There, between bouts of drinking and whoring, and with the help of a mysterious intoxicant known as "green honey", he and a ragtag band of fellow students come up with the idea of an epic quest to the far-eastern kingdom of Prester John.The rest of the novel relates their seemingly interminable road trip in search of the legendary prelate-king.
When, in the 18th century, a powerful new intoxicant became available, the impact was disastrous: it took years of education for gin to cease to be a social threat.
The government argues that since the leaf has been banned elsewhere, Britain risks turning into a distribution point if it remains legal; that khat is a dangerous intoxicant that harms its users and that the "marfashes" where men go to chew are breeding radicalism.
It was used by Algonquin Indians in eastern North America, among other indigenous peoples of the Americas, as a hallucinogen and intoxicant.
From ceremonial bowls used for drinking yaqona, which was the local cava based intoxicant, to the beautiful carved spears used for fighting.
Another monastic intoxicant, this time from the Alps, Green Chartreuse was once the monarch of the drinks trolley.
Their religious practices included, among others, animal sacrifice, a reverence for fire, and the drinking of the juice of the haoma plant, a natural intoxicant.
Not merely an intoxicant (or a soporific), it is for the French a sign of conviviality, an offering of intimacy, a social symbol meaning not just that this is what we share but that this is how we share.
(How many times, throughout the Cold War, did we hear of Russia's desperate need for a warm-water port?) The truth is that geostrategic thinking often works more as an intoxicant than as an explanation, as it seemed to have on the good Governor last night.
Like all interesting art, "Breaking Bad" is an intoxicant, as destabilizing as it is illuminating.
But they all seem to be on the same drug, an intoxicant imparting silly confidence.
