Anodyne

Hot damn!

Okay, we really need to stop enabling these underwear-sniffing police officers. I’m not judging, but they should find some less harmful way to indulge their fetishes. So I’m here to help. tldr: - If stopped by sniffer-dog-cops to be searched DO cooperate with them, but you don’t need to consent to the search - ask them to note your objection. - If you're clean, DON’T admit to recent contact with illicit drugs (even after they’ve cleared you). This benefits no one except the cops, who use these admissions of guilt to pad their poor detection rates. It’s not your job to justify their shitty false-positive rates for them. Okay, now for the long version. Let’s start with a few figures, to give an idea of the size of this problem (I mean program): The NSW Police Detection Dog unit costs $9.42 million per year to maintain. Just one dog, with one handler, bills a hefty $148.50/hr. NSW Greens have estimated the total cost of running a standard 3-dog “festival unit” to be ~$6000/hr, or $30K+ for a one-day festival. Approx 250,000 body-searches per year are conducted by NSW police, around 5% of these used sniffer dogs to justify their search, which otherwise may have lacked “reasonable suspicion”. Ugur Nedim, of Sydney Criminal Lawyers, advises that admitting to illicit drug use/contact/possession before consenting to a search, can later be used to solidify the police position of having “reasonable suspicion” to search you, in the event that drugs are found. If you keep your mouth shut, the police will have to defend their position and explain why you were singled out, which might give you a chance of having the case thrown out. Their usual default excuse is that you were “agitated” or “behaving erratically” or the somewhat-circular “trying to evade” the dogs/police (eg. crossing the road). If possible, ask them (before the search) why you were suspected, and what you are suspected of - there’s a slim chance this info could be helpful to you at trial. If they do find drugs in their search, and you didn’t consent (it’s illegal not to cooperate with police - so you need to submit to the search, but be sure they have registered your objection as well), try to get hold of any witnesses or video footage which could be used to counter their claims of erratic behaviour, or approaching known drug dealers, or whatever other bullshit they claimed as their "reasonable suspicion". It’s legal to film the encounter (or ask someone else to) so long as you aren’t breaking any other laws to do so (eg. hindering police, trespassing, etc). If you didn’t consent, and their grounds for suspicion are found unreasonable, you may be able to get the charges dismissed, as Nedim concludes: Do be aware though that this is only a possible argument, not an iron-clad one. Depending on the circumstances, police might say that your mere presence in the vicinity was reason enough to suspect you (esp. at public events where they have blanket-warrants). Again, this is probably circular reasoning, as they have likely used that same justification to request a warrant to conduct sniffer-dog operations at that place/event in the first place: “we think you’re carrying drugs because you’re in this area where we think people are taking drugs - so let us search you so that we have some proof of that”. Really they should have some proof first, but if they have a warrant then someone has already signed off on that, and it’s harder to argue with a judge. However even if the search is negative (the cops don’t find anything), how you answer the “have you had any recent contact with illicit drugs” question is still important. Drugs are found in only ~30% of personal searches based on a positive indication by the dog (figures vary, but the average is around there). Given that they often target bars, clubs & events which have high rates of illicit drug use, that figure could be even less impressive than it sounds - I’d love to see a controlled study to see if the dogs can do any better than just a random RBT-style testing. On that note, anyone got an 8-year-old kid? I want to see how many flaws they can spot in this bit of NSW Police maths (we’ll ignore its other problems like the bit where they equate prohibition with harm-minimisation for now and just focus on the figures): Hang on. If there were 4643 seizures (27% of 17,198), and some of those were really separate seizures from the same single person/search, then the actual number of “true positives” (dog indications resulting in drug seizures) is going to be LOWER than 27%. If just 10% of those people were carrying just two separate drugs (e.g.. one joint, one pill), then that would drop the % of indications-resulting-in-seizures down to 24% (which happens to be what is left after both the “no drugs found” groups are subtracted from a 100% total). This means that over 9000 of the 12,500-odd sniffer-dog searches each year in NSW (which are conducted with supposedly-reasonable suspicion) don’t find anything. But see what they’ve done there? (I know this example is from 2011, but the same arguments are being used today). They have twisted the math to make it look like a 24%-positive rate is actually an 88%-positive rate (61+27), and then just rounded that up as being “close to 100%”. Makes me start humming No Deal just to think of it: “Mate, did you know that your car only has one tire?” “Yeah but that’s all cool, the other three were there recently, and one said he’ll probably be back soon, so that’s kind of like having 4 tires. In fact, I’d just replaced this one here, so it’s almost like having 5 tires!” That is almost the same logic that the “mythbuster” propaganda-piece above has used. I don’t care how many theoretical tyres your car has, NSW Police, out here in reality there’s only one - and 24% is not “close to 100%”. (Now how about you drive your one-wheeled snifferdog program over there into the corner - there’s a dunces cap waiting for you - and you can spend that time thinking about all the better ways we could've spent $9.4 million) And the major factor that is helping them to pad those figures? That 61%. All you folks out there who are needlessly admitting to illicit drug contact (especially after you’ve been searched & found clean!). You don’t need to do this. With only 1-in-5 people plausibly (i.e. when they aren’t carrying drugs) denying recent drug contact, police can argue that their dogs are flawless and that those people are just lying (cops also use this claim to argue for “more intrusive” search powers, btw - that’s cavity searches without any reasonable suspicion). But if the 76% who were clean all denied drug contact, then that argument would become a lot less convincing, making justification of the program much more difficult. Admitting to recent drug contact doesn’t benefit you in any way (and could theoretically be used to get further warrants to search your car/home/workplace, although I’m not aware of any cases where they’ve done this). The only people this benefits are the cops - providing them with ammunition to defend their flawed, unconstitutional, & expensive program. Please, don’t help them. (usual disclaimers about this not being real legal advice - although I do link to some real legal advice above, and encourage everyone to follow those links and confirm all this for themselves)

