Pat Uri

I've a question for my more experienced cactus growers:- I see Epiphyllum cactus that have taken to the highest most reaches of trees. They grow quickly and have lost all attachment to the soil. Whilst tree lopping from an Elevated Work Platform the thought struck me of grafting small ground dwelling cactii onto them. The shade is about right for the terrestrials I was thinking about using. This would put them well out of sight of any unscrupulous types that would take them away. In fact I think I'd enjoy seeing them, eyes glued to the ground, trying to find them. Do more experienced grafters foresee any problems I might incur?

ta, bullit!

Serious one - now folks:- In Qld all 'substances' that contain an illegal substance are deemed to be the illegal substance. This means any substance that contains mescaline is illegal. In Qld the law defines substance as including live plants [in other states the term is 'preparation, which does NOT include live plants The penny just dropped for on this one, people. Logical folks that live in the real, rational world may need a little elaboration on this quaint quirk of our Law:- Let us suppose a Drug Fiend has 1.99g of pure dextro methylamphetamine base in their possession whilst making some 998.01g of icing sugar in a blender. That criminal wrongdoer notices vigilant constables are running up their stairs to raid them (having secured all the necessary paperwork before hand) and end their wickedness. In a cowardly attempt to evade justice this merchant-of-death drops their illicit poison into the blender and turns it on, hoping dilution will put it below our champions of the law's ability to detect it. "I've done naught, you filth!" - he cries rudely; "This ain't but harmless sugar what I's got here. You ain't got f**k all on me pigs! Tis harassment - so it is, I say! Me lawyer's gonna do youse traps!" The constables calmly show the court ordered warrant (that states very clearly his name, address, nature of the search etc. signed by informed judicial) and whilst carefully explaining his rights, they happen to notice "the strange chemical smell" coming from the blender. They humbly invite his comment on this. "You got me now, cops - you're too good for me! I cannot stand the agitation of my guilt! It is the a"gear"; - that is illicit amphetamine - but not much, mind! what I found in the blender when I bought it." "Save your explanations Sir! For you are under arrest! It is the courts that will determine your guilt, not us" You see it is now 1kg of trafficable dangerous drug of addiction (with "estimated" street* value in excess of $100,000-gst, probably from kid's lunch money too!) That dirty druggie will serve some serious time now. If this scumbag had left it <2g, first offence, he'd have only got it confiscated, drug diversion, no conviction recorded and left at large. Forgive the melodrama above - this is really very serious shit, fellow Queenslanders. I was wondering how they were going to get around certain technicalities with plants, but I had no delusions it would work in the individual's favour. A suspect substance that tests positive to being illegal is entirely illegal and regarded, no less, than the weight of the pure illegal substance alone. Qualitative and quantitative properties and their legal consequences depend on how much legal representation you can afford - the bias being in favour of the most richest, most potent and most purest. So a trace of mescaline is illegal - therefore a gram of mescaline, is worth a gram of peyote, is worth a gram of San Pedro, is worth a gram of Opuntia Prickly Pear, etc. and all worth your arrest. Well it is said 'the suckers have authority'. Don't be fooled by television CSI - it actually takes Queensland authority labs up to 2 years to analyse what an alleged clandestine laboratory were possibly up to, if silence is maintained. They rely on "verbals" even to this day. I hope the amount of public relations and applause Queensland politicians expect from this is worth the court congestion, revenue erosion and priority losses it causes. It is like the "boat people" issue - politicians getting popular attention over a really minuscule, trivial problem, largely unheeded, unenforceable, beyond their pompous ability and at the expense of a lot of our money, our global credibility; and lots of real, genuine human suffering. *What ever street that is I'm not going there.

I wonder when cow manure goes on the precursor list in Queensland?

Great price! - works out a few bucks for each year's growth. (and I'll never be so miserable to call myself a Queenslander)

And the Queensland Police better get lots of little handcuffs for all the cane toads they'll be arresting.

Yeah we don't want Lophophora taking over our sunshine state like that prickly pear! Good-on-ya Queensland - I, for one, will sleep soundly tonight.

I'm very sorry if you felt any offence there mindperformer - as I intended none and very much admire your contributions (especially images). I wish I lived in such a mature, sophisticated and democratic country as you - which you can be proud. Here authorities derive their mandate from the politics of hatred, making scapegoats and whipping up self-righteous hysteria from (kept) ignorant masses. Where once Australia rode on the back of the fleeced merino - it rides now on the back of the fleeced individual and they actually want the most draconian antidrug laws in the world! Paranoia aiming to separate us - but whilst free forums, like this, exist; and good people, like yourself, support us, they will fail and freedom shall, one day, triumph! (Quarterflesh was unintentionally bringing themselves "close to the bone") Back to task - I'm guessing with Sida but I wouldn't be surprised if it accumulates alkaloid in its aerial parts when its flowers are removed. This is the "topping" and "suckering" technique that works so dramatically with tobacco. The plant naturally attempts to protect the seeds at the expense of all other tissue and when deprived of their hormonal influence (florigens) hypertrophies what's left with the precursors. This is certainly the case where the minor amines, not yet alkaloid, occur also in the roots. The leaves thicken and on senescence are loaded. After this, a month of sun-curing breaks the pectin bonds. This is the case with Indian ephedra. So much more to be done! Thanks again for your support.

