h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The song ends (abruptly) with the words
"Birds eat it..."
Which brings me to note that many animals and birds
are attracted to a wide variety of plant substances
that alter their minds and behaviours.

There are the basic fermented fruit type incidents
where birds flock to get drunk on over-ripe berries.
We all have seen the effects of catnip.

And back around Xmas time there was a Post entry that
described a toadstool which reindeer were fond of and
which is so powerful that reindeer herders have to wait
for the reindeer to pee it out before consuming it to
get high. This toadstool and these behaviours, it has
been suggested, are the source of the flying reindeer.

Can't find the link but happily I saved the paragraph
in question in an email to a friend:

>>
Reindeer are a kind of deer found in the cold regions of Europe and North America (locally referred to as 'caribou'). They feed on grass and lichens, but also have a taste for the fly agaric toadstool, Amanita muscaria, because of its intoxicating and euphoric effects. Amanita muscaria is found in pine and birch woods of western North America, northern Europe, and Asia.
The Sami have a custom of feeding fly agaric to their deer and collecting the urine to drink. The reindeer's digestive system metabolises the more poisonous components of the toadstool, leaving urine with the hallucinogenic and psychotropic elements of the fungus intact. Drinking the urine gives a 'high' similar to taking LSD. Under the hallucinatory effects of the drink, the Sami thought their reindeer were flying through space, looking down on the world. The reindeers' liking for the toadstool hallucinogens are such that they, in turn, have been known to eat the snow on which intoxicated humans have urinated, creating a reciprocating cycle.

<<


~jwf~

I think that reindeer urine is an acquired taste for most of us.

I have found that the best stimulus to creativity is a sunny Sunday afternoon when I have had a *lot* of coffee to drink.

I don't have a problem with persuading people quit smoking either.

However, my experience as a teenager was that as soon as the bullshit button was pressed I stopped listening. There's plenty of factual reasons to not smoke that renders talking tosh (and thereby losing credibility) unnecessary.

I wasn't aware that the number of hits on google was directly proportional to reality .

I wonder how many hits there are on crop circles and aliens...

Sort of.

>>...addiction begins when nicotine acts on nicotinic acetylcholine receptors to release neurotransmitters such as dopamine, glutamate, and gamma-aminobutyric acid. (W*k*)

The brain isn't rewired as such. But nicotine makes the wires act differently.

On the other hand, I *am* rewiring your brain right now.

"However, my experience as a teenager was that as soon as the bullshit button was pressed I stopped listening. "

One of the many reasons why our drug policy toward teenagers is so messed up. We pretend when talking to kids that there is say basically no diference between crack and Es. And this rather dilutes the message about how bad Crack is when teenagers all start taking Es.

Drug policy should be based on health reduction, and not tabloid pleasing "messages".

FB

Health Reduction > Harm Reduction.

THough if I was trying to be clever i'd argue a Daily Mail inspired war on drugs does cause general health reduction....


FB

"On the other hand, I *am* rewiring your brain right now."[Edward the Bonobo]

Fortunately, I am like Orcus in that I have a bullsh*t button. I'm on to you.

Thanks for the great responses, my friends. I couldn't ask for a better group of people to discuss this with.

>> Under the hallucinatory effects of the drink,
the Sami thought their reindeer were flying through
space, looking down on the world. <<

This 'high' perspective is an initial mind alteration
similar to the out-of-body experiences reported
by many who have had near-death episodes.

It seems to be a universal mental response to the
body's awareness of severe trauma, blood loss,
oxygen deprivation or other potentially fatal
situations such as ingested toxins.

Once you learn how to fly and to avoid high-rise
buildings, it can be quite pleasant to soar above
the riff-raff and the hoi-poloi.

As they say, 'eagle eyes it'.
Or was that, 'legalise it'?


~jwf~

Does have to drink the urine, too?

Let's turn the question on it's head, shall we?

If the mind is not matter, that is, other than materially based, how can it be affected by 'mind altering drugs', which are physical substances?

~~~

When I consider the delicacy and fineness of the wonderful mechanism that is the brain/body, clearly attempts to drastically alter its functioning is something not to be frivolously undertaken.

When I observe the tragic pain, loss and suffering resulting from casual abuse of mind altering drugs, and learn that many of them cause irreparable damage to the brain and body, I cannot but conclude that irresponsible use of such substances is very wrong indeed.

