What with the holidays and the decision to move all the articles from Coffeesh0p over here, it’s about time I posted something with a bit more meat. Having said that, this post is also suitable for vegetarians, so read on!

As I mentioned briefly before, I had to give another presentation to my neuropharmacology class in a similar vein to the one on Salvia divinorum I published earlier. In the end, I chose to talk about psychoactive mushrooms, so here’s the slides and a bit of bloggified talking along with each. Before we begin though, I’ll just say this was the worst presentation I’ve ever given – I (probably) had the most severe case of flu ever recorded and only managed to summon the courage to deliver it with Beechams flu plus, aspirin and a cheeky dihydrocodeine. Without these unsung heroes, this talk would not have been possible!

Oh, you can also click on the slides to enlarge them. Without further ado:

I’ll be talking about both the traditional “Magic Mushrooms” and the fly agaric mushroom, which is less well known, but is actually pretty culturally significant. For both of these, I’ll touch on a bit of history and tradition, pharmacology and a few other interesting bits and pieces.
The typical magic mushrooms are actually many species of the Psilocybe genus with each species having its own subtle differences. There are 60 species of Psilocybe mushrooms growing throughout the united states, of which 25 are hallucinogenic. These mushrooms will grow in nearly any kind of habitat, apart from arid deserts, so are found throughout the world. The greatest species diversity falls within the neotropic climate zones, encompassing much of South America.

These mushrooms were traditionally used by the native peoples of middle America for divination & healing purposes as well as religious communion. In fact, these people referred to the mushrooms as “God flesh” in their native language. Traditional use continued until the Spanish invaded, bringing European culture with them in the 14-1500s which pushed mushroom use underground. In 1955, Robert Gordon Wasson was the first westerner to take the mushrooms, and since then, western interest has exploded.

Some of the positive effects brought on by these mushrooms include a euphoric change in mood accompanied by giggling and laughter, as well as an increased flow of ideas and tendency to think “deep”. Objects and lights also appear more interesting and colourful. The neutral effects include a general shift in consciousness, as with most other psychoactive substances, but also an increased emotional sensitivity, pupil dilation & photosensitivity, lethargy and time dilation – the feeling that time is passing faster than it actually is. The negative effects of mushroom use can include intense fear, a headache as the effects begin to wane, gastrointestinal discomfort such as cramps & nausea, anxiety, confusion and fainting. There has been no evidence of organ damage following use.

The pharmacology – The important constituents are two compounds in the tryptamine family, psilocybin and psilocin. Psilocybin is not actually biologically active – rather, it’s a prodrug that gets dephosphorylated by the body to form psilocin, which is psychoactive. I’ve also put a model of 5-HT on there for comparison. Psilocin is an agonist at 5-HT 2A, 2C and 1A receptors, but it’s hallucinatory effects are due to the binding to 5-HT2A receptors in the brain. Psilocin shows no effect on dopaminergic pathways, and only affects noradrenergic pathways in high doses. It is believed to be the degradation of psilocin into some kind of blue pigment responsible for the characteristic blue/black bruising of these mushrooms following handling. The ease at which they bruise is a good indicator of the mushroom’s potency. One species will even turn blue from just blowing on it.

While there are no recognised medical uses of magic mushrooms, they have been used as an experimental treatment for a number of disorders. There’s significant anecdotal evidence to suggest that mushrooms can abort the period where people with cluster headaches are prone to attacks and also prevent relapses. Cluster headaches are quite a serious condition, being described as more painful than childbirth (by women!), so it’s no wonder people are willing to break the law to treat themselves. There are also currently studies under way on the effect of these mushrooms at easing the psychological suffering associated with cancer.

There’s not a lot more to say about these mushrooms, only that making them illegal naturally hampers research into a potentially useful drug.

The Amanita muscaria mushroom is a whole different kettle of fish. Here’s a few pictures so you know what I’m talking about.

Also known as the Fly agaric, this mushroom is the archetypal toadstool of the fairy tales, and is native to many places throughout the northern hemisphere, where it has been used ceremonially and recreationally for thousands of years. The mushroom, when freshly picked, is poisonous, but with careful preparation, the mushroom loses its toxicity. Unlike its psilocybin containing counterpart, this mushroom is completely legal.

