Erowid Extracts D o c u m e n t i n g t h e C o m p l e x R elationship B e t w e e n H u m a n s a n d P sychoactives

August 2016 Number 29

1P-LSD Marquis

Erowid’s 20th Anniversary • Psychedelic Archiving • First Sapo Experience Report Novel Drug Briefs • Dream Tripping • Ibogaine Conference • EcstasyData! Letters & Feedback

Wow! The “Shulgin Issue” of Erowid Your site was recommended to me by Thank you for being a stable rock in Extracts (#28) is phenomenal. a friend, and it was love at first sight. the tumbling waves. Thank you all for your contribu- [...] It’s all good fun to read and watch — E.G. tions to make this a very special, videos about [drugs], but I knew I Erowid Supporter important, and memorable issue! I wanted to try them. Your website has am grateful to have a treasured copy allowed me to research and decide to read and re-read. In fact, this which ones would be right for me. I On page 11 of Extracts issue 27, issue is already helping me with my learned how to be safe, how to choose the sidebar declares that “58% of protracted grieving process, as I’m the correct dosage, and everything. festival goers reported having used sure it does for countless folks who a psychedelic at an event”. — H. love Sasha. While I agree 100% with the idea Email to Erowid of providing a psychedelic support — MUNKO space at festivals […] the data you Erowid Supporter You have continued for years to be have doesn’t really support the claim the most reliable and complete source that 58% of festival goers have used My reason for giving is just to say for information on psychotropic a psychedelic substance. “thank you” for many years (probably substances. My late uncle introduced The problem is that the survey over a decade) of incredibly useful you to me and I introduce you to my was conducted using visitors to the information and a bit of entertain- own children, now grown. Carry on! Erowid website. Such a survey will ment. I was talking to a friend necessarily suffer from “selection — H.S. recently (while we did some light bias”, i.e. the people who visit the Erowid Supporter exploring) and we realized how Erowid site in the first place are much valuable of a resource Erowid has more likely to be drug users […]. been in our lives. I certainly don’t Erowid may well have saved my life— So, to be clear; you could be visit like I used to, but I think it’s time and I’m certainly not alone in that. correct that more than half of festival to pay back a bit of the debt. Having accurate, timely and non- goers have used a psychedelic judgmental information available to substance while attending a festival, — E.M. consumers of psychoactives is an but you don’t have any statistically Erowid Donor often undervalued and dismissed meaningful data to support this claim. public good. […] No one is better than — YOUR FRIENDLY I applaud what you guys do. […] I Erowid at providing that information NEIGHBORHOOD STATISTICIAN strongly believe sites like Erowid, to the people who need it, and if the GreatNonProfits.org Shroomery, and others with free organization had more resources, it public info are the best step taken so could do that important work even far to promote true drug awareness. more effectively. Thank you for being It’s true that the survey was not of all However, it seems to me people are a resource for so many, and for so festival goers and the Erowid-visitor- simply not getting easy information. long—you are unsung heroes. only bias got lost because of space […] Let’s face it, most people don’t constraints for a pull quote on an — ANONYMOUS like doing research. Therefore I think already small sidebar. Taken alone, GreatNonProfits.org the next step is to bring the info in the statement we featured could be a more accessible way like an app. misunderstood by someone leafing A good one, available for people to Erowid provides accurate, honest through the newsletter reading titles, check all info already known but easy information about psychoactive plants subheads, and quotes. The oversize and quick to navigate on the spot. and chemicals. No lies, no misdirec- snippet was designed to draw the tion, no preaching. Erowid is exactly reader into the specifics of the survey — T.W. the type of service the world needs described in the text. But perhaps it Email from content contributor to stay safe, healthy, and informed. needed to include more context to leave an accurate impression. — INCORRECTHORSEBATTERYSTAPLE I have no hard currency to donate GreatNonProfits.org to you, however your site helped me through the metaphoric minefield that is teenage experimentation. […] In a world run by information, Erowid Send correspondence to: I believe that people will do what they yields their vast arsenal of it to the want regardless of laws, and even people. This is the kind of organiza- [email protected] common sense oftentimes. The best tion that truly exhibits the sort of Please include a name, title, and we can do is provide the knowledge vigorous generosity that we would city/state/country of origin to be to do it safely. hope for from a nonprofit. published with your letter. Letters — C.W. — SAM 42 may be edited for length and clarity. Email from content contributor GreatNonProfits.org

)ii Erowid Extracts ­29 — August 2016 Table of Contents Erowid Extracts Number 29, August 2016 Letters & Feedback ...... )

20 Years of Weird—Eroweird ...... 2 Founder, Editor in Chief Fire Erowid by Earth & Fire Erowid Founder, Executive Editor Earth Erowid Less Ecstasy, More Data: 15 Years of the EcstasyData Program ...... 4 Managing Editor Sylvia Thyssen by Earth Erowid Technical Developer JL Bläk Dream Tripping ...... 6 Shipping & Archiving by Jennifer Dumpert Crew Novel Drug Briefs ...... 10 Shawn Corrado, roi, ErichZann, by The Erowid Crew Borax, Trout, David Bey, Jonathan Taylor Cardboard Boxes All the Way Down ...... 12 Associate Editors by Erik Davis Zachawry, Rev. Meo, Joshua Emery, Shell Box, Paper, Scanner ...... 16 Experience Collection - Reviewers by Fire & Earth Erowid Antheia, Danger The First Sapo Experience Report ...... 18 Experience Collection - Triagers TehSaccade, SpaceSheep, Lotn, Pskoactv, by Michael Pinchera Adlai, Lizard, Strathmore, Theo, Seraph, 2016 Global Ibogaine Conference ...... 22 Crow, Scab13, Kensho, Aqua, Harmony, Fnord, Kalle, Reflex, Cinnamon, Catskills, by David Bey Peregrine, Spent, Survival, Revelator

The Distillation ...... 24 Shulgin Lab Book Transcribing Opiate Harm Reduction Project ...... 24 Zelig, Jess Erowid in Person ...... 25 Erowid Center is a non-profit educational Drug Identifying and Measuring ...... 25 organization. Erowid Extracts is its members’ newsletter. Extracts has been published New Yorker Profile Reverberations...... 25 twice a year since May 2001. To subscribe, or to support Erowid’s mission to educate, improve health, and facilitate reform, visit: Erowid Center’s mission is to provide and facilitate access to objective, accurate, and non-judgmental information about plants, chemicals, Erowid.org/donate technologies, and related issues that affect the mind, body, and culture. Erowid Center supports and trains libraries, publishers, and other Past issues are available at: information distributors on issues related to these fields. Erowid.org/extracts

It is also Erowid Center’s goal to support medical, legal, scientific, academic, and independent experts in developing and publishing related Erowid Center resources. PO Box 1116 Grass Valley, CA 95945 Erowid.org [email protected] Subscriptions: To subscribe to Erowid Extracts, visit: Erowid.org/membership/ Change of Address: To update your mailing address, use the form at: ISSN 1548-8071 Erowid.org/donations/donations_update_address.php © 2016 Erowid Center Erowid is a ® Registered Trademark Cancellations: To cancel your subscription, contact: [email protected] All rights reserved Reprints: To request permission to reproduce an article or image from this newsletter, contact: [email protected] Cover Image Credits: 1) Phyllomedusa bicolor Frog (also on pg 18, images Know Your Body CC ShareAlike)—Joachim S. Müller; 2) Cardboard Boxes (also on pg 12) —Russell Hausfeld; 3) 1P-LSD Molecule—Erowid; 4) Marquis Reagent Know Your Mind Reaction to Ethylone and MDA—Erowid; 5) Silene capensis—HerbDocta; 6) Know Your Substance Psychedelic Ephemera—Erowid; 7) Iboga Extract—ICEERS Foundation Know Your Source

Erowid Extracts 29 — August 2016 20 Years of Weird—Eroweird

hough it began as a side project in 1995, has developed online has become increasingly Erowid rapidly became an immersive diverse and robust. lifework for the two of us (Earth and A big part of our first decade of operations Fire). It quickly moved to a 40-hour- was to nail down basic concepts that were not Ta-week hobby and finally became an income- universally known and hadn’t already been earning job in 1999, when we first asked for articulated online. We developed memes related donations. In 2001, Sylvia Thyssen joined to careful decision making and mindfulness. us, having already having worked at MAPS We helped popularize the idea that personal re- and DanceSafe. Then in 2004, JL started sponsibility in drug use is not only possible, but helping, after experience with drug policy should be the norm. Erowid recorded examples that disproved the representation by prohibi- tionists that all unapproved use is irresponsible abuse. We also worked to definitively knock Know your body. Know your mind. down some of the false myths that persisted in Know your substance. Know your source. the psychoactive-using subcultures. Through the Looking Screens in the European Union. Between the four of Since we first started Erowid, the two of us, we’ve collectively spent almost 80 years us have always sat at side-by-side desktop swimming in drug information soups. computers, with chairs about arm’s length apart. Our “HQ Command Center” has lived Many Goals Reached in four different houses: a laundry room 2016 is Erowid’s 20th year of operation! office in Woodside where Erowid began; With only a few minor service interruptions a wood-heated hippy cabin in the coastal in two decades, we’ve achieved one of our redwood forest on the crest of the mountains major goals: to facilitate reliable access to and south of San Francisco where Erowid went the evolution of information full time; a rural, suburban storage palace in about psychoactive drugs, the foothills near Grass Valley; and now, a especially psychedelics. magical closetless wood-beamed cabin (and Erowid has been recognized barn!) jammed into the side of a chasm in widely as being part of California’s gold country. the web’s backbone of Our monitor real estate has expanded from information about mind- one large CRT apiece (in the mid-1990s) to affecting substances. And the three large LCD screens each and a seventh community of drug geeks that oversize screen to share. With the need to stay connected to team members, contribu- tors, supporters, and drug geeks around the world, we use dozens of different systems and services. We’re constantly monitoring news, com- munications, drug-related

2 Erowid Extracts ­29 — August 2016 20 Years of Weird—Eroweird

publications, and forums, as well as our own day, peering into the vastness through our technical server systems. WWW, IRC, XMPP, wall of screens. Continuing twenty years of SSH, Skype, SMS, Twitter, Facebook, POTS, recursive post-post-postmodern anthropologi- ICINGA. Oh my! Our primary undertaking is cal documentary work that merges and swirls managing the flood of info. with the self-reflective fractal of consciousness. The Tin Cup and the Waterfall Plants, Chems, Practices, & Techs By mid-1996, we were already immersed We study mind-altering tools and the in drug information overload. There were so people who use them. Once we scratched many places where information was needed and the surface of the topic of psychoactives, we yet most existing resources weren’t accessible. When asked what it was like to run Erowid, Fire described a visualization that has stuck with Documenting the Complex Relationship us: We’re standing in the midst of a torrential waterfall of information, flowing down on us from above. We’re each holding a small tin cup, Between Humans and Psychoactives moving it around to try to catch the best, most important bits of information as they rush by. realized the inherent feedback loop: changes There’s a sense that we’re constantly to thinking shift choices about the tools that missing lots (even most!) of the interesting changed the thinking in the first place. The things in the streams of water, but there’s next generation of tools is then developed always more on its way down. As soon as we following experiences that were shaped by the hold out an empty cup, it fills up instantly current ones. Drugs, identity, art, technology, with more information than one could ever science, law, society, spirituality, and mindful hope to process, let alone understand or fully practices: they each affect the others and the take in. But over time, as a species, working process rolls on and in and up and down. together, we can collaboratively improve our There’s a surreality to understanding of the data flowing by. studying psychedelics and the emanating fields of weirdness Time Fractal that reverberate throughout all When we reflect on how long we’ve lived layers of society. Everything our lives installed in Erowid HQ, we’re is psychoactive. • struck by how strange time is. The world is weird. And for those who’ve been paying attention, it’s been weird for a very long time. —Earth & Fire Twenty years is the blink of a planet’s eye, a femto second in the history of the universe, and yet it’s half of a human’s career. So here we sit com- panionably, side-by-side in our healthfully ergonomic chairs, 10–12 hours a day nearly every

