Drug abuse or the abusive use of drugs has been brought into the limelight recently as regards man in western society. However, the abuse of medically usable materials has been with am since his early beginnings. If we can accept a definition of drug abuse as meaning the sue of any drug in a manner that deviates from the accepted use within a given culture or society, then perhaps man's drug related problems began when he stopped being a food gatherer and hunter and started an agriculturalist's existence.