I appreciate and understand your concern, but I'm really not too worried about using [essential oils] in the way that I would use them.
This is my most circumstantial point, but I'll start off by saying it really does depend on the oil too. Nutmeg essential oil seems to largely consist of the active allylbenzenes (like myristicin) and a bunch of terpenes that are also found in cannabis. That doesn't particularly scare me. I'd still have to look more into the other oils though.
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It absolutely depends on the oil, and it depends on the dose. My general concern is that you usually need much larger doses (say > 1000 mg) than you'd need from "research chemicals" (mostly < 100 mg), and for any given oil, there's a good chance you'll encounter acute (i.e. one-time-use) toxicity before you hit psychoactivity. This toxicity might include the liver, in which damage may not be evident unless it's substantial and even then may be delayed 24 hours or more. I would not assume nutmeg to be at all representative of the safety of the others.
I may be wrong here, but I believe seeking psychoactivity from essential oils (except maybe nutmeg, which has plenty of reports) is a much riskier business than for most "research chemicals". IIRC Shulgin expressed curiosity in essential oils himself but shied away from experimenting with them because of risk of toxicity from the high doses required. I understand you've done a lot more research on these things than I have, so I may be overly cautious and lack awareness of important details. I just hope you know what you're getting into and are well prepared to deal with whatever issues may arise. Best of luck!
As an aside, I got to synthesize safrole in an organic chemistry lab, and it smells so sweet and delicious.
I think it should be emphasized again how much I'm really not looking to trip right now anyway. My thoughts about these things is more of a knee-jerk reaction to the loss of my research chemical supply than anything. Even when I still had my stash, I hadn't been actively using anything from it for some time already. I don't really feel as though I still have a lot to get out of psychedelics anymore and haven't for a couple years now. I don't usually trip unless I have a specific intention in mind and I'm not even sure what my intentions would be anymore.
Apologies here. I tried to nest the quotes here for better context, but couldn't get it to work.
I think you misunderstood me, but that's ok. I meant what I wrote in the hypothetical sense of if/when you ever do decide to trip on a serotonergic psychedelic again. My words "given the current situation" probably obscured my intent. Either way, I only meant it as a suggestion largely based on what I would do, which may not be consistent with your interest after all. I very much appreciate you clarifying your position and will try to be more sensitive to it in the future.
I mean, you could say the same thing about cannabis, but we still call it legalization. I was just using the term in that same sort of way.
I was speaking in terms of policies that are being seriously considered today. The current path toward legalization in the U.S. involves FDA approval and tightly restricted prescription-only availability. Without additional policy changes, criminal penalties would remain for non-prescription use. I think this technically qualifies as legalization, even if it's not the "full" legalization we want.
In addition to medical-based legalization (which is still in the process of being implemented) in Colorado there is also decrminalization which removes criminal penalties (at the state level) for non-prescription possession and use of many psychedelic plants. I think this is a very big deal. Now "regular" people can use psychedelics without needing to go through the health care system and come up with the money (or have the "right" insurance).
That just doesn't sound desirable compared to full legalization to me honestly. If I have to hide anything about it in any way, it's a problem in my eyes. But I also disagree with the notion that legalization means you'll only be able to buy it from a doctor for a huge price or something. Legalization does not in any way inherently mean that, we just have to do legalization the right way and not the way that makes it that way.
I think "full legalization" needs to be qualified. Is it legalized like food? Like tobacco? Like alcohol? Like Prozac? Like ketamine? Like datura? Or do we do something totally different from all of these? I lean toward a totally different approach, but I don't know what that ought to look like. With decriminalization, the messy details can be decided upon after more experience is gained. If decriminalizaton is successful in Colorado and others places that implement it, it will bring wider legalization closer to reality. In the meantime, people who live where psychedelics are decriminalized can use them in private as individuals or in private groups with little fear of criminal penalties. That's a really big deal with significant and hopefully positive consequences!
The way you described that mescaline experience actually reminds me a whole lot of my best experiences with 4-HO-MET and 4-AcO-MET. That's actually some pretty interesting perspective for me to consider.... I feel like that tells me a lot more about what I might expect from it than I've generally gotten from peoples' descriptions otherwise. I appreciate the anecdote.
Hmm, weird. I mean, mescaline is unmistakably a phenethylamine---worlds apart from any tryptamine I've had. (I haven't had 4-HO-MET though.) If you do get around to trying mescaline, I hope I'm around to learn whether you would still make this comparison.
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Sorry that it's taken me so long to finish my replies to you! The holiday week provided many distractions, and I had much less time for activities like writing. On top of that, I've had a multi-day migraine headache all weekend---the worst I've had since I started taking psychedelics again. Hopefully it will be all gone tomorrow, and I can do my next 2C-B trial. I'll post my last reply tomorrow if I'm not too tired.
