 1 PSYCHEDELICS GUIDE
 2 Soma
 3 Wan kuok Koi druglord
 4 Withdrawal

\1 Psychedelics Guide

This file gives practical info about using a class of drugs most commonly known as the 'psychedelics' by their advocates (of which I am one) or, more pejoratively, as the 'hallucinogens'. More recently some Americans have suggested 'entheogens' or 'empathogenes' (the later specifically for the new drugs such as MDMA) as new names unblemished by assoc with the drug sub-culture, which emerged in the advanced world, most notably in CA, in the late 1960s.
  These drugs are not generally habit-forming and many have been used for centuries in many different countries and cultures for religious purposes. More recently in Europe and America they were used in psychotherapy (before the imposition of legal controls) and they are suitable to be used for self-discovery. These drugs, when used correctly, have pleasant, inspiring effects and most are completely non-toxic. Many the effects are very difficult, if not impossible, to describe and therefore, I have made little attempt to do this.
  LSD, mescaline and psilocybin are subject to the same harsh control in the UK as drugs such as heroin, with which they have nothing in common pharmacologically or socially. However, in England these three classic psychedelic drugs are currently still legal in their original natural forms, although any extracts would be contraband.
  Many myths, eg. smoking dried banana peel gets you stoned, exist as an oral tradition of urban folklore. Yeah, we had that one at high school. A number of materials (mainly plants) are listed in Adam Gotteib's classic ('Legal Highs', Greenham and Gotto, 1981) as having psychedelic effects. Many of these have effects so mild as to be negligible.
  Of those substances with psycho-active effects most of these are, alas, either unavailable or highly toxic and therefore not psychedelic, but rather delirium causing. For example, both Belladonna or Nutmeg which could be lethal.
  MAGIC MUSHROOMS
  PSILOCYBIN For thousands of years before Europeans set foot in the New World the sacred mushroom was in use in native rituals. In the 1950s R. Gordon Wasson, a Wall Street banker, participated in a Mexico mushroom ceremony and eloquently described the 'Divine Inebriant' in a piece of writing which could go some way to explaining the fascination with which many people regard psychedelic drugs. These words, of course, could really equally apply to any of these substances:
  'There are no apt words ... to characterize your state when you are, shall we say, 'bemushroomed.' ... How do you tell a man born blind what seeing is like? In the present case, this is especially true because super- ficially the bemushroomed man shows few of the objective symptoms of one intoxicated, drunk ... [the mushroom] permits you to see, more clearly than our pershing mortal eye can see, vistas beyond the horizons of this life, to travel backwards and forwards in time, even (as the Indians say) to know God. It is hardly surprising that your emotions are profoundly affected, and you feel that an indissoluble bond unites you with the others who have shared with you in the sacred agape ... All that you see during this night has a pristine quality: the landscape, the edifices, the carvings, the animals - they look as though they had come straight from the Maker's workshop. 

This newness of everything - it is as though the world had just dawned - overwhelms you and melts you with its beauty. Not unnaturally, what is happening to you seems to you freighted with significance, beside which the humdrum events of everyday are trivial ... What you are seeing and what you are hearing appear as one: the music assumes harmonious shape, giving visual form to its harmonies, and what you are seeing takes on the modal- ities of music - the music of the spheres ... All your senses are similarly affected: the cigarette with which you occasionally break the tension of the night smells as no cigarette before had ever smelled ; the glass of simple water is infinitely better than champagne.'

  From 'The Hallucinogenic Fungi of Mexico', R. Gordon Wasson in The Psychedelic Reader, Ed. Gunther M. Weil et al, Citadel Press Inc., 1973.
  Fortunately one does not have to visit Mexico to experience the mushrooms, probably the most effective and safest of natural psychedelics. Psilocybian mushrooms should not be confused with the Fly Agaric (amanita muscaria) a toxic deleriant. The most common species of 'Magic Mushroom' found wild in the UK is the increasingly popular 'Liberty Cap' (psilocybe senilanceata). Indeed this particular species, despite its relative weakness, is prized by the South American Indians as one of the best. The Liberty Cap contains psilocybin, which is converted to psilocin in the body. Psilocin is a close chemical relative of LSD. However, the effects, according to many users, are milder, more pleasant and there is said to be less risk of bad trips.

The greatest danger comes from eating other mushrooms -- different poisonous mushrooms picked by mistake. Therefore any potential mushroom picker should be quite sure they know what to look for (many reference books about mushrooms describe the Liberty Cap). The season for the mushroom is between September and December. During this time many people, not known for a previous interest in fungi, can be seen scanning the grass in fields with bent heads. The mushrooms are usually found after heavy rain and a long search. After picking they are dried on paper. Although the dried mushrooms are less potent than the fresh, if not dried the mushrooms might contain flies harmful to the liver.
  Some people say mushrooms make them sick, but then I have never had any toxic effects from the mushrooms. A test for psilocybin-containing mushrooms is to look for a blue colour at the end of the stem after they have been picked. Those who want to make quite sure can buy a chemical called methaminophenol sulphate from photographic positive identification. Add it to twenty times its volume in distiled water. Apply to stem of mushroom and wait half an hour for a deep purple colour.
  The American mushrooms include Psilocybe cubensis and caerulescens and are far more potent on a weight basis than the English ones. Whereas typical doses of the Liberty Cap are 25-50 dried little mushrooms, only a few grams of the American mushrooms ('shrooms) are needed. The effects, as with any drug, depend on the individual's body weight as well as the size and strength of the mushrooms. The mushrooms have a greater effect if a soup is made from them and also if taken on an empty stomach. To prepare a soup it is necessary to boil up the 'shrooms for ten minutes, add packet soup powder or instant coffee to hid the (disgusting) taste then drink the soup and repeat the process using the same mushrooms.
  The effects start after about twenty minutes for soup and forty-five minutes when eaten. At low doses effects last about four hours and at higher doses up to six hours. Once the effects start to end they do so rapidly, unlike acid which seems to linger on a bit.
  Possession of fresh mushrooms, in the UK is not illegal at the present. This may well change in the future. Even now possession of a preparation or product of the mushrooms is an offence. This includes drying mushrooms to a powder, crushing or boiling them. Mushrooms which are dried but are still intact are legal (excuse: 'I picked them like that, Officer. The sun must have dried them out, honest guv'.').
  FLY AGARIC: THIS DRUG IS ONLY INCLUDED TO WARN OF ITS CONSIDERABLE DANGERS. The Fly Agaric (amanita muscaria) is the well-known red toadstool with white spots which appears in illustrations in fairy tales. It is not a true psychedelic drug and at best has unpleasant side effects. At worst it could kill you.
  Effects are said to be dizziness, muscle twitching and possible vomiting after a half hour. This is followed by a drunken feeling and perhaps a light sleep lasting about two hours. Numbness may be present in the extremities. On waking feelings of great strength and hallucinations (especially of size) lasting about six hours have been reported. Overdoses can lead to convulsions, derangement, coma and amnesia. There are reports that this drug can cause ergotism, constriction of blood in the extremities of the bodies (e.g. nose, fingers etc) leading to gangrene. Death or permanent brain damage is possible from overdose (caused by respiratory paralysis). Kidney damage is also possible.
  Neither the toadstool nor any preparation of it are controlled substances. They are not likely to be ever classified as such, since hopefully few will be foolish enough to try it.
  MORNING GLORY SEEDS: Ipomoea violacea seeds can be bought in high street shops. Most of the British seed packets (e.g. Suttons) say 'Ipomoea' on them and are not coated with chemicals. The various strains have evocative names such as Heavenly Blue, Pearly gates and Flying Saucers.

  Other rather more exotic and potent seeds (Hawaiian Wood Rose and rivea corymbosa) can be purchased by mail order from seed merchants. All contain Lysergic Acid deriva- tives. Although these are very close relations of LSD their psychoactive effects include a narcotic element rather than the euphoric effects typical of other psyche- delics. The seeds also contain other ergot derivatives which if consumed in quantity might theoretically cause ergotism. However there are no reports of this happening.
  I once consumed a foul tasting infusion of about 300 ground Ipomoea seeds. There were no effects for the first five hours, except a strange physical feeling of tension in the body, which led the author to draw the mistaken conclusion that the seeds had little effect. Others have reported vomiting at this point. However, after this time LSD-type effects became apparent. My friends have reported positive results from it, but I still believe this drug is unreliable in its effects and I would recommend acid or mushrooms as being preferable.
  CACTI: The possession of the Peyote cactus (lophophora williamsii) is legal in the UK, but not in the USA (unless you are a member of the Native North American Church). Peyote and several other cacti, such as San Pedro (trichocereus pachanoi), contain mescaline which has very similar, if not identical, effects to LSD. Both cacti should both be available from Cacti dealers. Someone I knew once ate 5' of San Pedro bought in the UK, both the cactus skin and the disgusting pulp found inside, to experience very mild effects. The mescaline may well make one sick.
  KETAMINE ('Vitamin K', 'Special K'). Ketamine is chemically related to PCP ('Angel Dust'). PCP, a dangerous American street drug rather than a psychedelic, is characterized by resulting in frequent bad trips, psychotic reactions and extreme violence in its users.
  But Ketamine appears to be much safer than PCP. It is still used in human medicine unlike PCP. Currently Ketamine ('Ketalar') is a prescription only medicine rather than a controlled drug in Britain. It is a powerful drug used as a general anaesthetic, which has some strange psychedelic effects when used at low doses (25-100mg).

The usual medical form is a liquid when it is injected intramuscularly. American street users heat the liquid to obtain a white powder which is smoked or snorted. Ketamine may be ineffective when taken by mouth - altho one report from Denmark claims it to be orally active at the 200mg level with the effects becoming apparent slowly.
  The effects are stronger and more profound than acid but last only an hour or so. The subject should remain still. Experiences of the mind leaving the body and floating in space, or even death are common. Bad trips are supposed to be absent but there are serious dangers following heavy use. Dr John Lilly and his fellow researchers have used the drug continuously for weeks. Several believe themselves to have contacted alien intelligences and two committed suicide. Although non-toxic (unlike PCP) it appears to have potential for psychological dependency. K has been used in experimental psychotherapy.
  LAUGHING GAS (Nitrous Oxide N2O): This is also a medical anaesthetic with some psychedelic effects. This is most easily found in small green pressurized gas chargers used to whip cream and available in many large stores. They fit in soda syphons in exactly the same way as the usual CO2 chargers they resemble.

