Psychoactive substances of the South Seas: betel, kava and pituri.
The Australian and New Zealand journal of psychiatry March 1, 1985 J Cawte 91 citations
Before Western contact, Indigenous peoples of the South Pacific used three major psychoactive plants: betel in Melanesia, kava in Polynesia, and pituri in Australia. Each was widely used in rituals, traded extensively, and valued for reducing tension or inducing altered states of consciousness, with potential for intoxication. The author, drawing on personal observation, reviews their traditional and likely future use, pharmacological and clinical properties, and cultural context. While these substances are unlikely to be adopted by Western drug enthusiasts as enthusiastically as coca, cannabis, opium, or tobacco, some Western use remains possible.