Erowid Extracts 29 — August 2016 3

ver the past 15 years, Erowid’s only tests samples sent from inside lab analysis project, EcstasyData, Wales). Excellent on-site testing has tested thousands of submitted programs such as SaferParty in Osamples. We have expanded from Switzerland and CheckIt! in Austria testing almost exclusively “ecstasy” do not accept submissions by mail, (MDMA) tablets to doing both field focusing instead on testing at events. reagent checking with test kits and A few countries have good walk-in highly technical GC/MS identification analysis programs, the best being the of street drugs, research chemicals, Netherlands’ Drug Information and and pharmaceuticals. In 2015 and Monitoring System (DIMS). Samples the first half of 2016, the majority of can be brought in to one of their physical samples submitted to our program were locations, with results available by

not substances that had been sold as phone in about a week. If the sample “ecstasy”, “molly”, or MDMA. is a pressed tablet and matches another The ongoing explosion of research recently tested sample, results are chemicals—increasingly referred to as provided immediately without having novel (or new) psychoactive substances to relinquish the tablet. DIMS reports (NPS)—and the prevalence of direct-to- it had almost 12,000 samples brought in consumer pharmaceutical sales make to its 28 locations for analysis in 2015. reliable analysis more important than ever. Even mainstream consumers are Current, Open, Privately Funded turning to lower-cost medications sold EcstasyData releases results by online pharmacies. There is a huge immediately and publicly. DIMS and global grey market for these tablets, other similar government-supported Less Ecstasy, More Data powders, and blotter, which do not pass analytical programs do not publish their through the tightly regulated distribution results contemporaneously. Instead, systems designed to guarantee the highly-abstracted summaries are published much later and never include purity and identity of drugs. Moreover, dozens of substances are the underlying data. Law enforcement now available online in the form of agencies around the world test millions 15 Years of the pure white powders that are strongly of samples per year, but almost all of active below 10 mg. Confusing such that publicly-funded data is treated as EcstasyData substances for MDMA, cocaine, or secret and hidden from public view. other higher-dose drugs can result in It is our belief that analytical Program extremely unpleasant effects, serious data published immediately provides injury, or death. necessary real-world information to individuals and society about how by Earth Erowid Few Analysis Services frequently one substance is misrep- Despite the need, EcstasyData resented as another or how often continues to be one of only a handful drugs contain contaminants. Unfor- of public analytical tunately, with no government funding drug testing or advertising dollars, much of the programs in the cost of analysis must be paid directly Total Unique Uniques in world. by those using the service. Depending Year Samples Substances “Ecstasy” Only three on the sample type, EcstasyData Tested Identified Samples major public lab submitters pay between $40 and 2016 281 111 30 analysis services $150 of the roughly $150 per-sample (Jan-Jun) accept samples testing cost. Major ad companies such 2015 528 134 51 by mail: Energy as Google have refused to serve ads 2014 377 125 64 Control in Spain, on EcstasyData because it is “drug 2013 224 83 59 our EcstasyData related” content. program in We continue to be disallowed by 2012 241 79 46 California, and the the DEA from publishing quantitative 2011 241 52 32 Welsh WEDINOS results for anonymously submitted 2010 139 33 25 program (which samples tested through the program.

4 Erowid Extracts ­29 — August 2016

“Supreme” work of photographing reagent A Swarm of Substances ID—4292 Despite these limitations, reactions for each sample, often Form—Tablet EcstasyData analyzed 528 samples taking multiple pictures to track color Date—Apr 2016 in 2015, more than any previous changes over time. year, and will test a similar number We’ve switched from pho- 1 part MDMA in 2016. Over the past five years, tographing the reactions on a the number of unique chemicals standard white ceramic surface to identified by our program has a transparent glass surface on a grown—from 32 distinct substances light-box, which makes the color in 2010 (with an additional 6 stand out more in photos. For dark unidentified samples) to 132 colors, the technician spreads or unique substances in 2015 (with swirls the reagent and takes a second an additional 15 unidentified). photo to better capture the reaction. As of June 2016, EcstasyData is Unidentifieds still the only lab analysis project that One of the project’s challenges publishes field reagent reactions for is identifying the newest substances each sample it tests. But, there are appearing in samples. We buy a now some useful collections of new analytical reference standard videos and photos of field reagent nearly every week. Staying on the reactions online. BunkPolice, a US cutting edge in this way will cost commercial reagent vendor, teamed the project $5,000 this year. Our up with other groups, including analytical standards are purchased Energy Control, to create videos of from commercial labs such as field reagent reactions for over 160 Sigma-Aldrich and Cayman psychoactive chemicals. Chemical (currently the world’s leading source of reference Blotter Analysis standards for NPS). Unfortunately, For the last two years, we have “Powder (MDA?)” analytical standards are simply not tested blotter for the presence of ID—4081 yet available for many of the newest LSD. In 2014, our lab developed Form—Powder/Crystal chemicals. a procedure to make it practical Date—Jan 2016 There are several ways to and time-efficient to positively identify a drug without an analytical identify LSD using GC/MS. We 10 parts Ethylone standard. Sometimes we use libraries also added the Mandelin reagent, 1 part MDA of mass spectra such as those which turns purple in the presence provided by Cayman, the Scientific of LSD. Though we have always Working Group for the Analysis accepted and tested blotter for DOx of Seized Drugs (SWDRUG), the phenethylamines and the dragonfly “Paul Frank” National Institute of Standards compounds, the lab could not ID—4365 and Technology (NIST), or private efficiently differentiate LSD from Form—Tablet individuals. We also get assistance other ergoloids prior to 2014. These Date—Apr 2016 from members of the Erowid Expert were necessary improvements to Network around the world, including the project’s harm-reduction efforts 4 parts caffeine some from law enforcement labs because NBOMe compounds, 1 part MDMA outside the US. which carry substantial health risks, are now sometimes sold on blotter as LSD or “acid”. Field Reagent Photos “Mushrooms” In May 2013, we began publishing The EcstasyData project is photos of field reagent reactions for the only anonymous mail-in lab ID—4078 each sample. Previously, we simply analysis project in the United States Form—Blotter described the color changes that and has been conducting testing Date—Dec 2015 occurred when a reagent was dropped since 2001. Its annual budget is 1 part LSD onto a speck of the sample. Happily, $80,000 per year. Testing is done the motivated technician at our lab by Drug Detection Laboratories, a is willing to do the time-consuming DEA-licensed lab. •

Erowid Extracts 29 — August 2016 5 ONEIROGEN GALANTAMINE- ZACATECHICHI HYPNAGOGIA- ONEIROMANCYby Jennifer Dumpert ONEIROFER- LUCID DREAMS HYPNOPOM- PIA MUGWORTDream ONEIRONAU - TICUM LIMINAL DREAMING- SLEEP WAVES­Tripping PRACTICE EXPLO The urge to play with consciousness sufferers to defeat nightmares or to with consciousness. I teach and write is hard-wired into the human psyche. allow people to have a conversation about dream work as a means of Little kids roll down hills to make with someone who died before exploring mind. Someone recently themselves dizzy or press their palms important things were said. Dreams called me a “dream tripper”. It’s a against their eyes to create visuals. have been used for foretelling the fine phrase. I have many ways to work They spin in circles until the world tilts future and for astral travel. The list of with dreams, for similar reasons and to into an altered state of reality. They purposes for pursuing dream work is similar effect as other people do with naturally transmogrify their experience long, but really, one needs no reason their psychotropic of choice. of themselves and of the world before beyond a desire to play with one’s they form ideas about the legality or consciousness. Liminal Dreaming morality of doing so. Adults drink As a member of Erowid Center’s You’re likely familiar with liminal alcohol, take psychoactive drugs, dance Board of Directors and a woman who dreams, though you might not realize themselves into trance states, and seek has spent much of her 50 years on this it. REM dreams tend to have a all manner of altered experiences from planet considering the potential of narrative structure where dreamers sweat lodges to meditation retreats. psychoactive agents of all sorts, my have subjectivity of some sort and a Even the most straight-edge teetotaler interest in the exploration of mind states world around them, like waking life. will try downhill skiing or a roller runs deep. In my youth, I gravitated Liminal dreams, which occur most coaster ride for the adrenaline rush. toward obvious choices: herbs, often as one is falling asleep or waking We have a smorgasbord of chemicals, practices, and technologies up, don’t have the same structure. They substances, technologies, and practices that powerfully affected my experience tend to be more free-associative. My that can aid in our pursuit to play with of being. As I’ve become increasingly current fave dream tripping involves our minds. And yet many ignore one of familiar with my own mind, as well hypnagogia, the transitional state the best playgrounds we have: dreams. as options for tweaking it, I’ve grown moving from consciousness into sleep. Dreaming is the original Most dream states are nonordinary mind state. It’s marked by consistent brain also the one most universally wave cycles, oscillations in experienced. Most of us visit Dreaming is an easy, free, safe, frequency of the electrical bizarre, visionary worlds legal, and effective way to impulses detectable with during the one-third of our an electroencephalograph lives that we spend asleep. experiment with consciousness. (EEG). In general, we sleep There are many reasons in cycles of 90–100 minutes, to explore one’s dream life. so if one manages to get 7½ Perhaps you’re looking for inspiration; fonder of subtler allies. I used to favor hours of sleep, that’s about 5 cycles in a artists and thinkers from Dali to things that clobbered me over the head night. Each cycle is marked by return to Edison to Kekulé—who first accurately with raw psychedelic power. These a waking or near-waking state, however described the structure of the benzene days, I like to put in more of the effort, brief. Most of us don’t remember these ring—have harnessed the power of to meet my medicines halfway. The awakenings. Brain waves, as measured liminal dreaming for creativity and effect is no less mind-blowing. by an EEG, look like a noisy, choppy problem solving. Lucid dreaming has Dreaming is an easy, free, safe, wave pattern. They are measured in been used therapeutically for PTSD legal, and effective way to experiment waves per second called hertz (Hz);

