Benzedrine

I can assure you they had limestone where betel was chewed, not many minerals are more abundant the limestone. A reason for cockleshells being used might be due to other deposits like silica corrupting the supply. Also cockles are fished commercially to this day and so aquiring shells as a byproduct would seem like a very easy task. I dont know about the flavour difference but with the way betel quids are usually given admixtures for flavour I couldn't see it being a big issue. Sorry my cockleshell lime is long gone my gnomes friend, also a gnome, used it to do lines of hallucinegic snuff. I've wondered if coobas wattle could be used as a an alternative do you know how caustic it is? The temperature for liberating carbon dioxide from crushed limestone when in kilns is generally considered to be 1260C, this will create calcium oxide. The process of heating the lime then adding water to the result is always used to create hydrated lime. Other methods would be impratical and costly by comparison. Its a great chemical process for its sheer simplicity and its used by anyone from remote islanders to high tech factories. Stonehenge: Do not use garden lime, whether its the right stuff or not it is a bad idea and slaked lime could actually be either calcium oxide or calcium hydroxide. Again do not use this they could use and likely do use very low standards in its manufacture as it won't hurt the ground, too much and nobodies going to be dumb enough to eat it, right?. Look for it in asian grocery stores. If you can't find it then you could try buy Codex standard/food grade lime from an industry source, you may have to order more then you want but it will probably be inexpensive and you could use it on your garden later. Being in America you have literally hundreds of companies to source it off and it really shouldn't be a problem just make sure that buying lime that was meant to go into the food or pharmaceutical industry.

Torsten: Good post. I see where you are coming from when you talk about dispelling misconceptions before they begin. Why cockleshells are a major source of hydrated lime intrigues me now, as well. I must admit I have never thought about it before.

At a glance I do not believe dolomite will or dolomitic limes will be suitable as I believe it is only little more caustic then calcium carbonate, its getting closer though. Hebrew its generally 1/2 a gram of lime to one nut. Many people make their lime red to help with eyeball measurement. Also honey mixed with powdered peppermint that is then used to coat limed nuts can make them easier to chew.

quote: I think you will find that the lime used is usually not the same as garden lime I said a type of horticultural lime and there is more then one type of horticultural lime (I hope you knew that). Heres a link: http://www.chefsgarden.com/catalog/product...products_id=485 quote: or even the lime in cockle shells. I said made from cockleshells. quote: However betel lime is calcium hydroxide ... Any limestone can be used for this process. The lime used for betel chewing is almost universally made from cockleshells and that lime is generally made to be food grade that is why I specified it. I don't mean to offend anyone with a rebuttal (I do not mean to be argumentative) but when I state something and someone says my information is incorrect, I either apologise if I'm wrong or restate with evidence of the validity of my statements.

The lime is made from cockleshells and the amount used in a quid can strongly vary from user to user and country to country. The lime is supposedly the same as a type of horticultural lime though using such low grade material is not a good idea.

Jung only ever wrote the foreword and some notes about the I ching from the Richard Wilhelm "translation" of the work. Jung also wrote for Richard Wilhelm's unforgivable rape of the "Secret of the golden flower".

Betel causing cancer has always seemed unlikely to me. Most betel chewers I've met say that candied betel nuts cause cancer and throat problems. Also betel nuts were considered to be healthy by historical indian doctors and while I wouldn't blindly accept the things they say it would seem unlikely that could get it that wrong for such a long time. Surely people would notice that betel would cause such problems over time and start to discontinue use for that reason. Frankly I think betel being labelled as cancer causing is just a slice of someone's pie, since no real evidence is needed to back up the claim anyone could spread the disinformation. From untrustworthy pharmaceutical companies to alcohol producers to fast food restraunts, the list of people who could stand to gain from such an accusation is endless. It really is just another way the west invades other cultures by saying that native products are awful and then supplementing the gap artificially created with western products.

I found popcorn to be a rather effective cushioning device for mail. Airmail can be a bitch though I once put a laptop in a sturdiest metal box I could find, only to find the laptop smashed and the box with a huge dent in it. I swear I could of taken a mallet and hammered the box and not made a dent, I actually wonder if it fell out of the plane in midflight.

Pig swine affecting burials is a myth, a very long lived and now widely believed myth but still a myth. Muslims are judged by allah for what they do in life not for anything else. Also everyone gets ressurected just not everyone gets into the garden, some get punished for their misdeeds. If you can find a section of the koran that proves me wrong I will apologise, at the following link you can search the koran: http://www.hti.umich.edu/k/koran/simple.html While there look up [2.78] and call me Musa [26.45], just a joke. I'm not muslim either I just dislike myths spread about any group of people because lies nearly always have an ulterior motive that is not in the best interest of those who believe the lies.