This should never be breathed directly (it could freeze the lungs) but always from a balloon and also diluted with air. There is a warning on the box -- 'Do not inhale. Misuse can be dangerous to your health'. In fact it seem to be fairly safe. Classic effects of N20 are a very short (a few minutes) and intense trip. I found it pleasant enough but still a little disappointing - no more than a tingling body high.
  CANNABIS, TETRAHYDROCANNABINOL (THC): Cannabis is the most common and safest of all 'street drugs'. The vast majority of drug offences in most countries are simply the possession of small quantities of cannabis. But, as even the police admit, the vast majority of cannabis users are never caught. A simple solution to 95% of the 'drug problem' in Europe and America would be to decriminalise cannabis.
  An advantage of cannabis is that it can be readily recognized as genuine by its physical appearance. As far as other drugs are concerned it must be remembered that any pills or tablets bought on the black market may either contain no drug at all or a substitute drug. An additional danger is that illegally manufactured drugs may contain dangerous impurities. This is less true of which LSD is a reasonably good bet. Your tab is most likely to be dosed with acid or nothing. A marginal possibility, also, would be the presence of DOB in blotter. Ecstasy could have anything in it.
  The effects of dope are due to a mixture of many psychoactive chemicals. Different sorts of dope contain different quantities of these and so have slightly different effects. Studies at St Louis Medical School in 1988 have identified the THC receptor, which is mainly in the front brain, and discovered that THC caused no damage to brain cells. There is some really strong (and therefore dear) weed around now, e.g. Thai weed and Semsemilla (seedless). These have very high concentrations of THC and can cause strange visual effects -- almost like LSD -- if quite a bit is consumed. As a rough rule of thumb the more tacky, sticky, darker, wet with resin the cannabis material the stronger it is. 
The negative effects of cannabis (confusion, unease, slight paranoia, anxiety and a feeling that you are unable of performing the simplest tasks) are very mild usually pass quickly and can be overcome by power of will. The only report of a death directly attributable to cannabis is of several tons falling on one unfortunate man.
  Smoking when drunk is a bad idea unless you really want to get smashed out of your mind, because you end up being both very drunk and very stoned at the same time and liable to pass out. Yeah I have been there.
  Hash oil can be easily made from hash. Pour an inch of petrol lighter fuel into a small test-tube (from any chemist). Add enough hash for a spliff. Gently heat with lighter. It's OK to hold since it boils quickly, dissolving the chemicals you want and leaving a residue. Soak cigarette in fuel and leave five minutes to dry, then smoke (without tell tale smell).
  An alternative to smoking is to eat dope, which has a different effect and lasts longer. It is less economical than smoking. I am told that a sixteenth will get eight people buzzed or four heavily stoned. For the latter try dissolving about half a gram in enough butter or margarine and adding to coffee or the traditional instant chocolate brownie mix, since THC is soluble in fat but not water.
  AMSTERDAM, HOLLAND: Although in Holland possession of up to thirty grams for personal use is still technically illegal it is often tolerated by the local authorities. In Amsterdam (and some other Dutch cities) high quality cannabis can be openly bought and consumed, mainly in coffee shops dedicated to this purpose. Even ready rolled joints and 'space cake' (containing about a gram of dope) can be purchased. They adhere to the following simple and sensible code:-
  1.No Hard Drugs 2.No one under 18 3.No aggression tolerated. I can particularly recommend 'Skunk Weed' -- purple and green Dutch semsemilla -- as the best grass I've ever smoked. It is apparently grown in Holland from the seeds of an infamous Californian strain. It cost between 4-10 guilders a gram in 1991. After several bong hits of this stuff you are practically tripping. I had to lie down.
  LSD (Acid): D-Lysergic acid diethylamide. "I see the true importance of LSD in the poss of providing material aid to meditation aimed at the mystical experience of a deeper, comprehensive reality. Such a use accords entirely with the essence and working character of LSD as a sacred drug." Dr Albert Hofmann, the discoverer of LSD.
  '... LSD is best understood as a powerful unspecific amplifier, or catalyst, of mental processes, which facilitates the emergence of unconscious material from different levels of the human psyche. ' Dr Stan Grof, Esalen Institute.
  LSD is believed to be illegally manufactured in Northern Californian and, perhaps also, Holland. An underground lab was also busted in England in early 1991. LSD is cheap and widely available. The currently hip English name for acid is 'A'. There are many dosage forms available: pieces of paper or cardboard ('tabs' -- often with colour pictures printed on them), very small pills ('microdots') and transparent gelatin sheets ('windowpane'). The doses present in each unit are on average 75-125 micrograms (mcg) of very pure LSD. This is a quite a strong dose but about half the strength of the 1960s dose. This, and the greater public knowledge of the drug, is probably why bad trips are less common now than in the past.
  The lowest psychedelic dose is 50 mcg -- recommended for beginners. Doses below this level have a similar effect to cannabis or MDMA. The effects increase with dosage until about 400-500 mcgs where any more has no more effect. LSD cannot cause toxic poisoning but in this dosage range bad trips are practically certain. The effects last up to eight or twelve hours. LSD must be treated with respect. It can be a completely overwhelming experience. Nevertheless, contrary to popular belief acid will not turn normal people permanently insane.
  Since acid came back into fashion the media treatment of the subject has been appallingly inaccurate. In September 1989 a English football fan fell overboard a ferry to Sweden and was presumably drowned. It was reported that this had resulted from LSD use. He had died fifteen minutes after taking a tab. However, LSD takes about half an hour to an hour to have any effect and, therefore, is unlikely to have contributed to his death. What the media had paid less attention to was been drinking very heavily. 'Drunk drowns' is obviously an inferior headline to 'Trip To Hell'.
  MDMA ('Ecstasy') 'A psychedelic drug nicknamed Ecstasy, invented in laboratories in the 1970s and outlawed in 1985, is enjoying a vogue in nightclubs in downtown Manhattan, where it is attracting a young and arty following and even sparking a wave of Ecstasy theme parties, T-shirts and music ... In Ecstasy, a combination of a synthetic mescaline and an amphetamine, users believe they have found a mildly hallucinogenic stimulant that amounts to the perfect drug ... It is difficult to determine how many people are now experimenting with Ecstasy across the country. The federal Drug Enforcement Administration says most of the drug is made in clandestine laboratories in Texas and California ... Ecstasy, a bitter white powder also called MDMA, short for 3,4-methylenedioxy methamphetamine, is a chemical variation of mescaline, a hallucinogenic drug obtained from the mescal plant, and amphetamine, or speed, a drug that stimulates the central nervous system.' -- Lisa W. Foderare, San Francisco Chronicle, 14 December 1988
  'Ecstasy, for example, which is known chemically as MDMA, has been ruled by the federal Food and Drug Administration to be useless medically and dangerous, although it has been used for many years by a few psychiatrists to help their patients talk more freely ... And it can in fact lead researchers to important insights into the way the mind operates, according to Dr. Reese T. Jones, a psychiatrist at the University of California in San Francisco who has conducted government- sponsored studies of psychedelic drugs including marijuana, LSD, mescaline and cocaine ... Although human studies with MDMA are banned, Jones and Dr. Stephen J. Peroutka, a Stanford neurologist, noted that some psychiatrists have confirmed its value in inducing a sense of serenity in mental patients, an increased sense of self-esteem, and a closer, more confident alliance with their therapists ... No one knows just how MDMA works. But Jones insisted the drug has shown no long-term adverse effects when it is used moderately. ... As for using Ecstasy to study how the mind operates under the stimulus of profound human emotions, Jones commented: 'There's just no way I can study love and lust in a rat, and I'd like to study how MDMA works in humans, but it's just not worth the hassle with the FDA.' -- David Perlman, San Francisco Chronicle, 16 January 1989
  MDMA is a weaker and less toxic version of a very similar drug MDA which is taken in similar doses. It is available in a number of forms, usually caps, tablets or a white powder. It has been made in the UK but is more commonly manufactured in Holland or America. It was first produced for the black-market in America in the early 1970s as a then legal substitute for MDA. In 1985 it started to attract media attention. It was declared illegal in the USA in the same year. Californian psychotherapists, typically of Jungian persuasion, had been using MDMA or 'Adam' as they called it together with 2CB and Ketamine. Adamson (1985) contains much information on therapeutic use.
  When used in normal doses of about 100mg it has very mild effects like a combination of very low doses of LSD and speed , but with no hallucinations or chance of a bad trip. It causes enhancement of the senses (like all psychedelics), a loss of inhibitions, empathy and openness between people and lasts about four hours. Despite its mild effect it can leave the user with a slight but persistent hangover for the following two days! And it is somewhat toxic, unlike cannabis or LSD, and can cause sickness and, like speed, a feeling of tension in the jaw and grinding of teeth. High doses (200mg+) seem to result in LSD-type effects. Doses of 500mg+ of MDA can be fatal. MDA has be eclipsed in publicity by MDMA, which is ironic since much MDMA may actually be MDA. MDMA is thought to be less toxic than MDA. MDA is slightly stronger and lasts longer than MDMA. There are an estimated half million users in the UK.
  'E' has become a popular accompaniment to dance music despite its cost of around twenty pounds for a dose of about 100mg and despite (or perhaps because of) much adverse and inaccurate publicity, particularly in the down-market papers. Quarter tabs of acid are also used as a far cheaper, but poorer and less reliable substitute. The police made 90 seizures of E in 1988 and 570 in 1989. There was one bust of 900,000 tabs in Amsterdam during the summer of 1989. In 1990 5,500 tablets were seized in London. In 1991 this number had increased to 66,200. This suggests European supplies to be increasing. Certainly E is cheaper now than when it first reached the UK in the early 1980s and demand is very much higher. Black market MDMA might actually be MDA or a mixture of the two as they appear in the same forms. Also, MDMA has been mixed with speed. And beware, very cheap E is more likely to be a cocktail of other drugs, probably including speed, than the genuine article.
  Experiments in rats show MDA and MDMA lower levels of the neurotransmitter serotonin. Even although the rats recover and there is no evidence that low serotonin levels are dangerous in humans this had led many journalists to spread the 'Ecstasy causes brain damage myth'.
  Of course you can get screwed up (severe anxiety, depression and paranoia) on even a relatively safe drug like Ecstasy if you try openness between really hard (10-15 doses per day like some idiots in San Francisco did) and taking it as often as three times a week is probably abusing it. A very small number of people have died in a heat-stroke reaction after taking MDMA, because they were allergic to it. Although, allergic responses can be a problem with common medicinal drugs, e.g. aspirin or even peanuts, this will no doubt be used as propaganda against E. Another media favourite is to describe MDMA as a sex drug, in fact a side effect of the drug is to make ejaculation difficult. In Adamson users describe it as a 'love drug' which can make intercourse unnecessary. Perhaps it is the ideal drug for the post-AIDS generation.
  Many people seem to use MDMA together with LSD. In general, mixing drugs is a bad idea since many have a synergistic effect on each other (2+2=5) but this is said to be a good combination. I would expect very strong trips to be the result.
  MDE ('Eve') is the N-ethyl analogue of MDA and has been available in the USA. It is even shorter in action than MDMA and is believed to have sedative rather than stimulant effects.
  'DESIGNER DRUGS' DOM DOB DOI MMDA DMMDA MDE 2CB 2CE DOET DOPR 2CT2 p-DOT MBDB MMA LE-25 etc. 'At first you can't really say what's happening after you ingest these substances. Then suddenly everything is a little brighter, conversation is a bit more relaxed, the music is just right and you slowly begin fitting into the new environment. It's a fabulous feeling.' Dr Alexander T Shulgin, Californian Chemist.
  All these new drugs are psychedelics which have been synthesized by researchers. They should not be confused, as the press does in its ignorance, with other 'designer drugs' which are dangerous narcotics, eg. MMMP ('synthetic Heroin') which was produced with an impurity (MTMP) that caused Parkinson's disease. The new psychedelics are mainly manufactured from crossing a mescaline-type structure with amphetamine ('speed'). There are hundreds of these chemicals many of which seem to be safe psychedelics when correctly used. There are other new psychedelics related to tryptamine and also a more potent analogue of LSD. This has not be tested in humans to the best of my knowledge.
  Some have been manufactured for the black market in North America, particularly in Canada. They are very rare and but they are all likely to become more popular, as they represent an advance on LSD. The drugs seem to have similar effects, which are highly dosage dependent and they are best used in low doses where many have been described as empathogens -- non-hallucinogenic psychedelics, which promote empathy between people and remove fear in the same context. Some say there are subtle differences in effects between these drugs, however there is little reliable information at the present time. Despite the potential usefulness of these drugs they were listed in the UK in 1977 as class A and banned in the USA in 1988 under sweeping rules.
  2CB This is the phenylethylamine analog of DOB but it is safer, only lasting about 8 hours. It is very similar toMMDMA, but it is stronger with mild visual effects more common and probably fewer of the amphetamine-type side effects. It is supposed to enhance all the senses. By 1987 it was available in the USA as 'bromo-mescaline'(sic) or 'Venus'. According to The Face magazine it has been found in London. It has been described as an 'aphrodisiac' (well it would be, wouldn't it?). A dose is about 10-20mg.
  DOB ('Bromo-STP') 4-Bromo, 2,5-Dimethoxyphenylisopropylamine This drug first appeared in the UK in the summer of 1973. It is a stronger version of the famous 1960s drug DOM (or 'STP'). The drug was being sold then as an LSD substitute. DOB commonly appears as drops on blotting paper, just as LSD does, since it is so potent. Like DOM some producers have been producing dosage units containing massive overdoses of the drug, which can last between 24 and 36 hours. There have been reports from the USA of really huge overdoses (e.g. 75mg) causing ergotism (see Fly Agaric section). However, DOB is active at less than 1mg and is, therefore, not toxic and likely to be safe at the correct dosage level.
  Other drugs on sale on the rave scene are 'Fantasy', 'Fantasia', 'M25'. I don't know what these contain. An educated guess would be that they were ring-substituted phenylethylamines like the drugs previously discussed, related to amphetamine or aspirins.
  E4Euh (Intellex) This recent addition to the psychedelic underground is a long lasting (~14 hours) amphetamine derivative, orally active at about 10-20mg of the free base. Claimed to boost intelligence and encourage verbosity with some MDMA-like effects. Mixes badly with LSD (unlike MDMA).
  DMT DET DPT DIPT These are substituted tryptamines which are related to psilocin. The first three are not orally active and must be smoked (but not with tobacco). They have short lasting intense LSD-type effects. DIPT is orally active and is so specific in its action that it only alters the perception of music.
  Although these are the easiest of the psychedelics to manufacture at home the procedure is still difficult with difficult to obtain and dangerous chemicals needed. Sometimes available on the American black market but rare.
  SMART DRUGS There is a wide range of materials which may have some improving effect on mental functioning and memory. These range from nutrients available in health food shops to unapproved drugs available through mail order. All are legal. I suspect that many of these to be a waste of money. Hydergine, for example, is supposed to be worthless. The two most popular are Piracetam (which is orally active in large doses (2.4-8.0g) and Vaspressin - a nasal spray.
  GENERAL GUIDELINES 1.Never trip alone but with friends 2.Start off with small doses 3.Only trip in pleasant, comfortable places where parents, policemen etc. are absent 4.Only trip if you feel OK 5.Always remember that you are under the influence of a drug and you will feel normal again in a few hours 6.Giving a psychedelic to someone without their knowledge or consent is an incredibly dangerous thing to do as well as being morally wrong 7.If you run into problems try changing the topic of conversation, music or whatever you are doing 8.If you are careful you should run into few problems and you will enjoy the overall trip. 9.Occasionally a few days or even weeks after a trip slight memories of the effects surface, but this is fairly rare. These 'flashbacks' are a split second long, a kind of intensified 'deja vue', perhaps accompanied by some of the same feelings as on the trip. 10.Have Fun!
  The effects of LSD can be reduced by taking about 600 milligrams (mg) of vitamin C (from any chemist shop). A mixture of one cup sugar and a quart of orange juice is said to help as well. These methods take about a half to three-quarters hour to work. Alcohol will relax you and reduce psychedelic effects when you are on a trip.


