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edit rant aint productive

Quickly looking in the legal forum has one of the main threads of relevance http://www.shaman-australis.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=26539&st=550 So as far as i'm aware and understand, it's past the submission stage, now we wait for their move and response after accounting for and reviewing the submissions in relation to their proposed legislation. I'm not aware that anyone here could fully answer your question, you'd have to talk to the authorities and ask them how they are going with it, which you probably wouldn't get a proper answer anyway. It hasn't gone away if that's what you are asking, afaik. Just my opinion, though i reckon one of two things, they will drop legislation in when there is a lull in social drama to solidify their propaganda regarding dangers of substances and ultimate society protection, or they will drop legislation during hectic public times so majority of people have no idea, no care and no reaction, smooth sailing for ultimate erosion of human rights. wow that was insightful gerbil, it's either put it in the face of the public or hide it from the public, i guess in a 50 50 world either is possible so my comment is pointless, it's like if you hold your breath you can't breathe, it's one or the other, unless ya want a third mixed option, though more complex ratios are as known outcomes as a 50 50 outcome anyway, to paraphrase my comment is stating the obvious and meaningless haha

grow up

I dont think thats responsibe at all. If anyone want to put in the effort they will find what they want. Maybe a pm would have been more appropriate than posting on the open fourm... Nothing now stopping a bunch of bogans with chainsaws and woodchippers

The WWW contains a lot of bad info about this plant, several websites and questionable trip reports exist that claim the plant is entheogenic. I believe that this should be well understood, for example you mentioned Schultes, Hoffman, Wasson etc, what people tend to claim is that one of these men claimed the plant was used by mazatc shamans. When they define coleus as active it is typically as an entheogen, something that it does not appear to be. As for smoking it to demonstrate that it is active, I do not believe this counts as proof per say. What is the active ingredient? How can it be identified and extracted to demonstrate that the activity is coming from it and not some other factor, such as the inhalation of burning material? Have you ever produced an active extract or do you have any chemical data that indicates what exactly is the active ingredient? I knew this guy who would smoke hair and he swore it got him high. I knew kids that put toothpaste on cigarettes and smoked those, they said it got them high. I'd like to think that if Coleus is active that it is active in a way that isn't comparable to toothpaste and hair, which i bet synergize really well with weed.

... or MAYBE it was the joint?!

neither Schultes nor Hoffman ever claimed that coleus was entheogenic. neither did Raetsch, nor Ott, nor did Wasson. Read the citations, it all goes to the 1962 paper by Wasson, who never said it was entheogenic, only that he received conflicting information about it. Plants of the gods was mostly ghostwritten by Raetsch, including early editions lacking his name. Not one of those men ever stated that Coleus was entheogenic and used by natives as a replacement for Salvia. They all refer to Wassons paper. You can read that here: http://www.sagewisdom.org/wasson1.html You mention Ott, well here is a paper from him on the subject, note that he claims there is no evidence to suggest that Coleus is psychoactive. http://www.sagewisdom.org/ott2.html So where is the first hand evidence where anyone saw or participated in a ceremony where coleus was employed by mazatecs? Where is a single publication that claims it is entheogenic that does not cite the Wasson paper where he never makes such a claim? Where is a blind study where people compare it to placebo? Don Alejandro as you may know is a mazatec shaman that uses Salvia and other entheogens, he has stated that Coleus is not used and that it was only grown as an ornamental. please feel free to provide the name of a mazatec shaman who uses coleus.

There is no awesome this isn't! :D

Back in the late 90's. When S.d. was new and the flavor of the month, people were claiming extracts of 100x. I never believed any of the claims for higher concentrations, as most of the mnanufacturers were fly by night operations that did not have the knowledge or necessary equipment to concencrate and titrate such products. One company sent me samples--without request--of their products, which went all the way up to 100x, and I could not tell the diference between any of them. They all looked like bunk untreated leaf with nothing added. There was no discernable difference betwen the 5x and the 100x. There were only two trustworthy, real, standardized to strength extracts out in the early days. One was sold as 'incense', consisting of depleted leaf onto which a measured amount of Salvinorin-a was deposited and came in a 5x and 10x vial, while the other was a full-spectrum 5x which contained all of the S.d components concentrated to five times normal strength and re-deposited on depleted leaf. Neither is still available commercially. Arpund the time I was working on the paper 'The Other Psychoactive Salvias' (which can be found on many sites worldwide by goopling the title and 'by friendly') I discovered that the hardheadedness of some can be mitigated by having them smoke a few hits of one of the other psychoactive Salvias, such as S. splendens, S. coccinea, S. argenta, etc. This often relaxes them enough to allow the experience to unfold by removing the normal mind's inclination to ignore or resist the S.d. effects.

I am not sure I believe in the myth of the intelligent human. I mean, how would you know? As for the people I have seen drawn to psychedelics, well I can't say they aren't varied. Being one of the dumbest people I know I still realize that human assessments of intellect are themselves fraught with flaws. We have a conflict of interest in regard to evaluating our selves, others and our species. In general those who are confident about their intellectual capacities seem to be those who often have the smallest intellectual range, despite frequently being well spoken. In an academic setting pseudo-intellect is regarded as intelligence. I find it ironic that in dogs some people measure intelligence by the obedience of the dog, I would think the opposite, that those who are the most obedient and the most able to conform to the expectations of authority are the least intelligent. The dog that doesn't listen is the smarter one, it knows you aren't the boss. I have seen psychedelics cause some people to suspend reason, kind of like Christians, if the bible said 2+2=9 then a lot of Christians I know would believe it and never think about it. Any acceptance of authority in an absolute sense implies stupidity, this is the most clear in those who believe themselves to be intelligent, thus perceiving their own authority and not questioning it. Anyway I have seen some psychonauts do the blind faith thing where a trip tells them that 2+2=9 and they believe that they have gained some valuable insight. Certainty in our species seems to be the hallmark of stupidity.

