Stoned Wallabies Make Crop Circles 104
It's the tripnaut! writes "The BBC reports that Australian wallabies are eating opium poppies and creating crop circles as they hop around 'as high as a kite', a government official has said. 'The one interesting bit that I found recently in one of my briefs on the poppy industry was that we have a problem with wallabies entering poppy fields, getting as high as a kite and going around in circles,' says Lara Giddings, the attorney general for the island state of Tasmania. 'Then they crash,' she added."
Who hops around on opium? (Score:5, Interesting)
Next on Fox: When Animals get High (Score:5, Interesting)
I wouldn't call it a natural desire, because the animals aren't born with it. But most every animal that has experienced consciousness alteration wants more of it. Birds eat fermented fruits and berries and get so drunk they can't fly. Most dogs love beer. Many pets like the effects of marijuana. But my all time favorite drunken animal story is the one about the derailed corn train and the drunken bears. A trainload of corn derailed in the Rockies, where cleanup was next to impossible. After the corn fermented, bears would come from miles around to eat the fermented corn, and get so drunk they'd pass out on the tracks. So the railroad company buried the corn. And the bears dug it up. The company sprayed it with nasty tasting stuff. The bears didn't care. Finally, they covered it in diesel fuel and burned it. The bears ate what was left.
Re:If there animals are getting high (Score:5, Interesting)
Dude, you want pot, move to CA, get your medical marijuana card and go to town.
Re:If there animals are getting high (Score:5, Interesting)
There are huge numbers of examples of animals consuming intoxicants in nature:
* Hummingbirds will drink the sap of daturas and brugmansias, which contain deleriant tropanes, inducing extremely potent hallucinations.
* India has problems with elephants and alcohol. Elephants will consume fruit that has fermented, and then, in their state of intoxication, cause massive amounts of damage to towns and power lines.
* Most amusingly (to me), my aunt has a farm, and every night the ducks are corralled in the barn. Every morning when she goes to let them out, they're quacking and pressed up against the door. An explosion of ducks happens when she finally lets them free, and apparently they race for a shady patch across the field and fight viciously over there. She could not figure out why this was the case, so after hearing that cattle were frequently in that area, I suggested she check the cow dung for mushrooms. Sure enough, those ducks were bolting out to fight over a morning dose of magic mushrooms.
Re:If there animals are getting high (Score:1, Interesting)
You don't have apple trees in your yard, do you? When the apples start to get a bit past ripe they turn into alcohol and millions of insects go eat them to get hammered. Give such an apple to a horse and observe it demolish it with great pleasure... I'd say it's just as natural as everything else man does.
Re:If there animals are getting high (Score:3, Interesting)
Incidentally, if you are still interested in forms of intoxication other than alcohol (which is fun but not particularly interesting and comes with a hefty price in the form of a hangover), there are plenty of options at your disposal. Some worth investigating:
* The mescaline containing San Pedro cactus, which is a fantastic hallucinogen, IMO. Long (10-12 hours), but very fun even at low doses. I found it quite mood enhancing and stimulating, and would consume 10 grams and then proceed to clean my entire house. As I despise cleaning, this was a great way to get to those chores I detest and put off perpetually like dusting, washing walls, etc. Even the mundane becomes quite intriguing. Best purchased dried if you intend to use it for recreational experimentation, although a lovely plant in its own right.
* The salvinorin containing Salvia divinorum (a variety of sage called Diviner's sage), a very potent hallucinogen that can be bought online through lots of distributors. Extremely powerful, but very short lived.
* Amanita muscaria (the red mushrooms with white spots on the caps, also another hallucinogen). As I haven't tried it, I can't really comment on this one other to say that it's out there.
* Dextromethorphan, a dissociative anaesthetic in the same family as ketamine and quite the opposite of a traditional hallucinogen in terms of effect. At low doses, it is frequently described as a combination of alcohol, marijuana, and caffeine with extremely mild hallucinogenic effects (walls may breathe, things may seem mildly lilliputian). At high doses it is incredibly bizarre and induces phenomena like out of body experiences, astral projection, ego annihilation, etc. Really cool stuff, and available at any pharmacy without a prescription, although the product through which it is consumed does make some uneasy due to negative stigma.
* Nitrous oxide (laughing gas) in the form of whippets is regularly available, although depending on your area, purchase with intent to consume may be illegal. Delightful drug, which in particular mixes well with others. Gets a bad rap because it is an inhalant, but it is *not* a solvent and does not cause the brain damage associated with solvents. Well worth trying.
* Kava, the root of the Piper methysticum tree (a variety of pepper), usually consumed as a beverage. It has been extremely popular in the South Pacific for centuries and is drank in ways similar to North American alcohol consumption. It is a sedative-hypnotic and functions very similarly to benzodiazepines (Valium, Ativan, Xanax, Klonopin and friends) but is nonaddictive. It can be ordered from Hawaii, where it is also consumed, by various suppliers. I have had fantastic, very fast service (even to Canada) with http://www.realkava.com/ [realkava.com] and was extremely impressed with the product. This stuff is fairly mild, great and worth exploring: I would drink a few cups and then spend the night working on my creative writing. Note that there were some concerns several years ago about people experiencing liver failure after regularly consuming kava in pill forms, but the current hypothesis regarding this is that pharmaceutical companies, in an effort to curb costs, were using stems and leaves of Piper methysticum (as opposed to just roots), which contain hepatoxins. The indigenous people of the South Pacific have no recorded cases of liver damage, although they are smart enough to stick to the root of the tree.
While some of the major players in the legal drug world, those are but a sample of what is at your disposal. Some options are definitely best avoided (nutmeg and daturas, for example). The above should be fairly safe and readily available to most, although your mileage may vary on both accounts. I have tried all but the amanitas with good success, and would recommend them all.
Pot is, in my opinion, a miserable drug, but I'm one of those few people for which it is extremely hallucinogenic (not in a good way) and anxiety inducing. I also suspect th
Cannabinoid receptors in humans (Score:1, Interesting)
Did you know the human brain contains receptors just for cannabinoids, eg some of the major compounds in cannabis: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannabinoid_receptor
How did we get those? The only logical explanation is that human beings and our ancestors (down to the monkeys and all the animals before that) have been using marijuana for so long that it literally resulted human evolution and cannabinoids becoming part of our dna.
This is why the prohibition of marjuana will never work, the plant existing long before anything remotely homo sapien existed, and fits in so well with our biology that its one of the only substances which its possible to not consume enough to kill you (you can even die off drinking too much water).
You almost have to wonder if everyone just did what the potheads said and "chill and hit this", if people would generally be happier as a lacking component of our brain chemistry would be satisfied (besides as a result the euphoria directly caused by the substance). Obviously so long as people didn't sink into the stoner stereotype, burning out and not doing anything with their lives, but contrary to what the media and our government wants you to think, most people who tried, or every regularly use cannabis, are far from losers (as evident by the fact that nearly half the world has used cannabis at one point).