@Sallubrious - funny, I was just about to say the same thing! I haven’t taken any of this personally. There were some remarks which addressed me personally, & I responded to those in kind, but I didn’t assume they were personal attacks. Of course, since several of the more inflammatory comments have since been deleted/hidden, much of the context for the more heated arguments is now missing, and it appears as if me & Horsie are just overreacting to the comparatively-moderate comments that are left. But even of the more outrageous remarks, most weren’t responses to anything I’d actually said - so it’s hard for me to get too offended by those, since the only people I saw being attacked were strawmen. (Personally-offended, that is - I can be still be offended by falling debating standards ) I’ve seen the whole thing as an interesting discussion & intellectual debate. I might *have* emotional responses to comments, but I try not to confuse my own reactions with someone’s intent, or to assume a personal attack unless that’s explicit. Likewise I wasn’t trying to attack you personally - I addressed some of your remarks directly, but I thought that’s what people do in debates. I was challenging the *ideas* that you presented, not you, or your “honour”. We’ve had some good discussions over the years, and I consider you a friend. Nothing has happened to change that, and if you decide to stay on I will look forward to our future discussions. Just y’know, maybe not this particular topic. And we should table any future debates until our respective real-life dramas are resolved/improved, because the stress from these life-&-death situations is fucking hectic and we’re probably projecting a lot of that into an already-tense topic - which doesn’t make the best environment for any kind of constructive dialogue. In the meantime, let me know if there’s anything I can do to help - I’m still your friend and am here for you if you want.

@Responsible Choice, wow. The "like" seemed insufficient, this needs a "HOLY SHIT!"

Also, you make some good points @Northerner, I certainly didn't intend my post to be a Compleat Guide to handling police/dog encounters - although I can see that it might've looked that way, and I should try to find one of those & link to it here as well - I think Torsten wrote something like that a whiles back... I mainly just wanted to draw attention to a few points that I thought those guides/advice often either miss or under-emphasise, as a lot of people are apparently making the same mistakes re:consenting/admitting guilt, and so are inadvertently helping the cops, not only to solidify any charges against them, but also to support the whole program! You're right that being polite & cooperative is generally a good strategy (a small but significant number of arrests under the sniffer-dog program have charges even though no drugs were found! - "resist arrest, offensive language and assault police"), but I find it helps to know where "cooperation" becomes "needless self-incrimination", and on the flipside, the difference between "polite lawful refusal" and "belligerently hindering police operations", as these can be fine lines to walk. The former can mean the difference between being arrested on drug charges & being free to leave; while the latter can be the difference between those things & maybe being left in the back of a paddywagon on a hot day. I mightn't have your generous perspective of police officers and their motivations, but that doesn't mean we disagree on how to handle encounters. I too think that you should be polite & respectful, if only because you're less likely to have your arms broken "resisting arrest" that way.