Amanita have a long past, appearing in artwork from as long ago as 3500 BC. They also appear in paintings from the renaissance period, becoming more prominent during the Victorian era. This mushroom is associated in particular with fairies, elves and little people in general. They also began appearing on Christmas cards as a symbol of luck, and models of the mushroom were hung on Christmas trees as decorations. This could be due to the natural association between these mushrooms and pine forests.

It’s also been suggested that Santa Clause himself is modelled after the fly agaric mushroom, with his red ‘n’ white suit. Reindeer have also been observed eating this mushrooms in the wild and becoming intoxicated, so could that be behind the stories of flying reindeer? In fact, here’s another article on Amanita muscaria & Christmas – a very interesting read. Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carol seemed to draw it’s inspiration from Amanita muscaria too.

Here’s a few images of this mushroom appearing in art through time. The top left one is from Disney’s Fantasia from 1940 – another example of just how widespread this mushroom has become within our culture.

Use of these mushrooms has been as widespread as their geographic distribution, but heavy use has been recorded in Siberia in particular. The Siberian shamans use the fly agaric as an alternative method to drumming and chanting to enter a trance state, but in eastern Siberia, the mushrooms were used by everyone both religiously and recreationally.

These mushrooms have a much more of a sedative effect with less hallucinations than the psilocybin containing counterparts. The positive effects include euphoria, analgesia, trance-like states being achieved, synaesthesia, and seeing “little people”. Maybe that one’s not so positive… The neutral effects include sedation, although some people can feel particularly energetic, along with changes in body perception, blurred vision and such. The most common negative effects associated with fly agaric use are nausea & gastrointestinal discomfort, but a powerful dissociation and delirium can occur at higher doses.

The active compounds in Amanita muscaria are Ibotenic acid and it’s derivative, muscimol. Ibotenic acid is a neurotoxin, which has since found a use in research, being a good inducer of brain lesions. This is the compound responsible for the toxic delirium resulting from ingestion of the fresh mushrooms. When dried in a particular manner, the ibotenic acid is decarboxylated into muscimol, making the mushrooms a lot safer to eat.

Muscimol itself is a selective agonist at the GABA-A receptor and a partial agonist at the GABA-C receptor. Muscimol’s effect profile is the sum of its actions at both these receptors, where it binds to the GABA site rather than that of an allosteric modulator, such as benzodiazepines or barbiturates. These GABAergic effects alter neuronal activity in many regions of the brain including the cerebral cortex, the hippocampus and the cerebellum. Muscimol is not metabolised further by the body, but is excreted in large quantities, as we shall see…

Time for some interesting bits and pieces about muscimol. Alcohol withdrawal can lead to hallucinations of little people much like muscimol. Since alcohol also acts on GABAergic pathways, maybe the effects could be related?

Siberian tribes used to drink the urine of their shaman, as it contains a high concentration of muscimol after ceremonial fly agaric use. I can’t think of any reason someone might find this out in the first place though.

And despite the name, Amanita muscaria have negligible muscarinic effects. They do contain muscarine, but in such tiny quantities to not make a difference.

Muscimol has also found use as a pharmacological tool, being a GABA agonist. GABA itself plays an inhibitory role, so GABA agonists applied to the brain will also have an inhibitory role. This is a useful method of simulating axon-sparing brain lesions, making reversible inactivation of brain areas a great way to study brain-behaviour relationships, such as where and when neuronal events for learning and memory take place.

And that’s that!

At this point I handed round a fly agaric cap for extra cool points.

The slides are available as a PDF here: Psychoactive Mushrooms Presentation [1.79 MB]

Have you ever tried making your own crude Salvia divinorum extract at home, and wondered why it looks like a black sticky mess that smokes harsher than a porcupine eating competition? Well, fear not, for this guide will ensure a quality finished product rivalling that of store-bought extracts.

This extract will make approximately 10g of unstandardised 10x extract. Provided you can use a calculator, the quantities detailed below can be jiggled around to make any strength extract you want.

Equipment

100g Salvia divinorum Leaf

You can get Salvia divinorum Leaf all over the Internet.

