well, i bit the bullet and i'm paying money to try out some "ethnobotanicals"...

in retrospect, though you didn't seem to take it poorly, i still feel my last post was unfairly abrasive towards you, bill, so my apologies. its been a long and stressful week for me.

psychedelics don't seem to have long lasting after effects in my experience, though i know for many people they do and a large part of it depends on frequency and quantity of use. i did get burned out on 2C-B a couple years back in hs, but it went away. i use psychedelics for exploration of myself and the world around me from unique points of view. i find a plethora of views to be useful - the more ways i have of looking at things, the more approaches and attitudes i have at my disposal to adopt or disregard at my leisure. its like looking through a kaleidescope, and if you dont like the picture just twist and adjust until its nice. i like to take opportunities to alter my senses and wake up and see the world as a beautiful place every now and again. every once in a while i wont have a pleasant trip but good still usually comes from it. its a few hours of oddness for a much longer sense of peace, awe, and so on. i find them almost, if not, sacred - tools to get in touch with my mind, my world, and my god(s). i didn't buy the cactus to find an alternative to pot, i bought it for the same reasons i do any other psychedelics, and the reason is far different than why i smoke pot or sometimes drink or do recreational drugs (to just relax, have some fun, whatever)

even with a few days without smoking i tend to feel lethargic, buzzed, and kind of not all there. while its not the same as being inebriated, its definitely a drug-like feeling, different from the perfectly clear and light feeling of sobriety. its not that it clouds my mind in that i'm stupid when i smoke, its that it makes me feel a bit more distant, a bit less with it, and a bit more absent minded, even when i'm not smoking. its that i want to cut back, and it would be nice if i could find a legal herb or drug that brings on a pleasant mood lift or dreamy feeling or something that doesn't seem to have a lot of unpleasant or otherwise undesired after effects. something that effects me only so long as the primary effects are still present. i don't want to cut weed out of my life, but its expensive (because its illegal) and it would be nice also to find a way to stretch my budget.

alcohol is a poor choice for obvious reasons, and tobacco smoking is worse, except that you can still, for the most part, function in any day-to-day activity (any non-physical activity, that is)

at any rate, so far i've really, really enjoyed this kanna stuff, but its not what i really want out of a legal high. i mean, don't get me wrong - its definitely pleasant, but its too stimulating, and it feels really hard on the body. i've gone through over half the gram between yesterday, and thats actually a good deal of use. i've snorted a lot of it, i've smoked a bit, i've shared some with others, and i've tried chewing it. so far the best effect is snorting. a small line (a bit less than you'd do for coke) split between both nostrils will burn a bit at first, but in a few minutes brings on a very nice rush of stimulation. i've noticed more than a couple times some slight pupil dilation. if you do too much it becomes more intense, but it is still very gentle compared to other stimulants. the drip is gritty and gross, but the comedown is VERY easy and almost relaxing. smoking is a more subtle but prolonged effect, and tastes better than snorting it. i still prefer snorting because the smoke is really hot. but it DOES make a bowl last a lot longer, and it makes the high quite a bit more alert and spacy for a bit. it wears off before the cannabis, making the come down even MORE comfortable. i didn't feel anything chewing, so i expect it must take more than with the other routes, as i only tried it once and it is apparently the most common means of traditional use. i like this stuff a lot, and its not snake oil - it IS an active drug. but i don't think its worth doing if you have an addictive personality. while it seems to have eluded the DEA thus far, it DOES have potential for abuse, in my opinion. if i do it once, i want to do more in an hour or two. this is the only reason i've been going through it so quickly. i mean i've done coke, i've done adderal, dexadrine, ritalin, and while it has a slight psychedelic leaning i'd still consider mdma more of a stimulant, but i like kanna better than these, w/ the exception of ecstacy. its not more powerful at all than these, just smoother, its not your normal stimulant. but it is a plant, and it doesn't tickle your nose like coke - it hurts your nose. pain is our bodies way of telling us "dont do that" but the pleasure i receive a few minutes later makes me feel like its worth it. i can only imagine what this stuff would do to you used like a snuff daily. smoking is harsh on your throat, but it doesn't seem quite AS bad. i'd suggest trying this, but your mileage may vary. (another great thing about it: its incredibly cheap...you can get 5g for less than 25USD if you know where to look!)

the blue lotus has been sitting in wine overnite. earlier i drank some with ~5g steeped in it, but it had little, if any, effect that i couldn't attribute to a little wine and some pot. i'll try it by itself and wait at least half an hour before doing anything else tonight, because i've been working for several hours and am about as sober as i can be. worse comes to worst i'll just get drunk

havent done the peruvian torch yet, but i froze it, thawed it (to help weaken the cell walls and allow for easier digestion and extraction of the alkaloids and chopped it up and mixed the flesh and the slimy, mucousy juice with some lime jello. it should be set up now. i'm saving it until sunday or monday. i tried a little spoonful and i couldn't taste anything bad at all. i think this may be a really good idea - there's always room for jello.

