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Amazonian

urban myth...

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Over the weekend i was getting into a bit of a debate with an old mushroom veteran about the myth that Magic Mushrooms contain Strychnine. I was also led to believe a long time ago that 'shrooms contained strychnine. But now am confident that they DO NOT have any strychnine in them. I have been looking for some concrete evidence to produce to this old mushroom veteran to put him in his place. I have been 'googling' for hours and still there is mixed opinions about mushrooms containing strychnine. I searched the Corroboree and only came up with this link that still has nothing that i can use as proof . So, is there any new research with evidence that i can use? Cheers.

http://www.shaman-australis.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=10208

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Over the weekend i was getting into a bit of a debate with an old mushroom veteran about the myth that Magic Mushrooms contain Strychnine. I was also led to believe a long time ago that 'shrooms contained strychnine. But now am confident that they DO NOT have any strychnine in them. I have been looking for some concrete evidence to produce to this old mushroom veteran to put him in his place. I have been 'googling' for hours and still there is mixed opinions about mushrooms containing strychnine. I searched the Corroboree and only came up with this link that still has nothing that i can use as proof . So, is there any new research with evidence that i can use? Cheers.

http://www.shaman-australis.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=10208

 

Both my parents used to indulge back in the day, i've had to go through both my mother telling me not to take mushrooms because of strychnine and my father telling me tabs of acid contained strychnine as the bonding agent.

http://www.snopes.com/horrors/drugs/bluestar.asp

There's some LSD strychnine propaganda...

As far as I know it all started with anti LSD propaganda and has spread to mushrooms from there. You can tell your friend he's carrying on the work of the 60/70s government's scare programs.

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acid dreams by lee and shlain on p188 claims the mafia tried to break into the acid market but did not have good cooks so they 'fortified' their products with strychnine,speed or even insecticide.

i recall reading somewhere that scully or someone similar had a personal preference for acid with strychnine and other additives and so added it to their products.

so i believe there was a basis of fact to this at least in the us market of the late 60's and early 70's.

t s t .

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speed is meant to potentiate lsd... no experience to back it up anyone verify this?

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I've heard people say they contain styichnine, mainly older people too.

A lot of them say if you peel the skins off before you eat them you don't get that sickly feeling as most of the strychnine is in the skins.

I thought it was all crap when I first heard it and I still do.

I know that if you make mushroom tea and don't consume the sediment you don't get as much of a sick feeling, so there does seem to be something that makes you feel sick.

Whether it is strychnine or not I wouldn't know.

Edited by Magicdirt

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Ahh ,come on. You've gotta have more than that. I suppose that there isn't a lot of literature that goes in depth on this topic. We gotta find more to put an end to this legend.

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http://www.bt.cdc.gov/agent/strychnine/basics/pdf/facts.pdf

This document states that it has "uncommonly... mixed with street drugs". Reading about the effects makes you really wonder why anyone would choose strychnine as an additive?!? I'd guess (sorry, still no proof) that that statement in the document was due to these unconfirmed urban myths, just to be safe. :wacko:

I got told this story as well, in fact when I was a teenager I stayed away from mushrooms believing strychnine to be the active ingredient, opting for the safer drugs like acid, speed and E. Good to see the propaganda worked.

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Just looking at some posts at the Shroomery. This guy has an interesting account which leads some to beleive of the strychnine legend ???

QUOTE:

This kind of thing has happend to a couple of friends of mine i was tripping with, this was on P. subaeruginosa.

They ate fresh subs, im not sure of the exact amount, and my memory isnt too good as i had eaten 3g of dried subs.

Ill try to peice the night together as best i can.

We started off as usuall, this was supposed to be a huge night of tripping for my birthday, i had brought 3g dried for me and 1.5g dried for a friend doing them for the first time, my other mates had hunted for some and ended up with two average sized dinner plates covered with mushrooms, im not exactly sure how much they ate, they claim to have eaten about a two handed handfull each in addition to some mushrooms tea aswell. I assume it was actually less than that as there wouldnt have been much more then that much there.

Anyway, the night began as usuall but, just as the mushrooms had hit me full force, before anything happened one of them left and went into the nearest town, after he had been gone for a bit one of my mates said he felt like he was dying, i didnt take much notice as i was beginning to lose my ego, i wasnt quite sure who he was or what he meant. Some time after that he passed out and apparently had some kind of siezure, i was outside at this point and didnt know what was happening. He had called an ambulance some time before he had the siezure and was waiting for them to arrive. As i came inside, i snapped back into it as i saw him, he really looked like he was dying, very pale, and this look on his face like he was giving up. He said it felt like his heart was beating really, really fast but wasnt actually moving any blood, he also felt like his whole body was just shutting down. I had no idea this kind of thing could happen, i was convinced that he was having a bad trip or something. I was a bit angry when he called the ambulance but its lucky he did, i didnt fully understand what was happening. Once the ambulance arrived they took him into it and took his blood pressure and heartrate, his heartrate was about 190bpm i think. They said he had strychnine in his system, i thought this was just them not knowing what was happening and blaming strychnine as its a popular myth around here that thats what they contain that actually causes the trip. Im not sure what they did, they gave him something to lower his heartrate and i think they mayhave done something to get rid of the strychnine, activated charcoal perhaps?