6 Erowid Extracts ­29 — August 2016 ONEIROGEN GALANTAMINE- ZACATECHICHI HYPNAGOGIA- higher frequency waves are faster and Although “I” was in the beginning at all. But with practice, you can learn lower frequency waves are slower. of the dream, the rest of it consisted to linger in this altered mind state. An alert mind generates a higher of just images and sensations, like an As a side note, while THC in its ONEIROMANCY ONEIROFER- proportion of fast waves, called beta interior monologue in technicolor. various forms inhibits REM dreams, it waves (13–30 Hz). In deepest sleep To try this method of dream can enhance liminal dreaming. In fact, LUCID DREAMS HYPNOPOM- the brain produces more slow waves, tripping, wait until you’re feeling a hypnagogic and hypnopompic dreams called delta waves (0.4–4 Hz). little sleepy. Get comfortable, maybe play well with many psychoactive PIA MUGWORT ONEIRONAU- Hypnagogia, unlike the other sleep lie on the couch or sit back in a comfy substances. states, produces chaotic, inconsistent chair. Then close your eyes and relax. wave patterns. The brain shudders up Let your mind drift, but don’t fall Lucid Dreaming TICUM LIMINAL DREAMING- through a series of micro-awakenings asleep. You’re waiting for something, Lucid dreaming used to be a pretty and then sinks down toward sleep, an image, an idea, maybe a distant esoteric concept but now it’s the SLEEP WAVES PRACTICE EXPLO ricocheting between alpha (8–13 Hz) sound. It may start as only a glimmer. subject of books, phone apps, and and theta (4–7 Hz) frequencies. The Once it’s there, exhale into it. articles in mainstream publications body twitches just like the brain waves As you breathe out, release any like Newsweek and Time. At its best, do. Those little physical jolts, called tension in your body. Focus your it’s like being in a total virtual reality myoclonic or hypnagogic jerks— attention on whatever emerges, like world, built from your own thoughts, sometimes accompanied by the feeling watching something far away from you perceptions, and memories. Sounds of falling—let the sleeper know that move toward you, taking on shape as good, right? The problem is that, unlike they’re in liminal dream territory. it gets close enough to see in detail. liminal dreaming, attaining lucidity in Hypnagogia’s twin state, which Keep relaxing your body. Get as a dream is difficult. Some people have happens when transitioning from asleep close to falling asleep as you can, but spontaneous lucid dreams, but few are to awake, is called hypnopompia. This keep yourself awake by maintaining able to be truly (or even partially) lucid dream state meanders back and forth awareness on the liminal dream that’s in their dreams with much regularity. across thought and dream, remixing forming in your mind. It takes a little If you want to get into it, you can find memory and imagination in a hazy, practice to hit the sweet spot between plenty of field guides, though some sometimes pleasant drift. Hypnagogia being so drowsy that you fall asleep people report practicing techniques for offers a kaleidoscopic swirl of images, and so focused that you can’t drift off years with disappointing results. thoughts, memories, ideas, and visions. I’ve spent much of my life yearning for a hangover-free, intense 15-minute trip. Now, through liminal dreaming, A simplified model for the timing of the stages of sleep, showing the associated brain wave frequencies. Although the rhythm varies from night to night and I’ve found it. person to person, this illustrates the most common cycles of the sleeping brain. To give you a sample, while I was

writing this, I closed my eyes for a few 13 Hz – minutes on the couch. As I lay there, I let myself drift, entering into a light hypnogogic state, nearly asleep but also still awake enough to be aware. I 7 Hz – had this liminal dream: 4 Hz –

My hands create a visible but transparent glowing force field that takes shape around a magician’s

valise. It becomes fabric in my 0 1 ½ hr 3 hr 4 ½ hr 6 hr 7 ½ hr hand, blows in the wind long and

rippling, a river flowing through Attentively awake (not shown) beta waves 13–30 Hz rocks toward the ocean, silvery Stage 1: Relaxed, awake alpha waves 8–13 Hz and glittering in the sun. Hypnagogia shift from alpha to theta 4–13 Hz

Everything felt incredibly vivid and Stage 2: 45–55% of adult sleep theta waves 4–8 Hz

looked astoundingly beautiful. A sense Stage 3 (& 4): Deep sleep delta waves 0.4–4 Hz of wonder accompanied the dream, REM: 20–25% of adult sleep, including dreams irregular waves 8–30 Hz along with a feeling like standing on a cliff with the wind in my hair. Hypnopompia shift from theta to alpha 4–13 Hz

Erowid Extracts 29 — August 2016 7 Oneirogens to promote lucid dreams. In 2008 I through me on a cellular level, squeaky, I have a trick, a shortcut for attended one of his workshops where disruptive, incredibly visceral, and improving dream recall and increasing he gave me galantamine. It worked for indescribably bizarre. the frequency of lucid dreaming. If me, it’s worked for Oneironauticum I captured another powerfully you’re interested in dream tripping participants, and according to LaBerge sensorial non-lucid galantamine- and looking for a fast track, consider it works for others, too. enhanced dream in a tweet: oneirogens. The word oneirogen Because galantamine is short is composed from the Greek roots acting, LaBerge recommends taking Cleaning my brain in a basin of oneiro—dream—and gen—to create. A it five hours after first going to sleep, liquid. It clogs, life threatening. I variety of herbs, roots, flowers, scents, when the longer periods of REM hum low, vibrate the water like a and practices are used to increase, alter, sleep begin (see chart). He suggests blue whale would, clears clog. or suppress dreams. 6–8 mg as a starting dose, compared #dream I have been keeping dream journals to the 12 mg or more that Alzheimer’s for the last 36 years. One is a Twitter patients take daily. feed where, since 2009, I have posted Pick a night when you can afford Calea zacatechichi a dream a day as @oneirofer. In to have your sleep cycle interrupted. One of the most celebrated 2010, I founded a group called the Leave the capsules by your bed and oneirogens is a flowering plant tra- Oneironauticum. This group has set your alarm before you go to ditionally used by the Chontal people explored a wide range of oneirogens. sleep. Wake up briefly to take your indigenous to Oaxaca, Mexico, for the On a predetermined night, people galantamine and go right back to sleep. purposes of oneiromancy (divination around the world try the same I’ve followed this protocol with great based on dreams). The Chontal believe oneirogen in an international slumber success. Even if you don’t achieve that dreams happen in realms beyond party dedicated to consciousness lucidity, you’re likely to have amazing those we consciously perceive and exploration through dreams. Some dreams. that the contents of dreams can convey participants, including myself, submit In one galantamine-inspired lucid meaningful messages or prophecies. experience reports of their dreams to dream, I wanted to get out of the house They further maintain that calea my site urbandreamscape.com, where but had no corporality. Without solid clarifies the senses so the dreamer can one can read dreams associated with body parts, I couldn’t open doors or more clearly perceive insights and can various dream-affecting practices. windows. After trying and failing bring them back into waking memory. several times, it occurred to me that I Some people also use calea to induce Galantamine could just pass right through one of the lucid dreams. I think the most effective oneirogen panes of glass. I felt the window slide Smoked or steeped into an currently known for facilitating astoundingly bitter tea, calea lucid dreaming is galantamine. can produce intense sensory An alkaloid derived from bulbs experiences. Dream reports include and flowers of various plants—the memorable tastes, vivid colors, and kind I take comes from red spider beautiful and unidentifiable scents. lily—galantamine is used in the In a calea dream, I once read a long treatment of Alzheimer’s and other text, a notoriously difficult thing memory impairments. As a cho- to do in dreams. It even had pink linesterase inhibitor, galantamine highlighting and notes in red ink. blocks the action of acetylcholin- A tweet about a calea dream esterase, which breaks down the of mine that featured surreal color neurotransmitter acetylcholine. In and sound: so doing, it temporarily increases acetylcholine levels in the brain. A thick, iridescent, billowing Cholinergic systems are active in sheet of reality, like a soap dream creation and recall and may bubble skin, emits a high also affect the likelihood of self- pitched sound we can’t hear awareness in dreams. but makes dogs howl. #dream Stephen LaBerge, one of the leading voices in the study of David, a remote Oneironauticum lucid dreaming, applied for a participant, describes one of his patent in 2003 on the method of Calea zacatechichi calea dreams, which also included using substances like galantamine Photo by Mauve sound, scent, and dramatic color:

8 Erowid Extracts ­29 — August 2016 “I was at a party with lots of Silene capensis Silene capensis people dancing and playing This flowering herb grows in Photo by HerbDocta music, fun pop music except the Eastern Cape of South Africa. there were also all these African The Xhosa people native to that drums. There was a beautiful girl land use its root for their form of with a long blue dress on. The oneiromancy. They believe that dress was the most amazing Silene capensis facilitates com- color, a glowing, electric blue. munication with their ancestors, […] I decided to bring the girl who provide guidance or prophecy. a glass of punch and so I went Traditionally, the powdered root is to the punchbowl but there placed in water and then whipped wasn’t any left, but there was a into a foam, which is eaten. They bottle of something. I tried it to call the root “Undela Ziimhlophe”, see if it was good. It was, but it which means “white paths” or tasted like Indian spices, which “white ways”. even in the dream seemed Remarkably, this oneirogen weird to me.” seems to produce dreams that feature wise figures or teachers, as well as the color white. I’ve found that Mugwort Silene capensis–enhanced dreams In Korean tradition, mugwort hot often seem more meaningful. baths or steams (mugwort soaked in Again, the effect is exemplified by water then poured over hot rocks) one of my tweets: taken late at night are used to induce An Oneironauticum participant vivid dreams. Mugwort actually refers named Bridget, who rarely remembers Dripping goddess figure rises from to several species of plants in the genus dreams, had three memorable the water, her hair full of stars. Artemisia. The oil contains thujone, experiences in one night using a Raises her arms, the stars become the active ingredient in traditional mugwort sachet she’d made in the peacock tail feather eyes #dream absinthe. Although it can be made into evening before bed: a tea, the Oneironauticum group works Christy, also an Oneironauticum with it as an olfactory oneirogen. I find “In the first dream, I was outside participant, had this wonderful dream that the scent of mugwort produces on campus. A dog came running at one of our events: saga-length, minutely detailed dreams. over, and then suddenly a bunch It also improves dream recall. People of dogs came. Then I realized that I “A magic woman appeared in interested in astral travel claim that was dreaming. I’ve never had that my dream blowing smoke over mugwort can enhance the sensation of happen before.” me and my sister. It was a ritual leaving one’s body. of some sort, and the woman Our dream group makes pillows or was Native American […]. As the sachets with this oneirogen. We add “The second was tied to the fact woman blew smoke onto me, I lavender to aid sleep and dried rose that we’d all commented earlier went up into dolphin asana, the petals to counteract bad dreams. (These on how beautiful tonight’s night yoga pose where you’re on your herbs are available at many health food sky was. The dream was that the feet and your elbows. […] I went stores.) Put the dried plant materials universe was a huge blackboard up into headstand, then into into a small, loose-weave bag (or even and I had white chalk and felt one-armed headstand, then I a sock) and place it near your pillow pressured to hurry and begin levitated off of the ground.” while you sleep. For extra oomph, creating the universe once again, sprinkle some mugwort essential oil beginning with the stars […]” In my opinion, dreaming can rival onto the dried herbs. the aesthetic perceptual immediacy One of my mugwort dreams: of psychedelic experiences. With “In the third, a gold and white practice, many people can learn to Gang on bicycles injects my dog fish came swimming over to me interact with dreams in ways that with poison, neighbor revives him and made eye contact and then increase access to creative, visionary with scented oil. Dog and I sit on flipped over to expose his wiry, states. If you’re interested in con- swings, discuss death. Long epic black pubic hair. He wanted me sciousness exploration, cultivate your #dream to focus on it.” dream life. Sweet dreams! •

