The several attempts to synthesise and summarise our know ledge of the precise botanical identification of plants entering into the preparation of South American snuffs have met with the same difficulties that I find in trying to discuss this topic here. Because of similarities in the tools and methods of snuffing, and especially as a result of the lack of voucher botanical specimens, we are too often reduced to conjecture as to the plants involved. In view of the importance of snuffing in many cultures -past and present- and of the possibility that a number of plants hitherto unknown as ingredients of narcotic snuffs might be uncovered, further field investigation of snuffs in South America is clearly indicated. In connexion with the possibility of finding new plants as sources of narcotic snuffs, there is one point that has disturbed me for a long time. Why should only several of the narcotic plants be administered as snuff'? Snuffing is a widespread New World culture trait. It is a relatively easy method of self-intoxication. It lends itself easily to ritual or ceremonial use. Snuff's usually tend to keep over longer periods, especially in the humid tropics, than infusions or decoctions. vVhy then are not more narcotics taken in this form? One limiting factor, to be sure, would be the requirements that the activite principle must be absorbable through the membranes to enter directly into the blood stream and be active. Nicotine, of course, answers these reqirements. Obviously, the active principles of the snuffs from Anadenanthera peregrina and Virola also satisfy these requirements. But would not the active constituents of other narcotics likewise follow this pattern? Why, for example, have we never found the slmdry species of Datura powdered and employed as snuffs? Would snuffs prepared from the bark of Banisteriopsis provide the desired psychotropic effects? And what about the narcotic properties of Erythroxylon Coca - would they be lost if the powdered leaves were introduced into the nostrils as a snuff? The rich variety of toxic plants in the flora of South America-would not many of these species have psychotomimetic effects which would be more controllable or perhaps less dangerous as snuffs then decoctions or infusions of the same plants ~ All of this leads to two questions that I would leave with you: Was not the snuffing of narcotic powders much more widely practiced in South America than it is at present? Was and is not the number and variety of plants snuffed for their peculiar physiological properties greater than we at present believe? The answer to both questions, I suspect, is "Yes." But only more intensive and extensive search and interpretation of the literature, and more immediate and insistent ethnobotanical field studies can provide us with answers.