Scraping by and getting high - Murdoch Uni Metior

[Rev]

While iN perth i was alerted that someone had submeiited and had published an interesting article on getting/making Psychoactive substances for Uni students on the cheap

Its been recieed very well by the students i hear but poorly by the wowsers

here it is

page 1

http://metior.murdoch.edu.au/pdfs4/meti20M...0MAY04MM022.pdf

page 2

http://metior.murdoch.edu.au/pdfs4/meti20M...0MAY04UP023.pdf

A review in the West Australian (Wowser)

The West Australian- July 3rd, 2004

Cacti and cane toads high on students' list, by Charlie Wilson-Clark

With HECS fees spiralling, classes getting bigger and increasing competition for top jobs- one would have thought there was much useful advice a university guild magazine could provide students.

But the people behind the latest edition of Murdoch University's Metior magazine obviously believe there are far more pressing issues facing today's students- such as how to get high on a shoestring.

The magazine, which costs the Murdoch Student Guild $4000 an edition to produce, has two pages dedicated to the various ways students can manufacture hallucinogenic drugs from natural sources including cacti, cane toads and good old magic mushrooms. Under the heading Scraping by and Getting High, the anonymous author defends informing student about this illegal and hazardous behaviours with the claim that most university students will dabble in illicit mind and body-altering substances at some point so they may as well learn how to do it on the cheap.

But the author is not totally without ethics, stating that he "remains morally opposed to people making money from such activities."

Editor Aarom Wilson also displays some conscience saying: "Metior doesn't necessarily agree with this following article, but shit- it's too interesting not too print. Metior's advice, kiddies: be safe…"

Professor Steve Allsop, acting executive director for the Drug and Alcohol Office, said the article favoured titillation over responsibility. He said the information was inaccurate because it did not give the full picture about the dangers of using illicit drugs- to both the user and anybody around them.

The implication that natural products were safe was false, he said.

Guild president Mal Bradley stood by the article. He said Metior was a valuable forum for student expression and there were some warnings contained in the information.

Murdoch vice-chancellor John Yovich declined to comment but Nathan Giles, director of corporate public relations said the university did not condone the use of drugs and did not support the article.

[Rev]

Theres quite a few errors in there

though none i can see killing anyone - oops just saw that ingesting cane toad resin refernce and if someone gets hold of Hawaiian rosewood (merremia tuberosa) (?) they wont trip but they might well get a laxative effect perhaps

Its is a bit scary that they make it seem like its ok to import spores and such from o/s

and Theres no way youll find any seed company in Oz selling pkts of Ipomoea violacea - except here i guess

[Thelema]

HMM i thought spores were legal to import

[Salviador]

In the reference for shaman-Australis

"Australian legal seed providers for propagation and scientific study"

Succinctly put

[ 03. August 2004, 02:19: Message edited by: Salviador ]

[Rev]

Thel spores are definitely not permitted imports under customs

http://www.aqis.gov.au/icon32/asp/ex_casec...essionID=118803

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Condition C5174

Certain species of plants/fungi and plant products contain drugs or precursors of drugs that are prohibited under Customs (Prohibited Imports) Regulations 1956. Below is a list of those plant/fungus species and plant products that are prohibited under Customs (Prohibited Imports) Regulations 1956 as at 3 June 2004. This list is provided for information only and is subject to change. The Australian Customs Service website - http://www.customs.gov.au/ - must be referred to for current details.

Any prohibited [under Customs (Prohibited Imports) Regulations 1956] plants (or parts of plants, including seeds), fungi (or parts of fungi), and plant products that are found by AQIS Officers in imports, shall be referred to the Australian Customs Service. The quarantine import conditions for these items can be found on ICON under the plant/fungus species name. If the plant/fungus species can not be found, e-mail the ICON Administrator or phone an AQIS Regional Office.

Plants, parts of plants and seeds prohibited under Customs Regulations

* Argyreia nervosa

* Cannabis sativa (Marijuana) - Cannabis and cannabis resin

* Catha edulis

* Erythroxylon spp. (Cocaine)

* Ipomoea hederacea

* Ipomoea tricolor

* Ipomoea violacea

* Lophophora Coulter - Any species of this genus

* Papaver bracteatum

* Papaver sominferum (Opium poppy)

* Piper methysticum (Kava)

* Piptadenia peregrina (Anadenanthera peregrina)

* Rivea corymbosa

Fungi and plant products prohibited under Customs Regulations

* Chewing tobacco and snuff intended for oral use, imported in an amount weighing more than 1.5 kilograms

* Fungi that contain psilocine or psilocybine

Treatment T9901

1. Treatment is required when goods are found to be infested or contaminated with live quarantine pests.

2. An appropriate treatment (or treatment options) will be determined by AQIS, in consideration of the pest or pests requiring treatment.