Erowid Extracts 29 — August 2016 9 NOVEL DRUG BRIEFS 2 Clonazolam • 2’-Oxo-PCE • 1P-LSD • 3-FPM by The Erowid Crew

Erowid monitors and tracks new psychoactive substances (NPS) and novel pharmaceuticals. NPS (also deschloro-N-ethyl-Ketamine called research chemicals or, improperly, “synthetic drugs”) 2’-Oxo-PCE often reach the public long before robust information is available about them. 2'-Oxo-PCE (also called In both 2014 and 2015, the United Nations Office on O-PCE or 3F-MeO-PCP) is Drugs and Crime identified more than a hundred new a dissociative in the aryl- NPS, not counting approved medications. This growth is cyclohexylamine class, due in part to advances in pharmaceutical development similar to ketamine both techniques, expanded marketplaces for psychoactive drugs, structurally and in effects. and consumers willing to test NPS on themselves. It first became available The serious legal consequences associated with the through online vendors in classic prohibited drugs can make becoming an NPS guinea mid- to late-2015, following pig seem like a rational choice. Some of the brand new drugs other previously available are almost certainly useful, fun, and reasonably safe. But it dissociatives such as methoxetamine (MXE), methox- is a long, slow process to determine the risks and benefits phenidine (MXP), and deschloroketamine. Common for each drug and assess their usefulness as recreational, single dosages are approximately 15–30 mg oral, 5–20 mg medicinal, therapeutic, or spiritual tools. insufflated. An Erowid experience report by delightfullydisturb (Exp 108524) describes the experience of an insufflated Clonazolam clonitrazolam 5 mg dose (several hours after two 1 mg trials). T+0:00: I decide to go a bit deeper and weigh out ~5 mg. Clonazolam is a potent T+1:00: I start feeling VERY sedated. It seems the medium-duration ben- stimulation I experienced earlier is only in low zodiazepine with effects doses. […] Moderate numbness all over the body described as somewhat more and definitely some dissociation. My hands look euphoric and sedating than tiny for some reason, and I find this hilarious. Wasn’t many other benzos. It was expecting any visual distortions at such a low dose, first synthesized in 1971 and but I just go with it. became available through T+1:30: I feel sleepy, so I turn everything off and go to online vendors around bed. With eyes closed, I see much more movement August 2015, following on and color than I normally do. Vague shapes that appear the popularity of etizolam. to be faces float around, and I feel almost like I am floating. With eyes open and lights off, I cannot see Its safety profile is not well established, but it seems to be anything at all even though I normally can see a bit. both physically and psychologically addictive with tolerance potentially building more rapidly than other drugs in its class. I look for the light switch and turn it on. Everything looks slightly distorted but I can still see. Walking There are reports of pronounced withdrawal symptoms after is somewhat impaired, almost like walking after a only three days of consecutive use. couple of beers. I go back to bed. Upon becoming widely available, some dosage guidelines identified a “common” dose at 0.5 mg, which is now T+9:12: I wake up feeling still numb, I also notice what I to call ‘morning tracers’, something which I get every considered “strong”. That may have contributed to some single time I fall asleep on dissociatives. Noticeable health and addiction issues, since it is often sold in small mood lift compared to my normal mood, positive “pellets” (tablets) containing 0.5 mg. As with any drug that outlook. I feel this one could be too addicting for me can be purchased as a pure powder and produces strong effects so I’ll probably wait a week or two before exploring at below 10 mg, the relative ease of an overdose is a concern. further.

10 Erowid Extracts 29 — August 2016 1P-LSD 1-propionyl-lysergic acid diethylamide 3-FPM 3-fluorophenmetrazine

1P-LSD is a 3-FPM is a psychedelic in the stimulant first sold lysergamide class. It publicly in late first emerged in the 2014. It’s an analogue UK in January 2015, of phenmetrazine, just a week after the which was a popular previously popular prescription stimulant lysergamides LSZ and weight-loss drug and AL-LAD were from the mid-1950s to the 1970s. 3-FPM is the first analogue scheduled there. of phenmetrazine to have been seen on the RC markets. 1P-LSD had no mention in scientific literature or history The addition of fluorine to phenmetrazine does not of human use prior to 2015. It has been sold on standard ¼" appear to have altered its character. Experience reports blotter squares ostensibly containing 100 or 125 µg each. At suggest it is a functional stimulant with mild euphoria. Some $7–10 for a single hit or $350 for a sheet of 100 hits, prices people describe a “ceiling effect” in which increasing the are competitive with other research chemical lysergamides dose only minimally increases desirable effects. Heavy users and black market LSD. also report that protracted, multi-dose sessions can cause 1P-LSD has a structure similar to that of ALD-52, a concerning negative side effects and markedly extend the lysergamide that may have briefly been available in California time between last dose and sleep. during the late 1960s (but which was not Orange Sunshine as As with many NPS, the aim of 3-FPM’s development as a is sometimes erroneously claimed). ALD-52 is thought to act product seems to have been to avoid legal restrictions, rather as a prodrug for LSD and experimenters believe the same is than improving on the parent compound. Although its sale true of 1P-LSD. The dose, effects, and duration of 1P-LSD are for human consumption is outlawed by many analogue acts, extremely similar to those of LSD and they appear to be nearly it is only specifically named in the laws of a small handful indistinguishable when compared in informal blind tests. of countries. In October 2015, Brandt et al. described the presence Typical single dosages are 30–50 mg oral (a little less if of LSD when 1P-LSD was incubated in human serum, insufflated), making it slightly more potent than phenmetra- confirming a decades-old theory that acyl derivatives of LSD zine. As with many stimulants, people report experiencing are converted to LSD in the body. That same month, after “more-ishness” when using, especially when insufflated. nearly 50 years as an obscure historical footnote, ALD-52 There are many reports of heavy users of stimulants blotter appeared on the research chemical (RC) market. consuming up to a gram in a 24-hour session. MrMoran describes his 1P-LSD experience (Exp 106122): A report submitted by Freddy (Exp 105316) describes an experience with 29 mg of 3-FPM taken orally, followed T+0:00: I put the tab on my tongue. At first there was a by an additional 45 mg two hours later. mildly salty taste […]. T+0:20: Nothing in the head, but colors are just a touch T+0:00: Dose 29 mg in water. Tastes foul. brighter. The effects are not immediately apparent, T+0:20: First signs of effects. Attention, alert and awake. but something is there. +/- T+0:40: Added effect of a mood lift. No euphoria, clear T+1:10: Colors are more intense and shift in smooth, stimulation. clean, natural waves. I likened it to a tide rolling in; sometimes I felt more sober, and other times I felt T+2:57: Ingested an additional 45 mg. I had come down more like I was tripping. The body load is pleasant and felt baseline. and light. ++ T+3:11: Bang. All cloudiness, fogginess, and fatigue T+1:30: Time begins to dilate. Visuals creep in waves. removed and mood lifted. It’s like five strong shots of Everything looks clean and defined. […] espresso without any jitter. Lifted mood substantially and lasted 1–2 hours, then resolved to a calm baseline. T+1:40: I take another half tab (50 µg). It can be summed up as mood lifting, wide awake, T+4:00–6:00: This clearly felt like around the peak of kinda chatty. Very nice for studying, though I’ll keep the experience. +++ it to 10–30 mg. Anything above and it’s stronger and The things I’d heard prior to this were that it was shows a hint of euphoria. At 45 mg, my heart beats indistinguishable from LSD, and for the most part, I a little faster, I sweat more, I have tunnel vision, and would have to agree. my appetite is gone. •

Erowid Extracts 29 — August 2016 11 CARDBOARD BOXES ALL THE WAY

DOWN by Erik Davis exploring the archives of the counterculture

Though I have been interested in chairs and book-lined walls. I could I could literally see The Psychedelic countercultural history for a long time, I only request a few boxes from the Experience begin to take shape in the have spent relatively little time working vault at a time, and staff held those margins of the earlier book, with the in and thinking about archives, where so behind the counter, doling them out word “death” scratched out, and “ego much of the raw materials of “history” one by one. Pencils only in the room, loss” scribbled in. are stored. This year has been different. but I was allowed to take pictures of Before taking a trip to New York City whatever I wanted. Leary in the ’70s in February, I made sure to set up a visit Luckily the NYPL has made a pretty Given my current research on with a bunch of boxes at the New York thorough catalog of the collection, and “high weirdness” in the seventies, my Public Library (NYPL). These hundreds the Curator of Manuscripts, Thomas main interest was in Leary’s second of boxes contain the Timothy prison stint, when he received Leary papers, 1910–2009, which what he called the “Starseed the Manuscripts and Archives What’s the difference Transmissions”. In a series of Division purchased in 2011 and between an archive and a pile chapbooks and self-published made available to researchers two texts, Leary turned his back on the years later. As a PhD working in of moldering cardboard boxes hippie-Hindu mysticism of his ’60s the field, it was easy for me to get in a shed in the backyard? persona and embraced a futurist, access to the archive. If you are an proto-Mondo 2000 worldview of independent researcher and have a sci-fi, spacefaring techno-opti- good spiel about a project, it’s not too Lannon, helped dig out particularly mism. In the boxes associated with this tough to get your hands on these things. interesting items for me. One of my era, I found letters and texts that, though And if you are in New York, you should! research goals that day included of only moderate interest in themselves, The Manuscripts and looking at Leary’s aggressive transfor- gave a strong sense of the range of Archives Division mation of Walter Evans-Wentz’s early Leary’s interests and attitudes at that is housed in English translation of The Tibetan Book time. This material included letters that a pleasant, of the Dead into the 1960 trip guide The made it clear to me that Leary had not old-school Psychedelic Experience. One folder really become a New Age channeler of scholarly reading contained Leary’s heavily-annotated E.T. information but was, once again, room, with plush copy of the Book of the Dead, where crafting a tactical mask.