Anyway, we stayed at his while he was in the hospital, then his mother came home, i think they may have called her, she rang all of our parents and informed tham what we had been doing, i got driven home and my other mates either went home or to a mates place. So the usuall followed, furious parents, shouting at me while i dont know who they were or what i had done.

The day after i found out that the one that had left for town had also checked himself into the hospital with similar symptoms, although not as bad. The next few days i tried to figure out what had happened, at first i thought it was the paramedics assuming it was strychnine but then i looked up the strychnine poisoning symptoms, they seem to fit what had happened to him. I then thought he had picked dud mushrooms that contained strychnine, i asked him if he was sure and he said he was 100% sure he had the right kind.

He also apparently has documents from his blood test in the hospital saying he had strychnine in his bloodstream, i havent seen these but i trust theyre right.

So if anyone bothered to read that above post, be carefull with subs, dont eat more than is needed, perhaps take advantage of the lemon tek instead of increasing dosage.

END QUOTE:

http://www.shroomery...9831513#9831513 Its the eleventh post down.

Edited by Amazonian

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Off the top of my head I think strychnine is relatively restricted in the kingdoms, my knowledge is limited but i think it's restricted to the plant kingdom, and within that is restricted to the Loganiaceae family, with the Strychnos nux-vomica being the known plant containing it (and other Strychnos species.

http://parvati.tripod.com/strych.html

That's a response from shulgin re: strychnine and LSD, I haven't read it all, but an interesting note at the start re: no record of ergot alks and strychnine being found before in nature together.

Edited by gerbil

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Off the top of my head I think strychnine is relatively restricted in the kingdoms, my knowledge is limited but i think it's restricted to the plant kingdom, and within that is restricted to the Loganiaceae family, with the Strychnos nux-vomica being the known plant containing it (and other Strychnos species.

http://parvati.tripod.com/strych.html

That's a response from shulgin re: strychnine and LSD, I haven't read it all, but an interesting note at the start re: no record of ergot alks and strychnine being found before in nature together.

 

I was just reading that. , It is interesting , although it is soley on LSD. So , yeah, Strychnine is derived from plants ,not fungi. A book was mentioned in that link=The Botany and Chemistry of the Hallucinogens", by Richard Evans Shultes and Albert Hoffman. I wonder if it has anything in it on mushrooms. I am digging deep on this one .

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Off the top of my head I think strychnine is relatively restricted in the kingdoms, my knowledge is limited but i think it's restricted to the plant kingdom, and within that is restricted to the Loganiaceae family, with the Strychnos nux-vomica being the known plant containing it (and other Strychnos species.

 

Yeah this is about what I would say

I think it's also worth bringing up the point here that it should really be up to the 'strychnine believers' to support their position with anything more than old drug-lore that there is strychnine in mushrooms or LSD.

I have heard it said that blueing in psilocybes is caused by strychnine.

This site says the fatal dose in humans is

100-200 mg, but as little as 30 mg
and the LD50 in rats is
2.2 and 5.8 mg/kg in females, and 6.4 and 14 mg/kg in males.

http://www.the-piedpiper.co.uk/th15%28f%29.htm

This suggests that the amount of material (in the case of blotter LSD) capable of being consumed on a blotter would be far too small to have considerable effects... of course the LD50 doesn't necessarily indicate the threshold dose for perceptible effects - but does give an idea.

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there are other alkaloid with similar though apparently weaker effects than strychnine ,eg brucine.

dont know if medicos can differentiate them.doubt if they really did a drug scan for strychnine but i could be wrong!

historically ,when other people were selling inferior acid claiming it was his,owsley began colouring his batches.this lead to rumors of different effects apparently including the strychnine myth.

strychnine was i believe fairly widely available back in the late 60's.

t s t .

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I know that if you make mushroom tea and don't consume the sediment you don't get as much of a sick feeling, so there does seem to be something that makes you feel sick.

Whether it is strychnine or not I wouldn't know.

 

this idea gets around that our favourite fungus contains a protein that can't be digested.

speed is meant to potentiate lsd... no experience to back it up anyone verify this?

 

mmm it's pretty good

my FOAF can't judge too well since acid blows his socks off nearly every time, but yeah, good, worth a try. FOAF wouldn't take a little acid with a lot of speed though, do it the other way around.

