"Legal Highs" and Legal Lies

I make no secret of my love of and advocacy for cannabis and many of the common psychedelic substances. They are fun and they have quite a lot of benefits for their users, despite what the anti-drug propagandists might have to say about them. I have, however, spent quite some time experimenting with some of the less well known and often legal alternatives to some of these drugs and I have had mostly disappointing results. The idea is attractive, of course. I would love to be able to trip or get high without the fear of legal issues or having to go out and find a good black market source for the substances that I enjoy. Sadly, most of the reports about the unregulated sort of drugs and their efficacy are questionable and some are completely absurd. There were a few of these substances that stood out among the others, though. Anyway, I thought it might be fun to discuss some of the things that worked, the things that didn't, and the ones that I think are just silly.

So which of these the legal drugs worked? That depends on how one defines "worked." There are lots of things that can make one feel altered. It doesn't even have to be a chemical that stimulates the change. Running or eating spicy food can bring about euphoria because they trigger the mind to respond to the "pain" that they cause. While this is a sort of high and it shouldn't be dismissed, I wouldn't classify those things as effective in the context that I am using here. To be specific, when I say that a drug worked, I mean that it altered my mind in a way that could not be achieved without the use of the substance.

Morning Glory seeds did actually make me trip but not very hard and they required a fair amount of effort for very little reward. First, one must find untreated seeds. Producers will often coat the seeds with a substance that will make you sick if you eat them. That being the case, this is an important step. Getting untreated seeds is not impossible or even difficult but you can't simply walk into a garden supply story and expect to find them. Next, the shells must be removed which is easier said than done. When you finally do consume the seeds, you get an almost acid trip. They contain LSA which is similar to LSD but less effective (and I believe less healthy but I could be wrong about that). When I was given these seeds years ago, I had quite a lot of them so I was able to get to know this drug pretty well and I was rather underwhelmed. They caused a trip that was very much psychedelic but it never got as weird as mushroom or acid trips can get. There was also very little visual element to the experience. Aside from tracers and some mild "wiggles" at the edges of my vision, there were no hallucinations to speak of.

San Pedro works pretty well but one has to consume a very large portion of some awful tasting cactus juice. I am hesitant to include this one because while the cactus is legal to possess (in the United States), the mescaline that it contains is super illegal. The process of preparing the drink is pretty straight forward. You dethorn the plant (while trying not to jab your hand with the spines), remove the skin and core, and cook the fleshy bits in water at low heat until you are left with a thick slimy liquid. Finally, let it cool and serve. Not surprisingly (being that it is full of a very well known psychedelic drug), you can get a pretty good trip with everything one would expect from a drug of this type. I vividly recall seeing things that looked like broken crystals when I closed my eyes during the trip, which was a very interesting hallucination for me as my visuals tend to be more symmetrical and orderly than that. The problem with this is that the concentrations of the drug in the plant are not very high and, as a result, one must drink much more of the juice than he or she would want to. This is made worse by the flavor which I would describe as tasting the way that nail polish remover smells.

I never was able to get a good trip from salvia but many people do. I have actually discussed this issue with others and I have come to the conclusion that I just had a weak batch. Anyway, you smoke it. It makes most people trip very hard but it can also be dysphoric and a lot of people end up freaking out. Personally, I believe that if one has the choice between another psychedelic or salvia, he or she would be better off taking the other psychedelic regardless of its legal status.

The ridiculous things that did not work (or that I was unwilling to try), are interesting in their own right. Most of the reports about these types of "drugs" are myths that just won't die for some reason. What I find fascinating is that despite often being little more than lies and misconceptions, I still hear people talking about their amazing trip or buzz from things that certainly do not cause those effects.

"Black Pepper will make you trip or get you high." When I saw this idea floating around, I thought to myself, "I'm a responsible adult and I have a spice cabinet." So, I immediately ate the tablespoon of pepper that I was told would cause some amazing effect. Not shockingly, this did nothing besides make my mouth water way too much and give me terrible heartburn. I got a bit of the "runner's high" feeling but I suspect that is a result of the burning mouth that I was left with. I have read that black pepper does, in fact, have a psychoactive chemical in it but it's effect was not noticeable to me.

One time, I was unable to find weed anywhere for several weeks and I decided to give a plant called Motherwort a try. It was said that this plant caused a cannabis-like buzz and that is exactly what I wanted. I found some "new-agey" Wiccan (or something of the like) store that sold the stuff and I bought a big bag of the plant from the nice but oddly dressed lady who ran the place. I got it home, loaded it into my waiting pipe, and took a huge hit. After fifteen minutes of coughing (this stuff does not go down as easy as weed, I learned after it was too late), I noticed that I was slightly light-headed. I can't really say if this effect was from smoking the plant or from hacking up little bits of my lungs for the length of an Adult Swim show but I threw that bag in the dumpster at the apartment complex that I was living in at the time and started making plans to move back to a more weed friendly city.

I have tried a few others "legal highs" but they were less interesting. California poppy is said to be sedating but it did nothing in my experience. There were some various other herbs too but none of them is really worth mentioning here.

I have my limits and there are some things that I couldn't bring myself to try. I can't say if they work but I doubt that most of them do anything and the ones that do sound pretty unpleasant. I have heard people say that both banana peals and tomato skin are supposed to do something (it was never clear as to what that something is) but I always say that if getting high is so easy, we would already know about the method. Nutmeg is supposed to work but, if the trip reports on erowid.org can be believed, the effect is not fun which makes me wonder what the point of using it is. The same goes for datura. It grows wild all over this country but almost everyone who takes it says that it was one of the worst decisions that they have ever made and it can be rather dangerous.

There are other things that I could point to but this post would end up being far too long. Maybe I will do a second part in the future but for now I will leave off here. I can't really say that any of these "legal highs" are worth trying. The ones that work still don't work as well as the more common illegal drugs and by using them as a drug (this is the case with San Pedro and Morning Glory) you are still committing a crime (in the U.S. at least). That being the case, the appeal of having a legal drug evaporates (because it stops being legal) and all you are left with is a second rate knock-off of the drug that you actually wanted to use.

Peace.

All the images in this post are sourced from the free image website, unsplash.com.