12 Erowid Extracts ­29 — August 2016 Even more interesting was the cor- cardboard boxes in a shed in the had learned about after sifting through respondence that Leary’s partner Joanna backyard? I got to contemplate this a different archive in Champaign, Harcourt-Smith received as a result of question immediately after returning Illinois. the numerous fundraising and concert to the Bay Area from New York. I This was not the New York Public efforts she organized to support Leary’s met up with my pal R. John Williams, Library. There was no catalog. Bugs, release from prison. These folders were a professor of English at Yale, and mold, and dust infested the boxes. It stuffed with envelopes and letters— we went to visit a fellow in Sonoma was a good lesson in the overwhelming often featuring cartoons or colorful County (north of San Francisco) who materiality of analog archives, and designs—in which regular folks wrote possessed such a shed. The boxes in their capacity to generate a “small in to express support for Leary, the question had belonged to a curious infinity” of one damn thing after influence of psychedelics on their lives, character named Kurt von Meier another. We didn’t have enough time their fascination with outer space, or resources to be anything and other topics that showed me close to systematic, but our a good cross-slice of psychedelic You may get the answers you scattershot efforts still bore America at the time. fruit. We found moldy reel-to- are looking for, but you always I realized then that while the reels with famous conversations Leary papers are obviously a gold leave with more questions. recorded on them, a smattering of mine to students of the old rascal, informative press clippings, and they are just as valuable as an a possibly full manuscript copy impressionistic record of that counter- (1934-2011), a groovy pot-smoking of The OMasters. We also discovered cultural era. Like a magnet, Leary art historian, renegade, and polymath a package addressed to Andy Warhol attracted all sorts of attention, and who cut a fascinating swath through and stuffed with photographs of because he was vain about publicity, California head culture in its glory early Velvet Underground sessions. keeping all the records of his ego’s years, touching on Esalen, multimedia Amazing, but where did it fit? So back successful course through the world, happenings, Tibetan Buddhism, into a box it went. One thing that is researchers like me can now pore through and first-wave California cuisine. clear about archives: you may get the a cornucopia of “signs of the times”. Interested in von Meier’s connections answers you are looking for, but you with the British intellectual George always leave with more questions. Big Data Spencer-Brown, author of Laws of The exhilaration of delving into Form (1969), Dr. Williams was also Erowid’s Cardboard Boxes archives is often coupled with a on the hunt for von Meier’s obscure Over the years, Erowid Center has state of information overload all too mid-’70s, Castaneda-esque novel The received a number of collections of familiar today, a kind of claustro- OMasters—an unpublished text he physical documents, books, ephemera phobia, indecision, and exhaustion. What objects are the most valuable? Is this a key? The mind, even a mind used to thinking in terms of historical trends, boggles before so much raw material, so many questions that could be asked, so many rabbit holes to tumble down. Archives are like the original “Big Data”. Once they are gathered, the question becomes: what kinds of value can be generated from the material? This value is in turn directly related to what kind of questions one asks. In a sense there is always more than one archive, because what the archive “contains” reflects the different sorts of research projects (and wayward seren- dipitous wanders) that are brought to it.

Piles of Boxes But what’s the difference between The Psychedelic Experience, El Perfecto, 1973. Published to raise an archive and a pile of moldering by Timothy Leary. 1964. money for the Leary Defense Fund.

Erowid Extracts 29 — August 2016 13 and recordings. This is an important be thinking about what to do with reminder of the mission of Erowid, their collections; hopefully, some which is not just to be an online of the heads will remember Erowid! resource for the most up-to-date Recently, I visited the temporary information on psychoactive site of the Erowid Library. Fire and compounds, but to create and I went through some of the donated maintain a public “cultural memory” boxes that were piling up. The of psychoactive and psychedelic experience reminded me at once plants and chemicals, and the people of the exhilaration and exhaustion and societies that have been changed associated with the other archives I by their encounters with them. have been to. One task was to process This sort of archival work is a dozen or so boxes of books that had particularly important because many belonged to Bob Wallace, a software of the mainstream institutions that pioneer, activist, and philanthro- form and create archives have, for pist who co-owned Mind Books, 1978, #3. the most part, ignored countercul- a mail-order bookstore offering tural materials, and particularly publications about psychoactive

Flash, ones associated with drugs. This plants and compounds. They had is changing of course, but Erowid already been cherry-picked for their Center has and will continue to play more rare and expensive items, an important role in the archiving of which made them less exciting. modern and ancient psychoactive But the thing about an archive is culture. that it is tough to separate wheat One of the things that can define from chaff, since part of the point an archive is whether it is capable of is to keep materials that seem like absorbing other people’s moldy old noise, but that may provide signal to boxes of crap and transforming them future researchers who are following into useful material. While lots of questions and agendas we can’t yet independent researchers, publishers, imagine. and heads have developed amazing So, for example, the boxes personal collections over the years, contained dozens of sociological few families or estates have the books from the seventies and resources to maintain these materials eighties about the drug scene, some in the wake of mortality. Often the written by academics with an eye

, April 1978, Vol 2(9). April 1978, Vol , collections get broken up and sold towards a popular audience, and or, worse, lost, burned, or tossed others of a more technical nature.

Head away. To prevent this, some estates In some ways these texts, devoid of find institutions such as university colorful writing or personal detail, libraries to house the materials. Or are incredibly dull and seemingly the collectors themselves decide to useless for people interested in these donate them before their death. questions today. But for historians Erowid has received and processed tracking the way that psychoactive some noteworthy materials, substances get re-imagined and including large collections of papers redescribed over time, these boring belonging to Albert Hofmann and books can actually be worthwhile— Myron Stolaroff. In both these cases, not only as a window into the drug Erowid scanned the papers and, scene of the times, but, perhaps as once they were digitized, returned importantly, into how professionals the physical artifacts. Erowid has thought about and wrote about these also received physical collections scenes. from researchers, publishers, and The most fun I had during my

Fall 1974, Vol 1(2). 1(2). Fall 1974, Vol enthusiasts, and presumably more day of archive spelunking at the will keep coming in. Indeed, now Erowid Center Library was going that the baby boomer generation has through old issues of High Times hit its sunset years, many people will magazine. Erowid had been gifted High Times, High Times, 14 14 Erowid Extracts 29­ — August 2016 several large sets of the magazine, and wasn’t making money, and it was Fire and I carefully compiled these making money because people different collections into one master had a lot of drug-related materials set, culling the duplicates for other to advertise and sell. These uses and putting everything in order. included a hilarious number of I am enough of a nerd to enjoy the porno pipes, mannitol and other cataloging process itself, but I was cocaine cutting agents, erotic really interested in the issues from the coloring books, rolling papers, seventies. coke spoons, scales, t-shirts My time spent with these goofy, (with bra-free models, natch), colorful magazines was worth every and five-foot model pyramids minute of opening up crumpled boxes made of opaque vinyl. The sly and sneezing at the mold. Along with exuberance of many of the ads some largely forgotten drug mags like reflected a hedonism at once Flash and Head, seventies-era High unhinged and strangely innocent Times were a spore-print of a zeitgeist in its pleasures. that for some reason I can’t get enough Alongside the paraphernalia, of. I thrilled to articles about astral however, the magazine was also Ad for methamphetamine recipe. projection, the banana peel myth, more directly keyed than I would Head, December 1977, Vol 2(5). and the Kif harvest in Morocco, have thought to the much larger and and was surprised to come across very real world of the explicitly intelligent interviews with Susan illegal drug trade. The round-up of Library that remain unprocessed and Sontag, William S. Burroughs, and the news on busts and DEA activity uncatalogued. On top of some of the Dalai Lama, along with an editorial seemed very thorough, while the intellectual challenges associated with about outer space by Jerry Brown (as Trans-High Market Quotations finding the best way to organize and of 2016, California’s longest- diligently collected worldwide sift through these materials, there’s serving Governor). I learned prices for cannabis and any always the possibility of coming across that the slang term number of other desirable rare and mind-blowing cherries to for psychedelic compounds, pick. An unpublished manuscript on mushrooms including a vital topic! A substantive letter with in Mexico Quaaludes, a famous signature! Lab specs! Drug was caca crystal porn! And if, instead, the material turns de vaca meth, out to be dreadfully boring, you can (shit of and PCP. always just shelve it. Next! the cow), Fully So, for the sake of cultural memory and that illustrated (and my own future thrills), I urge you some heads felt that articles on the best to keep the Erowid Center Library the new sinsemilla smuggling planes and a in mind. If you own or know of strains coming out of myriad of true life tales in drug-related archives—however Cali smelled pretty exotic locales suggested small—please consider the Erowid but gave pedestrian that, along with being Center Library when it comes time highs compared to the a mix of Rolling Stone to pass them on. (This includes not psychedelic exotica of and National Lampoon, only books, magazines, and articles, Thai stick or the best the magazine was also a but what archivists call “ephemera”: Hawaiian. bit like a stoned Soldier posters, cards, ads, fliers, etc.) Or The sixties and of Fortune, and that the make a financial contribution to seventies were good true hero of 1970s drug Erowid’s digitizing efforts, which help years for magazines, culture was not the grower ensure online access to such archives. and High Times had or dealer, but the globe- Authors can also donate the right some great writers like High Times, trotting smuggler. for Erowid to publish out-of-print Glenn O’Brien and Dec/Jan 1975, #7. books or articles online, even, or Andew Weil, and lots of The Next Box especially, texts now forgotten by editorial sass. But half the It’s always nice to bank on history. Because history doesn’t really fun lies in the ads. After all, the future thrills, and I am happy that there forget—it just sticks everything in a magazine wouldn’t be there if it are still boxes at the Erowid Center box somewhere. •

Erowid Extracts 29 — August 2016 15 BOX, PAPER, SCANNER

Archives at Erowid by Fire & Earth Erowid

rowid is, fundamentally, a library. Books archived as a historical snapshot. In Archiving documents for the Even before Erowid had a name, the early 2000s, we added several other E public is an important part of we were collecting books, papers, and collections, some of which came to us what we do. Within a year of starting the geeky ephemera about psychoactive digitally, others in print. site in 1995, collectors of drug-related plants and drugs. In 1998, we had As colleagues retired from or data began offering their content to be 150 related books. In 2000, Erowid’s stopped maintaining their web presence, incorporated into Erowid.org. Some first benefactor, Bob Wallace, thinned they asked us to archive their web people’s interest had waned and they content for posterity. These included wanted to hand their work off to someone “Diary of a Psychonaut”, “The Sonoran they trusted to keep it going. Others Desert Toad” collection, Rhodium’s wanted to participate by adding their Chemistry and Pharmacology archive, collections of data to a larger “library”. and a snapshot of PoppySeedTea.com, In the late 1990s, little of a site created by the mother of a young humankind’s printed knowledge was man who died in 1986 from drinking available digitally. The Erowid site poppy seed tea. began with academic tidbits, digitized clippings, and community knowledge Physical Collections about psychedelics, collected informally. The first physical collection we We and our drug geek colleagues spent digitized was the 4,000-document countless hours in university libraries Albert Hofmann Collection, which we photocopying obscure but important scanned and databased with funding articles out of old journals and books. from Bob Wallace. This collection Texts were scanned manually on flatbed includes a surprisingly complete array scanners and OCR’d, or typed in by hand of research documents about LSD and if OCR was impractical. other psychedelics from the 1950s out his personal library and gifted through the 1970s, most previously us with twenty boxes of books and unavailable online. The physical periodicals. He had decided, among collection was returned to Switzerland other changes, to retire his collection after rebinding and the digital version of prurient anti-drug, pulp scare- archived publicly on Erowid. ographies, resulting in the addition We first visited Sasha and Ann of Reefer Madness–style fiction and Shulgin at the Shulgin Farm in 1999. nonfiction to the Erowid Library. Our Their enticing library included lab physical library has since grown to and pharmacology notebooks that more than 1,500 titles. formed the basis for their books PiHKAL and TiHKAL. At the time, Digital Collections they felt there were still too many In 1999, we took over the Hyperreal privacy issues to make the materials Drug Archives, a curated and lightly- public. Sasha allowed friends to peek edited collection of more than 1,700 through these notebooks but not to documents. In addition to merging it scan or photograph them. Then, in into Erowid’s main online library, it 2006, the Shulgins agreed to let them was the first large collection we kept be scanned by trusted assistants and