As Northerner points out, customs/quarantine sniffer dogs is a very different story to cop dogs. @Crop, I really doubt the table-turning will work for a police search. I have seen plenty of "indications" by the dog (which resulted in that person being searched for drugs), where the only "indicating" that I could see was the dog sticking its head into their shopping bag to sniff some sausages or something. I thought they were supposed to sit down or something, not just express an interest in a smell. I dunno, maybe it indicated to its handler in some subtle way that I missed. But whether or not the dog made a real positive indication or not is beside the point if the person just agrees to be searched anyway. And hey, I guess we're not the only ones to realise that dogs react to things they shouldn't: because another loathsome tactic which has been used by Sydney sniffer-cops is to target methadone clinics. Methadone apparently gives a false-positive for the dogs, which the cops know about and deliberately exploit (along with the afore-mentioned strategy of just bullying people to consent, so that the original grounds for suspicion becomes irrelevant) to let them search every person exiting the clinic with their lawful takeaway doses. They could probably do the same thing outside of pain clinics & pharmacies as well, but they don't, because if they treated anyone but junkies like this it would be considered harassment. In my book, this is akin to ambush-raiding outside injecting rooms or pill-testing tents. Actually, I think this is worse. All of them are a kind of breach of trust but at least they can claim a zero-tolerance excuse for harassing those other facilities (as they're about harm reduction rather than discouraging illicit drug use). But when they target methadone patients, they're effectively punishing people who are trying to stop their illicit drug use - so it's not only anti-harm-reduction, it's not even defensible from a zero-tolerance point of view. But hey, I'm sure they get some real big busts at bloody Kings Cross 'done clinics, FFS. I'm sure that even though a majority of searches will come up empty (as always), and even though the vast majority of all sniffer-dog seizures are of tiny amounts (from memory only ~3% were "traffickable", the rest were mostly minor possession charges & cannabis-cautions*), yeah I'm sure that this is a totally worthwhile & cost-effective strategy for reducing drug trafficking, and not the counterproductive, cruel & petty bullshit that it appears on the surface. Because yeah, you just need to look around an average methadone clinic to see that all the patients here are clearly wealthy, organised criminals, who must just be forgoing luxuries like food, new clothes & dental care as part of their disguise. Almost as bad as Redfern station - apparently another major hub on drug-smuggling routes, which definitely operate mostly via public transport. (*sorry I can't find the source right for those stats again right now, will post a link if/when I do)

If you're using any medium with fine dust or fibres (especially if they're light enough to get airborne) - rockwool, perlite & vermiculite spring to mind as particularly nasty ones, though I'm sure there are others too (from memory even super-fine sand is bad news)... keep it misted with water to minimise the dust, and wear a dust-mask. Some of these things can cause silicosis, you really don't want to be breathing them in. I've never been clear how much damage those same fine particles/fibres can cause to skin/eyes/etc, but figure they'd be capable of causing some irritation at the very least. So if you're getting reactions after handling certain media - maybe next time try wetting it down & wearing mask/goggles/gloves if you weren't already?

Wow, very generous MeanGreen. Great to hear a little about the clone saga too, thanks Darklight! 93

