Most over-rated herbal

[Zen Peddler]

What was the herbal or ethnobotanical (legal) plant that was a yawn for you?

Catnip? Wild Lettuce? Lagochilus inebrians? Heimia?

[ballzac]

D. All of the above?

To be fair, I haven't tried all of those. But everything I have tried that is not well known to be 'good', I found useless... for getting 'high' that is. I've pretty much given up on anything that there is even debate about whether they work or not. They can have other uses though. Damiana, california poppy, Salvia splendens, hops...

[Zen Peddler]

Hops buds in your pint of beer to make you feel VERY tired suddenly...

[Torsten]

I think as plain herbs they are just too mild for most people to appreciate. I have to say that after all the hype for me lago was a bit of a let down. Then again lagochilin itself was acomplete knockout.

Heimia resin is pretty cool too, but I am not a big smoker, so the plain herb is just too weak.

It wasn't till I started working with Calea that I really learnt to appreciate the more subtle mind altering substances.

This sort of discussion always reminds me of the arguments in the 90's about whether Salvia divinorum is active or not. About half the people said it was and the other insisted it wasn't. The following 10 years taught a lot of peple to be more respectful and showed it was 100% administration, mind set, and user error that led to salvia failing for so many. Today we would laugh about such a suggestion. And don't think that this is just because we have stronger extracts now - at the time there were 5:1 extracts readily available [which is definitely potent enough].

[Foo]

Hops are a great sleap aid. The poppy isnt advertised anyware that its a great :get me the fuck high: drug

[kadakuda]

dagga for me. i like it, and enjoy smoking it with other stuff, but as is i have nothing positive to say about any kind of sense alteration. but like the salvia thing, who knows really...often times it is jsut us and how we use it.

[Gunter]

Channa, aka Sceletium

Just doesn't seem to be very attractive in terms of effects

not that it doesn't work, but it is just not something i can justify using from my own experience

maybe extracts of the plant would be more interesting

[ballzac]

Don't get me wrong, I think this thread is great, but...I can't help think a "most UNDER-rated herb" thread would provide more useful information

[Auxin]

a "most UNDER-rated herb" thread would provide more useful information

Or a 'most often misunderstood herb'. I find that most times people say ____ is a worthless dud its simply because they expected it to do something other than what it does best. I've seen people expect calea to get them high like weed, ashwagandha root to get them drunk like alcohol, catnip to act like anything from GHB to meth, etc.

Most disappointments are due to ignorance... sometimes ignorance born of deceptive marketing but more often due to the user simply not reading enough. It may just be cultural, many kids are attracted to drugs simply because they are taboo and thus dont put much thought into them, others are taught to respect and understand them, and others simply want a quick escape and in the end they tend to end up with the classic escapism drugs after toying with damiana and banana peels.

So in my opinion even ashwagandha leaf and unroasted peanut skins are very much worth while... so long as you know their uses.

[ballzac]

Yep, peanut skins are fantastic, especially when the peanut's still in them, they're roasted and salted, and you eat them while drinking beer.

[Zen Peddler]

Good comments and all probably true.

If you expect more from something than you were ever likely to get then I guess there is no surprise.

I guess a thread 'the herb that most surprised' would be better. And Id then go panax ginseng hands down...

[Psylo]

toying with damiana and banana peels.

 

Only active after a good spray of mortein.

[Zen Peddler]

Channa, aka Sceletium

Just doesn't seem to be very attractive in terms of effects

not that it doesn't work, but it is just not something i can justify using from my own experience

maybe extracts of the plant would be more interesting

 

For me its a little 'odd'. Bit of serotonin; bit of edge at the start, bit there but not really doing anything I guess Id say.

It reminds me of that feeling when you cant find the right CD to play.

[focus]

I think as plain herbs they are just too mild for most people to appreciate. I have to say that after all the hype for me lago was a bit of a let down. Then again lagochilin itself was acomplete knockout.

Heimia resin is pretty cool too, but I am not a big smoker, so the plain herb is just too weak.

It wasn't till I started working with Calea that I really learnt to appreciate the more subtle mind altering substances.

This sort of discussion always reminds me of the arguments in the 90's about whether Salvia divinorum is active or not. About half the people said it was and the other insisted it wasn't. The following 10 years taught a lot of peple to be more respectful and showed it was 100% administration, mind set, and user error that led to salvia failing for so many. Today we would laugh about such a suggestion. And don't think that this is just because we have stronger extracts now - at the time there were 5:1 extracts readily available [which is definitely potent enough].

 

Torsten, did you make the lagochilin extract yourself? I have been interested in this substance since a company we all know started claiming it as the main active ingredient in a smoking mix and certain capsules. (I'm sure the products were actually sprayed with synthetic cannabanoids in reality...... however...)

I have made a tea from the foul tasting Turkestan mint, couldn't smoke it much due to horrid taste and thickness but got a mild sedation from it.

