Re:American Drugs in Egyptian Mummies (2005)
by GW150914 on Saturday April 21, 2018 @07:13PM
(#16893877)
I don’t mean one test, I mean one set of findings from the same source. Even if we’re to believe some ancient traveler made it to the Americas and back, they would have had a hell of a time finding those three things in the (likely one unplanned) trip. Besides, cocaine is the result of modern chemistry! Tripanone is the base alkaloid, from which cocaine is derived.
So not only would these people have had to identify the narcotic value of cannabis, tobacco and coca, they’d have to figure out how to press hashish, and process large amounts of coca leaves for tripanone, and then process that into cocaine base. In practice getting significant quantities of cocaine from coca without the intermediate chemistry isn’t feasible.
No.
Re:American Drugs in Egyptian Mummies (2005)
by spraak on Saturday April 21, 2018 @07:26PM
(#16893927)
It's not all or nothing. These resources were most likely disparate and funneled from various sources until they reached Egypt. You think a grocery store needs to grow it's own wheat? The complexity is what you're not seeing.
> Of the nine mummies evaluated, all showed signs of cocaine and hashish Tetrahydrocannabinol), whereas all but one sampled positive for nicotine.
While I'm not saying you're incorrect- contamination seems so likely that I'd start investigating if this lab put anyone in prison over these sorts of tests- the article clearly says there were nine different mummies tested.