5 of the Most Overrated Legal Highs -- An Attack on Everyday Drugs (and a Few You've Never Heard of)

By Manfred Johnson, AlterNet. Posted February 17, 2009.

Something that tastes this bad has to be consumed as quickly as possible, but there's no way to avoid paying the piper, because what's quickly drunk comes bubbling back up soon after.

Nasty, soapy burps ensued. I crawled into bed and hugged a pillow and burped every so often as I waited for the effects, and big whoopee-do. I felt chilled out for about an hour or so. There I was, lying there with a bloated stomach, chilled out.

There are a lot of ways to chill out -- I don't recommend kava as the best entry point. My wife tried it out, and reported roughly the same non-event event.

Drugs have different effects on different people of course. Maybe kava will grant you the desire to wander around "outside a fair bit just marveling at the beauty of mother earth and her myriad facets," and have "several focused thoughts about the nature of mankind," as one user reported on Erowid after drinking the froth. But I suspect its popularity is akin to the Niagara Falls -- popular because it goes against the nature of mankind to admit it sucked since you spent all that time going out there.

Sinicuichi

This "drug" just has me perplexed and bewildered. How the hell did this weak, ineffectual plant ever crawl out of nature's backyard and into my rolling papers?

It has a reputation for providing aural hallucinations -- sounds you hear that aren't real. Sinicuichi, as the plant is nicknamed (its real name is Heimia salicifolia), is for sale by many online vendors as a rockin' great time.

The smoke was thick, visibly yellowish from tar, and had absolutely no effect on me whatsoever. I've read a lot of negative accounts of aching joints, soreness -- but you can never be sure. People lie and exaggerate about the bad trips they have on drugs as often as they claim that smoking some random plant is like hearing Hendrix on an invisible iPod.

You can prepare this pointless drug in a variety of ways, but really, take a page out of Nancy Reagan and just say no. Here's the Wikipedia take. I wish I had read this before buying at $20 bag of it off the Net:

"This controversial attribution of psychoactive effects appears to be traceable back to a publication by J.B. Calderon in 1896, who wrote that it was said to possess a 'curious and unique physiological action … people drinking either a decoction or the juice of the plant have a pleasant drunkenness … all objects appear yellow and the sounds of bells, human voices or any other reach their ears as if coming from a long distance.' Calderon actually tested the plant and did not experience any noticeable effects. Through a series of exaggerating and dramatizing citations, especially by Victor A. Reko in the first half of the last century, the plant became known as a hallucinogen, despite that psychoactive properties of the plant have never been demonstrated."

Here's an experience I read that approximated mine:

"I have tried about 12 grams and gone through the whole fermentation process of boiling it and leaving it out in the sun for a day, to make one of the foulest tasting concoctions I have ever tried. I boiled it down to a shot-glass worth and swallowed it at once. There was a bit of nausea (maybe associated with the taste), but apart from that, all I noticed was a small mood lift and reflection on childhood school memories. Don't know if this was the drug or merely just a coincidence. But my reflections and feeling happy about my memories seemed somewhat inspired by the drug. Apart from that though, it seemed like a fairly useless herb, and the taste is something I don't have a desire to repeat."

It was definitely a coincidence. That's what you call wishful thinking and an attempt to justify having pissed away $20 for a bag of weeds.

See more stories tagged with: drugs, alcohol, caffeine, energy drinks, kava, sinicuichi, rockstar energy drink, heimia salicifolia

Manfred Johnson likes to have a rollicking good time.

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