You bet! Folks are too simplistic about dopamine - it is vastly more complex than 1 + 1 = 2. Dopamine, up and down, here or there, has a cascade of responses through the amygdala, hippocampus, brainstem, hypothalamus, striatum, medial frontal lobes, including through the autonomic nervous system. It is only a sensitising neurotransmitter along with norepinephrine, serotonin etc. it is quickly replaced by adreno-corticosteroids, enkephalins, etc. themselves replaced with more permanent hard wiring. The brain has an amazing ability to become "normal" after a while - all manor of drug abuses may cause profound changes initially, but soon are actually required just to be normal. We all know folk who take a month's worth of drugs just to get out of bed and feel normal - not high. Rising dopamine levels release enkephalins - much like only rising levels of nicotine produce pleasure. Once you plateau, that's it...and just you wait for equal and opposite reaction in the 'come down'. "High" dopamine is associated with mania, dissociation, out-of-body experience, post traumatic stress and complete psychotic breakdowns - the extreme suggestibility of being frozen on the spot. The police use this stress effect to get information out of people - when they know they shouldn't be saying anything. Remember your right to silence and insist on it. Name, address and date of birth - other than that it's "Dunno!" or the best answer to everything "Forse che si forse che no". Keep easy on the l-dopa - you should know there are better ways to go! Respect!

You mean to say it is RARE for B.c to flower and set seed? Oh dear, I should have said something ages ago...I thought it was relatively common - forgive the noobie! Oh well, there's always next year, folks!

Sida beer - what an excellent idea! It should have quite good body and head. Sorry I can't go into more detail, especially on quarterflesh's tek; I'll figure out a way of wording it however. Perhaps in a thread about curing herbs for maximum potency. You see here in Australia - and especially in the progressive, far minded state of Queensland - isolating pseudoephedrine by a chemical means is quite illegal, a separate charge within itself, let alone the equipment to do it. In another threads I've mentioned a technique for overcoming pectins to some degree. But I'm afraid I can't do it here.

Gidday folks. Some may recall some remarks I made about "the daughter of the Sun", the use of pure, unchlorinated water, crushed but still enzyme active material, avoiding high pH so as not to cleave the lactone, blah! blah!...I do go on a bit... The alkaloid may be isolated without damage with anionic ion-exchange resin. I've used IRA-400 (OH- charged). After extraction with 0.05M HCl in absolute ethanol the liquor is passed through a column of the basic resin previously washed with absolute ethanol. Elution of the resin with ethanol yields the alkaloid. This procedure is aimed at the high end technicians and is my thanks to those concerned! Otherwise the tea isn't too bitter if you suck it with a straw lodged down your gullet a bit and well back from your tongue. I usually reserve this "deep throat" technique for wormwood. Medicos refer to it as gastric lavage. Thanks again, Auxin and Planthelper!

Very nice specimens there mindperformer! Certainly looks superior in every way to the Australian feral weeds! Now this is merely a guess but I wonder if it requires some curing - that is enzymatic fermentation - to release the alkaloid. Many alkaloidal plants are like that, they must be "sweat" before their actives become available. This involves breaking down the pectin that can bind the alkaloid like eggs in egg cartons completely wrapping them up in tight, space conforming compartments - so to speak. It can even be more involved with microbiotic enzymes having to break down the organic acids that fix them...There is an electrophoresis tek too... Time to find an expert of the Ayurveda tradition with knowledge of Bala, per se.

Gidday folks - I managed to find a crumb of information on the Dainis paper - thankfully he earmarked it for prosperity by his unique spelling of "Buddha Grass". So sorry Dainis, old chap, I know you HATED druggies too! But we LOVE you! http://www.worldcat.org/title/information-relating-to-the-importation-of-the-cannabis-product-buddha-grass-thai-sticks-into-australia/oclc/220454762 The file is marked "Confidential", kept in Canberra by the Department of Police and Customs - so its a box of Cohiba hecho a mano Cuba cigars and a bottle of VSOP to whoever uploads us a copy. There are some esoteric theories that vibrational states of in vivo tryptamines/harmines - which are quite resonant - do transmit and receive EMR and quantum state signals transferring emotions, cognitions and even whole thoughts between energised, harmonic human brains and, shall we say, "spiritual realms". It expands the molecule receptor fit theory, as it seems neuron dendrites detect quantum state differences in neurotransmitters too. Certainly the Australian aboriginal people hold beliefs in that direction as it is. More about quantum enchantment later.

