Has anyone here used kanna? I gave it my first shot in like nearly fifteen years recently, and I only used it once back then and don't remember getting anything out of it, some powder I smoked or something. This time I took a 100:1 extract capsule. I have to say, it really reminded me of MDMA, granted I also haven't used that in like a decade either so my impressions aren't recent and my tolerance would also be as low as humanly possible for getting those kinds of effects. But, it really did feel that way to me, not exactly the same but definitely producing some of the same effects I specifically associate with MDMA still even among all the other things I've taken over the years. There were a lot of generally similar feelings, feelings of some warmth and nausea on the coming up phase, making way to a stimulated and social high that felt very full and deep-seated, not at the most extreme level at this dosage but more than just noticeable, and it had things like music sounding better I believe although I was too into my own thoughts at that point to really remember it now, and also the sensation of floating from one place to the next while walking at times. According to my understanding of the research a comparison between kanna and MDMA would be more than reasonable as supposedly mesembrine is the primary active alkaloid (but possibly also one of many) and a high-mesembrine kanna extract was found to specifically work as a serotonin releasing agent and not just a serotonin reuptake inhibitor as was previously thought about kanna, but still, I was tempering my expectations because I looked into an online kanna community and people were like, "Don't expect it to be like MDMA, it's not the same thing as MDMA, etc." But for me, the comparison was definitely more than subtle. I really liked the experience.
The thing that was actually the most similar to MDMA about it compared to any other drug for me also gave way to some of the more obvious differences. The similarity is that on MDMA I have the ability to smoke any amount of cannabis and stay in a positive headspace without any anxiety which is not the case when I use cannabis normally or mix it with any other drug that immediately comes to mind including psychedelics, but kanna did allow me to do this as well, which I know because I started taking bong rips that have consistently made me anxious lately (causing me to normally use a small pipe instead except for during this experience) and when I could feel the high reach the same point where it clearly would have done that again normally, the kanna just bulldozed over it and made it super happy and psychedelic. I had lots of good introspective thoughts and it felt like a very clean and euphoric serotonergic high, which again was still more in common with MDMA than just psychedelics, but also at that point was notably different from MDMA and how it mixes with cannabis to me in that it did feel less like a phenethylamine trip like MDMA and reminded me a bit more of indole psychedelics, not that it was exactly like either. It had kind of a natural and deep vibe to me that I wondered if they might be biased by my thinking of it as a natural drug, but I think that might just be the way it mixed with the strong cannabis high, it really bought that sort of trippiness out of it but it still wasn't that crazy.
As this was my first experience with this extract I expect the next ones to be less impressive as it seems to go that way, but I was pretty happy with the first time. I'm interested in seeing what else it can do for me, but perhaps more so with combos than alone. I don't intend to take it every day like some people do, I'd rather not build tolerance to this effect I already got with just one capsule, but I was thinking it might make for a neat combo with something like salvia, for reasons similar to how it combos with cannabis for me, or perhaps with nutmeg essential oil, trying to see if I can turn it into a more well-rounded and full MDMA-like experience from natural drugs for me.
