of highly toxic by-products of combustion, many of which are carcinogenic. “Where there’s smoke there’s fire,” and when the fire is burning dried plant material such as tobacco, not only does it produces searing hot smoke, it also produces extremely poisonous chemicals that damage the delicate lining of the bronchia and lungs, cause highly acid-forming reactions in the blood, and leave harmful toxic residues in the tissues. So unless you have valid medical reasons for smoking, it is simply not worth the risk.
Nevertheless, all kinds of people throughout the world choose to smoke, and like everything else in life, there are relatively good ways and bad ways to conduct a smoking habit, especially for those who smoke primarily as a means of balancing the nervous system and stimulating cerebral functions. During the 1950s, the renowned clairvoyant healer Edgar Cayce sometimes advised clients to smoke three-to-eight cigarettes of tobacco per day to control the symptoms of nervous disorders and to compensate for inherent imbalances in neurochemistry. It didn’t matter whether the client already smoked or not, but Cayce stipulated that to gain the desired therapeutic effects without harming health, it was essential not to exceed his recommended daily dosage of three-to-eight cigarettes. Tobacco is a potent medicinal herb with strong natural affinity for brain and nerve tissues. Even in very moderate doses such as those recommended by Cayce, tobacco stimulates abundant secretions of a wide range of vital neurotransmitters that are essential for balanced brain functions. In Cayce’s time, cigarettes were not yet contaminated with dioxin and the hundreds of other carcinogenic chemical additives that are used to manufacture cigarettes today. Cigarettes then were still a relatively safe product, especially when used according to Cayce’s guidelines. For people who cannot think clearly or function properly in society due to nervous disorders caused by inherent or acquired imbalances in their neurochemistry, the moderate risks to health posed by smoking three-to-eight cigarettes made with pure tobacco and rolled in chemical-free paper are certainly acceptable, if that’s what it takes to control their symptoms. As long as smokers don’t exceed such a moderate daily dosage, they can gain significant therapeutic benefits from smoking tobacco, at minimum cost to health, and the smoking habit can become more helpful than harmful.
Similarly, many people today who are suffering from the advanced stages of cancer and AIDS report that smoking a bit of cannabis hemp stimulates their appetites and restores their capacity to digest food and assimilate nutrition, while also relieving the intense physical pain caused by their conditions, and allowing them to sleep soundly at night. Prior to its prohibition, opium was also smoked as much for its therapeutic medicinal benefits as for recreational pleasure. In fact, during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in China, traditional doctors often recommended that elderly people suffering from chronic pain and incurable degenerative conditions associated with the aging process start smoking opium in moderate daily dosages to control their discomfort and permit them to continue enjoying life. While certainly addictive, opium is no more addictive than tobacco, and smoking opium the Chinese way, which involves distillation rather than combustion, is considerably less harmful to health than smoking either tobacco or hemp, as evidenced by the remarkable longevity of many old Chinese opium smokers who properly conducted their habits and never exceeded their daily measure.
Today, however, both opium and hemp are prohibited, and tobacco is the only neuro-active medicinal herb that may be smoked legally for recreational or therapeutic purposes. Smokers should be aware, however, that tobacco is at least as addictive as opium, and that smoking is an even more difficult addiction to break than using opiates. Smoking tobacco is also more hazardous to health than smoking either hemp or opium. Nevertheless, since tobacco remains the only legal and socially condoned form of smoking throughout most of the world today, we shall limit our discussion here to tobacco.
Cigarettes
If you smoke cigarettes, the best advice is not to exceed Edgar Cayce’s recommended daily allowance of three-to-eight cigarettes, and to strictly follow the cardinal rule of, “Roll your own, or leave them alone!” Factory-made cigarettes today truly live up to their designation as “coffin nails,” but what causes lung cancer and eventually kills the smoker is not the tobacco—it is the carcinogenic chemicals added to both the tobacco and the paper in the factory production process. Among the approximately two thousand toxic chemicals commonly found in commercially produced cigarettes today, dioxin poses the greatest threat to human health. Dioxin is a proven carcinogen that not only causes cancer but also produces genetic mutations, reproductive defects, and brain damage. According to the Environmental Protection Agency in America, “Dioxin is by far the most toxic chemical known to mankind.” A report issued by a group of distinguished German scientists in 1998 concludes that dioxin alone is responsible for at least 12 percent of all human cancers in industrialized societies. Dioxin is definitely not something you want to inhale into your lungs from the burning tip of a cigarette—not unless you’re trying to kill yourself.
