The instant New York Times Bestseller A Washington Post Notable Book One of Npr's Best Books of the Year and Expert storytelling . . . Pollan masterfully elevates a series of big questions about drugs, plants and humans that are likely to leave readers thinking in new ways. and New York Times Book Review From #1 New York Times bestselling author Michael Pollan, a radical challenge to how we think about drugs, and an exploration into the powerful human attraction to psychoactive plant sand the equally powerful taboos. Of all the things humans rely on plants for sustenance, beauty, medicine, fragrance, flavor, fiber surely the most curious is our use of them to change consciousness- to stimulate or calm, fiddle with or completely alter, the qualities of our mental experience. Take coffee and tea- People around the world rely on caffeine to sharpen their minds. But we do not usually think of caffeine as a drug, or our daily use as an addiction, because it is legal and socially acceptable. So, then, what is a and drug and? And why, for example, is making tea from the leaves of a tea plant acceptable, but making tea from a seed head of an opium poppy a federal crime.