It seems the myth that pig fat is some impassable barrier to muslims just keeps making a come back every year or so. Pig fat is seen as unclean and inedible by muslims, however there is nothing wrong with touching pigs or being around them. The koran encourages people to be nice to animals and pigs are not excluded from this. So there is nothing in islam that would encourage a supernatural fear of pigs. To further the point, muslims are allowed to eat pig meat if it is by necessity and I'm sure that the bombers see there actions as necessary. What I'm surprised to see is someone criticising jews on a whats probably a "watched" board, I mean openly plan a terrorist attack or talk about a murder but criticising jews or israelis on a "watched" board can get you on a list.

They seemed to have just about everything covered in spain then. I can't believe a type of lettuce and parsley was included. Makes me sad that the anarchists lost the civil war.

One true recipe does not exist. Many absinthes had opium added to them, also different artemisias were used. The best absinthes were really herbal liquers made from pure ethanol and the herbs while more common cheaper absinthes were made like whiskey with artemisia added to the original product and than brewed with a single distill run. Also dynamite was often added to fermenting barrels to stimulate stagnant yeast, so some original absinthe would have had a heart stimulant(dynamite) in the mix. Later absinthes also sometimes had ether added. My mind boggles at all the sorts of "different" absinthes there would have been for sale in paris alone. I think its better to think of absinthe as a type of alcoholic drink rather then a specific one. Absinthe like whiskey covers too large a range to pin down to specific recipe or even specific ingredients.

No offence intended by this and all hypothetical of course: Ephedrine can be brewed in large quantities and is a only a little more difficult to make then street meth. Also my gnome says from old day experience he can't remember ephedrine ever being difficult to aquire on the street, so my gnome would say its reasonably available, though admitably not as much so as meth which is everywhere. Although it would seem very unlikely that any of it would be naturally sourced. Also while I wouldn't do meth as I've seen too many people harmed by it, I wouldn't see the street manufacture of meth makes it worse than the alcohol we drink in the poorly made stakes. I mean the alcohol we drink has so much left in it from the poor brewing methods that it is almost inexcusable in this day and age to be drinking the fusel oil, trash yeast stuff we call retail alcohol. IMO The legal maunfacture of alcohol is as bad as the illegal manufacture of meth/ya-ba. I agree about the thai government, they've set a bar of corrupt fascism that western governments are struggling to get to. I'm sure that western governments will march on though, its only their incompetence that saves us from a similar fate.

On the 2004 pre-meeting gazette notice of the National Drugs and Poisons Schedule Committee lists "6.6 kava and kavalactones - considered for scheduling" at: http://www.health.gov.au/tga/ndpsc/gazette...te/g0402pre.pdf Looks like kava could well become illegal in australia unless I am mistaken. I would like to be wrong but as near as a law lay man like myself can tell it would seem to be the case. Since thats how mitragyna speciosa was listed before it became illegal.

A full on addiction probably not really desired in a shaman. On physical basis I'd say entheogen addiction no desired in a shaman, I mean to really lead people on a religious path is gonna be hard if you need to needle 5-meo-dmt every morning just to feel normal (not saying you do just an example of entheogen addiction). Also I mostly shamans are expected to be able to go extended trips and come back with wisdom not to perpetually exist in a trip. On a spiritual level I'd also say no, since shamans in other cultures were not always connected with entheogen use. It seems while entheogen use could be important other factors would be possible more important for shamans in an amazonian culture. I mean theres a big difference between someone who uses sacrament and someone who is shaman. I've heard of addiction to shrooms at least but I would say the substances are far less addictive than coffee. However people get addicted to birth control pills and panadol so its almost guaranteed people could get addicted to entheogens.

I tried to find exact sheduling information but I think the only way to get it is to buy it from the NDSPC. It might be online somewhere but I cant find it. I'm pretty sure that they try and keep the drug laws difficult to know so that you have to second guess what you do and so that some end up too scared to do anything. Its just so 1984 sometimes...

Nutmeg aromatherapy essential oil to my knowledge is used as a flea repellant for dogs(I'm stretching my memory back here and may be wrong). I can no longer find the information about the problems with essential oil use but I can remember when I first came in contact with nutmeg(as a psychoactive) there was very little sturdy information about it. However one thing that springs to mind was "do not drink the aromatherapy oil to get high". It could have just been a romour but I am pretty sure I found the information out from a reliable source. I have searched for where the warning is actually written and I will search a little more after this post. I think your best bet for an oil would be nutmeg cooking oils which I have heard are mixed with milk using an eye dropper. Nutmeg when I came into contact with it was a baked mush made from bread and several legal ingredients, nutmeg being the major factor. The recipe was passed by word of mouth and it was apparently invented in russian prisons, whatever the source it was a very unreliable drug. I can remember friends laughing uncontrollable one minute and perfectly fine the next, it was not particularly enjoyable but it had small moments of joy spread between a length of slight intoxication. One thing I truly remember was rare moments of surges of feeling through the body that was significantly enjoyable, one person who experienced the same surges from the mush told me privately that it reminded him of similar surges experienced with crack. I have since found that normal nutmeg on its own was far less fun than the mush form.