[ 03. August 2004, 11:17: Message edited by: reville ]

[Fenris]

It concerns me to see this sort of article published freely. I understand the eagerness to share information on a topic that is close to the authors heart, but all good things must come to an end and I see the dissemination of information on this topic, a sure way to quickening that end.

I think a high profile just encourages the regulatory bodies to tighten regulations.

Talk lightly, but carry a big cactus.

[Torsten]

I see they liked the SAB site so much they even used our pictures

[spaced]

Gonzo:

I think a high profile just encourages the regulatory bodies to tighten regulations.

I doubt they could tighten the regulations any more than they already have in WA. Just about everything the author suggests is already illegal - except perhaps inducing mind altering states with Nicotiana tobaccum. The only threat is that they might try and enforce some of their rules - many of which are absurd and would be dismissed by anyone with a good overall understanding of Perth local botany and related pharmacology. I thought they trained lawyers at Murdoch university? Perhaps something good could come out this.

I don't know. . . Now that all this stuff's mainstream I might start up stamp collecting.

[Rev]

One of the dangers of taunting the law is that it might be enforced

One of the dangers of enforcing the law is that word gets out and all of a sudden people know so much more about a topic the authorities wish would stay quiet.

Perth is such a small place that this article and the sort of people who advocate it make big ripples in the public consciousness.

Its making people aware for better or worse

[spaced]

I could see one way in which a medium such as university guild newspapers could be used to good effect. Imagine if, what?, three years back now, just as it was being announced that Salvia divinorum was heading for schedule 9 all the student newspapers around the country featured articles on S divinorum, what it is, how it works, how to grow it, where to get some, etc. This would generate a huge interest in people who perhaps were unaware of such things. They may have different reasons for their interest - conserving endangered species, "getting high on a shoe string budget," - for whatever reason, plants would sell, be swapped and traded and find their way in to many home gardens in the short amount of time during which the "legal window of opportunity" had been left open. This would be an ideal time to aim for more widespread public interest and it would make bureaucrats tread very carefully indeed before making their next move.

[Rev]

I dont know what your uni was like spaced

but mine (murdoch) had long since been sold out when i arrived on the scene

Thats not to say there arent some die hard resisters but the freedom and strength of the student body has been so eroded im suprised and pleased that this article even made it in

Most people i knew at uni were either middle class live at home conservatives at uni thanks to their parents

or like me and working nights to bridges the gap between austudy and the poverty line who have no time at all for any kind of activism

I look back and i dont know how i got by on the income i had, it hardly seems possible. If i wasnt in perth where the rent is relatively (dirt) cheap i couldnt have made it through

but i also feel cheated at having in essence missed out on much of the university experience in spite of actually completing a degree (?)

Either raise austudy to at least the dole level and/or make student earnings up to 14K tax free threshold (work less time for more $)

[ 06. August 2004, 01:59: Message edited by: reville ]

[mescalito]

reville:

Either raise austudy to at least the dole level and/or make student earnings up to 14K tax free threshold (work less time for more $)

HERE HERE!

[spaced]

Originally posted by reville:

I dont know what your uni was like spaced

but mine (murdoch) had long since been sold out when i arrived on the scene

Hmm had Curtin Uni sold out when I arrived? Well I can remember not long before I finished there they won a business of the year award, largely owing to their ability to secure large numbers of international students.

I can't recall where I read this or the name of it but someone had done a study of students reasons for coming to university. They compared students from more modern times with those from 50 years back. The contemporary students said they were there more or less to make money, get a good job etc, whilst the students 50 years ago believed it would expand their understanding of themselves and the world they live in.

Could it be the students who are driving this phenomenon or is it the media who constantly portrays images of successful graduates. "Curtin graduates get jobs" so they say. Not "Curtin graduates spend their lives wandering around bare foot staring up at the sky spaced out on cane toad venom."

Most people i knew at uni were either middle class live at home conservatives at uni thanks to their parents

or like me and working nights to bridges the gap between austudy and the poverty line who have no time at all for any kind of activism

A bit classist their Rev? What about the age old problem of students who reluctantly live at home with their conservative parents who certainly aint no welfare mommas, who experience far less freedom than those who don't live at home, and who have to also work and yet don't receive Austudy because they are classed as dependent on their conservative parents. On top of that they are constantly labeled as "middle class live at home conservatives at uni thanks to their parents."

