Indigenous Hawaiian Psychoactive Drug Use: Before European Contact, and after 1778

Area of Science:

• Social Sciences
• Public Health
• Indigenous Studies

Background:

• Scholarship on historical and intergenerational cultural trauma.
• Deliberate elimination of Native Hawaiian psychoactive drug practices and imposition of alcohol use.
• Alcohol use as a tool of colonial domination and assault on cultural identity.

Purpose of the Study:

• To elucidate deliberate attempts to eliminate Native Hawaiian cultural practices related to psychoactive drug use.
• To demonstrate the correlation between historical trauma and alcohol consumption in Hawaiians.
• To augment the paradigm on cultural trauma in the Hawaiian context.

Main Methods:

• Drawing on literature related to alcohol use in indigenous Hawaiian society.
• Analyzing the wider historical context of Hawai'i since the late eighteenth century.
• Applying the concept of historical trauma (Brave Heart).

Main Results:

• Demonstrated correlation between historical trauma and incidence of alcohol consumption.
• Demonstrated correlation between historical trauma and alcohol use disorder.
• Identified overlooked assault on cultural identity and transgenerational trauma.

Conclusions:

• Historical trauma is linked to alcohol consumption and alcohol use disorder among Native Hawaiians.
• The concept of historical trauma offers a more inclusive consideration of trauma's many aspects.
• Findings have implications for understanding present-day psychoactive drug use and treatments in Hawaiians.