Many popular brands of cigarette today also contain radioactive residues from the uranium dust that commercial growers add to the chemical fertilizers they use on their tobacco crops. Why on earth they add radioactive material to the soil in which tobacco is grown has not been explained, but traces of radioactive isotopes of uranium are present in their tobacco products as well as in the lungs of people who smoke them. No wonder the Marlboro Man succumbed to lung cancer at the height of his fame.
The paper used to manufacture ready-made cigarettes is even more contaminated with poisonous chemicals than the tobacco itself. Cigarette smokers who are still reluctant to take the time to roll their own cigarettes should try this experiment: cut open a typical popular brand of cigarette, remove the tobacco, flatten out the paper, and lay it in an ashtray. With the glowing tip of a lit cigarette, touch one corner of the paper and observe what happens. The edge of the paper ignites and the entire sheet gradually incinerates to ash, without bursting into flame, as the glowing edge fizzles and sparkles like the fuse of a firecracker, searing its way through the paper until it’s gone. The chemicals added to cigarette paper to produce this effect are similar to those used in making fuses for firecrackers and other explosives, and the reason they’re added is to make sure that the cigarette continues burning even when the smoker isn’t puffing on it, to increase consumption and sales of cigarettes. Smokers accustomed to the convenience of ready-made factory cigarettes may find rolling their own inconvenient at first, but the task is not nearly as inconvenient as getting lung cancer. Here again, if health and longevity are important considerations, the “cost/benefit” ratio of smoking “coffin nails” compared with that of rolling your own cigarettes clearly dictates that you roll your own.
Good quality, organically grown tobaccos that are free of chemical additives and radioactive residues are now available on the market. They include such brands as “American Spirit” rolling tobacco, and while they may be somewhat more expensive than commercial factory brands, if you roll your own cigarettes and smoke moderately, your consumption will decline so much that it offsets the extra cost of buying pure tobacco. It is equally important to use pure cigarette papers that have not been chemically treated to make them burn faster, and these too are readily available in tobacco shops. One of the purest cigarette papers is “Club” brand, made by S. D. Modiano. These papers have no gum or glue, are thin as a butterfly’s wing, and yield a minimum of toxic wastes when burned.
“A woman is just a woman,” wrote Kipling, “but a cigar is a smoke!” While this doesn’t say much for Kipling’s feelings toward women, it says a lot about the way dedicated cigar smokers feel about their preferred manner of smoking tobacco. Cigars rolled in natural whole tobacco leaves were the first form of smoking brought to England and Europe from its native habitat in the New World, and purists still feel that only a cigar is a real “smoke.” Paper-rolled cigarettes were a later British and European development, which then replaced cigars as the world’s most widespread form of tobacco smoking.
Assuming that they are made from pure tobacco that is uncontaminated by chemical additives and that they are rolled in natural leaves, cigars are significantly less hazardous to human health than cigarettes. Former President Clinton’s claim not to have inhaled marijuana may be fatuous, but he probably didn’t inhale the smoke from his cigars. Cigars are designed to allow nicotine to be gradually absorbed through the mucus membranes in the mouth and nasal cavities, as smoke wafts continuously through the lips and nostrils, without inhaling it into the lungs. Since it takes much longer to smoke a cigar than a cigarette, by the time the smoker has finished the cigar, he or she will have slowly but surely assimilated enough nicotine into the bloodstream to suffice the body’s requirements for quite some time. To obtain therapeutic dosages of nicotine from cigarettes, the smoke must be inhaled all the way through the bronchia and into the lungs, a much more invasive way of smoking that damages the delicate lining of these organs with heat and carcinogenic chemicals. While good cigars made by hand with pure tobacco, such as the better brands produced in Cuba, are far more expensive than cheap dime store “stogies,” the latter are every bit as hazardous to health as factory-made cigarettes owing to the toxic chemical additives and synthetic wrappers used to mass-produce them. The extra cost of a pure cigar may therefore be offset in exactly the same way as the extra cost of pure cigarette tobacco and pure food—consume less, enjoy more, and live longer!
The third way to smoke tobacco is in a pipe. Here too, only pure tobacco that’s free of chemical additives and artificial-flavoring agents should be smoked in pipes. Owing to growing awareness among smokers regarding the deadly dangers of chemical contaminants in tobacco, many tobacco shops these days stock a variety of organically grown pipe tobaccos flavored only with natural plant essences. Besides ordinary tobacco pipes, water pipes may also be used to provide an additional measure of protection against the harsh by-products of combustion by running the smoke through water first.