16 Erowid Extracts ­29 — August 2016 The Hive publisher or author, the family of a It may be less obvious how historical deceased enthusiast, or a drug geek snapshots of defunct websites fit into cleaning out their closet, lots of people the big picture, but they are an important want to see their invested time and part of the Erowid library. They are money be useful to others. generally more recent, and more easily Contributions of books related to mined than stacks of yellowing paper, psychoactives are incorporated in several but just as valuable for the evolution of ways. If the book isn’t already in our knowledge and the historical record. slowly growing library, we catalog In 2015, we were approached by and add it. Duplicates are offered as drug geeks who had a complete archive educational thank-you gifts to book- of the long-defunct and controversial collecting donors, helping them build website, “the Hive”. The Hive was an their own libraries. influential web forum discussing the The ephemera stuck in the corners of chemistry of mind-altering compounds. donated boxes is often as interesting as Its frank, explicit discussions of the books: advertising from conferences, synthesis and extraction made it one product packaging, drug containers, the Shulgin Collection at Erowid was of the most infamous psychoactive- festival fliers, pins, stickers, etc. Curious established. Erowid volunteers took related websites of its era, attracting US artifacts can enliven otherwise dry on the laborious job of transcribing collections of materials, documenting hundreds of pages of difficult-to-read the vibrant culture and subcultures that chemistry-related texts. The work by surround psychoactive drugs. Team Shulgin and Erowid to document Erowid is part of a long lineage of Sasha and Ann’s work continues. people working to further the field of Erowid Extracts #28 (February 2016) psychoactive drug-related knowledge. As was dedicated to this project. contributors to this wisdom tradition, we In 2009, Myron and Jean Stolaroff preserve and evolve information about offered Erowid their collection mind-altering substances, practices, and of somewhat moldy boxes full of technologies. • documents related to psychedelic psychotherapy to digitize and archive Images: 1) Gracie and Zarkov’s 1985 online. In 2014, we completed collection of experience reports, Notes from cataloging the 5,000 items in the the Underground. 2) Larry Todd’s 1974 Stolaroff Collection and, as of July Dr. Atomic’s Marijuana Multiplier. 3) The 2016, we’re halfway through the earliest LSD paper in the Hofmann Collection, process of writing short abstracts for from 1947. 4) Archived version of The Hive at each. We’re excited about the added Erowid. 5) Psychedelic Ephemera. utility that these abstracts will provide national television attention. The forum to what could otherwise be a daunting was started in 1997 and by the time it set of personal communications and went offline in 2004 (due to hosting published articles. The tidied physical issues), it had developed an internation- papers may now be heading to Stanford al community of more than 8,500 active University for long-term storage. users and half a million posts. Erowid Recently, well-known author launched the first complete snapshot Michael Pollan, who is working on a of the Hive in September 2015, after book touching on 1960s psychedelic removal of private information such as history, asked us if the Stolaroff passwords, email addresses, and private Collection contained any original messages. documents related to Al Hubbard, an important figure in 20th-century Boxes of Stuff psychedelic history. Our search for Perhaps the least known archiving “Hubbard” in the collection pulled work we do is processing small one- up 185 related documents, most of or-two-box collections of drug-related which we provided to Pollan to aid books, papers, and “stuff” contributed his research. by individuals. Whether it’s a former

Erowid Extracts 29 — August 2016 17 Michael Pinchera The First

ExperienceSapo Report

Photo © Joachim S. Müller

he 2015 book Sapo in My Soul: Pablo briskly mixed his saliva on the “Sapo, Petro, sapo”, the curandero The Matsés Frog Medicine is the stick, forming a light paste, and then whispered, adding to the confusion. T unlikely story of how a curious retrieved a twig from the fire. “I had no idea what he was talking former New York City chef authored the “He grabbed my left arm—I couldn’t about—‘sapo’ means toad in Spanish”, earliest-known, first-person experience pull it away—burned me twice, quickly Gorman says. “Within five minutes, I report about the effects of Phyllomedusa scraped away the skin, and put the paste started to convulse and throw up. I got bicolor secretions in humans, helping to he made onto the exposed subcutaneous down on my hands and knees because bring global attention to a frog venom layers of flesh”, Gorman says. I couldn’t stand anymore and I wanted with unique medical and psychoactive Moments after the paste—recon- the coolness of the clay against my properties. stituted secretions of the bright green forehead.” In mid-1986, investigative journalist Amazonian tree frog Phyllomedusa He collapsed on the ground. Peter Gorman was pointing at objects in bicolor—was applied, Gorman was “I felt my heart was going to explode; the home of Pablo, a Matsés curandero thrust into hell. I thought my head was going to explode; (traditional healer) he’d just met, “In about 15 seconds, my heart began I thought I was so hot my brain was seeking to learn the tribe’s words for to beat faster, my pulse seemed like it certainly fried. It was a terrifying various items. As Gorman motioned was going faster, my blood seemed to experience.” toward a small plastic bag hanging over rush, I got very warm”, he says. “At 30 As he writhed in agony, 20 kids a fire, Pablo excitedly pulled a stick from seconds, I was very uncomfortable. I from the village started kicking him the bag—and spat on it. was hot and this was really making me as though he was a dying animal, like, “I had no idea what it was but I was sweat. I turned to Moises and asked, ‘All “Hey, is he dead yet? Can we put him not particularly afraid, because the night right, what is this?’ In the jungle region, on the spit or what?”. Gorman described before we had done nü-nü, a [tobacco- Moises knew everything.” thinking “Oh my god, they just poisoned based] snuff, and that hadn’t hurt me”, Despite having in-depth, first-hand me, I’m dying, and they already want Gorman recalls. “And my guide Moises knowledge about the activities and to put me on the goddamned fire. I’ve knew these guys and he didn’t object, so traditions of countless tribes in the seen them put animals on the fire—they I thought, ‘Well, whatever he’s doing is region, Moises knew nothing about the put animals on the fire while alive. I do going to be interesting.’” stick in Pablo’s hand. NOT want to be put on the damn fire.” Gorman awoke in his hut alone and Stretching the frog to collect its secretion. Photo by Larry LaValle. with no one nearby. But he could hear people speaking in a normal tone. Then he realized he was hearing two women who were 50–70 feet away. “I thought, ‘That’s extraordinary! What the heck’s going on here?’ And I looked around and into the trees to my left and saw some small motion, but not at the edge of the trees. It was as if I was seeing through the trees and there was motion in the inside. I realized, ‘Hey there goes a small band of monkeys’, and I could hear them as

18 Erowid Extracts ­29 — August 2016 1925 Anthropology of well. This was not normal. And when ‘I’m glad you did it. But I didn’t I went to stretch, it seemed like all mean to be No. 1; I wasn’t trying Sapo Use of my muscles responded. Not just to steal your thunder.’ My job as a a normal stretch, but as if they were journalist is to jump in the frickin’ ‘RRRRRRR!’ I felt like, ‘Whoa, I’m water.” (None of those anthropolo- A 1925 French article by Constant hearing better, I’m seeing better, I’m gists shared with Gorman details Tastevin published in La Géographie a strong motherfucker!’ It sort of of their experiences or described might be the first to have described the blew me away—and I hadn’t died having taken sapo more than once.) effects of sapo (campon), in the context and they hadn’t put me on the fire.” Back in New York, he shared his of use by indigenous people in South The perceptual change wasn’t sapo experience with, among others, America. (Translated by Erowid.) like seeing another dimension on his contacts at the American Museum ayahuasca. But it reinforced his of Natural History, and approached “The amphibians are legion. awareness that we are missing out the consumer publishing world. Most notable is the campon of the on something—many things—if Gorman returned to Peru several Kachinaua people, or the bakurúru of we don’t take seriously indigenous months later in 1986 on assignment the Tûpy. The Kachinaua, Kurina and people and their knowledge. At the for Penthouse to write about the Kanamari tie it up alive, limbs splayed, time, Gorman had no idea that his Matsés, a feature for which the description of the ordeal would be magazine flew in noted photographer and hold it over a fire. the world’s first published sapo Jeff Rotman. Its body oozes a secretion that is The full report (121 collected on small sticks and saved. pages on language and Then they release the poor animal, names, photo opportuni- for if it were to die the goo would take “Why have I done this ties encountered, and a list revenge on its tormentors. When a drug again? I thought I of artifacts collected for native falls ill, becomes thin, pale and the museum) of this trip would die the first time…” swollen; when he has long been unlucky includes Gorman’s second experience of using sapo: in hunting, it is because there is an evil “While [Pablo] is gone I force in the body that must be expelled. experience report. “That wasn’t in receive a single shot of sappo [sic] Early in the morning, before dawn, my head at all … I was just thrilled in my left forearm. They will give while still fasting, the sick and the I had something to share”, he says. me no more as the women remember unlucky have small scars made on their Earlier explorers had shared my bad reaction last time and are arm or stomach with the red-hot tip of a second- and third-hand tales of apparently afraid I might not return brand and then inoculate themselves with “kambô”, which is synonymous with … Why have I done this drug again? “sapo”—the word used by the Matsés I thought I would die the first time the “milk” of the toad, as they call it. for the P. bicolor frog, its protective and now am sure of it … I was not They are soon seized with intense secretions, as well as the acts of nearly as removed as the first time, in nausea and diarrhea; the evil force exits capturing and milking it (herein, all [likelihood] attributable to having the body by all the orifices: the sick “sapo” is used solely in reference done half the amount.” 1 man gains weight and regains his color, to the animal’s secretions)—but Meanwhile, Penthouse prepared the unlucky one encounters more game it seemed little more than a myth, for its exclusive story from “The than he can bring back; not one animal another curious entry in the anthro- Real Life Indiana Jones”—that’s escapes his keen eyesight, his ear pological record, until Gorman let how they teased it in the issue the frog out of the bag by sharing his preceding its intended publication. perceives the slightest sounds, and his account with researchers, scientists, At the last minute, the story was cut weapon does not miss a single target. and mass media worldwide. because, as Gorman later learned, I attended one of these cleansings “I had feedback from [a few] publisher Bob Guccione expected among the Kurina, at the headwaters anthropologists who said they [tried a cannibal tale. Gorman admits he of the Erie, among the Zuwohi-Madihâ sapo] and hated me because they likely used the word “cannibalism” (weeper capuchin monkey): the patients were going to write about it when during his pitch to the magazine, took the “campon” around 5 am, some they retired”, Gorman says. “But either metaphorically or in the because they were anthropologists, context of an anecdote he’d been of them for fun; at 7 am they were fully they couldn’t admit that they [got told during an earlier visit to the recovered, and at 8 am, one of them involved in the peoples they were Matsés—a tale which, if true, would went out hunting and returned with just researching]. And my feeling was, be an exception since the Matsés one jacou [game bird].” •

