theobromos

Err, when a stem is broken.

The serriola smells of very strong bitter lettuce. The virosa smells of opium.

I believe the bark is much better.

Sorry, I shouldn't attack the defenceless - but it is just so much fun.

The first cut of the capsule contains the most papaverine, which is probably resposible for much of the difference between the mental effects of morphine and those of opium. Subsequent cuts contain very little. Wet cannabis can be smoked with hotknives very easily. The steam makes it a little hotter if you use large amounts but it is always better a little at a time. Pace yourself and you can get more smoke into your lungs and condensed where it does the most good.

Both kill with amphetamines. But without amphetamines the mice just slept. Not particularly loud, either. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/2202603.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk/england/1633252.stm Neuroreport 2001 Oct 29;12(15):3277-81 Methamphetamine toxicity in mice is potentiated by exposure to loud music. Morton AJ, Hickey MA, Dean LC. Department of Pharmacology, University of Cambridge, Tennis Court Road, Cambridge CB2 1QJ, UK. Methamphetamine (METH) is a drug of abuse used for its stimulant effects. Its neurotoxicity is very variable, and is increased by a number of factors, including crowded conditions and increased ambient temperature. The effects of such factors are increasingly important, with the widespread use of these stimulants at nightclubs and 'raves'. Here, we compared the effect of another dominant feature of nightclubs, continuous loud noise, on the toxicity of METH in mice. We found that mice exposed to loud music exhibited longer lasting stereotypy, an altered place preference in the open field and had more seizures than mice given METH in a quiet setting or when exposed to loud white noise. A greater increase in reactive gliosis was also seen after exposure to METH and loud music. Thus, METH appears to be more toxic when taken while exposed to loud music.

Both the dried and fresh plants of many (all?) Passiflora contain cyanogenic glucosides. These are not toxic in themselves but the fresh plant has active enzymes which when released by chewing react with the cyanogenic glucosides to produce hydrogen cyanide (aka hydrocyanic acid, prussic acid, the "parent" acid of the cyanide salts). This is a defence against being eaten. The fruit usually have much lower or no cyanide activity as their purpose is to be eaten.

Due to the instability of cathinone you would have to do this as quickly as possible. Two weeks sitting and soaking would not be an option. The fresh leaves liquidised with a powerful liquidiser with the solvents and filtered within minutes would be a better way. Heat is also a bad idea. A huge volume of pressurised (dry) CO2 bubbled through an ethnaol/water mixture will, apparently, remove the ethanol at room temperature. This is purely theory, I haven't tried it.

no need for this at all I reserve the right to follow other trains of thought within a thread and correct misapprehensions that do not relate to the title. this is true, so long as it does not break the forum rules. In this case it did hence the edditing on my behalf [This message has been edited by Adrian (edited 28 August 2002).]

I did not say my English is flawed but that your comprehension of it is flawed. Do you believe that making such a statement (and other misreadings of what I said) will change what I said to fit your worldview? We aren't at the Lycaeum now, you can't have my replies deleted because I pointed out you are wrong. There is no point continuing a discussion with someone who cannot understand the subtleties of the English language. Anyone who reads my posts and your replies above will know you are uncomprehending. Murple, I am not jealous nor angry, I despise you and pity you, the English language is a treasure house of delights you will never appreciate.

Wasn't it only horrible for half the people who tried it and nice for the others?

Never take tropanes (hyoscyamine, scopolamine and atropine) or the plants that contain them in an effort to avoid toxicity with Fly Agaric. The whole thing is a misunderstanding. Muscarine is not found in toxic doses in Fly Agaric. The toxin is amavadin. The only way to avoid this would be to prepare it in such a way as to avoid the amavadin. Unfortunately this would probably involve resin columns. Memory loss does not just last for the trip, some folk get permanent memory losses and memory difficulties and personality changes. Never for the better. Brain damage is very easy with these drugs. My advice is not to do them unless you think you have a calling to be a shaman. In that case you already have one foot in the World of the Dead. Also the other side-effects would cover a page of A4 paper just with their names.

Perhaps their lungs were full of heavy tar or scorched by overhot pipe smoke?

I am pretty but not misinformed. The Trujillo coca from Peru has always been considered the best for chewing. I did not say E. coca is not chewed but that it is less desirable. E. coca is very active but not considered the best by connoisseurs. Nor did I say that Bolivian coca is all the same. Nor did I say that E. coca is not found in Peru or Colombia. Nor did I say that most of the coca in Peru and Colombia is E. novogranatense. What I did say is that E. novogranatense is mostly from Peru and Colombia. Which is true. E. novogranatense is the plant of choice for collectors. By "Bolivian plants" I mean "plants that grow or have grown or whose ancestors grew in the country known as Bolivia". I am sorry that I cannot make that any more simple for you. Your inability to understand the burden of simple English is fatiguing. My English is nearly always precise. Try reading it carefully before you try to correct me. I have spent no time in Bolivia, the place does not call me to visit it. But I know an epic when I hear of it and your little adventure holiday was not an epic. Read Wade Davis. [This message has been edited by theobromos (edited 12 August 2002).]