“FIRE WATER”
“Fire Water” is the term that Native American tribes used to describe rum and other liquors brought to North America by British and European colonists. Alcohol intoxication contributed heavily to the downfall of traditional tribal cultures in North America, just as it did in Australia when British settlers introduced “devil rum” to indigenous aboriginal tribes there. The blood, liver, and brain chemistry of these genetic groups are unable to properly metabolize alcohol, resulting in devastating destructive effects on their bodies and brains whenever alcohol is consumed. For this reason, alcohol still remains a “forbidden fruit” in many traditional tribal cultures, as well as in most Islamic countries and many parts of India, where its consumption is strictly prohibited and severely punished.
In the Western world, however, from early Greek and Roman times right down to modern European and American societies, alcohol has always been the main intoxicant of choice, and liquor is consumed in more variety and volume than anywhere else on earth. When Westerners began to colonize Asia and Africa during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, they brought their liquor and drinking habits with them, prompting native observers to remark, “Liquor is to the white man as mother’s milk is to babies.”
From the viewpoint of traditional Eastern medicine, “Fire Water” is actually a very apt term for alcohol. When alcohol is metabolized, it produces a lot of heat in the body, and if consumed daily in large amounts, this constant metabolic “fire” tends to “burn out” the internal organs, particularly the liver and brain. Alcohol is also a potent solvent of organic matter, which means it can dissolve organic tissue such as brain and liver cells, and its metabolism in the body is extremely acid-forming. As previously noted, high acidity is also regarded as a condition of “Yang” excess, so drinking “fire water” produces extremely “Yang” conditions of “fire-energy excess,” both as excess metabolic heat and excess tissue acidity.
The first drink or two of any liquor has a swift stimulating effect on human metabolism, producing a fast flush of body heat and a big surge of extra physical and cerebral energy. However, if the drinker continues to drink, the excess acidity and toxic waste produced in the blood and tissues by the continuous metabolism of alcohol accumulate rapidly, overloading the system with toxic metabolites and rapidly depleting reserves of vital nutrients and energy. As the body struggles to process and excrete the toxic wastes and quell the metabolic “fire,” more alcohol enters the bloodstream with each sip, adding more fuel to the fire and progressively weakening the body’s vital functions. At the same time, the intoxication produced in the mind as a side effect of the toxic influence of alcohol on brain and nerve tissues continues to grow more intense with each drink, disorienting the drinker’s mind and producing a drunken stupor that ends in loss of consciousness. The toxic metabolite of alcohol that causes the most damage to brain and nerve cells, and that destroys liver tissue, is acetaldehyde. This highly reactive, extremely toxic waste poisons the bloodstream and corrodes the cells and tissues. Crude cheap liquor, which produces far more of this toxic acid waste in the body than more refined forms of alcohol, is known among derelict drinkers as “rot-gut” precisely because of the highly corrosive effects of this compound on the internal organs.
Contrary to popular notions, the forms of alcohol that are most hazardous to human health are not hard liquors such as whisky and rum but rather the fermented varieties such as beer and wine. Although beer and wine have a lower percentage of alcohol than distilled spirits, fermented liquors retain all of the metabolic wastes produced by the yeast during the fermentation process—in effect “yeast poop”—and these fermentive wastes are highly acid-forming and toxic to the tissues. The liver bears the major burden of processing all the acids and toxic wastes that enter the body and pollute the bloodstream whenever beer and wine are drunk. If fermented liquors are consumed daily, the liver gradually succumbs to toxic overload, swelling up and hardening with residual toxic waste until cirrhosis develops. To make matters worse, most commercial beers and wines today contain chemical contaminants such as formaldehyde, preservatives, artificial dyes, flavoring agents, and other toxic additives, all of which contribute to blood acidosis, tissue toxicity, and the gradual erosion of the liver. In terms of their effects on health and longevity, except for an occasional glass of an exceptionally good vintage wine or naturally brewed beer with dinner, beer and wine are not good choices as intoxicants for daily use, especially for “social drinking,” when one tends to drink to excess, because the cost/benefit ratio is far too high.