~~~

Questions regarding the sense of self are best approached, imo, by exploring the fascinating research in neuropsychology

May I suggest 'Descartes Error' by Damasio, as a readable start?

I'm anticipating reading his latest: 'Self Comes to Mind'

Dennett's 'Understanding Consciousness' is another obvious one.

Can we poke a little at what we mean by 'Mind Altering'? I suggest we may mean a range of rather different things by it.

- Alteration at the more-or-less physiological level. Things that make you more wakeful (caffeine; amphetamine; cocaine) or sleepier (alcohol; cannabis; diazepam; opioids) or less stressed (nicotine; cannabis; opioids).

- Effects felt at a more integrative level. Things that disinhibit (alcohol; cocaine; ecstasy?); things that stop you giving a feck (opioids; cannabis)

- Then there are things which seem to have various hard to describe cognitive and/or perceptual effects - let's loosely call them 'psychedelics'. Cannabis; LSD: Psilocybin; mescaline...etc?

- Tea, which is just lovely.

Thoughts?

Anyone know anything plausible that's been written on the cognitive effects of cannabis?

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:eI9IhT90NKUJ:www.trinity.edu/jdunn/spiderdrugs.htm+spider+webs+cannabis&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk&client=firefox-a

Reading books can be most informative about *the* self, but it doesn't tell you too much about *your* self.

I wonder if spiders have a sense of self.

My first experience of cannabis, at the age of eighteen, was similar but not the same as Mina's.

During a weekend spent with some bright folks somewhere on the Fulham Road, I was enthusiasically encouraged to turn on. However, no matter how much smoke I inhaled, I just couldn't get it.

A little later, some food was placed before me, and I began to feel extremely sick in the stomach. I spent the following 30 minutes or so in the john chastising myself for being such a fool (I was too much of a weed to make myself throw up).

The sickness passed and I returned to the living room to find my friends lying comfortably, listening to music I'd never heard before - It was 'Ultimate Spinach' if I remember correctly.

At the risk of saying something positive about cannabis, the remainer of the evening was rather pleasant.

Sorry about the typos - I can't spare the time to preview at the moment.

Yeah...eating it can be too much too soon - especially for beginners.

One of the great wonders of the modern age is the spliff tube. If you buy ready rolled - if, for example, you are as hamfisted as I am - they come in conical, plastic tubes with little caps. That means you can smoke as much to get you where you want to be, stub it out and put it back in the tube. You don't even have to be careful about stubbing it out properly because the cap will cut off the oxygen. Or even - if you're smoking in public in a jurisdiction where it's frowned on, if da Babylon hove into view you can just stick it in lit and bung your thumb over the end.

*** None of the above should be construed as endorsing or recommending...etc. etc. ***

About cannabis I´ve to say both positive and negative things. From my own experience and from that of others. But I´ll just say that it´s your brain and your circunstances what can transform a mild recreational use of an occasional joint into a real problem.

So, better not to generalize both for positive or negative effects.


Back to plants,humans and evolution.

If nicotine is a toxin the plant develops to get rid of insects, how is it possible that the plant cheats our brain with a neurotoxin?
Why we instead of puking ,our brain rewards the act of smoking?

That´s not evolutive for the plant, we humans should react as the other animals so that the plant can go on existing...

or qué?

Maria: it's called coincidence. Happens a lot in evolution. Life, and the biochemical mechanisms behind it, is complicated.

For instance - there are spiders whose venom evolved to kill their prey. Fair enough. It is not powerful enough to kill organisms many times larger and more powerful than their prey. So far, so as you'd expect. But by some quirk of biology, it *is* powerful enough to kill humans. We're hundreds, thousands of times the size and weight of the creatures the venom was "intended" to kill. But blind evolution means our nervous systems work in a way that happens to be disrupted, fatally, by this particular spider venom. It's of absolutely no benefit to the spider, their prey or us. It's just a coincidence.

Similarly with the odd effects some plants have on us - just a coincidence.

Also, in the past such alkaloids may well have killed us - over time we have evolved resistance. Resistance doesn't necessarily mean immunity - so they* still have a powerful effect on us, just not lethal.

More likely what Hoo said though. We're clever enough to spot when a plant is deadly generally and avoid eating it (generally speaking, there are always people who remain ignorant and our modern ways mean we've lost a lot of the old 'knowledge' in this regard).





* and I mean they, there are many plant alkaloids that have a powerful biological effect on us, with many, many different outcomes, from very pleasant to extremely nasty.