Evolutionary Considerations on the Emerging Subculture of the E-psychonauts and the Novel Psychoactive Substances A Comeback to the Shamanism
Evolutionary research on drug abuse has hitherto been restricted to proximate studies, considering aetiology, mechanism, and ontogeny. However, in order to explain the recent emergency of a new behavioral pattern (e.g. the e-psychonaut style) of novel psychoactive substances (NPS) intake, a complementary evolutionary model may be needed. A range of evolutionary interpretations on the psychonaut style and the recent emergency of NPS were here considered. The PubMed database was searched in order to elicit evolutionary theory-based documents commenting on NPSNPS userse-psychonauts. The traditional shamanic style use of entheogensplant-derived compounds may present with a range of similarities with the e-psychonauts use of mostly of hallucinogenpsychedelic NPS. These users consider themselves as newtechnological shamans. Indeed, a range of evolutionary mechanisms, such as optimal foraging, costly signaling, and reproduction at the expense of health may all cooperate to explain the recent spread and diffusion of the NPS market, and this may represent a reason of concern.