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Isn't strychnine a leathal poison? Even the smallest amount could kill you? I was told by someone that the strychnine is what makes the psycilopsybin available for uptake into the blood or brain or whatever. I doubt it. You'd still have a poison in your system. I think the only way to find out is if you do some sort of extraction on a mushroom and analyse everything that you find.

I mean, i've read of certain drugs, proteins, enzymes and stuff not working because they're attacted to a larger molecule thats too large to fit through the synapse or something like that. Maybe they do have stychnine but it doesn't affect you because of this? Dunno.

cheers

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I am still searching . A few things though, it is interesting that some of the symptoms of ingesting strychnine are heightened senses ie; vision , sense of smell, hearing etc...???? . Apparently it is very bitter and is detectable at 1 ppm. My taste buds don't find mushrooms bitter, any one else? So as the search goes on, there is a case for both sides of the story. The link below might be enough proof, i dunno!?!?

http://www.magic-mushrooms.info/chemistry.htm

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OMG I can't believe this shit is still being circulated.

The old 'ohhh this is a speedy trip' shit and 'this trip seems strychninny'

seriously? thats a bit on par with mushrooms send you crazy and the pot that sent x crazy was sprayed with mr sheen.....

I have NEVER heard of mushrooms containing strychnine. I do not believe they do - look into some journal articles or research reports if you are doing serious hunting for facts, probably not best to rely on internet folklore here....

also how much speed could you really include on a piece of blotter paper and why the fark would you bother?

reeks of urban myth to me.. and some of the stuff brought up in this thread is what people used to carry on about while smoking cones 15 years ago... is it still going on?

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OMG I can't believe this shit is still being circulated...

...I have NEVER heard of mushrooms containing strychnine. I do not believe they do - look into some journal articles or research reports if you are doing serious hunting for facts, probably not best to rely on internet folklore here....

 

The less info you find the more likely it is that this is in fact complete bullshit. Do i even have to point this out?? If this were even remotely true you'd have some journal articles on it.

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HA! After a discussion with my older sister a few days ago about Psilocybe mushrooms, she also brought up this about them.

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i saw a paper on line refering to poisoning due to psilosybes in one specific location, in the us i think.

it was stated that the mushrooms were found to contain very variable amounts of a pea and that this sometimes caused an adverse effect.

a number of people had presented at hospital and so some decided to investigate.

t s t .

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orright, maybe we should start a new myth, mention this whenever magic mushrooms are mentioned in whatever situation you are in...

"you know I've heard that magic mushrooms have caused people to completely change their lives"

that might be a good one, scary but still true...

just a thought

edit: hey tst can you elaborate on what a pea is? and maybe where the shrooms in question were found?

Edited by meanies

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thanks tst... trying to access journal articles is always a piss off annoying web surf. Thanks for the link to the jatox article though.

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Meanies ,you too are passionate about your beliefs, just like 'The old mushroom veteran' who was trying to tell me that strychnine is in magic mushrooms.He was adamant . Since my interest in mushrooms has been rekindled i have been talking to select people about them and many say the Strychnine thing. I just want something to back my argument up. I think, as said, the fact that Strychnine comes from a plant ,wouldn't be found in Fungi. But then take a look at DMT,It is found in plants and animals,even in a toads skin. Maybe we should just let them keep their ignorant ideas and they will never be enlightened.

Edited by Amazonian

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I too call urban myth.

Strychnine is regarded as a very complex chemical for its size, and it would take quite an array of enzymes to mediate its biosynthesis. That such a suite of enzymes would evolve not only in the genus Strychnos, but independently in a groups of psychedelic mushrooms, stretches credibility beyond breaking point.

Not only that, but if there had been any credence to the myth then biochemists and geneticists would have scoured the Psilocybe genus for evidence of the enzymes and/or the genes, and believe me, a positive result would be well-reported in the most prominent of biochemical journals. News like that would not be left to hide its light under a bushel, either for scientific or for ideological reasons.

My guess is that someone confabulated the symptoms of mild strychnine poisoning with that of mushroom intoxication, and either through ignorance or through ideological motivation started the ball rolling. There are tens of thousands of poisons and toxins in the world, but there are many less signs, sypmtoms and actions that they are able to mediate. Just because two preparations share some similar actions does not mean that they have the same composition; heck, if they did, then there are many medicines and recreational drugs that could also be accused of being loaded with strychnine.

And note - a person's adamant insistence that something is true does not make it true. If that were the case, there would be many gods competing with each other over who created the universe, given the fervent belief of their adherents; there'd be a family of alien reptilians living in Buck House; the earth would be hollow; and Santa Clause would be breaking many speeding and tresspass laws each Christmas in order to satisfy the desires of little girls and boys.

The best response to folk relating this fairy story is to say "ah, that old pile of bullshit. Yeah, that was started by someone who didn't understand biochemistry".

Edited by WoodDragon

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