The drug culture as it is known today incorporates countless numbers of drugs as well as their uses and cultural meanings. From ancient spirits spreading through religion to modern-day psychopharmacological agents such as Valium and Prozac advertised through mainstream media, drugs have infused nearly every culture of the world in every era of civilization. Psychoactive substances elicit pleasurable responses in their users that serve as natural incentives for continued use. Such a natural product had unprecedented potential for profitability. The commodification of drugs, both illicit and licit, follows the principles of capitalism and supply-and-demand. David Courtwright has summarized drug use throughout world history in his book, Forces of Habit. Courtwright described the "big three" and the "little three" drugs of all time. The "big three" drugs: alcohol, tobacco, and caffeine as well as the "little three" drugs: opium, cannabis, and coca have all been commodified, some with more success than others. .
The first of the "big three," alcohol was first discovered around 5000 B.C. and by 1500 B.C., was commercially produced throughout medieval Europe and Russia by way of Orthodoxy from Greece in the form of wine. One reason wine was so popular was because, in most cases, it was safer to drink than the polluted water of the time (Courtwright, 10). As the age of exploration came about, wine was spread to Mexico and the Americas by European explorers.
Distilled alcohol was discovered by the eleventh century around Greece and the Middle East. Ships carried it and its technology wherever they traveled (Courtwright, 13). Alcohol found immediate success wherever it was introduced because of its psychoactive effects and relative ease to produce. Alcohol never took off in Asia as much as other places due to a genetic aversion to alcohol in about half of all Asians (Courtwright, 10). However, both distilleries and vineyards flourished almost everywhere alcohol was known.