SWIM read that Kavalactones are an effective antidote to strychnine poisoning.

SWIM currently has a Nux Vomica tincture that he made himself allowing the use of very accurate safe micro doses of Nux Vomica. He's been playing around with this fantastic stimulant for quite some time. He decided to see what a dose of about 480 micrograms of strychnine (2 ml of his nux vomica extract) with kava would feel like. He figured that since Kava is an antidote to strychnine poisoning that they would cancel each other out and little would be felt.

Unfortunately, his kava extract doesn't give the potency. So SWIM has no idea how much 2 ml of his kava tincture really comes to, but it's an effective light dose of Kava, maybe in the ball park of around 100 mg of kavalactones.

Well, SWIM took them at the same time orally, undiluted. The Nux is clearly the worse tasting of the two. After about 20 minutes the effects were very noticeable. The effects peaked after about 45 minutes and lasted several hours.

The combination was VERY NICE. The strychnine in the Nux made the Kava far more euphoric, more psychedelic (if you could call it that), increased the sensory effect of it, blocked the sedative effects of it, but didn't block the anti-stress effects of the Kava. It was the best Kava experience SWIM ever had bar none. It was many levels nicer than plain Kava.

SWIM was expecting the Kava to cancel out the strychnine in the Nux, but instead strychnine's sensory stimulating effects were boosted. Touching anything with the body was pure bliss. There was quite a lot of Kava style euphoria but even more so.

I like the fact that the Nux got rid of the sedative effects of the Kava but greatly enhanced all the pleasant effects of Kava. Also the Kava got rid of the slight anxious feeling of the Nux without clouding up the Nux's stimulant effects. It's a great combo!

As you can probably tell, SWIM doesn't like sedatives, and for that reason he rarely uses Kava, but when used with strychnine, Kava becomes a superb experience without any hint of sedation. The experience was very erotic. I imagine sex would be fantastic, maybe next time

I give this herbal combination 4 stars! SWIM will definitely repeat this one.

WARNING: do not use Nux vomica unless you know exactly what you're doing. One 2 gram Nux vomica seed can kill a person. They need to be extracted and highly diluted before they can be used safely. 40 mg of super potent Nux vomica seed powder can contain up to 1000 micrograms of strychnine (a safe dose). 2000 micrograms of strychnine is about the highest dose an adult person should ever use. Doses of 5000 micrograms can have toxic side effects, and 50,000 micrograms (50 mg) is enough strychnine to kill most people. SWIM likes the safe 250-500 microgram dosage range and almost never uses more than that. 500 micrograms is very effective as a stimulant.

Sounds great, even if it's way beyond my abilities of acquisition (I wouldn't know exactly what I'm doing).


Just for curiosity's sake, could you elaborate a little on the mental clarity?

Nux vomica contains strychnine. Strychnine is a very potent stimulant, nootropic, and sensory stimulus booster. It increases all of the senses (vision, hearing, touch, etc.) so that things are experienced in more detail. It enhances memory and complex problem solving abilities. It’s stimulation is sort of like coffee but much smoother and euphoric. It produces a very clear state of mind, making it easy to focus on things.

In high doses it’s poisonous, but pretty much everything is, even too much water can kill you.

Kava causes a relaxed state of mind which SWIM doesn’t really like. It’s a mild tranquilizer and its effects on the mind are mild, but still there. It’s a light mental fog, and some people don’t notice it much. It’s nothing compared to many other sedatives. But still, SWIM doesn’t like it, but he likes all the other effects of Kava.

When combined with Kava, the mental clarity of the strychnine remains unchanged. The slight mental sedative effect of Kava is gone. You feel very sharp and mentally alert. The other pleasant effects of Kava are increased.

It’s as if the strychnine counteracts only the sedative effects of Kava, and enhances all the other effects.

The experience is VERY NICE. Kava is mildly “psychedelic” sort of in a marijuana like way, and seems more so when combined with strychnine.

Kava is a proven antidote to strychnine’s toxic effects, but apparently it doesn’t block any of strychnine’s pleasant effects. There is an element of the strychnine experience that is blocked, that’s noticeable, but very hard to explain. Normally a 480 microgram dose of strychnine has an element of slight anxiousness to it, that’s the only effect that’s blocked. With Kava, the only effect that’s lost is the mental sedative effect. You still feel the anti-stress effect of the Kava which replaces the slight anxious effect of the strychnine. But all of the other effects of Kava and strychnine are not lost and go very well together. It’s a perfect combination.