Sorry this is off topic but I have to mention it. There is tremendous cross-culture with tobacco and cannabis - not surprising - both are smoked and sometimes even grown together. Spraying with sugar and alcohol based flavours is very much a tobacco curing necessity:- it returns sugar to material that has been long colour cured out to allow enzymes to break down chlorophylls, starch, pectins, protein etc. and release perfumes and ensure all alkaloid precursors have catabolized to nicotine; it causes the Maillard reaction that sends tobacco from its nondescript "seaweed" flavour to what we recognise as tobacco; it allows further fermentation, aging and the oxidation of the noxious alkaloids; it keeps the material in 'condition' and not brittle for processing; it adds smoothness to the flavour; allows it to burn; etc. etc. etc. Without the casing sauce and manufacturing treatments you wouldn't know it as today's tobacco but a rather foul, choking poisonous weed. Nothing new, the Native Americans perfected the techniques. People got their wires crossed and applied it to low grade cannabis in the hope of something better. It requires no such interference or chemical treatments at all. (Unless you want to add weight or binder to compress it.) Another example of cross-culture is to hang the whole harvested plant upside down so all the goodies go to the top - absolute nonsense! That is done with stalk cured tobacco merely because that's the direction of the leaves and allows long slow colour curing with controlled humidity. Otherwise it would set green and rank. Okay - that's for your time!

Oh heck I feel a bit silly writing here - but that has never stopped me before! This might tie a few loose ends together:- Dainis wrote a paper "Buddha Grass in Australia" in the 1975 Australian Customs Forensic Laboratory where they were trying to find out why Thai budda sticks had so much delta 9 in them - up to 20% of their weight and 100% of the resin. It had long been assumed that they must have adulterated the material with hashish oil or something in manufacture. Under a little gentle "persuasion" by the Malay police, drug traffickers revealed that they buried the stuff in hessian bags a good metre or so under the ground in moist, rainforest soil. Way down deep. In the deep soil where anaerobic bacteria live and there is no oxygen (which is lethal to them). Originally they did this so that sniffer dogs couldn't find their stash, but discovered the material lost a lot of its weight over 8 weeks and actually became more potent as a result. When dug back up the black wet material was wound onto bamboo slivers to dry creating the characteristic "stick". What happened was certain tropical rainforest deep soil anaerobic bacteria invaded the material and consumed a great portion of the inert plant matter, but left the resin. In fact they up-converted and reduced (chemistry term for the reverse of oxidation) the majority of resin to delta-9! The trick was to bury it deep enough that the right bacteria got in and not the upper layer aerobic bacteria that would oxidise it to useless compost. Dainis experimented to see if this really happened and if such bacteria lived in Australian tropical soils. His results confirmed everything was true, but his studies got buried themselves by authorities. I had to pretend I was an official academy cadet to get my eyes on the paper and there were no photocopiers around when I did. I once saw the first page of this paper on the internet, but not since. I assure you, young folk, not EVERYTHING makes it to the internet and there is still a lot of ancient red hot knowledge still awaiting upload. The paper is available only to registered users - which I am not - and security is much, much tighter around their archives now. I know the procedure does work, although convincing anybody else these days to try it (let alone dig such a hole) is difficult. Modern strains make such efforts seem unnecessary, but I'm sure there are some aficionados out there who would appreciate my letting youse know! Indeed such highly upconverted material is quite stimulating and a real treat. My pleasure to pass this info on - and I'd love to see the original paper uploaded for everyone to read. RESPECT to all!

Getting back to the original question there, slayertat, the only really "safe" way to display plants in hydroponic setups is to choose specimens that are already displayed in popular books on gardening. That way you can show cause why you used it. Strange that you have to prove your choice - rather than they having to prove why you can't. Avoid anything they can "google" or find in "wiki" listed as "psychedelic". (I'm sorry about the digressions above - perhaps the mods can edit them out as irrelevant to topic - its just I heard my name called and love a "flamewar".) Be prepared for a few visits and requests about seedy looking clients (possibly barefooted). May your business prosper!

Where did you source it, quarterflesh? (And I admire your persistence! It wouldn't be easy to work with.)

I've been pm'ed about my bad spelling. It seems that for such a "self-proclaimed expert", as I "imply" I am, I should be able to spell my subject correctly. They are indeed correct. I apologise to all you dear forum folk for seeming so illiterate and bigoted - yet so pedantic in other ways. I would like to correct my ignorant error. The correct spelling of the presently illegal drug derived from specific cultivars of adult, female Cannabis sativa, aforementioned by this author is:- الماريجوانا I apologise again for my inadequacy in correct English grammar. Thank you.

Who do they think they are:- "PIGS in space"? On the positive, at last the answer to "Who farted?"

But will they use it to catch Multi-international companies in the act of polluting? Or just individuals in possession of a molecule? Just wait for me to find the frequency and I'll give them something to backscatter! And it won't be just my thoughtcrimes.

That is so sad. My deepest condolences.

I ain't paying tax on something that grows in my front yard! Oh - sorry that's tobacco I'm thinking of. Oh - mistake again - it's mangoes. Mangoes, yes, that's right.

Sir Richard Branson won't be "cool" any more! Mind you anything that wipes the stoned smile off that smug billionaire's face has got to be a plus.

Australian Mining Companies will have to source all their labour from overseas! (Ooops! Sorry, they do that anyway.)