\2 Soma

When the Gods Drank Urine

A Tibetan myth may help solve the riddle of soma, sacred drug of ancient India Fortean Studies, vol. III, 1996 by Mike Crowley The Aryans About 3,500 years ago, a migratory, cattle-herding people crossed over the high passes from what is now Afghanistan and discovered the rich plains of the Indian subcontinent. They came from the same stock as most of the present-day Europeans and originated, it is thought, on the steppes between the Caucasus Mountains and the Caspian Sea. Their name for themselves was Arya, which means "noble" or "hospitable". We know little of them before this point in their history but when they reached India they began to write. They wrote down their sacred songs, about the Gods and about soma: the celestial drink which conferred immortality upon the Gods and by means of which mere mortals become Gods. They were not alone in India, however. An advanced indigenous culture, possibly related to that of Sumeria in Mesopotamia, flourished in the Indus Valley, producing the magnificent cities of Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro (c. 2,800 BCE to c. 1,500 BCE). It has been remarked that these cities not only resemble Sumer's Ur and Babylon but that they seem to have taken the Sumerian cities as models and improved upon them. The people who inhabited these cities are thought to have been Dravidian. That is, members of an ethnic group now found mostly in the southern parts of the Indian sub-continent and Sri Lanka, the members of which have very dark complexions and speak one of a number of related languages including Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam. The most ancient texts of the Hindu religion are the four books known as the Vedas and among these the collection of hymns known as the Rig Veda is said to be the earliest. This could make it the world's oldest religious text still in regular use. It is believed to have existed for many centuries as an unwritten oral tradition and thus it is difficult to date precisely but estimates of its age range from 2,500 to 1,500 B.C.E. It was during this period that the Aryan, cattle-herding invaders conquered and settled Northern India bringing with them their religion, their mythology and their culture. The drug Much of the Rig Veda (and all of the Sama Veda) is concerned with the ritual consumption of a psychoactive drug called soma. Despite its extensive hymns of praise to this drug (all of the 114 verses of the 9th chapter and several verses elsewhere), the Rigveda alludes to it only obliquely with much use of word-play and elaborate poetic tropes. Though the texts provide no explicit descriptions, certain elements of the methods of preparation and use of soma may be inferred. Unfortunately, the most vital detail - the identity of the drug - is the most obscure. What is apparent is that soma was a plant and that its consumption produced an ecstatic mental state but this information hardly narrows the field of candidates as there are thousands of psychoactive plants with psychedelic, intoxicant, narcotic or deliriant effects. The Vedas also indicate that the plant was found on mountain-sides and gathered by moonlight and that it was consumed in the form of a liquid which was expressed from the plant and then mixed with milk and/or butter. It seems to have been used only as part of a fire-ritual. A golden liquid was expressed from the plant material with "soma-stones", filtered through wool and collected in a large bowl or "vat". In the course of this ritual a portion of the soma potion was used as a libation and was "sacrificed" to the flames. The remainder of the soma-liquid was apportioned among the celebrants who received it in individual bowls. Occasionally in the Vedas, and frequently in post-Vedic literature such as the story of the "churning of the ocean", the soma-liquid is known as amrita. This is especially so in the literature of Buddhism where the name soma is almost unknown. Soma is also the name of a god, considered by Hindus to be the divine personification both of the soma-drug and of the moon. The moon was thought to be the receptacle of soma from which it is consumed (presumably over a monthly period) by the gods and ancestors. Compared to the Brahmanic rituals of later eras this fire-ritual was a very simple affair which has more in common with shamanic practices than the elaborate structures of organized religion. There are three main gods invoked in the Rigveda: Agni (god of fire), Soma (moon-god and personification of the soma drug), and Indra (sky-god and king of the gods). As the Rigveda states that (a) Indra enjoys the effects of soma and that (b) he who consumes the soma potion becomes god-like, perhaps it would not be straining the symbolism too far to say that in these three gods we have the three basic elements of the ritual, Agni (the sacrificial flames), Soma (the sacrificial offering) and Indra (the celebrant, rendered "divine" by the consumption of soma). That the ritual is of Aryan origin rather than an indigenous Indian one is attested to by the existence of the similar haoma fire ritual in ancient Persia and in the Zoroastrian (Parsi) religion. The Indian fire-ritual was, in later times, taken up by Tantric Buddhists and, as a part of Vajrayana Buddhism, was carried into Tibet, Mongolia, China and even as far as Japan where it is known as goma. Readers familiar with Hindu mythology will know the popular legend of "the churning of the ocean". This tale explains how soma came into being and versions of it are to be found in the Vishnu Purana, the Mahabharata and the Ramayana. The three sources differ in their details but, briefly, the story is as follows: The gods had been defeated by the asuras and appealed to Vishnu for advice. He counselled them that they should unite with their enemies and together they should churn the ocean which, at that time, was composed of milk. First they scattered various herbs in the ocean, then, taking Mt. Mandara as a churning-stick they wound the naga-king Vasuki around it as a churning-rope. The gods and asuras took opposite ends of the great serpent and heaved back and forth. Many wonderful treasures then came forth from the ocean, the first of which being amrita (in Hindu texts this is often used as a synonym for soma). All versions of the story also feature a virulent poison (variously called kalakuta, khalakuta or visha), in some it is said that it is another product of churning the ocean, others say that the strain on Vasuki caused him to vomit it up. However, Shiva saves the day by drinking the poison and retaining it in his throat, which turns blue as a result. Thus Shiva acquires the epithet Nilakanta ("blue-throat"). [Dowson, p. 167] The Problem Somehow, no one knows quite why, the soma-drug mysteriously fell into disuse subsequent to the Vedic period. Instead, the brahmin priests concentrated on the punctilious observation of ritual performance of the fire-ritual. Punctilious, that is, in every respect except the magical ingredient alluded to repeatedly in the Vedas. For some reason, soma became merely a philosophical concept rather than a living reality. The word was often used to mean any burnt offering - that which was fed to the flames of the ritual fire and, by extension, soma also meant the contents of the material world, which are all eventually consumed, as if by fire. Yet again, the word soma was used to mean a "life-force" which was thought to sustain all plant-life. For centuries the actual identity of the physical soma plant sung of in the Vedas held little interest for Sanskrit scholars. Even the Brahmin pandits who sang these Vedic texts showed scant interest in the topic. Those who did feel inclined to comment on the subject suggested non-psychoactive plants (such as rhubarb) or averred that soma was simply alcohol. In recent years, as western scholars have realized the widespread (one might almost say ubiquitous) use of psychoactive drugs in the spiritual practices of traditional cultures, the identity of soma has become the subject of lively debate. Among others plants, it has been suggested that it was the mushroom Amanita muscaria (sometimes called the Fly Agaric mushroom) [Wasson et al.], or Peganum harmala (Syrian Rue) [Flattery and Schwartz] or a species of Stropharia mushroom [McKenna, p. 166]. So why did the original soma disappear from the fire ritual? Wasson suggests that as the Aryans migrated south into the Indus Valley, they left behind the prime habitats for Amanita muscaria. This mushroom grows in woodland, forming a symbiotic or "mycorrhizal" relationship with a tree such as birch or pine and birch trees are seldom, if ever, seen on the hot Indian plains. Those birch groves which are to be found in India are at fairly high elevations. This high country was, at least in the initial period of Aryan occupation, controlled predominantly by Dravidian hill-tribes. This raises an intriguing possibility regarding the legend of the "Churning of the Ocean". Does it, then, represent a mythologised treatment of a political reality? Was war between Aryan and Dravidian resolved by cooperation in the trade of the Amanita muscaria mushroom? A suggested solution In 1957, an article in Life magazine featured a lengthy article on a New York banker and amateur mycologist called R. Gordon Wasson. This article revealed that Wasson and his wife Valentina had been introduced to a cult using psychedelic mushrooms in Oaxaca, Mexico by a Mazatec curandera called Maria Sabina.  Although the use of psychoactive mushrooms was reported by Father Sahagun in the 16th century, the existence of such a cult was previously unsuspected. Sahagun's account had been disregarded by modern scholars until the Wassons’ account. Their discovery spurred the Wassons to inquire into the possibility of other mushroom-based religious cults in other parts of the world, culminating in his seminal work "SOMA: The Divine Mushroom of Immortality" in 1966. This work was the first to identify soma with the Amanita muscaria mushroom. Wasson presented several arguments [Wasson et al.] for Amanita muscaria being the soma-plant, the chief of which are: 1.Soma is clearly a plant yet no leaves, roots or branches are mentioned in the Vedas.2.Vedic synonyms for soma include terms which suggest a mushroom.3.The Rig Veda describes the soma-plant as "tawny"4.The Rig Veda mentions urine in connection with soma. Addressing each of these points in turn: 1.Soma is clearly a plant yet no leaves, roots or branches are mentioned in the Vedas. This is, on the face of it, a fairly weak argument. Yet, given the Vedas' extensive use of poetic trope, if soma were a vascular plant one would expect it to be addressed as "many-leaved", "slender-branched", "stout-stemmed" or something of that nature. 2.Vedic synonyms for soma include terms which suggest a mushroom. The term aja ekapad ("not-born, one-foot") suggests a mushroom which, springing up mysteriously without visible seed, could be said to be "not-born". Likewise, if thought of anthropomorphically, its stipe (stem) could be conceived of as "one-foot". Conversely, as the word aja ("not-born") is the same as aja meaning "goat", the term aja ekapad could be translated as "one-legged goat". Surprising as it may seem, this is the conventional translation even though it makes far less sense than Wasson's suggestion. 3.The Rig Veda describes the soma-plant as "tawny" The Sanskrit color-word in question is hari. This rather vague term is asserted by Wasson to encompass a range of colors from bright red to tawny-brown. While these are not colors normally associated with vascular plants they quite accurately describe the colors of A. muscaria both when fresh (bright red) and dried (tawny-brown). Wasson's critics have suggested that hari might have indicated a much wider range of colors, however, including green. 4.The Rig Veda mentions urine in connection with soma. The significance of this last point is obscure and relies on a peculiar property of Amanita muscaria: the urine of someone who has eaten this mushroom is itself intoxicating. Wasson saw this as a crucial and specific indicator of this mushroom.  His assertions regarding Vedic references to urine and soma were considered unconvincing by many of his critics who said that simply soma + urine is not enough to suggest A. muscaria. What they required was soma + urine + drinking, and it is to this subject of urine-drinking in connection with soma that we now turn. Urine drinking Among the various Siberian peoples who use Amanita muscaria as a cultural norm, there exists a curious practice whereby the urine of one who has consumed the mushroom is drunk by another who consequently becomes inebriated. The urine of this person may then be drunk by another and so on, the procedure being repeated up to five or six times. The reason for this practice is that A. muscaria contains ibotenic acid which, when the carboxyl radical is removed from the molecule, yields the psychoactive molecule muscimole [Ott, p. 327].  The metabolic process of decarboxylation which effects this transformation within the user's liver is very inefficient. In fact, it is so inefficient that approximately 85% of the ibotenic acid ingested (more than enough to inebriate further users) passes through the body unchanged and is excreted in the urine [Ott, p. 328]. To put it another way, the urine contains more than five times as much of the drug as the body can assimilate. This unsavory yet economical practice is well-documented among certain Siberian tribes where A. muscaria is widely used in both shamanic and ludibund contexts [von Bibra, p. 75]. Of all known traditions of drug use this practice of recycling the urine is unique to A. muscaria consumption and should be considered a highly significant indicator of this mushroom. The Rig Veda contains one passage in which urine and soma are mentioned together. Wasson seized upon this to support his hypothesis: Acting in concert, those charged with the office, richly gifted, do full homage to Soma. The swollen men piss the flowing (soma). [O'Flaherty, p. 123] Vedic urine, Buddhist soma While many of Wasson's arguments seemed persuasive, some scholars expressed reservations, particularly in regard to urine-drinking. In particular, though the phrase "the swollen men piss the flowing" may refer to soma, it is not mentioned explicitly. Furthermore, it merely refers to urination, not urine-drinking. If we were to consider modern, literary accounts of beer-drinking we would undoubtedly find many references to urination. We might even, in the British literature, find many references to embarking on a drinking bout as "going on the piss". The connection between beer and urination, is therefore valid and incontrovertible yet who would be so foolish as to infer that this represents a tradition of urine-quaffing among British beer-drinkers? If, therefore, we could find references to actual urine-drinking in the context of soma-use then Wasson's hypothesis would gain considerably in credibility. It is just such evidence which I will present below, although the word soma is not used explicitly, rather the Tibetan translation of its synonym, amrita. The vajrayana ("thunderbolt-" or "diamond-vehicle") movement of Buddhism developed as an outgrowth of Mahayana Buddhism. While accepting the mahayana's radical philosophy of voidness the vajrayana rejected its timescale. According to the mahayana, one attains enlightenment by accumuaating good karma, especially in regard to the "two wings of enlightenment" - compassion and wisdom. This process of accumulation is not easily achieved as it is