i'll eat it after fasting for at least 12 hours in order to be able to eat it all in one or two goes at it and in order to absorb it more easily and quickly. the jello will not only get it down easier, but if i need to purge it will help me avoid dry heaves without having something difficult to expel from my gut, such as solid food. i figure if you have to throw something up, jello would be among the easier things.

i guess the point of this post, or the main one, is that while most "herbal highs" are a bunch of bs, you shouldn't just write them off because they're not controlled. some of them really do have potential - and not STRICTLY good potential....i think it will be a bit before i order more kanna, i'm afraid i may end up developing a little habit if i use it too much. its not well researched at all, and theres a bit of uncertainty as to what the active ingredient even is, not to mention if its dangerous or not or how it acts on our systems. perhaps its best to avoid - yeah, it has many centuries of use to back it up, but so does tobacco and opium, and that doesn't make those good for you, either.

 

ugh, sorry for the appalling spelling and grammar, btw...i dont feel like proofreading

 

well, i ate the cactus jello last night. tasted great - like lime jello. even when you chewed up some of the bigger peices of flesh in it, you could barely taste the cactus at all. but the quantity of jello i had to eat! ugh....i'm surprised i didn't get sick from that alone....in fact, i didn't get sick at all, though of course there was some of the expected stomach discomfort.....

i wasn't able to finish it all, but i got almost all of it down. very little of the remaining jello had flesh still in it, but that doesn't mean some of the mescaline couldn't have leeched out into it or something....

anyway, i did definitely feel it, but it was not a strong trip at all. it was strong enough so that i am DEFINITELY interested in trying mescaline in some form again in the future, but it was by far one of the lighter trips i've ever taken.

i knew that it was supposed to be slow to come on, but i didn't feel much more than a few pre-psychedelic stirrings for a good 2 and a half to three hours after finishing the jello. of course, i ate the stuff over about forty five minutes to an hour, and all that gelatin surrounding it had to be digested a bit and then the cactus was still more or less in solid chunks, and so that would have to be broken down too, and THEN the mescaline absorbed.....that probably accounts for most of the long come up, apart from mescalines ordinarily lengthy come up. it also probably explains to an extent the lack of stomach upset.

the length of time which passed while waiting for it to take full effect was unsettling, a little uncomfortable (i got quite alert and a little restless and energetic.....tv seemed boring and a waste of time, i wasn't in much of a state to read, music seemed like a good idea but i didn't have anything that listening to really felt right....) and quite unusual for me, because being more experienced with things like mushrooms, acid, salvia, 2C-B and such, i'm used to feeling my psychedelics very quickly (less than an hour, if not less than half an hour or immediately)

whats more once you do feel mescaline, it takes quite some time to reach the peak, whereas its within the first couple hours of a mushroom or acid trip.....

the thing that got my attention the most, though, was that it really got me focused on myself and had something of a spiritual flavor to it. while coming up i managed to get some pretty good meditation in. while i never broke into the realm of full-blown psychedelia, i did manage to get in some good meditation and some good introspection in. i realized things about me that i had suspicions about, but which really bubbled to the surface and became aparent to me last night. i realized how i need to change my life to become a more happy and fulfilled person.

i found it odd, but even near where the peak should have been i was pretty relaxed to the point of almost falling asleep. in fact, i spent most of my time laying in bed if i wasn't meditating or doing other things id been doing early on. i think i did fall asleep briefly a few times while the drug was still in effect. the trip ended with an absolutely magnificent thunderstorm - which earlier in the evening i had been hoping, nearly praying for. we haven't had a lot of rain this year, but i love storms. all day and night we'd had pretty clear skies and i didn't think it likely that we'd get rain until today at least, but it really did happen, around 3oclock i think. it was a terrific (tho a bit too loud) storm.....very rejuvenating and made me feel wonderful.....i had VERY strange dreams.....

this stuff feels quite different from other psychedelics i've done, and i'd love some more experience with it, but it seems that peruvian torch and san pedro simply aren't very efficient means of consuming it, unless you make a really concentrated extract. perhaps in a couple years i will have the opportunity to begin growing peyote or san pedro or something...either peyote to eat or san pedro to extract...however i believe i'll KNOW when the time is right and i'll hear the call...until then, it's nice to know this is out there waiting for me, but i will just wait until its time.

 

Glad to hear it was a good experience.

Sucks that it wasn't full blown, it's worth the wait though.

 

yes, and i know this is something i will come back to in the future. at the time i thought i'd eaten nearly all of the cactus in the jello leaving behind just a few peices. upon examining it further in the morning i actually missed more than i thought at the bottom, possibly as much as 1/4 of the material, 1/3 at the high end. i think next time i'll make an extraction and either bear the taste and texture of cactus "tea" or try for a solid extract...

 

Good luck with that, you make me want to do it all over again..