Strychnine’s sensory enhancing effects make the sensory effects of other drugs more potent. For example, if a drug made your body feel pleasantly tingly all over, the strychnine would boost that effect. If a drug made your body feel more pain, the strychnine would boost that effect. If a drug made you feel euphoria, the strychnine would boost that effect. If a drug made you hallucinate, strychnine would increase that effect. It increases all sensory stimuli. So with Kava, it increases the sensory effects of Kava which include euphoria and a pleasant tingling sensation in the body, as well as slightly altered sensory perception, etc.

interesting you find kava psychedelic..I have some capsules from my naturalpath that contain kava, passionflower and 5htp..never took them though..will have to try it some day.

Those nux vomica seeds sound interesting to combine with differnt psychedelics in real low doses..

Kava is very slightly “psychedelic”, in a way similar to marijuana but marijuana is much stronger. It’s slight “psychedelic” effect is maybe more like passionflower. Kava and passionflower go very well together as stress relievers. Taken together they’ve cured SWIM’s occasional tension headaches.



SWIM has found that everything he’s tried Nux with so far has made the other herb more pleasant and more interesting. Its sensory enhancing effects are truly what makes it so special as a stimulant.

SWIM was just at the grocery store and had some Nux (about 480 micrograms of strychnine) a few hours before. Grocery shopping was a very interesting experience on Nux alone. All the products seemed to be jumping out at SWIM, especially the brightly colored products. While walking down the product isles SWIM’s awareness of all the products was greatly expanded. He was conscious of all the products passing by as he walked. At the same time his mind remained completely focused. It’s very fascinating. This is the effect that makes it similar to LSD. All of your senses are greatly magnified by strychnine. All of them. It’s trippy in a way, but not truly psychedelic, but it’s definitely “mind expanding” or “nootropic” without being psychedelic.

Fantastic, it sounds like you've really found a good one

As a tangent: I'm very interested in blends that are functional, clear, and good for problem solving. The mind expansion, or increase in mental 'space' for the mind to operate in, is also a plus. Is there any direction SWIY could point me in for further exploration of such things? I've tried the racetams and related stacks in that realm, but have found myself to be much more a fan of natural products. SWIYr posts about the Ephedras were great, but a report from erowid regarding the addictive potential - "I think I would be able to give up smoking cigarettes before I stopped taking ephedra." - has slowed my investigation for the time being.


Anyway, if SWIY ever mixes Nux with some calophylla resin, or any other spice medium, I'd love to read the report

I don’t think I can be of much help there.

I’ve found most nootropics don’t do what they claim. Strychnine is the first nootropic SWIM tried that actually worked.



Mormon tea which I was mostly talking about is nothing like the Ephedra sinica, which is what that guy in that Erowid report is talking about. Ephedra sinica contains ephedrine. Mormon tea doesn’t contain ephedrine, but only pseudoephedrine, which is less problematic. Ephedrine was banned in the USA for OTC products, but pseudoephedrine is still legal. But still, I think the ephedras in general are not good to take on a regular basis.



That’s a combination SWIM is going to try for sure. Most likely he’ll try it with sublingual calophylla first because no MOAI is needed for the DMT to work. Right now he’s out of DMT and calophylla resin, so he won’t be doing those tests any time soon. He still has some LSA, bufotenine, yohimbe, and a little mescaline to try it out it with. So far the best combination has been with LSA, but Kava is a close second.

I think the Kava and Nux combination is really one to keep note of. It’s a very unique experience. I’ll make sure to keep SWIM’s notes on that combination. I think it would be fantastic as an aphrodisiac, not for “stamina” necessarily but for increasing the “pleasure of the flesh”. Touching someone while on the Kava and Nux combination is an extremely pleasurable experience.

Wow this sounds a bit dangerous for most of us to try and attempt.

69Ron, I know you have the skills and equipment, but please people, don't try this at home unless you are highly skilled and don't mind taking a chance with your life. As 69Ron said, even just powderizing the seeds can be extremely dangerous.

I also have some issues with promoting the use of strychnine. I'd be more that happy to see more bold statements in 69ron's post otherwise the mods may decide to delete such threads. In particular, I'd like to see these kind of informations included in any thread that promotes strychnine:

1. please let at least one friend of yours that you're planning on taking strychnine,

2. please please please have a doctor's or emergency telephone handy and do not hesitate on calling them if you feel something is not right.