1x Large Saucepan

Just a regular large saucepan. Make sure it’s clean. No one wants to find the remains of burnt on spaghetti in their pipe.

1x Pyrex Tray

A large, wide, glass dish essentially. You might find a casserole dish fits the bill.

1x Small Glass Container

Anything will do, even a jam jar.

1x Tall, Narrow Glass Container

The perfect tool for the job is a boiling tube, but anything remotely similar will do.

1x Pipette

Not everyone has access to calibrated volumetric pipettes so anything that looks like an eye dropper will do. That means, a thin tube with a rubber bit on the end which you can squeeze.

2lt Propane Based Solvent

No not propane, but either propan-2-ol (AKA Isopropanol, Isopropyl Alcohol, Rubbing Alcohol) or propanone (AKA Acetone). They need to be 99% pure at least. Don’t even think about using nail varnish remover.

300ml Naphtha

The best source of commercially available naphtha in the UK is lighter fluid.

Step 1 – Powder Your Leaf

The first thing to do is weigh out your 100g of Salvia divinorum Leaf. Remove 10g of the best leaves from your stash and set them aside for later. The remaining 90g needs to be powdered using your trusty coffee grinder. It’s high RPM motor and stainless steel blades are no match for your dried salvia leaf. It’s worth pointing out that although the leaves may not instantly grind, you’ll have to give them a few minutes, but they WILL powder eventually. Use the grinder in 1 minute bursts, allowing the motor to cool in between. When you remove the lid from the grinder, unless you want to look like Shrek, do it in a fume cupboard. The coffee grinder will reduce the leaf to a flour like consistency which will billow out as soon as you remove the lid, turning everything in the immediate vicinity a sexy shade of green.

Step 2 – Extract The Salvinorin-A

Now you have 90g of powdered leaf, get it in your saucepan and pour in enough solvent to comfortably cover your leaf. Stir it constantly for 5 minutes and then let it sit for 8 hours or so. After that time, enough of the salvinorin should have dissolved in your solvent, so you can now carefully pour off the liquid in your saucepan into your Pyrex tray, being careful enough to leave all the solids behind.

If you’d like to make sure you extract as much salvinorin-a as possible, you may repeat this step once more.

Step 3 – The Waiting Game

As simple as it sounds, you have about 16 hours in which to twiddle your thumbs, watch some paint dry, or whatever you feel like. During this time, don’t even think about touching your extraction, and make sure it’s in a dark place. Light has a nasty habit of destroying salvinorin-a in solution. The purpose of this step is to let any sediment such as tannins fall out of the leaf which are hard to extract later on.

After the 16 or so hours are up, you may pour off the remaining liquid into the original saucepan, provided you emptied out the powdered leaf earlier.

Step 4 – Evaporating The Solvent

This takes forever, is incredibly boring and will give you terrible stomach ache if you don’t do it somewhere well ventilated. The best, safest and longest method of evaporating the solvent is in the dark, in the absence of heat. Remember, the solvent is flammable, so applying heat to it should be avoided. Blowing air across the solvent will speed things up substantially, so if you have a fan, use it, but again, only somewhere well ventilated. If the fan produces a spark, it could ignite the vapour, blowing up both you and your extraction.

When the evaporation is complete, you should be left with a load of black gunk on the inside of your container. This is as far as most people get with their extractions and is the reason why the end result is a black sticky mess. That’s ok for about 5x or 6x extracts, but any stronger than that and it becomes unsmokable.

Step 5 – Purification

When your black gunk is completely dry, you can scrape it out of your container and place it into a tall, narrow container. To this, add 50ml or so of naphtha. The naphtha dissolves the green/black waxes but leaves behind the salvinorin-a. After you add the first lot of naphtha, allow the container 30 minutes or so to settle, then pipette off two thirds of the naphtha and discard it. Repeat this process at LEAST 5 more times until your salvinorin-a is no longer a black colour. If you keep washing with naphtha, it will eventually turn white, however that kind of purity isn’t necessary for making 10x extract. If you were making something like 40x or 60x (not recommended), then the higher the purity, the better.

After the last naphtha wash, remove two thirds one last time and this time, allow the naphtha to evaporate off, leaving you with relatively pure salvinorin-a. DO NOT try and smoke/ingest this, as even a tenth of a milligram can be too much for some people.

