“What is the explanation of the fact that people use things that stupefy them: vódka, wine, beer, hashish, opium, tobacco, and other things less common: ether, morphia, fly-agaric, etc.? Why did the practice begin? Why has it spread so rapidly, and why is it still spreading among all sorts of people, savage and civilized? How is it that where there is no vódka, wine or beer, we find opium, hashish, fly-agaric, and the like, and that tobacco is used everywhere?”
Source:
“Why Do Men Stupefy Themselves?”
by Leo Tolstoy, translated by Aylmer Maude.
Leo Tolstoy.
Biography.
Leo Tolstoy is the Russian writer, master of realistic fiction, and is widely considered one of the world’s greatest novelists (1828-1910). Tolstoy is best known for his two longest works, War and Peace (1865–69) and Anna Karenina (1875–77), which are commonly regarded as among the finest novels ever written.