Erowid Extracts 29 — August 2016 19 19 do not generally have cannibalistic In 1988, Gorman returned from estimated to be 30–40 times as potent tendencies. Peru with P. bicolor secretions in as morphine—and some Dendrobatidae Yet, Gorman’s sapo story would get the typical Matsés form—collected species poison-dart frogs. out. The earliest-known publication and dried on a stick—and provided Months after receiving Gorman’s of his sapo experience report came in samples to Charles Myers, curator of the sapo, Erspamer reported that it consisted August 1987, appearing simultaneously American Museum of Natural History’s of up to 7% peptides by weight: dozens of in two foreign editions of Penthouse herpetology department, and Erspamer. different peptides, at least seven of which (“Mein Trip Mit Dem Jäger Tumi”, More than 50 years earlier, in are bioactive. “No other amphibian skin German; “Visioenen Van Een Jacht”, 1937, Erspamer discovered a new can compete with it”, he wrote. With his Dutch). Australian Penthouse was quick amine, which he named “enteramine” interest growing, Erspamer arranged for to follow with “Into the Mystic” (Oct. (5-hydroxytryptamine, now known as a doctor he trusted to visit Gorman at his 1987), the story’s first English-language “serotonin”). That contribution was Manhattan apartment. publication. significant in many ways, but especially so in relation Enter the Scientist to understanding essential “The American Museum of Natural functions of the human brain The earliest-known publication History would take reports like mine, and how brain chemistry is of Gorman’s sapo experience from what I understand, and disseminate affected by psychedelics. “If report came in August 1987… them to people who were interested in neuroscience can be said to that field”, Gorman says. have a beginning”, wrote Dr. Dr. Vittorio Erspamer, a pharmacolo- David Nichols in the spring gist working with the FIDIA Research 2013 MAPS Bulletin, “one could argue “The doctor did tests, I did sapo. Institute for the Neurosciences at the that it occurred in 1954, with the idea He had me hooked up to an EKG and University of Rome, had been inves- that the action of LSD might be related different things were strapped to me tigating peptides in amphibian skins to its effects on the brain serotonin and he was talking to Erspamer [on the (including P. bicolor) for decades 2— system”. phone] at the same time. So Erspamer always believing they could be beneficial Like all of the greatest scientists, knew the tests were done and that I for medicine, but lacking literature Erspamer was ahead of his time.“If didn’t just make this shit up.” sufficient to justify using the material anyone already had samples, it would As a result of Gorman’s story, on humans. have been Erspamer”, Gorman says. Erspamer had more to work with “So when I gave the museum my “I do think he looked at P. bicolor [in than just hypotheses about the effects information about using sapo, I believe, earlier research], but that it didn’t grab of sapo’s peptides. Erspamer asked but I can’t swear, that someone in the his attention as much as some of the Gorman for a detailed account of his museum, knowing [Erspamer’s] interest, others.” sapo experience, which would become got that to him. Then he made contact Those others, he believes, included the basis of the first peer-reviewed report through a third party saying, ‘Whoa, Phyllomedusa sauvagii—which contains investigating whether the chemistry of whoa, whoa! You did this? You’re alive? dermorphin, a peptide also found in sapo P. bicolor secretions could explain the Can I have some?’” that has analgesic properties and is effects described. 3 “And the answer was yes, they could explain every aspect except for Pablo liquefying sapo prior to self-administration. Photo by Jeff Rotman. the point at which it felt like a frog was moving through me in the throes of it all”, Gorman says. “[Erspamer] believed those were hallucinations, maybe brought on by my use of nü-nü at a similar time. But the increased heart rate, the sweating, the feeling of strength, satiation, not being hungry, not being tired for a couple of days, all of that was explained by the peptides in the sapo, once he broke it down.” In the course of his research, Erspamer administered sapo to twelve end-stage cancer patients to see if there was any noticeable benefit, specifically whether

20 Erowid Extracts ­29 — August 2016 In the 30 years since Gorman first experienced sapo, he’s maintained a close relationship with the Matsés and their unique medicines. He married an indigenous woman, Chepa, with whom he raised three children (their experiences with frog sweat are chronicled in a chapter of Sapo in My Soul). For three years, he ran a bar in Iquitos, Peru, about which he’ll gladly Pablo showing recent sapo burns. Photo by Jeff Rotman. share countless amazing tales. Even now in his 60s, Gorman returns two of the prominent peptides would isolated peptides, and derivatives, to Peru multiple times a year to guide, eliminate their pain. including work being done by with his Matsés colleagues, diverse in- “If Erspamer himself wasn’t some of those who were around ternational groups through immersive, dead, I wouldn’t even mention this Erspamer and are now with phar- deep-jungle excursions that often because I want no one to besmirch maceutical companies. include traditional ayahuasca, sapo, and him”, Gorman says. “But he knew The bradykinin peptide found in what a dying cancer patient looked sapo is among the most promising, nü-nü ceremonies. like—and these people were due to as it appears to be able to piggyback The decision to finally write a book die that day—he admitted to me that other chemicals safely through the about sapo was spurred by a desire this was their last chance.” blood-brain barrier (BBB). Some to clear up misinformation about the Nine of the patients died within drugs cannot cross this barrier. medicine; share best practices on 24 hours of being given sapo and If the bradykinin peptide could collecting the frog and its secretions, as three patients lived pain free for a reliably be used to deliver drugs well as administering and using it; and few more days before succumbing to through the BBB, it would be cancer, Erspamer wrote to Gorman a valuable medical discovery. advise on the impact of the booming after the experiment. Researchers are looking at whether interest in this magical amphibian. Gorman is emotional when this could result in more effective “There are Brazilian tribes that are sharing what he hopes will come treatment of Alzheimer’s disease, claiming intellectual property rights from his chance encounter with brain cancer, and countless other for any future medicines [derived from sapo and the subsequent scientific ailments. sapo], and that would cut the Matsés developments, having clearly thought “Sapo might just be the very out”, Gorman says. “I don’t think that’s about the matter for decades. beginning of exploration”, Gorman “My mother, with end-stage says. “There might be 1,000 fair. I want to set the record straight.” cancer, was on a morphine drip amphibians out there with tons of In concert with the thriving ayahuasca 24 hours a day; basically in a material that can help us. But we tourism in Iquitos, demand for sapo is drug-induced coma. “Imagine if needed to start somewhere, with greater than ever. There are certainly my mother had been allowed to somebody saying, ‘I did this and I sticks being sold that contain no sapo experience her last month totally didn’t die.’” • whatsoever. Gorman has personally tried awake and without pain, to tell us sapo from at least a dozen non-Matsés the stories that she was saving for References the last day… and if we could tell her 1. Gorman P. “Galvez River Expedition”. sticks and says none provided any of the what we wanted to tell her... What if Unpublished field report. 1986. recognizable effects. 2. Erspamer V, Melchiorri P, et al. she could have been walking around And in recent years, hundreds of “Phyllomedusa skin: a huge factory for those last 30 days, making food, and store-house of a variety of people have taken courses in Brazil washing floors, having a piece of active peptides”. Peptides. 1985;6 to become “certified” sapo practitio- cheese and a glass of wine in the (Suppl 3):7–12. ners—many returning to the US to open backyard, aware, ‘Yeah, you’re dying 3. Erspamer V, Erspamer GF, et al. “Phar- their own practices. Even as sapo sticks now. Enjoy the sunset, motherfucker.’ macologocial Studies of Sapo from the Frog Phyllomedusa bicolor Skin: A Drug To me, that seems like such a gift.” appear to be increasingly available, Used by the Peruvian Matsés Indians in there may not be enough genuine, Researchers have continued the Shamanic Hunting Practices”. Toxicon. search for medicine in sapo, its Sept 1993;31(9):1099–111. potent sapo to meet global demand. •

Erowid Extracts 29 — August 2016 21 21 2­016 Global Ibogaine Conference by David Bey

On March 14–16 of this year, the rest of his life pioneering the use Alper, Dennis McKenna, Luis Eduardo experts, activists, and enthusiasts of ibogaine to treat addiction and Luna, and Dimitri Mugianis. McKenna interested in the African plant medicine organizing an international community expounded on the intense density of ibogaine gathered in the town of dedicated to this goal. The first Global information occurring at the molecular Tepoztlan, Mexico, to attend the 5th Ibogaine Conference, in 2007, was held level in the signal transduction networks Global Ibogaine Conference. They in his honor. He passed away in 2010, of the plant kingdom. Alper delivered came to share, lecture, discuss, bicker survived by his radiant wife Norma a brilliant presentation on plant about, and celebrate the miraculous Lotsof. decision-making processes (such as effects of Tabernanthe iboga on The previous Global Ibogaine how climbing vines figure out the best the nervous system of mammals–– Conference, held two especially those mammals happening years ago in Durban, to be addicted to opiates or other drugs. South Africa, boasted There is no way to easily capture Iboga is used as a sacrament in about thirty participants. the enormous experience of Gabon by members of the Bwiti This year it attracted over religion, who reputedly learned of 250 attendees, and was attending this event. its use from rainforest Pygmies. quite possibly the largest Everyone present at the conference, conference dedicated to ibogaine that way to grow) and the effect of iboga on however, was ultimately there because has ever taken place. There is no way to human learning and freedom of choice. of Howard Lotsof, who in 1962, as a easily capture the enormous experience Luna provided a scholarly perspective young man, accidentally discovered of attending this event. on plant intelligence and personhood, that after taking ibogaine he was no One prominent theme among contrasting the lack of reverence longer addicted to heroin. Lotsof spent attendees and presenters was the for botanical wisdom long held by contrast between medical scientific authorities with the animistic model ibogaine clinics, traditions of indigenous shamanism. Norma Lotsof with a Conference Attendee. with MDs and RNs on Finally, Dimitri Mugianis gave staff, and the lay-provider a blisteringly charismatic talk on model, where detoxes the “character” of iboga as he sees are facilitated mostly by it, looking at those this plant spirit former addicts. The split draws to its bosom. Dimitri’s point between the medical/ was that while other plant spirits (say, academic folks and the ayahuasca) seem to attract doctors, heroin-user/lay-provider lawyers, and tech-folk (his assertion), contingent was evident, by contrast iboga seems to manifest a though generally cordial, distinct preference for the down-and-out throughout the conference. and the oppressed––from drug addicts Of the panels I attended, in NYC to the Gabonese freedom- one of the most interesting fighters taking shelter with the Pygmies was “Perspectives On while fighting for independence from Plant Intelligence” by Ken the French.