Step 6 – Fortification

Now we have the salvinorin-a from 90g of leaf, we shall add it back to the 10g of quality leaf you set aside in Step 1. Although not completely accurate, you can see this is why it’s called 10x extract, as there’s 10x the amount of salvinorin-a in the finished product.

To do this, we place the salvinorin-a we produced in the previous step into the saucepan and add to it the same amount of solvent we used in step 1. Stir it round for a few minutes to ensure it has all dissolved. Next, add the 10g of leaf to your small container and pour the contents of the saucepan over it.

You can now evaporate off all of this solvent as before, until all of the solvent has evaporated.

The finished product is approximately 10g of leaf, looking a little darker than normal, 10 times as strong.

Sick of that nauseating feeling and blurred vision from eating Morning Glory (Ipomeia violacea) seeds? Why not try making your own hallucinogenic vodka! Investing a bit of time and money into your Morning Glory seeds will result in a much more refined experience, keeping negative side effects to a minimum.

This relatively straightforward process will give you about 10 trips assuming 6g of seeds for a standard dose.

Equipment

100g Morning Glory Seeds

You can buy Morning Glory seeds all over the internet or find them growing naturally.

1lt Good Quality Vodka

Since you want to enjoy this, don’t cheap out on the vodka. Ensure at least 40% alcohol by volume.

600-1000ml Naphtha

The best source of commercially available naphtha in the UK is lighter fluid.

Filters

If you have lab filters, use ‘em. If not, a coffee filter. If you can’t find them, use a tea towel.

Pint Glasses

Don’t worry, you won’t be drinking your product out of these, we’re just using them to hold liquid. If you have access to lab beakers, use those.

1x 2lt Bottle

This can be a plastic pop bottle or anything. You’ll be using it for shaking things up.

1x Coffee Grinder

A small handheld coffee grinder, used to powder coffee beans. You can also get away with a pepper grinder but it takes forever.

Step 1 – Powder Your Seeds

Simple enough. Take your 100g Morning Glory seeds and grind them into a powder using any means necessary. If you have a coffee grinder, use it. If not, empty out a pepper mill and try that. It might take an age, but the finer ground they are, the higher the quality of the end product.

Step 2 – Get Rid Of The Nasty Stuff

Take your 100g of ground seeds and pour them into your 2lt pop bottle. To this, add your 600-1000ml of naphtha and shake. Shake for as long as possible. Let it sit in the naphtha for about a day with as much shaking as your arms can handle.

Step 3 – Filter And Dry

Yes, it realy is that easy. Filter the contents out using your filter/beaker tea towel/pint glasses and let the seeds dry until they no longer have the slightest scent of petrochemicals about them.

Step 4 – Extract The Good Stuff

First off, clean that 2lt bottle out with plenty of water, then take your litre of vodka and pour it into the 2lt bottle. Add to that the dry seeds from the previous step. Just like step 2, shake this up until your arms hurt and let the seeds sit in the vodka for three days this time, shaking it whenever you can.

Step 5 – Filter

Just like step 3, filter the seeds again. Squeeze all the vodka out of them then throw them away. By this time your vodka should be looking a little cloudy and brown. It will also have developed a somewhat nutty flavour. Let’s hope you like nuts.

Step 6 – Serve Chilled

Measure out 100ml of your vodka and drink it however you like. With coke, over ice or through your eye. You can now enjoy your LSA trip without wanting to throw up.

Introduction

This guide is by no means a complete reference for any would-be Salvia divinorum user. It simply describes, compares and contrasts the different methods by which one can experience the effects of Salvia Divinorum. There are other factors which must first be taken into consideration before you should embark on your journey with salvia: don’t take too much. Start off with smaller doses first and get comfortable with the experience, then maybe later, increase that dose slightly. Never jump in at the deep end – it could put you off salvia for a long time. Also, especially if it’s your first time with salvia, or the first time you’ve increased your dose, make sure you have someone sober nearby making sure nothing bad happens. With that warning out of the way, here we go!

