"But the novelties come thick and fast, beginning (so far as I was concerned) with the suggestion on page 10 that Dante and other poets he associated with in Florence as a young man might have given their visionary and dreamlike imaginings a boost with the stimulus of love-potions. These herbal stimulants, cannabis perhaps, may, it turns out later, be what Dante is referring to in the comparison, near the start of Paradiso, between his own “trans-human” experience and what Glaucus felt “on tasting of the herb” (nel gustar dell’erba) which made him into a sea-god. As Reynolds explains at greater length when she comes to the final vision of the Godhead, mystics did often use drugs of one kind or another in conjunction with fasting and meditation in their pursuit of visionary illumination. There is no reason, she argues, why Dante should not have done so too."
'Dante on drugs' by Peter Hainsworth, reviewing Dante: the poet, the political thinker, the man, Shaw (ed.), Tauris, 2006. Times Literary Supplement, 18 October 2006.

'Million Little Pieces may cost publishers millions in refunds' by Dan Glaister, The Guardian, 8 September 2006.

'Prohibition in Washington DC, 1917-1934.'

One of the treasures presented on earthly pursuits is The Flowers Personified: being a translation of Grandville's 'Les Fleurs Animées' by N. Cleaveland, including the wonderful, wonderful plates.

For professional reasons, I was interested to see what The Flowers Personified had to say about tobacco, and was surprised to find that it was not personified. 'A Trick of the Flower Fairy' reveals the reason:

"...the Flower Fairy was inconsolable after the departure of her companions.

In her vexation, she determined to play upon them some clever trick in her own way.

“The flowers,” said she, “have become women. As such, they cannot do without the homage of men. If I can contrive to deprive them of that, they will soon be disgusted with the earth.”

She was thinking at the time of a genius, young, handsome, and brilliant – a genius of intrigue, if ever there were one, who had suddenly relinquished all intercourse with fairies, and who, in the retirement of his grotto, had given himself up to the pleasures of smoking...

“What is the condition of woman in the East – in all those countries where opium is smoked? A plaything, and nothing more. The men, absorbed in the perpetual delights of intoxication, never think of their wives; or if they do, it is but to make them the subjects of their capricious whims. The Chinese woman has lost the use of her feet; her complexion is hidden beneath a mass of paint; her eyebrows are eradicated; and she is nothing else than a curious animal – a living screen-figure, with which her possessor amuses himself in the interval between two ecstasies. But, “said to herself the Flower Fairy, “opium is not suited to the climate of Europe. We must put tobacco in its place.

“If we teach man to smoke, he will, like the genius, drive woman away from him. This shall be my revenge.” It was thus that tobacco was invented...

For a little while the fairy believed that she had actually succeeded in her enterprise. Woman was entirely deserted; her empire had ceased to exist. Some husbands even began to talk of confining their wives in seraglios – of dislocating their ankles – of boring their noses with fish-bones – and of painting them blue.

But the women turned away the storm, and their subjugation lasted but a little while. They very soon found a way to reconquer man: they began to smoke themselves.

The Flower Fairy, if she would accomplish her object, must pull some other wire."
-- 'A Trick of the Flower Fairy' in The Flowers Personified on earthly puruits

According to Coke's website, "The Coca-Cola Company began its Christmas advertising in the 1920s with shopping-related print ads in magazines like the Saturday Evening Post. The first Santa ads used a strict-looking Claus, in the vein of Thomas Nast ... In 1931, The Coca-Cola Company commissioned Michigan-born illustrator Haddon Sundblom to develop advertising images using Santa Claus. For inspiration, Sundblom turned to Clement Clark Moore's 1822 poem "A Visit From St. Nicholas." Moore's description of the man as "chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf" led to an image of Santa that was warm, friendly and human. For the next 35 years, Sundblom painted portraits of Santa that helped to create the modern image of Santa." (More on Coca-Cola's Heritage pages).

Coca-Cola and Christmas (An article with Sundblom Santa images at the bottom)

The Coke Santas by and in the style of Haddon Sundblom (Scroll down for a montage of Sundblom Santas)

A Visit from St. Nicholas by Clement Clarke Moore on Oldpoetry.com

Discovered while cataloguing a 1998 NIDA leaflet on inhalants:

"Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody thought."