3. Please provide some strychnine contraindications or combos to be avoided. Or warning about possible synergies of strychnine with other drugs.

(Some people can be too sensitive to strychnine. 250-500mcg, a safe dose for 69ron can be unpleasant for others. While others may be more sensitive on strychnine's synergies. We do not have an exhaustive list of strychnine's do's and dont's. Imagine this. Folk A decides to add a "stimulant" twist on a mushroom trip and ingests 500mcg of strychnine alongside with the fungus. Strychnine synergises with the fungus and it feels like 5mg. Folk A has a really bad time/ends in hospital/6 feet under)

4. Please provide more information about signs of dangerous poisoning. That is, headaches, stomach cramps or anything else that may point to a strychnine OD.

5. Please state any possible quick antidotes while waiting for professional help in the cases of a suspected OD. For instance potassium permanganate, milk, induced vomiting etc.


Thanks!

At least don't start extracting the stuff yourself, unless you realy know what you're doing.

Standardized extracts, sold as herbal medicine, are extremely weak.
The chance of O.D-ing on them is extremely small if you don't take wild amounts and, in these extremely small amounts you can still have synergistic effects.

If you don't do bizarre things like eating 100 pills at once (or 99, or 98, or other very large numbers.) you can easily stay on the safe side.

If you wind from the path of moderacy and carefulness, all warnings are not only more then justified, but also very likely completely in vain.

Delete this thread if you like, but I have not stated anything that's inaccurate here and I have given warnings in bold red text.

The dangers of strychnine have been way over dramatized in the media.

Strychnine was used for hundreds of years in western medicine and at one time was considered the most valued drug in western medicine. It is still widely used in the form of Nux Vomica in China, India, and several other countries.

The dosage range for adults was established a long time ago. Literally millions of people over many hundreds of years have used strychnine and even more have used Nux vomica.

Both strychnine and Nux vomica have caused fatalities. Strychnine is almost exactly as toxic as nicotine orally in humans (the LD50 for strychnine as well as nicotine in man is 1 mg/kg).

If I posted about tobacco use in ayahuasca, I doubt you guys would even raise an eyebrow, and that has also killed people.

Oral tobacco is actually MORE TOXIC THAN NUX VOMICA!

So while I see the point in warning people of potential dangers, as I have, I think this is unfairly targeted towards Nux vomica when oral tobacco is more dangerous. I’ve seen posts about oral tobacco use in ayahuasca on the Nexus and they didn’t get responses like that from you guys. Why is that?

just to answer your last question, ron.. Maybe mods just didnt notice the oral tobacco threads (as you see the forum is growing a lot and its hard to keep up), or maybe mods didnt know oral tobacco is so toxic (I for example didnt. Actually I never thought about it because tobacco in all forms doesnt interest me at all)..

If you want to help us then please do point out if/when you want both some more info about toxicity of oral tobacco, as well as threads where you see it being advised/discussed.

you can be sure nobody here wants to be unfair, you should know this already.. we just dont want people who have high regards for you but that lack knowledge/ability/good sense, to read your posts and start attempting dangerous experimentations, both for their own safety, as well as for us as a forum, of course, if a problem happens and we are to blame.. Im sure you understand, nothing against you. Its never bad to be reasonably prudent

That is very true about tobacco,the only case of death involving ayahuasca I am aware of was in canada..and it was from nicotine poisoning due tobacco in the brew..and it was even prepared by a shaman from aouth america in a traditional ceremony.

I think people should just be encouraged to thoroughly research ANYTHING they put into they're own bodies..dont just go off other reports..anyone who does that is just plain straight up stupid. ALWAYS RESEARCH ANYTHNIG YOU INGEST YOURESELF...ALWAYS START VERY LOW AND KNOW THE LD50's...

Yes tobacco is also poisonous, however I'd prefer the argument not to be diverted but rather answered properly. The warning is about the dangers od nux vomica and how it can be safely be presented to the public. Thanks for bringing the tobacco but this is not an argument at the moment about nux vomica.

69ron, you need to realise that you know many things yet knowledge comes with responsibility. I still think that you need to reconsider how you present nux vomica. Your warnings are still not enough and more information should be given.

I'd really prefer to have straight answers from you in the issues I addressed (post number 9) rather than you trying to divert the discussion to whether tobacco is more toxic.