Yep, I've done it too. And that's one reason I wrote this - I know how hard it is to think clearly about these things when the pressure is on, and how hard it is to stand up to people with guns who are saying you should agree with them. But there are really good reasons for not taking the apparent path-of-least-resistance in this situation. They are very good at making it seem like things will go easier on you if you agree, where in reality they are going to search you regardless - and if you're clean, that is all they are going to do. Just as they're good at pressuring you to consent to the search. Really you have no choice - you need to cooperate (unless you want extra charges of hindering/obstruction/whatchamacallit), but if you consent and they find something, their chances of making the charges stick are near 100%. Whereas there aren't really any downsides to not consenting, so long as you do it in a polite and cooperative way: "thankyou, but I would rather not - though I do intend to cooperate here since you don't actually need my permission, do you?" (that is likely to be a rhetorical question - they usually try to dodge answering it outright, possibly because even my polite-to-cops voice is still sounding like a smartarse - I'm sure you can do better ). Also in non-sniffer-dog situations they may not actually have "reasonable suspicion" to search you, in which case they might just be fishing, and relying entirely on coercing your consent to make the search legal. So there's another reason not to give it. Okay like I said not a lawyer blah blah, but as I understand it, this procedure is just as much for your protection. Sure, they'll make it seem intimidating, but that's kinda their job. And think of the alternative, where they don't have to keep any kind of record of who they grab & search. I've seen that version of NSW Police, and think we'd all prefer the tedious name-and-address rigamarole that holds them accountable. If it reaches the point where you are being searched every day, or are subjected to those "more intrusive" searches, or detained for searching so you're late to your new job or a court appearance, for instance, it can be very helpful to you that these records are kept. Bringing charges of harassment or misconduct against police is never going to be easy, but without a record that such searches ever happened, it may be damn near impossible. And just from a pragmatic point of view, you actually are required to identify yourself to any police officer who asks in this situation (and many others, here's a rundown). Refusing to do so is an offence in many situations (a snifferdog search being one of them), which on it's own would probably just get you a fine & detained until they could identify you, but in the context of a search can also be considered grounds for suspicion all on its own - so even if they found drugs but their other grounds for suspicion were found unreasonable in court (and the charges would be normally be dismissed) - refusing to identify yourself to police is itself considered suspicious activity, and could put those charges back on the table.

...and crystal meth! When I mention to someone that I take psychoactive drugs and hear “I’m high on life”, my brain usually translates it as one of these: I’m high on life (psychoactive drugs scare me) I’m high on life (I watch porn &/or play video games 6 hours a day - I don’t have time in my busy schedule for another potentially-addictive hobby) I’m high on life (I train 6 hours a day - I don’t have time in my busy schedule for another potentially-addictive hobby) I’m high on life (that OD really scared me) I’m high on life (workaholic) I’m high on life (Ritalin doesn’t count) I’m high on life (still breastfeeding, ask me again next year) So I find that people often just use it as a euphemism for explaining why they don’t take drugs, as opposed to actually expressing an interest in “natural highs” (excepting perhaps the exercise junkies). But I’m curious whether many of you out there are interested in altered states in general as I am, i.e. not exclusively the drug-induced kind. I’ve been interested ever since I was a little kid and first grokked that other people experience the world differently: some people don’t like this taste! My parents can’t hear that high-pitched noise! That blew my tiny mind. When I learned a decade or so later that you could evoke perceptual changes using drugs, that was a great thing to discover as well, but I never lost interest in the other kinds. They all represent manifestations of different parts of our body/brain/consciousness. And since that is how we experience the world, anything that gives us a deeper understanding of that apparatus & how it works - even if only by showing what happens it all goes wrong - is fascinating to me. So what are these natural altered states, and how to find them? Here are just some of the ones I have noticed: Migraines (with mild aura) are one that I get occasionally - it used to be I was too busy whimpering with my eyes closed to notice much else, but ever since my doc gave me some of those nice triptan meds I can experience some of the non-headache parts of migraines, and they are quite interesting. I don’t get strong visuals, but all of my senses are turned WAY up. I remember walking home as one was hitting - it was a warm day & I could feel every individual drop of sweat on my skin like hundreds of tiny cold pinpricks. There was a forgotten pack of peppermint gum in my backpack & at one point I had to stop and dig it out & throw it away because the smell was so overwhelming it was getting difficult to focus on things like crossing the road. The similarity to the sensory effects of psychedelics was striking - the feeling that I wasn’t really hallucinating, just experiencing reality in a less filtered way than usual. Another example is the AIWS and other kinds of sensory-processing weirdness that I sometimes experience. It’s been a long-standing theory of mine that the idea of HPPD(“flashbacks”) can be traced to stuff like this. People experience sensory weirdness all the time - for some of us that’s rare, for others not so much - and sometimes we don’t even notice, because our brains are so good at integrating sensory input. And if we do notice something weird happening, how do you even describe it? But people who have taken psychedelics have a point of reference - a similar experience that they can point to and say: “this sensory disturbance that I’m experiencing now reminds me of that time I took LSD”, and worry that they have broken their brains with drugs. Whereas people who haven’t taken psychedelics just say “well, this is a bit weird”, and then forget about it. But there are no stray drug molecules lurking in our brains, and no permanent drug-induced neurological damage. These things happen whether you have taken psychoactive drugs before or not. Interestingly, people doing deep meditation practice sometimes report similar sensory/proprioceptive distortions. I’ve never gone deep enough with meditation to the point of getting any drastic changes in sensory perception, but even the little CBT work I’ve done has been life-changing - just learning that you can *decide* how to react to things. More recently I was changing my diet and observing the changes from that. I’ve never been good with fasting but I’ve discovered that a ketogenic diet gives me most of the benefits of fasting, without the low-blood-sugar, feeling-like-rubbish part. Of special interest for the altered states discussion was reintroducing non-keto foods and observing the effects they have, which can be pretty drastic. I used to think the phrase “sugar addiction” was stupid & sensationalist, but altering my carb intake and paying close attention to my body’s responses has forced me to re-evaluate that, and decide that it’s actually a pretty apt description. I’ve also learned that much of my daily aches & fatigue are caused by my diet (which, by the way, is one that would be considered quite healthy by normal standards), and that some simple changes give me more energy & better mood. So if the CBT work helped me to see how much mind influences body, the diet experiments showed me that the reverse is true as well, and our physical state influences our mindset more than we usually realise. It’s a two-way street and there is no clear divide between mind & body - you can’t take care of one without the other. Drugs generally work by mimicking/boosting/blocking our natural neurotransmitters. But there can be other ways to achieve the same end. After all, we’ve evolved each of those intertwining systems for a reason - to stay alert when we’re in danger, to remember useful information & forget useless stuff, to reward survival/reproductive behaviours like eating & fucking, and so on. And because so many of these processes are geared to respond to basic stimuli (food/water/sleep, emotional/immune reactions), we can manipulate them to a degree, simply by consciously controlling those inputs. The whole “set & setting” idea applies just as much to everyday life as it does to tripping.

