voacanga africana

[Thelema]

a well known overseas vendor has seeds of voacanga for reasonable bulk price, I was wondering if anyone had any bioassay experience with this, it seems to be thoroughly legal to import too, as it doesn't contain ibogaine?

[gomaos]

Careful, Thelema, it's definitely not legal.

I ordered some once from the US and it got witheld by Quarantine.

It said on the notice: "Voacanga seeds containig Ibogaine"

Ibogaine is an illegal import.

I didn't even know that they did contain ibogaine, I thought they just contained "voacangin"

I posted here in the forums about it and Torsten said, if i paid quarantine to treat the seeds, customs would keep them anyway.

A couple of months later I got a phone call and a warning from them.

If I get caught again trying to import something illegal, I will be fined.

Haven't ordered anything from overseas since.

[Thelema]

makes me wonder where they got the info that they contain ibogaine. Sounds like bureaucratic wank to me.

if that happened to me I'd at least ask them for some sort of scientific study showing that ibogaine had been isolated from them!

[friendly]

There are minute quantities of ibogaine in the seeds.

Omchi was the first to import V. africana seeds into the USA. They became a big hit.

After a while, Klaus from Herbal Shaman found an African source and ordered a very large amount.

US Customs stopped it and held it up for over a year on the ibogaine charge until it was proven they had so little ibogaine that you would need many kilos of seeds for one dose, whereupon they released them.

During this time period may have been when you had the difficulty.

The USA now allows importation of V. africana seeds and root bark with no restrictions.

The root bark is purportedly greatly superior to the seeds and I have prepared a semi-crystalline acetone extract which I hope to be able to try reasonably soon.

If you do manage to get some seeds, try chewing a few. As little as two seeds can produce a nice though subtle shift in conciousness. Larger doses increase the effect.

You might ask your customs bureau if their ban is still in effect.

[Torsten]

In australia the quantity of ibogaine is irrelevant in regards to customs laws.... which makes voacanga an illegal import.

[Thelema]

so technically they could bust me for importing star jasmine leaf?

[Torsten]

funny you should mention that. I've heard this story from a few sources now, so I doubt it is all that confidential....

The phytolabs at SCU were recently given a contract by customs to analyse some herbal material seized at brisbane airport. It was labeled as Trachelospermum, but customs believed it might be iboga (I think because it was imported from africa). No ibogaine was found in the herb and it was released.

[friendly]

Trachelospermum jasminoides root (bark?) contains very small amounts of ibo. alkaloids. It would take many kgs of root (according to the percentages of actives I have seen listed) to get anywhere with it.

That being said, there was recently on the news a report of someone here in the USA hallucinating and throwing a stone Chinese lion statue through his neighbors front glass door because he thought he was being attacked. Culprit is supposedly the "...several cups of jasmine tea." he consumed prior to the episode.

This was on the VPL list and when I mentioned T. jasminoides, someone indignantly told me I "..didn't know what I was talking about' T. jasminoides is not jasmine." Oh, well.

Life goes on...

[theobromos]

It is possible to make an extract of Trachelospermum asiaticum, bought as the TCM herb, with definite ibogaine-like effects. Perhaps just from the voacangine. It is always a good idea to boil the trachelospermum with a bit of hydrochloric acid for a while to split the bisindole voacamine to the active voacangine.