Endlessness, it's not like I didn't warn people. In the very first post it says very clearly in bold red text, "do not use Nux vomica unless you know exactly what you're doing. One 2 gram Nux vomica seed can kill a person."

The reason you guys don't jump on threads talking about using tobacco in ayahuasca is because nicotine is not popularized in western media as a poison while strychnine is. Some researchers claim nicotine is more toxic orally than strychnine is in man, giving an LD50 as low as 0.5 mg/kg. Plus, tobacco contains about twice as much nicotine as nux vomica contains strychnine, so orally tobacco is about twice as toxic as nux vomica.

There are plenty of medicines available in the USA that come from India which contain powdered Nux vomica in doses of 20-40 mg. Those safe doses are the dosage range used by SWIM in his extract. There are no known deaths caused by those medicines at that dosage range from India. They have been using Nux vomica for ages. It's not as dangerous as people have been lead to believe, but in overdose it is fatal.

Anyway, those are not SWIM's opinions, those are facts as gathered from many sources.

Infundibulum, Kava itself is an effective antidote to strychnine poisoning in the dosage ratio used above so this combination is much safer than using pure Nux vomica. But even so, at the strychnine dose mentioned above even without the use of Kava, there are no known toxic reactions in an adult.

When buying Ayurvedic medicine in the USA that contains Nux vomica, all they mention is the dose to use. That's it. The package doesn't give all the warnings you outlined. It's not required by the FDA. The reason is that they use known safe doses of it. If people were dropping like flies from Ayurvedic medicine containing Nux vomica, the FDA would be on them like a hawk, but they aren't.

Nux vomica is completely legal in the USA. You can go to a local Chinese herb store and buy it right off the shelf. No warnings, nothing.

I am being more responsible in my posts than the manufacturers selling Nux vomica in herbal preparations. At least I'm warning people about their toxicity. The herbal preparations say nothing about that.

Man, that's horrible. Why do you keep diverting the argument and do not answer at the points?

Again, this is not a quest for who gives the most accurate information re nux vomica. It is about 69ron suggesting a recreational use of a substance with both medicinal and fatal properties. I acknowledge that you give fair warnings and I am suggesting some points to make your warnings even more safe.

I'd really like to see my points addressed without you diverting the arguments and not arguing who gives better advice, e.g. you, here in nexus or other suppliers around the world. See it as our responsibility to provide as much accurate information as possible, not just better information than nux vomica vendors!

Wasn't there a kid who died after doing a bunch of coke and then having ayahuasca? And another of someone who vaped 5meo before ayahuasca? I ask because I really don't remember if these people died or just went critical. I'm not trying to get into the developing argument here, I just like having a bunch of legit harm reduction info.


Anyway, I think reports about obscure substance experiences are great. There's a lot of info out there about a small selection of plants, and I think it's great when informed and experienced people personally investigate in a safe manner and present their findings in a detailed way. I can't speak for anyone else, but posts like this generally encourage me to research deeper and broader - rather than jump on some bioassay dogpile.

Infundibulum, of course I have all the information you asked for. I have hundreds of documents containing all those details and far more. I’ve been researching this subject several hours a day for many months now.

You’re asking for a rubberstamp toxicity profile for this subject but why are your requirements not fair? I don’t see how it’s fair to force me to post those details every time when there is no such requirement for tobacco posts on the Nexus, or any other toxic substance talked about on the Nexus. People have died from tobacco based ayahuasca, and people have died from 5-MeO-DMT but I’m not required to post toxicity details about those. Why be so unfair? I’ve already warned people about it’s toxicity in the opening post.

Hey mods and 69ron,

Before this rumbles into a big dispute....

The main problem I see with the strychnine is not the fact that it is very poisonous or as poisonous as nicotine. The problem is that you, 69ron, are a highly respected member of this community and because of your constant deepening and fascinating explorations people look at you for extra information and how they can create those explorations themselves.

From you we know that you are very knowledgeable and responsible, however we also know that there are enough people out there who aren't as smart and definitely not as responsible as you are. Those people can get into serious trouble and when something happens to them it would be really bad if fingers point to this forum.

So what I'm saying is that while you posted a good disclaimer with your post, we can't be careful enough with this kind of topics and it tends to make the mod crew and me a tad nervous, I hope you understand that.

As for the mods, I don't think this is the place to discuss the discussion.


Kind regards,

The Traveler