Sleep deprivation leads to some altered states for sure. Quite quickly you reach a point where some of those “filters” drop and the world suddenly has a lot more tracers & fractals & such in it. Along with just straight-up hallucinations. It starts out minor - mostly corner-of-the-eye stuff where your brain makes a best-guess at what you glimpsed, and that guess turns out to be wrong. Deeper into sleep debt, those visual hallucinations become more common & enduring, and can be accompanied by auditory hallucinations. I’ve also gotten to where touch signals started going haywire as well (though never proprioception, strangely), but by that point my brain was so fried that it barely registered. Because unfortunately (for seekers of natural highs, at least) sleep dep also leads to just a general loss of cognitive function where you can’t think or react or remember things quickly/well. In more severe cases there are reports of delusional & paranoid behaviour - I think a big chunk of “amphetamine psychosis” is synonymous with severe sleep deprivation. And certainly a lot of the unpleasantness is down to the increased stress that goes with lack of sleep - whether it’s the cause, effect, or a nasty cycle of both. Being stressed all the time means that your body is always in low-level fight-or-flight mode, which is fucking terrible for your general well-being, and brings us to… Long-term effects - these include increased blood pressure, fucked metabolism & digestion, decreased immune function & memory…and some other fun stuff like organ decline & increased risk of heart attack. So yeah, as far as “natural highs” go, it’s the crystal meth of the group - not recommended. If you have no choice in the matter though, there’s a few things I’ve found to help minimise the adverse effects: *low-carb/high-protein/high-fat diet - if you’re awake an extra 8hrs/day, you need to eat an extra meal each day as well, or even two. Making them low-carb stops the sugar-highs & inevitable crashes afterwards, which you really don’t need on top of the sleep dep. Especially if you’re active during these times, or there are stims involved, I really can’t emphasise this enough - your body needs fuel. *drink plenty of water *don’t drive - after just 20hrs awake you’re already up to ~2 standard drinks worth of impairment (according to the few studies on this topic which got past ethics approval - I’m sure that many armed forces have more detailed data, but considering how they obtain it, they haven’t seen fit to publish) *know when to quit - if you're staying awake to study or get work done (or do anything which requires even a little brainpower), sleep dep will really fuck with your ability to function after a while. It's worth doing a little cost/benefit analysis every so often to decide whether it's worth staying up another night - if you're just going to spend half of it reading & re-reading the same paragraph over & over because your brain is fried, it might be more productive to spend those hours napping. *relax - even if you can’t sleep, take the time to meditate/relax for a little while. Go for a walk, take a long shower, anything. Getting those stress hormones under control will keep your body in better shape and your sanity alive a little longer.