Freedom if such a thing exists can only to be found in its true form locked away in the mind. I doubt many people go through uni without some struggles, if not economically, then at least emotionally. I doubt I'll be heading back there in a hurry but if I do I hope I'll be living comfortably, independently and simply showing up for enjoyment and intellectual stimulation.

[ 09. August 2004, 00:12: Message edited by: spaced ]

[occidentalis]

I have had a word with the author of this article regarding some of the errors present. It seems that the metior editor insisted on, well, editing, and inserted some of the more concerning bits in an attempt to lighten it up. However there were some other errors such as the merremia tuberosa one that could have been cleared up fairly easily ( )

In all I think the article could have been presented a little differently - ie with less emphasis on 'getting high' and more on traditional cultural and modern shamanic uses. This may have made it less of a target from the "drugs are bad mmkay" crowd. But I do think that discussion of psychoactive plants in the public domain should be encouraged and I really support articles such as this, in essence, being out there.

[anoyn]

G'day creq,

I am the author of the article in question but alas for reasons I cant disclose I could and can not put my name to it, so please lets not play public guessing games on this one...

I wrote it before I had explored many of the joys and knowledge SAB (which was inpart a source but mostly from other web sources), so alas as suggested I did make a few mistakes for which I appologise, I am not also happy with some of the myths the editor perpetuated in editing the article before press (eg LSD and battery acid ect and cutting back on some of details).

I worte it to fill in one of Metiors regular columbs "Scraping by", the article had the getting high title when I picked it up and said that it was shit as it had a very capitalist and chemical feel to it, so I rewrote pretty much the whole thing within the context of the existing columb and a couple of days...

Such information (despite my research errors that I do regret, eg merremia tuberosa) needs to be made available to the a multiplictity of punters, otherwise they may thing the speed and e are all that are out there and that you have to pay so criminal to get them!

As a person who has done a substantive amount of drugs in my time, for quite sometime I was pretty much unawares of some of the more interesting natural alternative (no primaries) out there, just trying to get the word out though I conceed there maywell be better ways to do so...

One thing the article was about was moving away from a capitalist blackmarket system for scoring towards one where we have a closer more personal relationship with what we use from nature.

I concur with Creach's position that it could have had a more modern shamanic or traditionalist angle, but to be frank that was considered but rejected mostly because that is not anywhere the headspace of most uni students. Basically what I reckon is that many people in our society need start opening the doors of perception in general or moreso before they might even going elsewhere.

[but maybe that is me judging people!]

How you say, information is power, and yes that is a at least two way street and fucking with suck issues can indeed back fire but in this instance I dont think that it did...

Bring down the ire of conservative "society " was to be expected but hey maybe even wanted, and I must say that what occured at least media wise was comparitively piss weak from what I was expecting!

There was not one letter to the Metior editor on the subject dispite lots of people talking about the article within its various interpretations, not sure about the West but I dont think so...

Anyway enough for now. I am open for comments, questions and ripping a new one!

Ta Ta

[Rev]

Yeah they were classist comments

but you shouldnt think they apply to you

You have certainy taken a unique and indirect pathway on your travels and have remade yourself over on your own terms

Perhaps they were a little broad and connecting the term 'middle class' to it an unnecessary overgeneralisations. That i can apologise for.

They just shat me no end sitting in labs listening to some inane drivel youd expect from High school students. I asked myself whatever hapenned to an enquiring mind? even rebellion?

so much time on their hands and nothing to concern themselves with but comfortable pop culture.

(yes i know i am prone to unreasonable anger over things like this, just as well i have my partner as a tempering balance. I know im an angry man I have a pathological feeling that if life isnt difficult then your doing something wrong )

[ 10. August 2004, 22:34: Message edited by: reville ]

[gomaos]

A bit classist their Rev? What about the age old problem of students who reluctantly live at home with their conservative parents who certainly aint no welfare mommas, who experience far less freedom than those who don't live at home, and who have to also work and yet don't receive Austudy because they are classed as dependent on their conservative parents. On top of that they are constantly labeled as "middle class live at home conservatives at uni thanks to their parents."

Oh, this poor, por rich kids...

Now if they wanted to be "tough and free" like Rev, all they'd have to do is tell their rich pig parents to go fuck themselves... they'd be free immediately.

But they don't do it... cause it's so much more comfy being a rich kid...

Not classist at all, Rev, just telling it as it is...

[Rev]

I dont want to start a fight here gom

I know what spaced is getting at there.