believed to take many thousands, even millions, of lifetimes. By contrast, the vajrayana's claim that it offered enlightenment in this very lifetime was an attractive alternative. It took a pragmatic approach to practice, adopting anything that worked, especially delighting in shock tactics and the deliberate shattering of cultural taboos. Its teachers were often charismatic yogins who lived in cemeteries and smeared their near-naked bodies with ashes from funeral pyres, though we also read of gurus who were craftsmen, housewives, scholars, courtesans and kings. A large number of tantras (arcane and obscurely symbolic scriptures, all of which are completely unknown to other Buddhist sects) are revered by the Vajrayana yet the essential points of its teachings were transmitted, in conditions of great secrecy, in an oral lineage from teacher to student. The tantras use scandalous images and terminology as symbols to convey the most sublime philosophy. Even their name is an impertinent pun on the word sutra, the name given to the Buddha's lectures. Whereas the word sutra literally means "thread", tantra means "weave" thus implying a further dimension to its teachings. It has recently become apparent that Amanita muscaria was in use among at least some of the siddhas (adepts) of Vajrayana Buddhism in mediaeval India [Hajicek-Dobberstein]. During this period (approximately 500 - 1000 CE), Buddhism was introduced to Tibet, becoming its state religion, with Vajrayana as the prevalent form. During the subsequent decline of Buddhism in India, most of Sanskrit originals of the Buddhist literature were lost. But as countless texts were brought from India and translated from Sanskrit into Tibetan, Tibet has preserved much of the Indian Buddhist tradition, even those parts which no longer have any use or meaning. It is not surprising, therefore, that we should find evidence of lost Indian traditions in Tibetan sources. Despite Buddhism's numerous exhortations to sobriety and its general repudiation of the use of drugs, one occasionally finds references to psychoactive substances as a means to enlightenment: You can obtain Buddhahood: by taking a medicine pill which will make you immortal like the sun and moon.... [Stewart, p. 53] This is a rare reference to the little-known Vajrayana tradition of rasayana (Skt: "alchemy"). Perhaps one of the most closely-guarded secrets of the Tibetan lamas, very little on this subject has been made available to Western scholars. It is worth note that the enlightenment resulting from medicines is here equated to immortality. This accords both with the literal meaning of amrita ("deathlessness") and with the legendary properties of soma.  This appears to be either a symbol for, or equivalent to, enlightenment as it has also been stated that the intention of this tradition was ...the ingestion of drugs to strengthen the yogin and procure the siddhi for him, as well as bringing him to the final goal. [Walter, p. 319] There are two separate lineages of rasayana preserved in Tibet, one being founded by Guru Rinpoche (also known as Padmasambhava) and the other by his contemporary, Vimalamitra. A few works on the subject, purportedly by Guru Rinpoche and Vimalamitra themselves, survive. If these attributions are correct then these writings would date from the 8th century CE. Neither of these two masters was Tibetan but they had a profound effect on Tibetan Buddhism. So much so, in fact, that Guru Rinpoche is still revered there as a second Buddha. Vajrapani drinks urine A curious legend which tells of the origins of both amrita and of the wrathful aspect of the Bodhisattva Vajrapani is told in "Buddhism in Tibet" [Schlagintweit, pp. 114-117]. The legend is drawn from the Dri Med Zhel Phreng (Tibetan: "The Immaculate Crystal Garland") a Tibetan work which, presumably, is itself a translation of a Sanskrit original. Here is Schlagintweit's translation: The legend about Chakdor Once upon a time the Buddhas all met together on the top of Mount Meru, to deliberate upon the means of procuring the water of life, Dutsi, which lies concealed at the bottom of the deep ocean. In their benevolence, they intended, as soon as they obtained the water of life, to distribute it amongst the human race as a powerful antidote against the strong poison Hala, which the evil demons, at this period, had been using with such mischievous effect against mankind. In order to procure the antidote they determined to churn the ocean with the mountain Meru, and so cause the water of life to rise to the surface of the sea. This they did, and delivered the water of life to Vajrapani, with orders to secure it safely until a future meeting, when they would impart it to living beings. But the monster Rahu, a Lhamayin, happened to hear of this precious discovery, and having carefully watched Vajrapani's movements, seized an opportunity, in the absence of the latter, to drink the water of life; not satisfied with this act, he even voided his water deliberately into the vessel. He then hurried away as fast as possible, and had already proceeded a great distance, when Vajrapani came home, and having perceived the theft, instantly set out in pursuit of the culprit. In the course of his flight Rahu had passed the sun and moon, whom he menaced with vengeance, should they venture to betray him to Vajrapani. His searches proving fruitless, Vajrapani betook himself to the sun, and asked him about Rahu. But the sun replied evasively, saying that he had certainly seen somebody passing a long time ago, but had paid no particular attention as to who it was. The moon, on the other hand, returned a candid answer, only requesting that Vajrapani would not repeat it before Rahu. Upon this information Rahu was shortly afterwards overtaken, when he got such a terrible blow from Vajrapani's scepter [i.e. vajra] that, besides receiving many wounds, his body was split in two parts, the lower part of the body with the legs being entirely blown off. The Buddhas once more held a meeting, in which they deliberated upon the best means of disposing of Rahu's urine. To pour it out would have been most dangerous to human beings, as it contained a large quantity of the poison Hala hala; they therefore determined that Vajrapani should drink it, in just punishment for the carelessness through which the water of life was lost. Accordingly he was forced to do so, when his fair, yellow complexion was changed by the effects of this potion into a dark one. Vajrapani conceived, from his transfiguration, a most violent rage against all evil demons, and in particular against Rahu, who, notwithstanding his deadly wounds, was prevented from dying by the water of life. This powerful water, however, dropped from his wounds and fell all over the world, numerous medicinal herbs springing up on the spots where it touched the soil. A severe punishment was also inflicted upon Rahu by the Buddhas themselves; they made a horrible monster of him, replaced his legs by the tail of a dragon, formed nine different heads from his broken one, the principal wounds were made into an enormous throat, and the lesser ones into so many eyes. Rahu, who had ever distinguished himself from his fellow-beings by his wickedness - in their earliest youth even the other gods had to suffer from his malignity - became, after this transformation, more dreadful than he was before. His rage was turned especially towards the sun and the moon, who had betrayed him. He is constantly trying to devorr them, particularly the moon, who displayed the most hostile disposition towards him. He overshadows them whilst trying to devour them, and thus causes eclipses; but owing to Vajrapani's unceasing vigilance, he cannot succeed in destroying them. The water of life The "water of life, Dutsi" of Schlagintweit's translation is obviously the Tibetan bDud.rTsi phonetically rendered. This is the standard term used in Tibetan to translate the Sanskrit amrita. Thus, bDud.rTsi (piyusha, amrita, sudha) 1. the food of the gods, nectar, the potion that confers immortality... [Das] Also, the equivalence of amrita and soma is well understood: AMRITA... The water of life. The term was known to the Vedas, and seems to have been applied to various things offered in sacrifice, but more especially to the Soma juice. [Dowson, p. 12] An objection may be made that amrita (or, more precisely, bDud.rTsi) as understood by Tibetan Buddhism is not the same as the amrita of the Hindus, that it means simply medicine and is used purely as a symbol for enlightenment. This was certainly the case during the earliest phase of Buddhism.  For instance, the celebrated conversation between the Hellenistic king "Milinda" and the monk Nagasena relates a parable in which the Buddha is alleged to have established shops of various kinds including a flower shop, a perfume shop, a fruit shop, a medicine shop, a herb shop, an “ambrosia” (i.e. amrita) shop, a jewellery shop and a general store. Each of these in turn is then described and interpreted symbolically.  Here is the description of "The Ambrosia-shop of the Buddha": "Reverend Nagasena, what is the Ambrosia-shop of the Exalted One, the Buddha?" An Ambrosia, great king, has been proclaimed by the Exalted One, and with this Ambrosia that Exalted One sprinkles the world of men and the World of the Gods; and sprinkled with this Ambrosia, both gods and men have obtained deliverance from Birth, Old Age, Disease, Death, and from sorrow, lamentation, suffering, dejection, and despair. What is this Ambrosia? It is Meditation on the Body. Moreover, great king, this has been said by the Exalted One, god over gods: "Ambrosia, O monks, do they enjoy who enjoy Meditation on the Body." This, great king, is what is meant by the Ambrosia-shop of the Buddha. Afflicted with disease he saw mankind, and opened an Ambrosia-shop. "With Kamma, monks, come, buy and eat Ambrosia.      [Burlingame, p. 237] Thus we clearly see that, at least for Nagasena, the only connection between ambrosia (amrita) and Buddhism was a symbolic one. The Buddhism of his period had no use for the actual substance, there were no initiation rituals and no yogic circles in which a substance called amrita was imbibed. This came much later, in the Vajrayana, Buddhism's tantric phase. On the other hand, it seems, from Nagasena's parable, that there actually were "ambrosia shops", places where something called "ambrosia" could be bought and, perhaps also, consumed. Undoubtedly, the striking parallels between "The legend about Chakdor" and the Hindu legend of the origin of soma show that the Buddhist amrita and the Hindu soma were at one time understood to be identical. Moreover, the principal property of amrita is, to this day, perceived by Buddhists as being a species of inebriation, however symbolically this inebriation may be interpreted. Why else would beer (Tibetan chhang, "barley beer") be used by yogins as a symbolic substitute for amrita [Ardussi]? Conversely, why else would the term bDud.rTsi be used as a poetic synonym for beer? Initiations The late Chogyam Trungpa, a celebrated apologist for Tibetan Buddhism, explained the function which amrita plays in the initiation process: amrita... is used in conferring the second abhisheka, the secret abhisheka. This transmission dissolves the student's mind into the mind of the teacher of the lineage. In general, amrita is the principle of intoxicating extreme beliefs, belief in ego, and dissolving the boundary between confusion and sanity so that coemergence can be realized. [Trungpa, p. 236] This passage underscores the fact that amrita, despite the innocuous composition of the modern formulation which goes by this name, is understood primarily as an inebriant. Moreover, the allusions to ego-loss and the "dissolving the boundary between confusion and sanity" imply that amrita was originally a powerfully psychedelic substance and was used as such in the context of Buddhist initiations. The potion which is called amrita in modern Tibetan Buddhist initiations is a weak infusion of various medicinal and marginally psychoactive herbs. Curiously, it is usually colored with saffron. Considering the high price of saffron, one wonders why it is used. Could it be that it is there merely to give the amrita the appearance of urine? Yakshas, nagas and asuras "The Legend About Chakdor" assumes that we are familiar with the rivalry between the gods (devas) and the asuras. The Sanskrit word asura has several degrees of meaning ranging from an autochthonous demon to a semi-divine, god-like being. It is this latter meaning which is most frequently implied in Buddhist texts. They are believed to be jealous enemies of the devas (Hindu gods which are recognized in the Buddhist cosmology) and may be considered as functionally equivalent to the Titans who, in Greek myth, oppose the Olympian gods. The asuras may well be remnants of a pre-Aryan class of deities. In this instance, as the status of Rahu seems to be demonic rather than semi-divine one might suppose that this legend preserves elements from an early period when the local, non-Aryan deities posed more of a threat. One (Hindu) account of the origin of the word asura is that the first wine (sura) was one of the products of churning the ocean. The gods (sura) partook of it but the anti-gods refused it, thus they are a-sura (literally, "no-wine").[Danielou, p. 140] If we assume that the asuras indeed represent the indigenous gods of India, then this myth may reflect the differing drug-preferences of the invading Aryans and the indigenous (Dravidian) peoples. The definitive exposition of the Mahayana Buddhist philosophy, the sutra called the "Perfection of Wisdom in 8,000 Verses", contains the earliest reference to Vajrapani. He is described as a yaksha who protects those pious householders who follow the bodhisattva path. The yakshas are classed along with the asuras in Hindu legends as malign spirits and, like the asuras, are thought to represent a vestige of the earlier, Dravidian, religion. Incidentally, nagas are often considered to be another of the classes of asura. Thus, "The Legend About Chakdor" contains references to three classes of autochthonous entities: Vajrapani is a yaksha (albeit one who has converted to Buddhism), Rahu is an asura and his legs are replaced with the tail of a naga. All three are considered to be enemies of the gods and, curiously, all three are associated with soma. The connection of asuras, yakshas and nagas to soma/amrita is not immediately obvious but it is of considerable antiquity. For instance, although the Rig Veda refers to soma as a god, it/he is also said to be an asura: Soma, the generous asura, knows the world. [O'Flaherty, p. 123] Furthermore, asuras are frequently associated with amrita in folklore and legend. Take, for example, this passage from the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali: Perfections proceed from birth or from drugs or from spells or from self-castigation or from concentration. [Woods, p. 347] This passage is fascinating in itself but, in the context of the asura/amrita connection, the traditional commentary by Vyasa is even more so: He describes the perfection which proceeds from drugs. A human being, when for some cause or other he reaches the mansions of the demons (asura), and when he makes use of elixirs of life brought to him by the lovely damsels of the demons, attains to agelessness and to deathlessness and to other perfections. Or (this perfection may be had) by the use of an elixir-of-life in this very world. So for instance the sage Mandavya, who dwelt on the Vindhyas and who made use of potions. [Woods, p. 347]