22 Erowid Extracts ­29 — August 2016 Among the pressing issues brought directly at McKenna and Jovel, poor idiosyncratic gathering of people it up was the terrible peril the iboga Dr. Jovel stood there with tears in represented. By the end, most felt the plant itself is in. As worldwide interest his eyes, passionately asserting his program had fulfilled its promise that in the medicine grows, demand commitment to the preservation of “The conversations that will take place has skyrocketed, leading to intense the plant. Speaking as an indigenous here will shape the future of ibogaine poaching. In the words of one of the El Salvadorian who had known violence therapy and research internationally.” conference panelists “We are in danger and exile, and as one who regularly For many participants it resembled of loving it to death.” participates not only in the conventional nothing less than an enormous family This was addressed in one of the most controver- sial panels, “Ethnobotany of Ibogaine & Alternative Production Methods”. Presenter Chris Jenks (famous for creating the first practical, non-toxic ibogaine alkaloid extraction process, which reduced the price of ibogaine and helped expand the ibogaine-assisted medical detox movement) talked about the synthesis pathway he worked out to produce ibogaine from Voacanga africana (not endangered!). McKenna and Eduardo Jovel discussed the work they are doing up at the University of British Colombia using Iboga Extract—Photo courtesy ICEERS Foundation transgenic techniques to make “hairy-root” cultures of T. iboga, which, if perfected, could “scientific” paradigm but also quite reunion––albeit of one of the strangest provide an alternate source for iboga, seriously in indigenous practices, families ever united by a common tree rather than sourcing it directly from Dr. Jovel was not quite sure how he fit (or in this case, shrub). The event closed the wild. into the narrative of an evil corporate with a bangin’ party, in which distin- Sitting on the same panel was Yann scientist out to screw over the earth guished faculty from the NYU School Guignon, a French resident of Gabon for a buck. of Medicine threw down on the dance who excoriated everyone in the room Like most conferences on floor, shoulder to shoulder with former who had ever taken iboga without psychedelics, this one drew attendees addicts turned initiated medicine-men knowing the Bwiti-given name (which seemed to sum up the of the specific plant whose bark whole experience for me). The their medicine came from. In Difficult issues were brought up, party raged until the power Guignon’s view, the ibogaine and more than a few panels had abruptly went out, at which community, having depleted point people gathered around iboga in the wild, is turning people practically in tears. a fire. Those who had been to its back on Gabon. He believes Gabon brought out traditional that the first duty of anyone who has ranging from world-class geniuses to Bwiti instruments and taught iboga benefited from iboga is to give back, the certifiably insane. It was the kind songs to those who had not. directly, to Gabon and the Gabonese of conference where your roommate The next morning folks dispersed people. might invite two carloads of people back out into the world at large, Once Guignon threw down the over to your hotel to burn their skin melting into the anonymous crowds gauntlet, things got pretty tense and with exotic frog toxins. Among the at Mexico City airport, where no one post-colonial fairly quickly. By the most palpable of the conference’s had the faintest idea what we’d been end of the Q&A, wherein Guignon many qualities was the collective up to and they wouldn’t believe us if pointed the damning finger of biopiracy astonishment at what a unique and we told them. •

Erowid Extracts 29 — August 2016 23 Coffea arabica Opioid Harm Reduction Project In 2015, we began collaborating with medical toxicolo- gists Lewis Nelson, Jeanmarie Perrone, Rachel Wightman, and Zachary Meisel. Based on discussions about potential improvements to Erowid’s opioid information, the toxi- cologists secured a $5K grant from the American College of Medical Toxicology to enhance the opioid vaults. The Enhancing Targeted Opioid Harm Reduction Efforts (ETOHRE) project sprang from that grant. This effort is in response to the troubling and complex US epidemic of opioid-related problems (including addiction, overdose, and death) that distinguish this class of drugs from most others described on Erowid. The first year of this project focused on evaluating what type of educational information is needed and beginning the development of content. During this phase, we conducted four surveys to gain an understanding of traffic to Erowid’s opioid pages, the demographics of our visitors, and the contours of visitors’ knowledge and use of opioids. Survey answers are helping to shape the harm reduction materials the team is drafting. We’re creating documents broadly relevant to the wide

Coffea arabica Tree—Photo by Erowid array of available opioids as well as focusing on some of the most well known: oxycodone, hydrocodone, codeine, tramadol, heroin, fentanyl, and opium. As an example of our findings, around 75% of Erowid visitors surveyed said they had used an opioid either medically or recreationally during their life. We are creating a new Erowid page type for “Risks”. It will integrate multiple nuanced viewpoints on opioids from those with experience in emergency departments, drug treatment, drug use, and drug education, designed to address issues broadly enough to be useful to those who are considering taking an opioid for the first time and those who have used them many times. Coffea arabica Flower—Photo by Erowid The group has delved deeply into the relative merits of different styles of warnings. We are also working on methods for evaluating the effective- ness of and preferences for different types of risk information and how to increase the number of at-risk people who read about health issues, without triggering “warning fatigue”. It’s increasingly accepted that first-person narratives are more engaging and carry more weight with many readers than plainly stated medical warnings. So, we’re excerpting experience reports and featuring natural- language descriptions of the risks of opioid use, notably physical dependence, withdrawal, addiction, and overdose. The ETOHRE group has had two abstracts about the project published in the medical literature, and we expect Unroasted Coffee Beans—Photo by Erowid additional findings will be generated in 2016. •

24 Erowid Extracts 29 — August 2016 Erowid in Person ECSTASYDATA.ORG PROJECT Erowid receives a lot of requests to speak at events. Despite being chronically busy, we try to make at least PERCENTAGE OF TESTED ECSTASY/MOLLY SAMPLES CONTAINING MDMA ONLY two in-the-flesh presentations each year and attend one other conference or professional gathering. 50% Sometimes it’s hard to measure the value of impacting more people through online information against the value Avg Page Hits Per Day 14,704 of having “higher bandwidth” face-to-face exchanges. We Avg File Hits Per Day 425,565

learn something new at every event we attend, and people 2 016 Daily Viewers 5,651 often tell us that they learn from our presentations. At one Year-To-Date Samples Tested 293 recent conference of knowledgeable psychedelic-oriented multidisciplinary experts, we gave an up-to-the-minute Total Samples Tested 528 Results Published romp through the crazy world of new psychoactive Non-Ecstasy Samples 276 (including all partner labs) substances (NPS). The level of surprise expressed by the Ecstasy/Molly Samples 252 2015–2016 1,094 well-informed attendees at the proliferation of NPS was MDMA Only 124 (49%) 2010–2014 1,495 2 015 a reminder that different settings provide unique learning MDMA + Other 35 (14%) 2005–2009 437 and teaching opportunities. • Something Else 89 (35%) 2000–2004 1,265 Drug Identifying and Measuring Nothing 4 ( 2%) 1996–1999 102 In late July, we gave a talk on the basics of dose measurement at an event sponsored by the Women’s Visionary Congress, the San Francisco Psychedelic Society, and the Internet Archive. What does 1 milligram EXPERIENCE REPORTS of powder look like? How about 10 mg, 100 mg, or 1 gram? This presentation was designed to remind people Published Reports 25,460 that order-of-magnitude errors with drug dosages can kill, Fully Triaged Reports 39,014 and to equip them with knowledge to help prevent such Partially Triaged Reports 845 errors. We demonstrated using milligram scales and simple volumetric liquid measurement techniques essential for Untriaged Reports 19,991 anyone who finds themselves around white powders. We Rejected Reports 22,997 also discussed the uses and limitations of field reagent testing kits to reduce risks from misidentified drugs. • TOTAL EXPERIENCE REPORTS COLLECTED New Yorker Profile Reverberations 108,853 In recognition of Erowid’s 20th year in operation, Submitted Each Day 6.2 The New Yorker magazine published a “light profile” of Earth and Fire in their “Letters from California” series. Published in the Last Year 1,356 Since the November 23, 2015 issue first appeared, the Active Triagers/Reviewers 28 number of requests we’ve received for phone, radio, and podcast interviews has increased substantially. The New Yorker article left a lot of interesting EROWID CONTENT commentary on the cutting-room floor. The author,

Emily Witt, conducted a dozen interviews with global DOCUMENTS PUBLISHED ON EROWID.ORG experts who praised the Erowid project and vision, but little of that “background” made it into the article. Some of the people who were quoted said that their 123,139 most definitive statements about Erowid’s benefit to Experience Reports 25,460 society were left out, presumably to make room for a Articles & Information Pages 19,449 few dissenting voices. We’re hopeful that a future article in another References 8,596 publication might go deeper into the roots, background, Photographs, Images, & Art 7,933 philosophy, and positive impact Erowid and its drug geek colleagues have had. • Archived Site Pages 61,701

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“To sustain longevity, you have to “I would be better for me […] that “Most anarchists believe the coming evolve.” multitudes of men should disagree change can only come through a — Aries Spears (b. 1975) with me rather than that I, being revolution, because the possessing one, should be out of harmony with class will not allow a peaceful “If you don’t know history, then myself and contradict me.” change to take place; still we are you don’t know anything. You are a — Plato (~428–348 BCE) willing to work for peace at any price, leaf that doesn’t know it is part of except at the price of liberty.” a tree.” “The one self-knowledge worth — Lucy Parsons (1853–1942) — Michael Crichton (1942–2008) having is to know one’s own mind.” — Francis H. Bradley (1846–1924) “Every revolution was first a thought “Study the past if you would define in one man’s mind; and when the the future.” same thought occurs to another — Confucius (551–479 BCE) man, it is the key to that era.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) “Remember, remember always, that all of us, and you and I especially, Ardi galdua “Knowing others is wisdom. Knowing are descended from immigrants and oneself is enlightenment.” revolutionists.” atzeman — Laozi (~6th century BCE) — Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945) daiteke, “People often say that this or that “That men do not learn very much person has not yet found himself. from the lessons of history is the aldi galdua But the self is not something one most important of all the lessons berriz ez finds, it is something one creates.” that history has to teach.” — Thomas Szasz (1920–2012) — Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) [ The lost sheep may be “Everything you see or hear or “History never looks like history recovered, lost time cannot. ] experience in any way at all is when you are living through it.” — Basque Proverb specific to you. You create a universe — John W. Gardner (1912–2002) by perceiving it, so everything in the universe you perceive is specific “The soul becomes dyed with the to you.” colour of its thoughts.” — Douglas Adams (1952–2001) — Marcus Aurelius (121–180) “It is not by wearing down into uniformity all that is individual “It is one of the commonest of “In making the great experiment of in themselves, but by cultivating mistakes to consider that the limit governing people by consent rather it and calling it forth, within the of our power of perception is also than by coercion, it is not sufficient limits imposed by the rights and the limit of all there is to perceive.” that the party in power should have interests of others, that human — C. W. Leadbeater (1854–1934) a majority. It is just as necessary beings become a noble and beautiful that the party in power should never object of contemplation.” “Growth is an erratic forward outrage the minority.” — John Stuart Mill (1806–1873) movement: two steps forward, one — Walter Lippmann (1889–1974) step back. Remember that and be “Self-correction begins with self- very gentle with yourself.” “What characterizes a member of a knowledge.” — Julia Cameron (b. 1948) minority group is that he is forced to — Baltasar Gracián (1601–1658) see himself as both exceptional and “Only in growth, reform, and change, insignificant, marvelous and awful, “Your identity changes with how you paradoxically enough, is true good and evil.” perceive reality.” security to be found.” — Norman Mailer (1923–2007) — Vithu Jeyaloganathan (b. 1991) — Anne Morrow Lindbergh (1906–2001)