Isn't it pretty? It is special because I haven't tried it and don't know where to get it short of a holiday in the Himalayas. It is one of the less lethal "narcotics" that have been reported to be used by Tibetans to help pass those tedious winters. The more desirable plant for chewing and cultivation is E. novogranatense, mostly from Peru and Colombia. The Bolivian plants, while the species is more famous, are better for industrial preparation of cocaine, by preparing the ecgonines and semisynthesis. If anyone wants to spend some time and effort on introducing this plant to new areas it would be best to find the E. novogranatense. How is the political situation in Peru nowadays? I tried to read murple's article at Erowid but his ego got in the way. I find it disturbing that someone could describe their two week holiday in Bolivia as "epic". He really should re-read Homer's account of Odysseus' ten year journey of return from Troy if he has forgotten the meaning of "epic". Anyone who wants to know about the botany and use of coca should read E. Wade Davis' account of his travels in this region in "One River".

Some varieties of chocolate, called criollo, have comparable levels of caffeine as coffee. Some green teas will have the same caffeine content as black teas, possibly a little more bound by acids in green tea so not so visible in a HPLC extract?

Do I get a thankyou for posting exact scientific information on cultivation requirements and a bit of detective work on my part? I would think that with only a few plants to start with it would be best to cultivate indoors where the perfect conditions could be maintained and growth maximised. As the plants suffer from temperatures of 10 degrees C or above 35 I would be loath to plant outside anywhere. But I have no love for coca, my Holy Grail would be Lancea tibetica.

The salts in plants may not be very soluble, the phytates for example. AND IT IS NOT SUPERCRITICAL BUTANE. You would need some heavy engineering to contain the pressures necessary for supercriticality not a can of lighter fluid. Liquid butane or butane under pressure or pressurised liquid butane. Supercritical sounds wonderful but is wrong.

I really think there is no concern with muscarine in Fly Agaric, it has never been detected in active concentrations that would harm a fly. Amavadin (or amavadine) the vanadium chelate is probably the cause of all the nastiness. There are no reports of the effects of amavadine itself but medical use is made of other vanadium chelates (for diabetes?) and the side-effects are very reminiscent of the nasty effects of Fly Agaric.

I can't remember posting this here so here is an interesting snippett or two from the US Government: Mary C. Acock et al Annals of Botany (1996) 78; 49-53 The most important bit was that plenty of cocaine, 0.6-1.22%, was produced by both E. coca and E. novogranatense at about 22 metres (72 feet) above sea-level. These two species they referred to as Coca and Novo, respectively. There is a native name for Novo but I forget it. Produced at some USDA/ARS laboratories at Beltsville, Maryland. I looked this up and it seems to be at an average of 22 metres above sea-level and is close to the coast. They don't quite say they raised them at their own laboratories but give the latitude at which they were grown, the latitude of Beltsville is the 39ºN they quote. The compost was a mixture of greenhouse potting media (sandy loam) and Promix BX (not a Govt endorsement, they say) 7:3 by volume. pH 6.1, 4.7% organic matter. Water as needed. Fed 125 ml of Peters soluble fertiliser (N:P:K = 20:8.7:16.6) at an N conc of 500 mg l¯¹ every fourth watering [surely continuous feed is generally better?]. Novo, they said, is clearly the more vegetatively vigorous of the two, outproducing Coca by 118%. It also preferred high light levels, confirming the previous reports that Coca was a shade-lover but Novo was a full sun plant. For both it was said that temperature over 35ºC retarded growth in previous reports and the plants they had on a day/night cycle of 35ºC/31ºC in this study failed. Previous reports had said that temps going under 10ºC also retarded growth. The optimum temperatures for production were 30ºC/26ºC for both species. The optimum Photosynthetic Photon Flux Density was 250 µmol m¯² s¯¹ for Coca and 400 µmol m¯² s¯¹ for Novo. This was in the second year, they were greenhouse-grown for the first year then transferred to growth chambers with cool white fluorescents. They were given a 12 hour cycle for light/dark, but the first 90 minutes were spent fading in and the last 90 minutes were fading out to simulate outside light conditions (presumably in Northern Peru). Humidity was controlled to a vapour pressure deficit of 1.13 kPa. Their second harvest of leaf was after 19.5 months from seed. The young leaf was said to be low concentration compared to the mature leaf. The bench space required in the growth chamber for nine plants was 0.9 x 0.75 m. Headspace was not given.

Liqueur is so much easier.

120 mg of smoked DMT having little effect? This chap has a rare form of MAO enzyme, I would hazard.

People have died from less than 10 paracetamols, women are more sensitive as are alcohol drinkers.

And bromoSTP is active at the same dose as STP, the former of which New Scientist said caused gangrene from an ergot-like effect in some cases. There is something to worry about if your LSD lasts three days (18 hour with a minimum dose). I haven't seen the original reports so this is just hearsay. However occasional busts have turned up many millions of doses of bromoSTP.

As an idiot (which is legal where I come from in the UK, I showed the nice police officers my bag full of Fly Agarics and they were very impressed)... But I must say low doses are much more fun, the ideal party drug if you could only get the dose right every time. Reported muscimol:ibotenic acid ratios are more or less irrelevant as the procedures that detect them usually cause some degradation of ibotenic acid to muscimol. It is likely that a fresh, luscious, undamaged, gorgeous, plump and young Fly Agaric contains only ibotenic acid and traces of muscimol. Whrever it grows. Researchers who know what they are doing report the muscimol and ibotenic acid together as combined isoxazoles. John, did you have a bad headache for a few days afterwards? This could be the ibotenic acid. [This message has been edited by theobromos (edited 30 July 2002).]