She may be overdressed by Primitive Tech standards, but she's still chopping down a tree barefoot, with a stone axe, in a matter of minutes. I sure wouldn't be calling "show us yer tits" at this lady if I valued my life. And while I can picture Primitive Tech Guy working an office job during the week and building huts as a hobby, these videos feel more like she just agreed to be followed around with a camera for a couple of days to do the stuff she was doing anyway. I actually don't mind the slower editing - it gives a better idea how long each step takes, and gives some time for the little details like cleaning bamboo or doing those bamboo-twine twist-knots, that would often get cut out of a shorter film - I've got a fast-forward button if I need it, but I can't slow down the other guys videos to watch his knotwork more closely.

That Primitive Technology guy has some competition here with Primitive Life girl. I'd always wondered how those Asian grannies who trot up mountainsides with 50kg sacks of rice balanced on their heads (to leave their hands free to smoke rollies) got to be so badass... I'm now just going to picture them like this when they were younger. Good idea with using bamboo as a post-hole digger, the dirt just gets stuck in the hollow stem - I'll probably actually use that in future as I have the same kind of sticky clay soil to make it work. The technique she uses to break bamboo by scoring around it first looks nifty too - I'm betting it's not as easy as she makes it look, but bamboo is so rough on tools I'm willing to give that a go sometime anyway.

DCHIW your brain tries to be more efficient... I think it might've been secretly listening to terrible motivational speakers while I sleep or something... you know, the kind who abuse words like "proactive" & "synergy"...I don't know where else it would've gotten the impression that this was a good idea. I always thought fibromyalgia was something that just appeared for no known reason, but apparently there's a less common form where it develops secondary to something else. So if you're in bad enough pain, for long enough, eventually your brain can start wondering: "Well we seem to be putting a lot of effort into sending & processing all of these pain signals, how about we optimise this process (& other buzzwordy nonsense) by just becoming more sensitive to those signals so we don't need to send as many to feel the same level of pain? Yay efficiency!" "Er, so you will remember to send a memo out to all the body parts letting them know about this change of procedure - y'know, so they don't just keep sending the same levels as before? ... hello brain? ...are you still there?" Alright, well fibro may be a poorly-defined & probably-untreatable condition, but I learned the cure for "faulty brain" from Homer Simpson years ago: Although I'm not sure if beer is gonna be strong enough for this one. Hmm... "Ok Brain, listen up. I have any number of neurotoxins available to me, and I'm willing to try as many as I need to. Remember that time we took nutmeg? Oh ha - that's right, no you don't! Do you want some more myritastic blackouts? Or how about another MXE overdose - I'm pretty sure my body parts won't hurt if I'm not attached to them because I'm spinning through alternate dimensions. There are dissociatives I've never even tried! I've got a bunch of ways outta this pain situation buddy, and likely none of them are going to mean good news for you. So I suggest you tone it down there, unless you want to find out whether between us we can design a failsafe DIY ketamine coma apparatus. Personally I think not, but that might not stop me from trying it out anyway, if this nonsense continues."

It always does this to me when I view it from a mobile (Android) - there is nowhere to log in on the home (or subforum) pages. But I learned that if I click on any thread then the login option appears - just scroll down to the bottom of the page. Alternatively if you're not logged in you can try to respond to a thread and the prompt will appear. So you can keep nostalgia-themed Corroboree colours if you like.