There are spoilt rich kids out there but there is also a chasm akin to the students version of "the working poor"

Too rich for welfare and too poor to get by without it. This can put even more stress on the situation sometimes than for people like me whose families effectively 'disbanded' but was officially recognised i had no family support

This demographic has grown considerably owing to johnnies changes to the welfare rules that make it so you are officially dependent on your parents till you are 25, and after you get austudy which has no rent assistance.

This is ridiculous and many parents dont see the sense in being wholly financially responsible for their children for a period longer even than the traditional adult age of 21. The children pay tax, vote, drive, drink, can marry without permission, get credit cards, loans and on and on but the govt still sees them as dependants of their parents

So johnny has effectively raised the poverty line to envelope a whole new group. Deciding to study is now a more certain commitment to a period of poverty than a clear investment in your future.

This means unless you have the whole extreme family breakdown thing that your study alowance is based on your parents income, meaning that you get shit all. (And getting that family breakdown thing has been made very hard, supposedly to catch out "cheats". However most of the people supposedly cheating the system were doing so cos there was no other way)

this even applies when you dont live at home and as this is the norm - how many house you know of can fit a family of 3 to 5 adults without conflict

And as the limits are set so low a lot of people fall into the area of being trapped at home but having no income

This can limit where and if you can afford to study what you want

I know this group cos they were at work alongside me

[MrBumpy]

I get paid by centrelink But I had to earn around 16k last finacial year to be classed indepedent, and thus make me eligible.

To be able to work enough I had to switch to part time study (even though my contact hours still totalled more then some people doing full time study in arts and business). Now that I am recieving payments, I'm not able to earn more then 6k a year, otherwise my payments will be reduced/stopped.

Since I have changed degrees and studied part time, I needed to sign an agreement with centrelink that I will finish my degree by a certain date.

Now, that annoyed me because I had to do part time study to earn enough to be able to get the payments in the first place.

its a crazy system... and all the forms and shit you have to fill out.. I hope I never have to go on the dole.

-bumpy

[gomaos]

The reason that i get involved in this discussion is that I have kids, 2 which are at the right age to go to Uni soon, if possible, and another one who will be ready in 8 years or so.

I'll never be able to grow enough kratom trees to send them to Uni, and really it should be possible for any student with enough intelligence to go.

The whole private school system and with having to pay for education should have long been a thing of the past, in fact i thought that was happening in the 60s and 70s...

it's only because of conservative, right-winged politicians, and the ppl who for them that this is not so.

Fuck all those conservatives to hell!

Johnny first of all and his stupid government.

The rich are only rich because they are GREEDIER than others, not because they deserve anything...

only because you don't devote your whole life to the god "mammon" shouldn't be reason enough for your kids not to get the education they need.

Australia's school and uni system sucks!

[ 12. August 2004, 19:22: Message edited by: gomaos ]

[spaced]

gomaos:

Oh, this poor, por rich kids...

Now if they wanted to be "tough and free" like Rev, all they'd have to do is tell their rich pig parents to go fuck themselves... they'd be free immediately.

But they don't do it... cause it's so much more comfy being a rich kid...

Not classist at all, Rev, just telling it as it is...

I agree with you gomaos, although I don't feel the need to tell my parents to "go fuck themselves." I have a much better relationship with them now that I live several hundred kilometers away. They're even starting to see things my way if only just a little. I think Mr Bumby has taken the smartest option - defer for a year, work, make yourself however much you need to be classed as independent, get some austudy/abstudy payments and then if you would like to, move out of home on a steady if only modest income. I could have taken that option, in fact I probably had many opportunities - although I may not have been aware of all of them.

Fortunately people who are united through a common interest have little time to bitch about other peoples financial status. I'm simply trying to alert people of the possibility that even though they may consider themselves hard done by, the grass isn't necessarily greener on the other side of the fence and if it is its only because its full of NPK and pesticides.

[themagicmushroom]

rev said - Deciding to study is now a more certain commitment to a period of poverty than a clear investment in your future.

That'd be a really funny line, if only it wasn't so true

[Guest electro]

off topic ... apologies

"The rich are only rich because they are GREEDIER than others, not because they deserve anything"

not always ..

my gf's parents are whats youd class as rich coz my gf's dad bought and built a business up over the last 15 years.

he has worked his ass off to go from working 3 jobs at a time to buy a business for 30k and turn it into a multi million dollar company... out of respect for him & the hard work hes put in i have to make it very clear that not all rich people are greedy and not all of them "dont deserve it" ...

he is one of the most down to earth , hard working and deserving blokes i know ,.. he uses his money wisely - makes money with money rather than making money to use money ...