to me, intelligence is high working memory capacity + joining the dots in a novel way ("creativity"). insofar as psychedelics help you in the creative process, give you a new and different perspective on matters that enter your mind i suppose they do enhance some component of "intelligence". on the whole i gravitate towards this community cos i've always personally found trippers to be a clever and insightful lot. or at least a bunch of people who are interesting to me. at the same time, i really think this sort of sentiment breeds what i coin "psychedelic snobbery" , convincing yourself that you're one of the select few who "gets" it and anyone who doesn't is nowhere near as clever as you are. it's really an insidious attitude to take. so i riddle you all this: is there such a thing as a DMT bogan, and would you believe me if i told you that me and my compadres have witnessed with our own two eyes such a marvelous mythical creature?

maybe thats mostly what it is... psychedelics can just help you realize how stupid & ignorant you are.. once you unerstand that, you've made the first step towards actually become a little more intelligent.. but to even take that kind of lesson (or any other deep & meaningful stuff) from an experience then you probably have to have a basic level of intelligence in the first place... i think maybe it's the old thing they say about psychedelics just enhancing what you've already got... if you're pretty switched on already you might take it deeper, if you're already psychotic you might get more psychotic, if you're stupid then you're just gonna stay stupid.. of course all this is kind of pointlessly generalized.. but anyway 'intelligence' is only a relative thing & subjective & if defining yourself as such is wholey dependant on someone else being stupid then i don't really see the value of the definition.. & to define yourself as intelligent based on this & actually believe it, i think would be a very unintelligent thing to do.. & no i'm not trying to sound intelligent

I agree, that's why I just call them as they are labelled, or what the grower calls them unless an obvious mislabel. I think people changing the names causes half the confusion, like changing serra blue to true blue. Serra blue can be traced to Sacred Succulents, kk 242 can be traced to Knize and you could get collection data from them for classification. But trying to find out what a true blue is leads to confusion in my opinion. Like this plant in question is labelled a macrogonus, only so many people collected and sold that named cactus, only so many imported them to NZ, maybe Knize, Koehres and maybe a few more recently etc, you could through a process of elimination get a good idea where the original seed source came from by comparing known samples of those cacti. Or just call it a kick arse lookin cactus. Upto the owner I suppose.

I have always been reasonably intelligent, but it took psychedelics for me to realize how stupid/ignorant/arrogant I am. For that - I am eternally grateful.

Isn't 'true blue' made up? By Teotz if memory serves. Looks similar to some KK Macrogonus/Peruvianus pics I've seen. Whether you use the Macro or peru name would depend if yuou are a splitter or a lumper, a personal preference and no more based in fact than each other as far as I can tell.

I do not view macrogonus to be a valid name anymore. Me neither. Variation within this species is just so great that many cactus sprecialists from the past should have just thrown all of the Peruvianoid Cacti into one big group and call it a species. They are variable, so what? Most species in the Trichocereus family dont deserve their own name.

I agree with the above very good points. In addition, I think it sounds plausible that people with higher IQ would tend more so to be attracted to exploring and developing their minds through psychedelics. On the other hand though, I'd expect lower IQ to correlate with less "noble" uses of these substances. Of course it depends on lots of other variables, such the "Big 5" personalty construct known as Openness to Experience (if I remember correctly, this correlates with higher IQ). The definition of intelligence is also key. The most dominant theory (CHC theory) posits several facets to intelligence. Some, like processing speed and fluid intelligence, I'd expect to remain stable or perhaps even decline through psychedelic usage (through heavy use). But other "kinds" of intelligence, such as the creative component in Sternberg's Triacrchic theory I would expect to increase.

yeah intelligence might not be the best word to use, as psychedelics are also associated with creativity which is typically a different quality to intelligence. so perhaps psychedelics enable increased mental capacity, and to which faculties this is directed depends on the individual. I would say inquisitive people are drawn to psychedelics, irrespective of their intelligence.

I think its dangerous ground when you start to compare your intelligence or whatever against others. Its not uncommon that frequent trippers see themselves as smarter or in someway elite to society. This often seems to be a result of the use pf psychs rather than an actual higher intelligence. Having said that there is also people you meet that consider psychs to have opened up their learning processes and increased their intelligence without a bulging ego. The other side is that there are lots of people that eat handfuls of these things and are still total knob heads without any thoughts of compassion or concern for others. These substances can give you insight into many things that you may not have otherwise considered but they also dont automatically raise you above society as a whole. Could it be that you see other trippers as smart because you relate to, or share their ideas more easily? Or maybe you are just lucky and have a brainy bunch of friends. I do think these things can raise intelligence if used with the intention of improving intelligence

The book is entitled: Medicinal Plants of the world. Includes 320 medicinal plants and a quick guide checklist of 900 of the most important and well known medicinal plants of the world. Its got everything in it prettymuch -

When you hear hoofbeats, think horses not zebra. True most of the time.

my sanity slips i wonder whos my saviour? its my garden

It's Trichocereus peruvianus var. "True Blue", there is no such thing as T. macrogonus.

Someone gave me a fascinating book on medicinal plants that has a selection of a huge amount of oplants and their medical properties. The following plants caught my eye: Adlumia fungosa - action: narcotic Aerva javanica - action: narcotic Corydalis cava - action: sedative, hallucinagen cypripedium calceolus - action: sedative, mood enhancer, tranquiliser. Any one have any knowledge of these plants??