Team Hammock! It's great being able to just stop hiking anywhere (anywhere with trees, at least) you like & set up camp - no need to find level ground with a clearing big enough for a tent or swag. Rocky ground, wet/flooded ground, steep slopes, all good. I've hammocked in swamps, hanging over creeks, on cliffsides, and in canyons during flashfloods, and if you make a few adjustments (eg. hang your pack & boots off the ground during flood times, and remember to climb out the uphill side of the cliff-hammock) you can get some pretty amazing sleeping spots. I've seen people string theirs up high up in tree canopies - that would be awesome to try sometime, esp somewhere like a rainforest with lots of epiphytes & wildlife at that level. You can also purposely hang them loose so they dip down in the middle & work as a sling chair, makes a nice spot to sit & read on hot days. The one I've been using for years is just basic - similar to WB's, you can pick them up for $30-40. The mozzie net is great, and if I don't need it during the day I can flip the hammock over (so the net is underneath) & lay on the clear side. I also have a netless one (they're $13 on ebay) out at my cabin just for day-lounging or emergency guest bed. And I recently bought one of this style where the net stays up on its own - haven't taken it out for a spin yet, but looking forward to it. They're not ideal in really cold weather, and they can be uncomfortable if you hang them badly (eg. tilted, or too loose so it sags in the middle, or tied so that water runs down the ropes into your bedding) or have to share one with other people or all your gear (eg. because of flashfloods or tent failures) - though we have slept 2-3 people per hammock (small people, that is - combined weights <150kg) in emergencies, they do stretch out pretty wide. But once you get the hang of them, they're so comfortable. It's really the best thing: there's nothing like looking up at the stars, being rocked gently to sleep by the breeze, then waking up to an amazing view from the edge of the cliff where you're suspended. @waterboy 2.0 I've been looking at these because the wastefulness of those single-use butane/propane canisters drives me nuts. I wasn't sure how efficient they were, but the idea of being able to just burn metho is pretty appealing. What other fuels do you use in yours? I also like that the basic design is so simple & robust you can just DIY out of old cans & stuff (eg. DIY adjustable alcohol stove ), it appeals to the cheapskate & apocalypse-prepper in me.

Just come visit NSW or Qld mate, you can probably get people to pay you to take them away. I think that they weren't on Vic's noxious weeds list only because the seeds prefer warm & wet to germinate, and the young plants are frost tender. So it was thought that they wouldn't spread in the colder drier climate of Vic. However they've managed to spread to other frosty areas like the Dorrigo plateau, so the species is either adapting or was even tougher than we realised. Either way frost no longer seems like a reliable contraceptive for camphor laurels - I sure as hell wouldn't bet my ecosystem on it. I notice that Agriculture Victoria still mentions it on their invasive species list, because even though it's not weedy there yet, there doesn't seem to be any reason why it couldn't if given the chance - on their "potential distribution" map covers half the state! And although most of the wild stuff in NSW & Qld is thought to be the one variant ("camphor" chemotype), there are a few different ones which all have slightly different genetics, which may be another reason not to bet on the better-known characteristics - a less common weedy variant in these states ("cineole" chemotype) has been reported to tolerate drier climates for germination, for instance - and there are several other chemotypes as well. This may also be relevant if you wanted this plant for particular compounds or properties - the aromatics vary between the different chemotypes. If they escape into the wild, they shade out other plants & release allelopathic compounds which inhibit the germination & growth of other plants. They seed prolifically & the birds spread them everywhere. They also sucker like mad, so if you try to get rid of them simply by cutting them down you'll end up with a grove instead of just one tree. The leaves & berries are toxic to some animals, and may be the reason for decreased fish populations in waterways surrounded by camphor laurels - they often line creeks & riverbanks, making removal especially tricky without eroding the banks. Whatever you want this species for, it's not worth it.