He describes the perfection which proceeds from drugs. A human being, when for some cause or other he reaches the mansions of the demons (asura), and when he makes use of elixirs of life brought to him by the lovely damsels of the demons, attains to agelessness and to deathlessness and to other perfections. Or (this perfection may be had) by the use of an elixir-of-life in this very world. So for instance the sage Mandavya, who dwelt on the Vindhyas and who made use of potions. [Woods, p. 347]
 This ancient connection between amrita and the world of the asuras was so widely understood that even in 17th-century Tibet it could be taken for granted:
 Also, there was a farmer who took Tara as his meditation deity. When he dug in the earth and cried "Phu! Phu!" the gate of Patala itself opened. Entering the place of the Nagas, he drank the amrita he found there. Thus, he became like a rainbow body. [Taranatha, p. 37]
 An similar example of the stereotypical correlation of yakshas to amrita occurs in the following.  This is especially relevant to Vajrapani, given his yaksha origins.
 Again, there was a sadhaka who practiced the sadhana of Tara. He sat beside the roots of a bimba tree and repeated mantras. On one occasion, in the early morning, he saw a narrow lane in front of him which had not been there previously. He entered this and followed along the way. By nightfall, he found himself in the midst of a delightful forest and here he saw a golden house. When he entered it, he encountered the Yakshini Kali, who was the servant of the Yaksha Natakubera. She was adorned with every kind of ornament and her body was of an indefinite color. She addressed him, "O sadhaka, since you have come here, you must eat of the elixir," and she placed in his hands a vessel filled with nectar. He remained for one month, drinking the elixir, and thereafter his body became free of death and rebirth. [Taranatha, p. 38]
 Rahu's Urine At last we turn to the oddest, and yet most crucial, element of the Vajrapani myth: he drinks Rahu's urine and, as a result becomes terrifying, blue and adorned with snakes. Here we have our sought-for connection between soma (albeit under the synonym bDud.rTsi) and urine-drinking.
 Despite the fact that urine-drinking is an integral part of Siberian Amanita muscaria consumption we should not take this practice, in itself, to indicate the use of A. muscaria without further substantiating factors. After all, many people in modern India drink their own urine purely for health reasons. However, it should be clearly understood that, of all known drugs in use worldwide, only A. muscaria has the practice of urine-drinking associated with it as a cultural norm. This practice has its basis in the fact that, due to the highly inefficient conversion of ibotenic acid into muscimole within the body, the urine of one who has ingested A. muscaria is almost as potent a drug as the mushroom itself. Moreover, ibotenic acid is found only in the A. muscaria mushroom and in a very similar species called A. pantherina. Among psychoactive mushrooms, this property is unique to A. muscaria. Thus, if one were to drink the urine of someone who has just ingested, say, a mushroom which contains psilocybin, its drug effect would not be passed on to the urine-drinker.
 It should be borne in mind that, while psychoactive plants which share this property of passing useable amounts of its drug into the user’s urine are relatively rare, they do exist. Amanita muscaria is not unique in this regard. There are, for instance, several species of cactus which contain mescaline. However, despite the fact that about 80% of ingested mescaline is excreted with the urine, there have been no reports of urine-drinking associated with the peyote (Anhalonium lewinii) cults of North America nor with the San Pedro (Trichocereus pachanoi) cult of Peru. This is somewhat surprising as urine, even someone else's, is probably a lot more palatable than the intensely bitter peyote cactus. There are, of course, no Old World plants which contain mescaline.
 So, given the context in which Vajrapani drinks the urine of one has just drunk a powerfully inebriating potion, we should strongly suspect that Amanita muscaria is implicated. In the light of Wasson's contention that soma was A. muscaria, the urine-drinking element of "The Legend About Chakdor" assumes considerable significance.
 Vajrayana and Tibet Until recently all research into the sacramental use of Amanita muscaria in India focused on Hinduism, in particular Vedic Hinduism. A recent paper [Hajicek-Dobberstein] argued persuasively that a tradition of its use also existed among the siddhas (yogic adepts) of Vajrayana Buddhism.
 As we have already noted, a potion called amrita is, even to this day, an essential part of Vajrayana initiations and in the Vajrayana’s central ritual, the ganachakra. In both contexts, its function is to remove the belief in the personal ego and to dissolve the boundary between the guru and the student undergoing the initiation. It would seem obvious from this description that a profoundly psychedelic substance is implied here. The modern concoction is mainly symbolic, however, and consists of a few herbal pills dissolved in water or alcohol. This may be because the initiation-lineages of the present day are exclusively monastic; even though the initiations may be given to lay-practitioners they were originally intended for monks and nuns. Very few texts have survived which relate to the tantric initiation of lay-practitioners and it is quite likely that these would have differed profoundly from the restrained rituals of monastic communities.
 Thanks to the Tibetans' exaggerated respect for Buddhism's Indian origins, that which has been preserved has been preserved very faithfully. The arguments put forward in monastic debate, for instance, are those which were propounded in India, as long ago as the 1st century C.E. The hollowness of the stalk of the banana plant is a common simile used by Tibetan lamas to explain the concept of "emptiness". Most Tibetans before the recent diaspora had never seen a banana plant, nevertheless the example was used because it was the one which had worked for the great teachers of the distant past in the holy land of India. It is this tendency to preserve even that which is incomprehensible which makes Tibetan Buddhism something of a museum. Thus in  the Tibetan Buddhist traditions we may view, "through a glass, darkly", some of the practices of ancient India. Let us see if we cannot piece together some clues from the surviving histories.
 Tibet's most illustrious yogin was Milarepa (Tib. Mi.La.Ras.Pa: "Mila the cotton-clad"). A hermit of the 11th century C.E., he lived in remote caves in the Himalayas and was renowned for his mastery of the "inner heat" (Tib: gTum.Mo; Skt: Chandali). His guru was Marpa, a famous translator and patriarch of the Tibetan Kagyud lineage. Marpa had traveled to India and had studied with many of the great yogins of his day including Maitripa and Kukkuripa who was said to have lived on an island in a lake of poison. His main teacher, however, was the great Indian scholar and yogin Naropa who conferred upon him the initiation of Hevajra and taught him the celebrated "Six Yogas".
 Here is a passage from Milarepa's biography: Then Gambopa brewed the tea and brought it to the Jetsun [i.e. Milarepa], saying, "Please accept this offering, this symbol of my veneration for you".
 Milarepa accepted it with delight. He said to Rechungpa, "We should offer this monk some tea in return. Now go and collect a little from every Repa here." Accordingly, Rechungpa [did so and] prepared the tea. Milarepa continued, "Now we need some seasoning." Saying this, he made water in the pot, making the tea extraordinarily delicious. [Chang, p. 475]
 Having thus consumed Milarepa's urine Rechungpa was then given an initiation by him into the practice of the (red) goddess Vajravarahi ("Thunderbolt sow") in the "mandala painted in cinnabar" (a red mineral). Although he had received other initiations from other gurus, Rechungpa considered this one the most profound and meaningful of all. Although there is no explicit mention of Amanita muscaria in this passage, it would provide a rationale for an otherwise inexplicable action. I find it difficult to believe that a guru's urine, no matter how enlightened the guru, would render tea "extraordinarily delicious". Could it be that the tea was used as a form of amrita, the drink which is an essential part of all Vajrayana initiations. This possibility seems more likely when we consider other initiations in which urine was explicitly substituted for amrita.
 Let us consider the case of Kyungpo Naljor (Tib. K'yung.Po rNal.'Byor, "Garuda yogin"), another yogin of pivotal importance in the dissemination of the tantric siddha schools in Tibet. He was a Tibetan master roughly contemporaneous with Milarepa, who brought teachings back from India and founded the Shangpa Kagyud lineage. His guru was Niguma, the sister (and also, some say, the consort) of Naropa, thus his lineage is related to, but not identical with, that of Marpa and Milarepa. Like Rechungpa, his initiation was conferred after drinking urine:
 The siddha Kyungpo Naljor realized the nature of empowerment when the dakini Niguma poured a skull cup of secret water and pointed a finger at his heart.
 The siddha Orgyenpa realized the nature of empowerment when a yogini in the form of a courtesan gave him a bowl of soup.
 There is also the story that the terton Guru Chowang placed a piece of excrement on the top of the head of the Nepalese man, Baro Vihardhara, and poured urine into his mouth. Through this, Baro remained in undefiled coemergent wisdom for seven days and was liberated...
 Dampa Gom-mon, who transmitted the Pacifying Practice, gave Chupa Dartson a cup of tea and a large bag of tsampa [roast barley flour], saying "This is a substitute for the empowerment ritual," whereby Chupa Dartson received the blessings and attained realization equal to that of his master.
 Countless such stories abound... [Rangdrol, p. 38]
 Each of these initiations entails drinking some kind of liquid. This is only to be expected, as the use of a potion called amrita is central to most Vajrayana initiations. Indeed, many lamas insist that without the ingestion of some kind of substance an initiation is not complete, the three essential components of an initiation being
 1) the substance to be eaten or, more usually, drunk, 2) the visualization of the deity, and 3) the mantra of that deity.
 Given the powerful effects which amrita is expected to elicit within the context of these initiations (see Initiations above), it is only reasonable to assume that, originally, these liquids contained a psychedelic substance. It is especially worthy of note that the "secret water" referred to by Rangdrol is glossed by his commentator as "urine" and, in the case of Baro Vihardhara it is explicitly stated that the initiatory liquid is urine. Guru Chowang may have placed "a piece of excrement on his head" (presumably substituting it for the vajra used in the normal version of the ritual) but it was urine (representing  amrita) which he poured into his mouth.
 Again, as in the case of Milarepa, Amanita muscaria is not explicitly mentioned in any of these descriptions but the conferral of initiation after drinking the guru's urine is so suggestive of its use that this theme demands further investigation.
 Etymology As we have seen, the "Dutsi" of "The legend about Chakdor" is a phonetic rendition of the Tibetan bDud.rTsi, the term which translates the Sanskrit amrita, an alternative term for soma. The Tibetan vocabulary which was used to translate Buddhist texts from Sanskrit was highly standardized. So much so, in fact, that the Tibetan translators even went as far as to invent linguistic devices for features of Sanskrit grammar (such as the "dual number") which were not present in Tibetan. Thus we can be certain that wherever we encounter bDud.rTsi in a Tibetan translation the original Sanskrit would have been amrita.
 If we were to select a Tibetan word which would most accurately translate the Sanskrit amrita ("no death", "immortality") into Tibetan we should probably choose the word 'Chi.Med ("death-less"). This word is frequently found as a personal name for both men and women but it is seldom used in Buddhist texts as the translation of amrita, and then only as a component of proper names. Instead, the word which is invariably used to translate the Sanskrit amrita into Tibetan is bDud.rTsi. This breaks down into two syllables, the second of which (rTsi) is simply the common word for "juice". The first syllable (bDud) is more problematic. If taken literally, this means "demon" and it is the word which normally translates the Sanskrit word mara ("evil").
