Peyote Won't Rot Your Brain

[emad]

In the first study of its kind, researchers have found that peyote -- for now, the only legal hallucinogenic drug in the United States -- doesn't rob regular users of brain power over time.

While the findings don't directly indicate anything about the safety of psychedelic drugs like LSD and mushrooms, they do suggest that at least one hallucinogen is OK to use for months or even years.

"We really weren't able to find any (mental) deficits," said Dr. John Halpern, associate director of substance abuse research at McLean Hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts, and co-author of the study, released today in the Nov. 4 issue of the journal Biological Psychiatry. Hallucinogenic drugs have long fascinated researchers, who are now studying whether they hold the potential to treat mental illnesses like depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder.

But little is known about the long-term effects of hallucinogenic use. Part of the problem is that many users -- such as LSD aficionados -- take a variety of other drugs, so it's hard to tease out the specific effects of psychedelic drugs.
http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,69477,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_2

[Teaser]

1. It certainly has long term effects

almost everything does. It's a matter of teasing out those effects. LSD, for example, tends to hard wire neurons together in your visual cortex. Hence the flashbacks you get, years after heavy use.

[flamin lib]

2. Worst effect I had using drugs was

that when using I could see the answer. You know, the answer to Life, the Universe and Everything. I saw it all. Everything was plain and all things were in harmony. It was beautiful.

Then I woke up next morning and couldn't remember it. I could remember the feeling of sublime understanding, but not the answer.

Frustrating . . .

[Nihil]

5. Have had that effect without drugs

> I could see the answer. You know, the answer to Life, the Universe and
> Everything. I saw it all. Everything was plain and all things were in
> harmony. It was beautiful.

It has only happened a few times but that total "one-ness" was just so
fantastic that I can see why people use drugs to recreate it.

If I could be sure to get the same effect, I'd probably try them too
but the knowledge that it can happen without any additional substances
has kept me off that track for years ...

(The few times I've indulged with friends didn't produce anything
particularly wonderful but that might be largely down to the fact that
I don't smoke ... any beneficial effects were probably smothered by the
complaints from the lungs!)

[htuttle]

8. Octagons....that's the answer

I don't recall what the question was, but I know that I was supposed to remember that the answer was octagons....or had something to do with octagons. Hell, I don't know -- I was tripping on mushrooms. :shrug:

In any case, I know what you mean...

on edit:
I also just remembered that it was psilocybin mushrooms, not peyote.

[Dogmudgeon]

3. Interesting -- resurgence of interest in "classical" psychedelics

Not so much LSD as mescaline, psilocybin, and hoasca/ayahuasca (DMT + harmaline).

In fact, the Supreme Court is going to hear a a case from the Brazilian Uniao Vegetal, which wants to be allowed to use Hoasca in the US, following the lead of the peyote-eating Native American Church. Sandra Day O'Connor believes the group will be allowed its sacrament.

Several groups advocating for ibogaine-containing plants are also looking into filing similar requests. (Ibogaine is not only psychedelic, but has anti-addictive properties as well.)

Most of these drugs are known to have very low toxicities, so the issue of safety is usually moot. Stay tuned ...

--p!

[mntleo2]

4. Peyote Is A Religious Gateway

Meaning it is a gateway to other dimensions, from what I have been told. It is not for regular use, it is to reach a place of higher conscientiousness not for recreation. Holy men and women used psychedelic mushrooms and mandrake in the Middle East and Africa, so the Native American used peyote in this country for similar reasons. Jacob's wife Leah gave mandrake to her husband, according to the Old Testament and though many feel this was as for an aphrodisiac, the mandrake root was also used by seers and prophets to gain insight. Women often used it by inserting it in their vagina with a special stick, thus the reason you often see the image of witches riding a broom.

In the Old Testament account (Genesis 30:14), Leah got her son Reuben to find the mandrake plant after harvest, and then she gave it to Jacob. And while it says in the scripture that Jacob lay with her after giving it to him, she tells Jacob she has come to 'hire' him meaning she was paying for him to have sex with her in exchange for the mandrake. Leah had 4 sons at that time, 12 in all, while her sister Rachael, the one that Jacob loved (he was tricked into marrying Leah by his uncle), had only two sons, so many scholars say this story is told is because Rachael wanted more children and thought it was unfair that Leah get the benefit of the aphrodisiac mandrake. However there could be other reasons as it was seen as a payment, and for sex. The mandrake had other uses as well, as we know. There are indications that Jacob was a holy man, as he had visions, such as the ladder going to heaven full of angels that he went up and down upon....but I digress. The holy man was a kind of king, or a judge, before they had kings as rulers in the tribes being formed.

BTW opium also shows no long term damage to the body either. The problem with opium is that tolerance levels double after about 2 uses, and it is no longer effective at the same amount, thus why people dies so often from overdose ~ they cannot calculate how much to take so that they get the effects. Our brain chemistry is literally made for it and thus addiction is swift.

My point here is that those plants were not taken recreationally, there was specific reasons for ingesting it. Most of my info I have gotten from Native Friends, books and scholar friends. There is an interesting book about the mushroom called "The Sacred Mushroom" which is weird, but interesting none the less.

My 2 cents

Cat In Seattle <---who has never tried any of these plants or fungi, but would if I knew how to prepare for it properly and if it truly was a doorway to God.