Ok so I see why you got confused about this: flunarizine is indeed "a piperazine"(the chemical class), but it is not synonymous with the individual compound "piperazine". Still confused? Think of "amphetamine", which can be used to describe either an individual compound, or a group of compounds which share a common chemical structure...this is a little like that. "Piperazines" describes a group of compounds which include a similar chemical structure, but which have a very broad range of different mechanisms & activities - there are antihistamines, antipsychotics, antidepressants, antiparasitics, to name a few. Plus of course all of the "MDMA-like" substituted piperazines. Flunarizine has a different mechanism again, being a calcium-channel blocker. These are all different compounds, and because the group is so diverse, any details about one compound within this very broad group "piperazines" are unlikely to apply to another compound from this family. They aren't even clear on the mechanisms for some of them. So while "piperazine" is technically accurate in describing the chemical structure of these compounds, it's not a very useful search term if you want to investigate the safety/activity of a specific drug (unless that drug happens to be the compound "piperazine", which was one of the antiparasitic piperazines). As far as I can make out flunarizine has a pretty good safety profile - no significant interactions, and few side effects other than some drowsiness & possible weight gain. They suggest caution when using it with other sedatives, but only because of the possibility of additive effects, not because of any interaction.

Could've just been someone buying their travel-sickness meds in bulk. If you buy hyoscine over-the-counter at a chemist it works out at about $2 per milligram of active ingredient. A couple of grams would be a lifetime supply. Some folks also use it (or a plant containing it) as an adjunct to various psychoactives to reduce nausea, which might've been inspired by accounts of including nightshades in some yage brews, or how it used to be given routinely in hospitals with opioids as an anti-emetic. I've tried a bunch of anti-emetics for many different reasons, and this is still one of the more effective ones I've found. On a tangent, there are indications that some battlefield surgeons (esp in WW2) tried to use the amnestic effects of high doses to therapeutic advantage, dosing recently-traumatised soldiers in an attempt to prevent PTSD, in the same way that benzoes are sometimes still used (in civilian medicine) for this purpose today. So there are real medicinal uses for this stuff, it's not necessarily nefarious for someone to have ordered it. And the insistence on "illicit drugs" in that article is just funny, since you can buy this stuff without a prescription from any chemist - you don't even need to ask a pharmacist, it's right there on the shelf next to the mylanta.

I'll have to confirm when we know dates, but yeah I'm keen too. There was too much happening at EGA, I never got a chance to talk with most of you northerners - it'd be good to catch yas.

I’ve watched Andy help so many folks (including myself) through rough times over the years - sorry we couldn’t return the favour in the end. Seeing you folks at EGA take care of each other I was so proud of the lot of you - you really are an amazing bunch. Hillbilly you’re a goddamn rock, and if you take even half as good care of yourself as you did of everyone else, you’ll be just fine. It was good to have a little time out to grieve properly, in a beautiful place where we didn’t have to worry so much about keeping it together and acting normal. I had the viking camp theme in mind, so late at night went down to the lake that looked like an abyss full of stars and launched a little flaming effigy boat out into that mirror world. And danced with the joy of living so that my goodbye to him wouldn’t be only sadness of death, but also fierce gladness in life. It was nice to be in a place where I could get away with weirdness like that. I talked with a lot of new people over the weekend and one thing that struck me was how many people at the conference had similar stories that had led them there - backgrounds with hard drugs & mental health issues, that they kept to themselves for fear of scaring the gentle tripper types. I know that talking about these things isn’t always helpful, and sometimes it’s better to not dwell & just get on with things - but if you’re suffering in silence because you think no one in this crowd will understand…you’re wrong. Some have even found ways to heal & repair themselves, and may be able to offer more than just sympathy. All you have to do is ask. There are so many paths that might lead to healing & fulfillment…I understand despair, but it’s not over while there are still things left to try. Every time I want to give up I remember that I still haven’t tried so many things: iboga therapy, quitting my job, living as a squatter & mural artist, coke & hookers til the money runs out, volunteering at an injecting room, or becoming a buddhist monk. And that any one of those might be the thing that renews my interest in life when it all seems lost. So sorry that you didn’t find your peace in life AndyAmine

Cool, will do - and I'll keep an eye out for any fresh fungi on the trip down too. Not long now!

Can they be any type, or are you looking specifically for ones of ethnobotanical interest? And do we need to have a clue what they are beforehand, or is that the point of the workshop? I have a couple dried specimens (& photos of the fresh ones) of a species I am very curious to get an ID for, but only because they look weird, not because I suspect them of containing anything interesting.

Lol, collateral trollage. Want me to delete my post so you've still got a chance at hooking CBL? I mean, I'm sure mine has all kinds of flaws as well, but they weren't tailor-made for him like yours were.