 As a personal name, Mara is the name of the demon who tempted Shakyamuni Buddha immediately prior to his enlightenment. Thus, the words mara and bDud are frequently used to mean an obstacle to enlightenment. As names for a drink which confers eternal life, "demon juice" and "obstacle juice" are hardly, on the face of it, obvious choices. How may we account for its etymology?
 It is possible that the early Tibetan translators attempted to preserve the linguistic connection between the words mara and amrita as these words share a common root: Ömi, meaning "die", "death". These translators, however, tended to follow the contemporary Indian Buddhist usage and attempted rather more hermeneutic interpretations of Sanskrit technical terms. So, while it is possible that the early Tibetan translators used the term bDud.rTsi for etymological reasons, I think it most unlikely as it would be an exception to their standard practices.
 Then again, one might consider bDud to be a corruption of 'Dud (meaning "to press" or "to collect"), both words having an identical pronunciation. Thus bDud.rTsi would mean "expressed juice" or "collected juice". This etymology, although not borne out by the use of 'Dud in other word formations, would seem rather apposite as the Sanskrit word soma itself derives from the root Ösu meaning "press" or "extract", reflecting the Vedic practices of expressing the juice of the soma plant.
 In the light of The Legend About Chakdor, however, we cannot ignore the serious possibility that the term "demon juice" may allude to the episode when Vajrapani drank second-hand bDud.rTsi. In other words, it may be a polite way of saying "asura's urine".
 Some Reservations Despite the evidence presented above that the soma which is spoken of in the Rig Veda and the amrita of the Vajrayana Buddhists was a decoction of the Amanita muscaria mushroom there is evidence that, in other contexts, other psychoactive plants may also have qualified for the title of soma. Many Vajrayana rituals call for the "five amritas". Could these have been five separate constituents of a psychoactive concoction?
 In passing it may be worth mentioning that the Tibetan word for Cannabis and its drug products is So.Ma.Ra.Dza. This appears to be a direct borrowing from the Sanskrit soma-raja (Eng.: “King soma”, “Royal soma”). The term soma-raja is glossed as "king soma, the moon" in Monier-Williams' Sanskrit dictionary although the Rig Veda, in its hymns of praise to the drug, refers to it frequently as "King soma" (8.48.8, 8.79.8 etc.) [O'Flaherty, pp. 121, 135, et passim.]. It would thus appear that either Cannabis was used as a soma-substitute or that the identification of soma with psychoactive plants in general was once recognized in India and that this tradition is preserved in Tibet.
 One plant-derived drug which has not yet been suggested as a candidate for soma is camphor. Admittedly, camphor is a mild stimulant rather than an psychedelic but its consumption as a drug is explicitly mentioned several times in the Hevajra Tantra. This complex and arcane Buddhist work, like most tantras, concerns itself with the ecstatic, yogic and magical means to enlightenment. Thus: 
 These (i.e. the female participants in the rite) the yogin should honor with deep embraces and kisses. Then he should drink camphor and sprinkle the mandala with it. He should cause them to drink it and he should quickly gain siddhi. [Snellgrove, p. 113]
 We must beware of making too much of any of the statements concerning camphor in the tantras for it was standard practice in these texts to employ an elaborate system of word-substitutions which could be interpreted only by the initiated. Thus, when the text appears to be speaking of a debauched sexual practice it is probably describing some rarified philosophical matter. Conversely, what might appear on the surface to be a purely philosophical discourse may well be instructions for achieving enlightenment  through advanced sexual yoga.  As a case in point, "camphor", in the secret tantric language, means semen while "semen" itself corresponds to bodhicitta ("the thought of enlightenment"). Yet again, camphor, semen and bodhicitta all correspond to the moon- (or male-) energy which is psychically manipulated in tantric yoga. This may be noteworthy in light of the mythological identification of soma with the moon. The very fact that camphor-consumption is mentioned at all should be considered sufficient cause for further investigation of drug use in the Vajrayana.
 We have seen that Amanita muscaria is not the only plant-derived inebriant which is imperfectly metabolized by the liver and could thus be recycled by urine-drinking. It is conceivable that some plants present in the Indian subcontinent and which would have been available to the Aryan invaders could contain such intoxicants. However, only one plant is known to have a tradition of urine-drinking associated with it and that plant is A. muscaria.
 David Flattery [Flattery and Schwartz] makes an interesting and original point when he argues that both the Vedic culture (in India) and the related Avestan culture (in Iran) made use of substitutes for a sacred potion. Flattery interprets this as indicating that the knowledge of original plant which was symbolically represented by soma (and, in Iran, haoma) had been lost long before the Aryans entered India. This very intriguing possibility has been largely ignored by other researchers.
 Conclusion We have seen that amrita is a synonym for soma and that a Buddhist legend, "The Legend About Chakdor", tells of the origin of amrita. That this legend is from a Tibetan source, and uses the Tibetan translation of amrita: Dutsi, need not detain us. The story is sufficiently similar to the Puranic legend of the origin of soma to assure us that both legends concern the same substance. The importance of the Buddhist version is that it provides the sought-for link between soma (in this case called Dutsi) use and urine-drinking, thus lending weight to the contention that the soma plant was the Amanita muscaria mushroom.
 It is also possible that "The legend about Chakdor" is the source of the word bDud.rTsi, theTibetan translation of amrita as the literal meaning of bDud.rTsi ("demon juice") may be a euphemism for "asura's (i.e. Rahu's) urine".
 The consumption of a potion called amrita is central to Vajrayana Buddhist rituals, even today. This modern amrita is mostly colored water but, within the context of an initiation, it is imagined to be a potent psychoactive drug. This suggests that the modern version is merely a nominal acknowledgement of an original, truly potent, potion. There are several instances in the Tibetan tradition of initiations where urine was used in place of amrita and, while no explicit mention is made of A. muscaria in connection with these initiations, urine-drinking is highly suggestive of its use, particularly in light of the accumulating evidence of A. muscaria use by the Vajrayana siddhas.
 Wasson and other authors have suggested that original religion of the Indo-European people was a cult centered on the Amanita muscaria mushroom. This is a highly contentious area and I do not believe that the arguments which I present here lend weight to either side of that debate. I do, however, consider it now beyond doubt that A. muscaria was used sacramentally in India and also that this mushroom was known as soma. Whether it was the only drug to be used thus in Indian religions or whether other drugs were also called soma are matters for further research.
 Notes: abhisheka Literally "sprinkling" (cf. the above passage on "The Ambrosia shop of the Buddha"), it is the Sanskrit word used for a tantric initiation. The Tibetan word is "dBang" (pronounced "wang").ambrosiaSkt. amrita.amritaSanskrit for " elixir of immortality", it literally means "deathlessness". This has obvious parallels in "ambrosia" the name of the classical Greek "food of the gods" which means "no death".asurasA race of anti-gods, comparable to the Titans in classical Greek mythology.beerTibetan chhang ("barley beer").bimba treeProbably Momordica monadelphadutsiA phonetic rendering of the Tibetan bDud.rTsi, equivalent to Skt., amrita, soma, Eng. "ambrosia".eating ambrosiaConsidering that this ambrosia has been described as something which may be "sprinkled" we must suspect the accuracy of this translation.empowermentA more literal translation of the Tibetan word dBang meaning "initiation".gomaThis appears to be Japanese pronunciation of "homa".hala hala(Sanskrit) Presumably a corrupt form of kalakuta or khalakuta, the equivalent terms in the Hindu myth. Like these terms neither its precise meaning nor its etymology is understood.haomaThe Iranian equivalent of soma. The word is cognate with Skt. homa, "fire ritual", "sacrifice".herbal pillsT. J. Tsarong gives the composition only of bDud.rTsi.Ril.dKar ("the white nectar pill"), which is used medicinally, but not of bDud.rTsi.Ril.dMar ("the red nectar pill") which is used by yogins and for initiations. The "white nectar pill" contains "Ash of a fossilized stone (Bya.rDo), Hedychium spicatum, black salt, Hippophae rhamnoides, Piper longum".hevajra TantraThe "Hevajra Tantra" is a complex and arcane Buddhist work which concerns itself with the ecstatic, yogic and magical means to enlightenment.homaSkt., "fire ritual", "sacrifice".JetsunA Tibetan honorific, in this case referring to MilarepaKyungpo NaljorTib. K'yung.Po rNal.'Byor ("Garuda yogin")lhamayinThe Tibetan word Lha.Ma.Yin (literally "Not a god") is a translation of the Sanskrit asura.MandavyaI have, as yet, been unable to find any other reference to "the sage Mandavya, who dwelt on the Vindhyas". The Vindhyas are a range of mountains in the South of India inhabited by Dravidian people. In the Indian tradition mountains are considered to be repositories of medicinal herbs.MilarepaTib. Mi.La.Ras.Pa ("Mila the cotton-clad")naga-kingNagas are snake-spirits. They have the power to change their shape, their females (nagini) often assuming the guise of beautiful women. Although they inhabit the subterranean land of "Patala", they are connected with the water element and have the power to bring rain.NatakuberaThe wealth deity Kubera (also written Kuvera, Sanskrit for "deformed") is considered the lord of the yakshas and is thus called yaksharaja. The name Natakubera literally means "the bent and misshapen one".pacifying practiceTib. gCodPatalaThe underworld realm of the asuras. Due to their common "anti-god" alignment, it is also said to house the yakshas and the nagas. Patala should not be confused with either: (a) Potala, the "pure land" of the bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara, or (b) the Potala Palace in Lhasa, Tibet. This palace was the seat of the Dalai Lamas from the 16th to the 20th centuries. It was built by the "Great Fifth" Dalai Lama who named it after the realm of Avalokiteshvara. piyusha The words piyusha, amrita, sudha are modern Hindi synonyms for soma. Das gives them in the Devanagari alphabetPerfection of WisdomAshtasahasrika Prajñaparamita Sutra (Skt., "The Perfection of Wisdom in 8,000 Verses"), a seminal Mahayana text, probably composed in the 1st century C.E. sadhaka One who practices a sadhana.sadhanaA tantric system of meditation, often involving the visualization of a deity while reciting a mantra appropriate to that deity.secret waterA note on "secret water" explains "Probably she poured urine in the skull cup for him to drink."siddha(Skt) "accomplished", "adept". One who has achieved enlightenment by following the Vajrayana path. See siddhi.siddhi(Skt) "accomplishment". In the Vayrayana tradition there is only one accomplishment worth considering and that is enlightenment. See siddha.soma-rajaM. Monier-Williams, ("A Sanskrit-English Dictionary", Motilal Banarsidass, New Delhi 1993) interprets the closely-related words soma-rajika and soma-raji as being the plant Vernonia anthelminthica.tail of a dragonActually the tail of a naga or giant, supernatural snake.three essentials The three essentials components of an initiation are (1) the substance to be eaten or drunk, (2) the visualization of the deity and (3) the mantra of that deity.VajrapaniSkt. Vajrapani, "Thunderbolt-holder", becomes, in Tibetan, P'yag.Na.rDo.rJe, "Thunderbolt-in-hand". This is frequently abbreviated to P'yag.rDor (pronounced Chak-dor). vajrayanaSkt., "diamond/thunderbolt vehicle", also known as the Guhyamantrayana, "secret mantra vehicle".VyasaSkt., "author"world of the asurassee PatalayakshaOsriginally a class of gigantic, goblin-like, chthonic demons in Indian popular culture, sometimes said to bring disease. In Buddhist literature, converted Yakshas are frequently cited as protectors of Buddhism.yakshini KaliYakshini is the feminine form of yaksha. I think we may confidently assume that the yakshini in question is the Hindu goddess Kali in Buddhist guise. That she is said to be a mere yakshini and a servant of Kuvera (Kubera) is an example of the mutual denigration of deities which typified the inter-religious rivalry between Hindus and Buddhists.


