# Do animals do drugs? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 20, 2008, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-animals-do-drugs/473600 "2008-11-20T03:42:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Mr\_Buttons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@Mr\_Buttons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr_Buttons)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2008, 7:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-animals-do-drugs/473600/21 "2008-11-20T07:54:56Z")
here’s a good clip of monkey’s getting drunk, and showing that the proportion of alcoholic monkeys lines up pretty close to human statistics: [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/ZYuIYNaKynI/hqdefault.jpg "Drunk Monkeys") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYuIYNaKynI) ---
**Author:** ![Hostile\_Dialect](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e495f1/32.png) [@Hostile\_Dialect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hostile_Dialect)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2008, 8:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-animals-do-drugs/473600/22 "2008-11-20T08:14:15Z")
> [@PopeJewish](#): > > my cat loved catnip, which is definitely a drug to felines. [And humans.](http://www.erowid.org/experiences/subs/exp_Catnip.shtml) (Though a much milder one for us, sometimes doing little or nothing.) Anyway, I’ve known a couple of dogs who loved beer, gin and pot. ---
**Author:** ![Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/half_man_half_wit/32/21766_2.png) [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Half_Man_Half_Wit)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2008, 12:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-animals-do-drugs/473600/23 "2008-11-20T12:25:21Z")
> [@Mr\_Buttons](#): > > ETA: ‘smoking monkey’ search on youtube posted this video as #1 result, which I found entertaining. 🙂 > [Smoking monkey](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gteEe1d-rQo) How does he get them lit? :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![masterofnone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4bbf92/32.png) [@masterofnone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/masterofnone)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2008, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-animals-do-drugs/473600/24 "2008-11-20T15:15:58Z")
I’ve seen a video of a lemur repeatedly licking (biting?) some sort of huge millipede and obviously getting high as a kite off from it. ---
**Author:** ![Fretful\_Porpentine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fretful_porpentine/32/2873_2.png) [@Fretful\_Porpentine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fretful_Porpentine)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2008, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-animals-do-drugs/473600/25 "2008-11-20T15:35:07Z")
> [@chacoguy420](#): > > I’ve known horses with a fondness for marijuana. Indeed. Witness this [alarming cautionary tale](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWB9MfYoSfo). ---
**Author:** ![mnemosyne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c4cdca/32.png) [@mnemosyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mnemosyne)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2008, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-animals-do-drugs/473600/26 "2008-11-20T21:16:06Z")
One of my cats likes to drink beer. It’s quite funny to see her carefully reach out and pull a bottle we’re holding towards her. She also attacks the cases of empties and tries to get inside. I was thinking about this the other day; while many (most?) animals probably don’t seek out fermented fruits and grains, it is probably inevitably part of their natural diet. It strikes me as a likely evolutionary advantage if the animal was able to consume it and not get (too) sick, because it remains a source of food when fresher options aren’t available. So, animals with some form of alcohol dehydrogenase/other enzymes to metabolize ethanol would survive better, overall than those that can’t, and therefore could reproduce…blah blah blah darwinism. I wonder how far back into mammalian ancestors ethanol metabolism can be found, and to what extent? ---
**Author:** ![PetW](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/d2c977/32.png) [@PetW](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PetW)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2008, 4:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-animals-do-drugs/473600/27 "2008-11-21T04:35:21Z")
> [@masterofnone](#): > > I’ve seen a video of a lemur repeatedly licking (biting?) some sort of huge millipede and obviously getting high as a kite off from it. [![](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/bzaUA2-nHR4/hqdefault.jpg "Lemur gets high") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzaUA2-nHR4) ---
**Author:** ![masterofnone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4bbf92/32.png) [@masterofnone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/masterofnone)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2008, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-animals-do-drugs/473600/28 "2008-11-21T15:47:57Z")
> [@PetW](#): > > [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzaUA2-nHR4](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzaUA2-nHR4) That’s the one! ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2008, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-animals-do-drugs/473600/29 "2008-11-21T16:24:26Z")
Hornets (wasps?) eat fermented berries and they are _mean_ drunks. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2008, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-animals-do-drugs/473600/30 "2008-11-21T16:37:53Z")
> [@Derleth](#): > > Hornets (wasps?) eat fermented berries and they are _mean_ drunks. Yeah, but since they can barely walk, much less fly, they aren’t much of a threat. I didn’t know their exoskeletons were flexible and telescopic until I watched some eat fermented fruit until their abdomens were half again as wide and long. Canada geese like rotten crabapples. They also get the blind staggers. It’s really funny. ---
**Author:** ![DrCube](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a3d4f5/32.png) [@DrCube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrCube)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2008, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-animals-do-drugs/473600/31 "2008-11-21T16:38:38Z")
I recall a _Scientific American_ article a few years ago talking about how occasionally chimpanzees (or bonobos?) specifically sought out and ate half-rotted fruit for the alcohol content. Supposedly, this was going to be studied in more depth in order to gain insight into alcoholism in humans. Anybody heard any updates on these drunken ape experiments? ---
**Author:** ![plankter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7ba0ec/32.png) [@plankter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/plankter)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2008, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-animals-do-drugs/473600/32 "2008-11-21T18:02:10Z")
> [@outlierrn](#): > > [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7dSxxqLhmw](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7dSxxqLhmw) Holy crap. I thought some of that looked familiar, thanks to MST. Now I know where [**Overdrawn At the Memory Bank**](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overdrawn_At_the_Memory_Bank) got its “Daisy the baboon” stock footage. ---
**Author:** ![Jenaroph](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e8c25b/32.png) [@Jenaroph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jenaroph)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2008, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-animals-do-drugs/473600/33 "2008-11-21T18:06:13Z")
[This story](http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6376594) about a toad-licking dog was hilarious when I heard it a while back. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-animals-do-drugs/473600.md?page=1)