Distilled spirits, which are refined from fermented liquors, are a much cleaner form of alcohol for human consumption because the distillation process completely eliminates all the other toxic by-products of fermentation, leaving only pure distilled alcohol. While distilled spirits such as vodka and brandy have a higher alcohol content than beer or wine, they may be consumed in much smaller amounts per drink than fermented beverages and still deliver the same basic dose of alcohol into the bloodstream.
Known for centuries in Western Europe as eau de vie, the “water of life,” and in ancient China as jiou-jing, the “essence of wine,” distilled spirits were originally used more for therapeutic medicinal purposes than for recreational intoxication. Used properly and in moderation, spirits have potent medicinal properties that may be used to treat a variety of conditions, including sluggish circulation, insufficient body heat, low metabolic rate, and nervous tension. The slightly intoxicating effect on the mind produced by small doses of spirits adds an extra dimension to its therapeutic applications, and this psychoactive influence is well reflected in the term chosen to denote distilled alcohol: spirits.
All distilled spirits, including brandy and whisky, are crystal clear and completely pure after the distillation process. The distinctive amber color and characteristic flavor in various types of whisky, brandy, and other tinted spirits come from the resins leached from the wooden casks in which these liquors are aged. This aging process leaves tannins and other toxic resins suspended in the spirits, and these must all be processed by the liver along with the toxic metabolites of alcohol itself. Therefore, the healthiest choice in spirits are the clear varieties that have not been aged in wooden casks, such as vodka, gin, tequila, and white rum.
Throughout East Asia, people drink a type of medicinal spirit that is prepared by steeping potent tonic herbs in distilled spirits for three to six months. They then strain the infused liquor into bottles and take it in measured dosages, on a daily basis, particularly in the winter. Known in China as yao jiou (“medicine liquor”) or chun-jiou (“spring wine”), this ancient herbal tonic has been used for thousands of years throughout the Far East as a means of preserving health, boosting vitality, and prolonging life, as well as for its relaxing effects. The alcohol serves to extract and preserve all the essential active ingredients from the various tonic herbs, delivering them swiftly into the bloodstream directly through the stomach and providing a strong metabolic boost to the therapeutic potency of the herbal essences. Medicinal spirits are an excellent delivery system for the life-prolonging therapeutic benefits of herbal tonics such as ginseng, astragalus, and wolfberry, while also serving the recreational function of liquor. This is a good example of how the art of rational retox may be applied to transform a toxic intoxicant into a tonic intoxicant, thereby reducing the costs to health and increasing the benefits to longevity of drinking alcohol. Readers who wish to add a therapeutic dimension to their recreational drinking will find the formula for preparing excellent traditional Chinese tonic spirits in the “Recipes and Formulas” section, appendix 1, page 314.
TIPS FOR TIPPLERS AND SMOKERS
If you drink and/or smoke daily, take a few basic precautions to counteract the additional acidity, toxicity, and dehydration that alcohol and tobacco produce in the body. Alcohol in particular dehydrates the blood and tissues, and it is therefore necessary to drink a few extra glasses of alkaline water each day, both to flush out the toxic acid wastes and to rehydrate the blood and cellular fluids. If the water you drink is charged with negative ions, it has even greater detoxifying and rehydrating activity in the tissues and helps protect the liver from damage by the toxic metabolites of alcohol and tobacco in the bloodstream.
People who smoke and drink regularly should also take extra rations of antioxidant nutrients, particularly vitamins E, C, and beta carotene, plus a full-spectrum mineral supplement to replace the essential minerals and trace elements depleted from the tissues by alcohol and tobacco. If you partake of these habits, make sure that you take some form of greenfood supplement as a source of organic chlorophyll and other cleansing elements to purify the blood and cellular fluids.
One of the most effective antidotes of all against the toxic damage caused by daily use of alcohol, tobacco, and other intoxicants is to drink High Mountain Oolung Tea (gao-shan oolung cha) as a regular daily beverage, especially first thing in the morning and again in the late afternoon. This tea consumption is how many smokers and drinkers in China, Taiwan, and Japan protect their bodies from the hazards of their habits. Recent scientific research has confirmed the efficacy of High Mountain Oolung Tea as a potent blood purifier, tissue detoxicant, alkalizer, and preventive against cancer. The purifying effects and protective properties of High Mountain Oolung Tea are particularly effective in preventing toxic damage to the tissues of the lungs and the liver, which are precisely the organs that smokers and drinkers must take special measures to purify and protect. Here again we see how the art of rational retox transforms an ordinary daily beverage such as tea into an extraordinary therapeutic drink that protects health and prolongs life.