What did the extract do for you?

[Ambient]

Only active after a good spray of mortein.

 

ROFL! noooooo! haha, I've only ever heard of ppl doing that to bud.

Wild lettuce will fk you up if you have allot of it (like allot) I had all but give up on it yonks ago when I was first trying all the legals I could get my hands on. Didn't feel much the night I drank the tea, but who dam! I was a zombie the next morning, felt incredibly tired, so pretty much no positive effects.

Leonotis Leonurus & Nepetifolia are mildly active if you vaporize a good bit, but only mildly, not really worth it for the taste imo, much easier to vape a tiny tiny pinch of bud.

Worst thing you can do with Leonotis leonuris is make a tequila extract..... seemed like a good idea at the time, but dang that has a nasty aftertaste I was a bit devo caus I put a decent handfull of bud in there as well, though the wild dagga would give it an extra kick... which it did... just of the wrong sort, tastes disgusting now

[opiumfreak]

what is the most UNDERrated herb?

[hutch]

and unroasted peanut skins are very much worth while... so long as you know their uses.

 

Could you elaborate on that? I eat a kilo of dry roasted peanuts each week and the shells go on my garden....what am I missing here?

[nabraxas]

Could you elaborate on that? I eat a kilo of dry roasted peanuts each week and the shells go on my garden....what am I missing here?

Along the same lines as the banana peel legend, a rumor that smoking peanut skins could get you high started among the late 1960s counterculture. As with banana peel, it takes a lot of fiddly effort and any resulting "high" is pure placebo.

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Purported_legal_highs#Peanut_skins

[hutch]

http://rationalwiki....hs#Peanut_skins

 

so I'm not then....thanks for that...I smoke enough shit as it is without out one more placebo

[Zen Peddler]

I was just raving about wild lettuce extract on another thread

[tryptamine]

Its the laws fault. They have been banning the more fun ones since the 1930s. Whats left are for the most part mild, toxic or take considerable effort to unlock.

Kratom was a good one for a while but they got it. LSA seeds, DMT carriers, Ephedra, Khat, Weed, Shrooms, Poppies . . . they got them all.

Whats left that really works . . . that really gives a pronounced effect without being overly toxic (like say Datura)?

I know some people are special and claim to get an MDMA like effect from Ginseng or Maca or whatever, but for 99% of researchers this is not the reality.

Plenty of useful plants that are still legal, things like Coffee and Guarana to wake up or Calea for dreaming, but what is there that gives a strong euphoria or altered state that is accessible to the average researcher and still legal? Not much.

Perhaps the future will see the discovery of herbal isolates that work? Or combination of these with enzyme inhibitors. Kind of like Ayahuasca, I mean if one was to try a DMT carrier on its own without MAO inhibition they would likely write it off as shit too. Perhaps there are other combos still awaiting discovery?

Edited May 26, 2011 by tryptamine

[Zen Peddler]

MDMA like effect from Ginseng or Maca or whatever, but for 99% of researchers this is not the reality.

Sure thing, Im one of them. Perhaps I am the very person you are referring to here.

Ive been trying to work out whether this is becuase I suffer from slightly low serotonin in normal life and then when i comsume a pretty large dosage of ginseng maybe once a month I get some pretty decent effects. Not always I might add, but certainly occasionally.

I gave a similar dose to some friends and they also experienced similar effects. Quality and dosage is probably the reason ?

Ive also had a few nights where a decent smoke of ashwaghanda following a few beers has given me a decent buzz - although this no longer is the case.

Im probably a freak - my threshold dosage of X is very high whereas with old owsley's gear im SUPER sensitive now days

Edited May 26, 2011 by Zen Peddler BlueGreenie

[CβL]

Why the heck is Yohimbe in that wiki list?

[Auxin]

I dont think (unroasted unsalted) peanut skins are placebo. A long time back I used them repeatedly and they were consistently quite mildly active as a sort of calming anti-anxiety sedative. Granted once my blood was saturated with THC metabolites all the time the effect got too subtle to notice and a decade later when I quit pot I never went back to re-test but I did use them numerous times 17 years ago lol.

So thats my first hand experiences, at least a dozen of em, every one positive until my brain was numbed out by bud.

Note that nabraxas' link also lists sinicuichi as a complete placebo and catnip as essentially placebo, it doesnt seem to be a well informed source or at least has no appreciation of subtlety or any effect at all beyond 'classic' recreational drug effect.

...and for the record I have no plans to re-test because smoking stuff filled with aflatoxins seems less wise now that I'm older and less suicidal

Edited May 26, 2011 by Auxin

[ballzac]

Why the heck is Yohimbe in that wiki list?

 

Yeah, that's weird. It may not be hallucinogenic (I have no idea) but it is definitely psychoactive. I'd probably rate it higher than khat as a stimulant.

Find a reliable reference and edit the wiki page. That's what wikis are for!