The “Mazatec Oldskool” Method

Traditionally, the Mazatec people, indigenous to the Oaxaca region of Mexico where Salvia divinorum was first found, used to use salvia as part of their shamanic practices. It is believed they used to grind up large quantities of Salvia divinorum leaf, which was then added to water and drank. This method leaves a lot to be desired. We know now that salvinorin-a, the active chemical in Salvia divinorum is not very readily absorbed through the stomach, so large quantities of leaf must be used. It also doesn’t taste particularly fantastic. These drawbacks are countered by the fact that the effects from the salvia last much longer than any other method outlined here. The Mazatecs also used to chew fresh leaf for long periods of time, which is still quite popular today. See the Quid method for more details.

Pros:

• Safe
• Doesn’t harm the lungs
• Longer lasting effects

Cons:

• Inefficient – lots of leaves required for desired effect
• Tastes horrible

Smoking Leaf

Smoking salvia leaf can be effective, but it’s not ideal for non-smokers. The active chemical in Salvia divinorum, salvinorin-a, requires a high temperature to vaporise, so the leaf should be smoked through a pipe or bong rather than rolled as a cigarette. When smoking the leaf through a pipe or bong, you should try and use a torch lighter if possible. The extra heat generated by the torch flame will vaporise more of the salvinorin-a per hit compared with a regular lighter. That said, many users have reported a more relaxed mood shift when smoked as a cigarette, and a more “trippy” high when using it to replace tobacco in a cannabis joint. It’s generally considered harder to achieve the full effects of Salvia divinorum when smoking only leaf, compared with the stronger extracts. This is because the salvinorin-a from the leaf is metabolised by the body rather quickly, so smoking more over a longer duration will only maintain the level of trip, rather than enhancing it. To get the most from this method, it is advised that you take two to three hits from the pipe or bong, each time holding your breath for as long as you can, exceeding 30 seconds if possible. The effects will be noticeable after about one minute, giving you up to about three hits before you should put the pipe or bong down. The effects will remain for up to about half an hour.

Pros:

• Quick
• Easy
• No bad taste
• Relatively safe – It’s quite hard to get too much salvinorin-a into your body from smoking only leaf

Cons:

• Hard to achieve effects
• Smoking anything is never good for your lungs
• Harsh on the throat/lungs – the smoke is very hot
• Short effect duration

Smoking Extract

Salvia divinorum extracts are quite simply salvia leaf with a lot more kick. Extracts are prepared by taking the salvinorin-a from a large quantity of leaf and depositing it back onto a much smaller quantity of leaf. For example, one gram of 20x extract is, give or take, one gram of salvia leaf, with the salvinorin-a of 20g of leaf added to it. To visualise it, imagine filling your bowl with 20x the amount of normal leaf, and smoking it all. For more information on the extracting process, you might like this article: How To Make Salvia divinorum Extract. This method ensures you get enough salvinorin-a into your body as soon as possible, opening up the deeper levels of the salvia experience. Unfortunately, due to the strength of some extracts, it can be hard to accurately measure out a correct dose, so you could end up taking in far more than you intended. The extract should also be smoked in a pipe or bong.

Pros:

• Effects are very easy to achieve
• Less material needs to be smoked compared to leaf for the same effects

Cons:

• Short effect duration
• Easy to take too much
• Smoking anything is never good for your lungs
• Harsh on the throat/lungs – the smoke is very hot

The Quid Method

A “quid” is basically a big wad of leaves. Fresh leaves, if possible, but dry leaves can be used too. If the leaves are dry, immerse them in a cup of warm water for about a minute before you wish to begin – this step is essential, otherwise you’ll be chewing on dry leaf, which will taste just plain disgusting. Take about ten to fifteen fresh or soaked leaves, roll them up into a ball and pop the ball, or quid, into your mouth. Now all you have to do is chew those awful tasting leaves for a good fifteen to thirty minutes. Sounds easy? Well, you have to do it swallowing as little saliva as possible. This method works by a process called “sublingual absorption”: the salvinorin-a is absorbed into your blood through the mouth, so the quid needs to stay in your mouth for as long as possible. After the time is up, you should begin to feel the effects, although rather subtly compared to smoking the leaf or extract. You can now either spit out the contents of your mouth, or swallow it. Swallowing it can be a ghastly experience, but it’s recommended, since any remaining salvinorin-a in your saliva or the leaf will eventually get absorbed through your stomach. Just like the “Mazatec Oldskool” method, the effects last longer than smoking.