\3 Wan kuok Koi druglord

Time South Pacific By Colmey, John ; Ng, Isabella Magazine: Time South Pacific; April 27, 1998 Section: ASIA

TALES FROM THE DRAGONHEAD Set to become one of the world's top crime bosses, Wan Kuok-Koi talks of life in Macau's underworld AT 8:50 IN THE EVENING, ONE OF the most powerful Chinese Mafia leaders in Asia is enjoying a typical Portuguese meal of bread, cod and sausage. Suddenly his mobile phone rings.
 The eight people sitting at the restaurant table fall into a hush as Wan Kuok-Koi, alias Broken Tooth Koi, relays the news that a woman has been shot outside a casino. Then he hangs up, tums to an aide and orders him to "nose around." In minutes the aide returns and reports that the assailant drove away from the scene in a car with license plate MG 6233. "I don't recognize this number; says Wan, dialing his mobile as he talks. Within a half-hour of the shooting, the details are in. After borrowing $39,000 from a loan shark inside the casino, the woman and her husband were hailing a taxi when a gunman walked up and shot her in the face; she miraculously survived. "That's not my business" says Wan, breaking into a relieved grin that displays his nine false teeth. "Whenever something happens here, I always get the blame."
 It's just another night in Macau, the deceptively sleepy, Portuguese-run enclave and gambling mecca on China's southern coast. And just another night in the world of Koi- Goh, or Brother Koi. It is a dark world of corrupt cops and dirty judges, of Russian and Chinese prostitutes, of assassins on motorcycles called 'big-headed Buddhas" and body parts that float up on beaches. Nobody knows this place better than Wan. At 43, he has survived childhood in a Macau shanty town, four prison sentences and a lifetime of street fighting to become, according to senior police officials, the leader of the enclaves most feared Triad, the 14 K, which skims illegal gravy from the legal operations of Macau's nine casinos. The syndicate has more than 10,000 members locally and more than 20 factions globally involved with trafficking everything from arms to illegal immigrants. But with Macau due to follow Hong Kong back to Chinese control in 1999, the Portuguese have all but given up the fight against organized crime. Today Macau has become the Casablanca of the 1990s, a crossroads of international criminals and the money-laundering capital of Asia. Says Martin Booth, author of the forthcoming book The Dragon Syndicates: the History of the Triads: "If he survives to take over the casino concessions, Broken Tooth Koi will be one of the most powerful Triad leaders in the world"
 He will certainly be the most famous. Next month a Hong Kong company will release Casino, a film loosely based on Wans rise to power and financed by the Dragonhead himself. As part of a press blitz, Wan told TIME his story during two days of dusk-fill-dawn interviews. His tale east new light on the gang wars that have wracked tiny Macau (pop. 450,000), and on the life of a modern Chinese gangster. Wan doesn't deny what he is, but gives out details cautiously. "I cannot be specific;' he says. "I do what other gangsters do. You can imagine. Everything but drug trafficking."
 Wan's reason for coming out of the shadows, he says, is partly to show the world he is not the monster described in the regional press. "I'm not as heartless as people think;' he says. "I am very easy-going and funny" But he has a more sinister motive as well: to provoke a rival in the gambling business named Ng Wai, the owner of Macau's New Century Hotel and a major player in the casino game for more than 10 years.
 Wan traces the origin of Macau's worst gang wars in this decade back to the late 1980s arrival of Ng, also a 14 K member. Nicknamed Kai-Sze (Market) Wai because he once allegedly ran the protection rackets in Hong Kong's Mongkok market, Ng left the former British colony for the Philippines in the mid-1980s. There, with the help of former President Ferdinand Mareos, he entered the casino business. About that time billionaire gambling magnate Stanley Ho, who has held the legal monopoly on Macau's casinos since 1962, won the franchise to run the Philippines' gaming rooms. Though there is no evidence of a deal with Ho, Ng was soon ensconced in Macau and eventually gained control over several of the casinos' "VIP rooms"
 With minimum bets starting at $130, the VIP suites are privately managed highstakes gambling dens just off the main casino halls. Of the roughly $2 billion in revenue reported in 1997 by Ho's flagship, nearly half flowed through the private rooms. Much of the earnings never enters the books, say police in Hong Kong. High rollers usually come on junkets organized by tour operators (read Triad) who meet their clients' every need: travel, rooms, meals, women and protection. Loan sharks hover near every table with cash available for interest that accrues by the day or hour.
 According to Triad historian Booth, "the casinos are perfect money-laundering machines" A corrupt government official might, for example, bet and lose $300,000. The next week he returns, mysteriously wins $250,000 and goes home with clean money, minus the $50,000 service charge. For years Ho has vehemently denied that he allows outsiders to manage VIP rooms, and Wan won't discuss the casino owner. But when Wan opened the Wan Hao VIP Club in the Lisboa Hotel, his card identified him as "director" with an office located in Hong Kong's Ho-owned Shun Tak Center. The top VIP-room "director" used to be Ng Wai, whom Wan once worked for in the gambling operations. When Ng arrived in Macau in 1987 as an outsider, he had to quickly come to terms with the local gang members, chief among them a 14 K mobster named Mo-Ding Ping. As Ping accumulated enemies, Wan was moved up the 14 K ladder by higher powers and asked to neutralize Ping. Known as one of the "seven lucky folks--Wan has been shot twice and once had his arms chopped so badly with meat cleavers that he still can't straighten his two middle fingers-the gangster accepted the mission. That sparked a yearlong war that ended when Ping fled Macau to avoid a murder charge.
 Triad conflicts have been part of Macau history for centuries, though the 1990s have been particularly turbulent. There are three main societies-14 K, Shui Fong (Water Room) and Wo Shing Yee (Peace Victory Brotherhood)-and several smaller ones that have divided among themselves criminal spoils arising from the casinos, loan sharking, prostitution, protection rackets, smuggling and more recently horse and greyhound racing. After 1990, the societies tangled not only with each other, but also with criminal syndicates that tried to move in from Hong Kong, Taiwan and China.
 By 1995 Ng was apparently becoming unhappy with Wan's growing power and high-profile style. According to Wan, his enemies promised the thugs in Macau's Shui Fong a bigger cut in the VIP rooms if they would kill Wan. That led to a vicious war in 1996 and early 1997 between 14K and Shui Fong. Last spring, an unsigned letter was sent to eight newspapers, presumably from Wans foes. "Warning;' it read. "From this day on it is forbidden to mention Broken Tooth Koi in the press; otherwise bullets will have no eyes, and knives and bullets will have no feelings" This particular conflict ended shortly after the Shui Fong leader belted to Canada.
 As press coverage of the battles began to scare away tourists, the police were still trying to figure out who was fighting whom. Ng temporarily gained the upper hand last year when Wan disappeared in Southeast Asia to escape two arrest warrants. The first one, issued in Macau, was a test of the enclaves new anti-Triad law, which calls for a 12-year sentence for anyone found to be a senior leader. The second warrant, on a charge of drug trafficking, came from China. Wan claims someone bribed judges in Macau and China to order the arrests. But by August, Wan was in the clear. In Macau, a Portuguese judge suddenly found Wan innocent. The judge unexpectedly retired the next day and returned to Portugal. In China, the judge was found guilty of corruption, and charges against Wan there were dropped too.
 Back home in Macau, Wan issued a warning that anyone visiting Ng's w? rooms would become his enemy. Next, he pasted posters across the territory accusing Ng of being a drug trafficker. On July 30, three days before Ng's refurbished New Century hotel-casino was due to open, a Triad trio shot up the facade with machine guns, wounding three security officers. In all of 1997, 20 gangland slayings took place. The papers were full of men hunched dead in their cars or lying on the sidewalk under sheets. Now Ng is reportedly holed up inside his heavily fortified New Century. "Fate will not be kind to him" says Wan. "I'm going to wipe him out: For Broken Tooth Koi, it's all part of the "beautiful war" in which the victors are chosen by the Chinese God of War, Kuan Yu, to whom every true Triad member prays for guidance. "But I am a very old-fashioned guy" says Wan. "That means to defend the interests of the society, to fight for your brothers and to uphold the codes of the brotherhood." As for his personal code, he says: "It is better to die than be defeated."
 But as he drives himself through the streets of Macau in a 1998 black Nissan President (one of 14 cars he owns) with a Dance Fever CD blasting so loud the windows vibrate, he admits life at the top is lonely. After three broken marriages Wan now loves only the baccarat table, but it doesn't love him back. In one recent 10-minute session he lost $250,000, and he admits the $6 million he earns legally each month from his four VIP rooms doesn't cover his losses. He can often be found dancing by himself in his Heavy Club disco. Sitting with his six-year-old daughter at home in front of a bank of security cameras, Wan swears he will never tell his six children to join the Triad. "No one could follow my path and survive" he says. But undoubtedly, some will try.