Edited for clarity

[SteppingRazor]

7. It's a gateway to where now?

Having taken peyote, I can safely say that the only place I went to was Tijuana, where I went insane for about 30 hours.

On the road trip down there, I recall that the normally brown, dead California countryside appeared to me to be a forest, complete with animals and whatnot. Those extreme hallucinations were thankfully brief, though. The rest of the time was more similar to your standard mushroom trip -- albeit a very long one.

So, certainly, peyote is a shitkicker of a hallucinogen. I've also tried LSD and mushrooms, and neither of them produce those sorts of hallucinations, nor does the trip last as long.

For the record, no, this isn't a doorway to God. This is a chemical that produces an effect in your brain. Nothing more. Of course, if you happen to think of some really deep stuff while under the effects, then maybe your own thoughts can get you closer to God or something. So maybe, indirectly, you'd be right.

[Celebration]

9. need to do it under a shaman's supervision

that's what I heard. It is probably a matter of dosage, environment, purity, etc. I'm not particularly attracted to trying it. But I am not sure why it should be illegal.

[benburch]

6. But who can handle the vomiting?

Ewww... Peyote might be the trip of a lifetime, but the vomiting they say you can rely upon after taking it has turned me off lo these 28 years since I got curious about it.

[NNadir]

10. Synthetic mescaline doesn't have this effect.

It's a surprisingly simple molecule for the magnitude of the effect.

I'm surprised that the drug hasn't been more of subject of illegal synthesis. It is relatively straight foreward to make, the starting material being gallic acid, a molecule that is industrially obtained from wood.

[Dogmudgeon]

11. There are hundreds of Mescaline congeners

For instance, Peyote and San Pedro cacti each contain mescaline, but they also have different types of chemicals that are similar to mescaline. They produce different kinds of "trips". DMT-containing plants, such as ayahuasca/hoasca, have similar variations. Most of the cactus-produced chemicals are single-ring alkaloids like mescaline, technically called phenalkylamines. Ecstasy (MDMA) and amphetamine are also in this group, but neither are known to occur in nature.

Mescaline isn't synthesized often because it has a very low dose efficiency. It is a "conoisseur drug." A threshold dose is around 100 mg, and 400-800 mg is required for a full entheogenic experience. LSD is 2000 times as powerful by this criterion; Psilocybin/Psilocin is about 50 times more potent, and the mushrooms can be grown rather easily. So a thousand doses of mescaline would weigh about a half a pound, while a thousand hits of LSD would weigh in at a tenth of a gram.

Alexander "Sasha" Shulgin, one of the original "psychedelic chemists" and the inventor of the medically-useful iophetamine (which can be radioisotopically "tagged" and traced through the body), has written two books about the two major classes of psychedelic drugs: PIHKAL, or "Phenalkylamines I Have Known And Loved," and TIHKAL, or "Tryptamines I Have Known And Loved." He's also discovered several new drugs that have useful, interesting, or "abuse-prone" effects. Fascinating reading, even if you never intend to take any of these drugs. Shulgin has also allowed the technical information to be distributed on the net, and they can be found fairly easily.

--p!

[NNadir]

12. I am familiar with these compounds, and I get your point.

I suppose the purpose of making illegal drugs is mostly to make money, and there wouldn't be as money in making mescaline as there would be in making more potent compounds. Maybe people do widely synthesize mescaline, but not commercially.

I recall way back when reading a paper on the phenalkyamines that tied their activity, which was rated with something I recall as "mescaline number" and their UV spectrum. I recall that many analogues were investigated, maybe numbering into the 100's IIRC. I would guess this paper was published in the early 80's, at least this would have been around the time I was concerned with that general subject. I don't have the reference now, however.

One of the more famous phenalkylamines of course is MDA, or "Ecstacy." All of the amphetamines are also in this class, as is the widely (legally) abused drug, Ritalin. I note that the propyl analogue of mescaline, 3,4,5 trimethoxyamphetamine is said to be very similar to mescaline in effects, but is far more potent. Mescaline is a phenyl ethyl amine where as the amphetamine analogue is a 2-amino propyl analogue.

[Mabus]

13. Don't move around

I've been to several peyote ceremonies. One of my uncles is a Peyote Road Man in the Native American Church so it is something that I've been around all my life. I wasn't moved/inspired to participate in ceremonies until about ten years ago when I lost both my grandmother and mom in less than a year. My best advice - because it has worked for me - is not to move around after ingesting it, especially after the first round of it. Then again, if I've vomited then I can eat more at the morning feast following the ceremony. I don't know how much experience you have with Indian ceremonies but I was told by those with more experience that peyote was like doing a sweat lodge - sometimes the medicine is more intense than other times.


Typically when I've gone to ceremonies the peyote is passed around and you take as much or as little as you want. The first time, on advice by others, I took a small amount for each round. I think it was the third time I participated in the ceremony that got a little bolder and took more. I was fine until I started moving around (went out between rounds for a smoke) and then I got sick.


As for it being the trip of a lifetime if you're doing peyote just to get off rather than using it as medicine then it is a good thing you sick. It is serious stuff and shouldn't be used for amusement. For many of us it is a sacrament and isn't recreational.