Pros:

• Safe
• Doesn’t harm the lungs

Cons:

• Tastes horrible
• Takes longer for the effects to set in
• Can be harder to obtain full effects

Salvinorin Tincture

Salvinorin tincture works in the same way as the quid method: sublingual absorption. That is, you let the liquid sit in your mouth for 15 to 30 minutes, allowing the salvinorin-a to diffuse into your blood through your mouth. The tincture itself is an alcohol-based solution of salvinorin-a, meaning doses can be measured more accurately by diluting it, and it doesn’t taste nearly as bad. The effects are also brought about much faster.

Pros:

• Quick
• Easy
• Relatively safe
• Tastes nicer than quid method
• Doesn’t harm the lungs

Cons:

• If the tincture is not diluted enough, it can burn the mouth

Conclusions

Many people report a variety of different effects from each method, from nothing at all, to a full-blown shit-your-pants trip. Non-smokers will naturally prefer the oral methods, while smokers would naturally be more comfortable smoking the leaf or extract. It’s also not unheard of for people to combine two or more of the above methods to achieve a greater effect than either on their own.

If you can’t be arsed to cook, check out these Smoking Mixtures instead!

This recipe is just a quick one to follow on from the cannabutter and infamous hash brownie recipe I posted recently. Even without the cannabutter, these cookies are amazing. Here goes:

Method

1. First, cream together the butter and sugar until fluffy.
2. Add the egg, vanilla essence, flour, bicarbonate of soda and salt and fold in.
3. Next, add the cereal and chocolate and mix thoroughly.
4. Drop small spoonfuls onto a greased baking tray, around 5cm/2in apart.
5. Bake at 180ºC (350F or Gas Mark 4) for 10-12 minutes.

Enjoy!

If you can’t be arsed to cook, check out these Smoking Mixtures instead!

Introduction

Although I do say so myself, this is the ULTIMATE Hash Brownie recipe. So good in fact, we recommend trying them without Cannabis Butter, because you’ll want to eat so many of them. They’re very moreish so take care if you do make the cannabis version – it can take up to 45 minutes to feel the effects, so don’t just eat more and more – it could get very messy! If you want to learn how to make hash brownies, this is the article for you.

Ingredients

Hash Brownies

• 4oz (115g) Cannabis Butter
• 2oz (60g) Self Raising Flour
• 8oz (225g) Soft Brown Sugar
• 1.5oz (45g) Cocoa Powder (NOT Drinking Chocolate Powder)
• 1oz (30g) Ground Almonds
• 2 Eggs
• Grated Rind Of One Large Orange (Important!)
• 1/2tsp Baking Powder

Chocolate Butter Icing/Frosting

Making icing for a cake really isn’t an exact science – it’s difficult to give amounts as you may have a different sized baking tray meaning more or less brownies, or you may just have a different personal preference. The following amounts are a guideline so feel free to tweak as you wish!

• 4oz (115g) NORMAL Butter or Margarine
• 1 – 2oz (30 – 60g) Cocoa Powder
• 8 – 10oz (225 – 285g) Icing (Powdered/Confectioners) Sugar
• 2tsp Water, as needed
• Maltesers (optional, but totally worth it)

Equipment

• Kitchen Scales
• Sieve
• Large mixing bowl
• Wooden spoon
• Shallow baking tray
• Greaseproof paper / Wax paper

Method – Hash Brownie Base

1. First, sieve the flour, baking powder and cocoa powder into a large mixing bowl.
2. Add the ground almonds, sugar and orange rind and mix together well.
3. Next, add the butter and eggs and beat the mixture together until smooth.
4. Bake at 150ºC (300F or Gas Mark 2), in a shallow dish, greased and lined with greaseproof (wax) paper for 50 – 55 minutes.