 MARTIN SCORSESE'S 1995 FILM CASINO, A DRAMA ABOUT MOBSTERS AND THE gambling business starring Robert De Niro and Sharon Stone, is gruesomely realistic and maybe even true to life. But it's doubtful that the famed director was as close to his source material as the makers of the upcoming Hong Kong film also called Gasino. The new movie, due out in May, is financed by none other than Macau's most famous gangster, Wan Kuok-Koi, alias Broken Tooth Koi, and based on his personal saga. Producer Henry Fong says the tale was so real that the script had to be rewritten five times to hide the truth. And when Fong and the screenwriter first sat with Wan to take down his story, the two men looked at each other and turned off the tape recorder. "There was no way" says Fong, "we were going to walk around with that tape"
 Was making a movie for a mobster more nerve-wracking than being a stunt man in a Die Hard flick? Not really. Wan, who was at most of the filming in Macau and helped arrange the sets, proved to be easy-going and even modest-in his own way. Says actor Michael Lam, who plays a gang lieutenant: "When Wan saw me for the first time, he said, 'Hi, nice to meet you. I only know about chopping.' "IVan intervened rarely, but once told the extras to stop fooling around with the knives during the fights and "be serious,'--several ended up in the hospital with nasty cuts. In agreeing to do the film, Fong bravely demanded full control and told Wan that the movie would not, as many Hong Kong films do, "eulogize the gangster life"
 TIME got an exclusive advance look at Casino. Whether it succeeds in bringing the real Broken Tooth to the screen or rising above a dozen other Triad movies is debatable, but there are revealing glimpses of the man and a few new twists on the genre. Casino portrays the violent rise of "Giant" (Wans onscreen persona, played by Simon Yam), as narrated by a reporter whom the gangster takes into his confidence. The mayhem is all there-endless scenes of gangs charging each other with meat cleavers and baseball bats-though it is not always clear what the fighting is about. More surprising are the stabs at comic relief: when Giant gives the order, "Let the war begin;' 30 thugs in his living room start yelling into their mobile phones to call up the troops but stop abruptly when Giant screams again, "Hey! Can't you see my Mom is trying to talk on the phone?" Broken Tooth's hue character emerges when the mob boss arrives at the casino and a string of waiters pass the message "Giant's coming," a signal to clear the glasses and ashtrays off the baccarat table in case he loses and blows up, which he inevitably does. In the last scene, after Giant slowly drives over the leg of a woman he mistakes for an assassin, the reporter asks him if being on top is worth doing that sort of thing. "It's not whether you like it or not,' answers Giant. "That's the rules of the game"
 Local moviegoers who have followed the Triad wars will have a good time figuring out the real models for the main characters (many of the extras are Wan's actual followers). Who, for example, is the mysterious Mr. Chan who tries and fails to stop the two mob bosses from going to battle? Tip: screen names are homophones of real names. And for those still confused, a sequel is contemplated. Maybe this time Scorsese will take a crack at it.
 By John Colmoy


\4 Withdrawal

From: Victor Borras, latin@PANIX.COM I've been on both ends of withdrawals, heroin and methadone, every patient of methadone will always tell you the same, as I do; I can kick heroin anytime, but methadonde that is something else. In 15 yrs of heroin addiction, I've kicked 3 times, 'cold-turkey'. In 10 years on methadone I've never kicked methadone. Once I landed in jail, you have to do 72hrs. of jail time before you see the judge, called 'due' process. I was literally on the floor screaming my guts out. About 12hrs. before I was to see the judge, I demanded to be taken to the hospital, I just couldn't take it. I was cuffed, and looking like a 'chair' was glued to my back, I limped to the ambulence, since I couldn't lift my leg to climb into the back, the police grabbed me on both sides and shoved me in like a sack of potatoes, I fell flat on my face. The doctor realizing my condition and that it was severe, gave me a shot of morphine or methadone,(I had ID# and she called my Doctor). The cops were very angry. When they saw that I was ok, walking straight without pain or slouching, they cuffed me to a chair, called another unit to return me to the court building. The new transport was ok with me, when I got to the court building the cops wrote a message on my sheet. "This is the addict that cried and was give dope, don't let him go to see the judge, RETURN him to precinct jail to start new 72 hrs." I was returned to the precinct and 2 days later I was in the same condition! Never did I go through such hell in all my days, I finally saw the judge, I was able to stand and talk because, lucky for me, another inmate had some heroin, I gave him my food for the 'dope'! THE INTENSITY OF METHADONE WITHDRAWAL IS JUST TOO MUCH! I COULD NEVER DO IT, BTW ABOUT 5 YEARS AGO ONE INMATE WENT INTO CONVULSION AND UPON FALLING, HE HIT THE METAL BARS, HE DIED! 

I objected to the idea that heroin, "did not cause any direct health problems," because of two things, those being addiction and withdrawl. However; I was under the impression that withdrawl could be fatal, which is not usually the case.  If anyone is interested in learning more about this drug, I would like to recommend the following book:  Heroin, Myths and Reality  by: Jara A. Krivanek   pub. 1988, Allen & Unwin  Our discussion originally stemmed from the question: How bad is heroin withdrawl? Then it led to flames about "health problems", tobacco withdrawl, etc... Here is a section from _Heroin, Myths and Reality_ that discribes addicts and withdrawl:  "The development of physical dependence depends as much on regularity of use as on the ammount actually used. In pratice, the vast majority of addicts fo not use heroin consistently on an ongoing basis. Less than half of the addicts who have been on the streets for more than a year will have used daily for that period (Johnson, 1978). They may voluntarily withdraw to reduce their tolerance, or the scene may be temporarily too much of a hassle, or they may have an important engagement such as a trial, at which an appearance of addiction would be undesirable. Or they may simply need a rest. During such times, physical dependence may virtually disappear, yet they will still think of themselves and describe themselves as addicts. In other cases, the users may never use enough drug to develop significant physical dependence. Senay (1986) estimates that between 25 per cent and 40 per cent of street addicts are not physically dependent. Nevertheless, such 'chippers' may wish to see themselves as addicts for reasons of their own, and will so describe themselves.  The withdrawl syndrome we have been discussing is what is termed 'primary' or 'early' abstinance. A substantial portion of the physical symptoms of this stage seem to depend on the activity of a part of the brainstem called the locus coeruleus. Opiates depress this area and it would therefore be expected to become hyperactive during withdrawl. The locus coeruleus is an important centre in the brain's fear-alarm system, and such hyperactivity would be consistent with the marked anxiety and agitation withdrawing addicts report. Fortunately for withdrawing addicts, other drugs beside the opiates can depress this region and one of them is clonidine. Clonidine is generally used as an anti-hypertensive agent, but in 1978 Gold and his colleagues reported that it could supress or reverse the symptoms of opiate withdrawl. Subsequent work has shown that this reversal is by no means complete, but there seems no doubt that clonidine can make opiate withdrawl much more comfortable.  Even if clonidine is not used, medical detoxification is usually accomplished by giving decreasing doses of a long-acting opiate like methadone. Aftr a few weeks of this, the patient is usually opiate-free without having suffered any appreciable physical discomfort. Since a percentage of the methadone marketed for medical use finds its way into the streets, many addicts also detox themselves this way without formal medical help. Still others detox 'cold turkey'--without any pharmacological help at all. They simply tell their friends they have the flu, go to bed, and suffer in relative silence.  Medical supervision and assistance is certainly not essential for successful withdrawl." --pages 88 and 89  That was immediate withdrawl. The author goes on to say, "the duration of early abstinence depends on the drug's rate of elimination and in the case of heroin most major symptoms should be gone within seven to ten days."  He then describes, "A protracted abstinence syndrome follows withdrawl from both heroin and methadone and... lasts at least 31 weeks after withdrawl, and perhaps longer. Blood pressure, pulse rate, body temperature and pupil diameter seem to be the main physiological variables affected. Behaviourally, the subject shows an increased propensity to sleep and there are negative changes in mood and feeling state." Ahren