Method – Chocolate Butter Icing/Frosting

1. Just mix together the ingredients in a bowl and spread over the top of the brownie.
2. As an optional tasty extra, smash up a couple of packets of Maltesers and sprinkle them over the top. Do this straight away so they will stick in the icing rather than just fall off when you try and take a bite!
3. Cut into at least 16 pieces and serve! If it’s your first time cooking with cannabis, be sensible and don’t have more than one or two in the space of an hour, no matter how absolutely fantastic they taste.

Enjoy!

If you can’t be arsed to cook, check out these Smoking Mixtures instead!

Introduction

This recipe produces a small amount of cannabis-infused butter, or cannabutter, which can be used in a massive range of recipes to add that extra kick! If your recipe requires more butter than the amounts given here, feel free to multiply up all the amounts.

Ingredients

• 4oz (115g) Butter or Margarine
• 1/8oz (3.5g) Cannabis buds/hash OR
• 1/4oz (7g) Cannabis leaves

Equipment

• Small saucepan
• Wooden spoon
• Sieve (optional)

Method

1. Melt the butter slowly in a pan. Add 1/8 oz (3.5g) finely ground cannabis, and simmer on a low heat for around 30 minutes. This allows the cannabis to infuse fully into the butter. Take care to keep the heat low, and stir continuously as the butter can burn easily.
2. After 30 minutes, pour the butter into a jug or tub. As you do this, if you want to remove the bud/hash/leaf, you can pass it through a fine sieve. You won’t be wasting any “good stuff”, since all the THC should have dissolved into the butter, but if you don’t mind getting green bits in your teeth, you can just as easily leave it in.
3. Allow the cannabutter to set for around an hour, or until relatively hard, before using.

As Coffeesh0p gets bigger and bigger, I’m getting more and more worried about promoting the psychoactivity of the plants we sell. Recently, the hyped up sales talk all over EveryoneDoesIt has resulted in them removing Salvia divinorum from their shop, so in response, we’ve slapped “not for consumption” labels in a few of our product descriptions. One problem still remains however – our articles section, which contains cannabis recipes, extraction teks and info on proper usage. While I’ve always been a supporter of providing proper information, these articles are making me more and more uncomfortable as the days flit by. As any Internet marketer should know, article writing is one great way to boost traffic and get links back to your site, but any Internet marketer worth his salt also knows, you shouldn’t take unnecessary risks.

The substantial traffic gained from these articles is also pretty poor when it comes to e-commerce – people looking for information probably aren’t ready to buy anything, so “convert” poorly. But those information seekers make great blog readers, so moving those articles to this blog makes perfect sense. It’s tempting to look at overall traffic and feel good as you see it increase, but traffic that converts poorly is actually more of a cost than a benefit. More people = more hosting bills!

Over the next week or so, I’ll gradually be transferring those articles onto this blog (with a 301 redirect, naturally), so keep an eye out!

Today, I spent a little time making a couple of changes to Salvia Trip. The number one thing I needed to do was create some kind of spam filter. Initially, I planned on moderating all the experience reports myself, but all the american ones had to wait ages before I got out of bed. This kind of delay isn’t very helpful when there’s community buildin’ to be done. A few days later, I just published them automatically, until someone’s salvia experience could apparently be summed up soley by a list of links. “What a spiritual journey”, I thought. After the second beautiful interpretation via the medium of linkage was brought to my attention, I realised something needed to be done… eventually. Naturally, procrastination took hold, and I resorted to deleting them from the database manually as a quick fix. So today, I put my coding hat on and made a little filter to halt any report containing a link. I’ll then delete all the spam, accept all the legit reports and everybody’s happy.

Since my coding hat was barely on for five seconds, I decided further action was necessary. Other changes include:

• Changing the number of trips/comments on a user’s profile page from six to five, like the front page
• Swapping the order of the most popular trips when browsing – least popular were at the top for some reason…
• Adding a default avatar to profiles without one
• Displaying avatars with all trip reports and comments
• Changing the advert blocks to be a bit more complementary instead of blended in with the text

Here’s the new default avatar, inspired by those next to comments on this blog. You might recognise the salvia leaves from SageWisdom – I painted in the leaves, spread them further apart and used them as a pattern for the background.

My head is now sufficiently toasty, so off comes the coding hat and on goes the relaxin’-in-front-of-the-telly poncho. We have some powerful new smoking mixtures to try out…