So I'm in a troll bait argument online with someone over my stating that I've experienced a altered effect smoking cannabis combined with s. rue. While I've personally encountered this, having waking semi lucid dream like states as a result of the combo, which is altogether different from using either alone.

I would say from my experiences that yes, rue indeed DOES potentate cannabis. It feels more like consuming a fair amount if oral canna. However my argues has resorted to name calling and insisting its impossible.

While I try to resist biting troll bait, I have. Can anyone send me to a link that wil help verify my position? Much thanks!

Well yes.
Despite I do not smoke pot regulary (I did that though a long time ago) a few cana smoked test runs were executed with oral rue extract recently. I waited to smoke until feeling the harmalas clearly active. In expectation of true potentiation, I could not get as stoned with the rue. For people in search for a high rather than stoned they might find it beneficial, but for me it took away a notch from the strict stoned factor. Just me.

There's been a lot of discussion on the interesting combination of harmalas (or rue or caapi) and cannabis. Why do you need verification of your experience if you've experienced it? If that's what you experience, then why try and generalize that effect onto everyone else? Cannabis can effect people so differently, and combining something like harmalas just makes it more complex.

I don't like to get into 'this potentiates that' etc with this because to me it is just a unique effect when cannabis is combined with a psychedelic dose of harmalas. It's too intertwined for me to try and tease apart what the cannabis is doing and what the harmalas are doing and if this is potentiating that etc. Harmalas lessen the cannabis anxiety and you can enter some very interesting and bizarre meditative and 'visionary' states. I prefer them together rather than alone. The imaginative/visionary dream like states are far more accessible, expansive, and blissful for me.

I actually find some big similarities between cannabis and harmalas so maybe that's why I find it hard to tease apart what is potentiating what... To some degree it might have a little bit to do with the increase in melatonin and pinoline (or other beta-carbolines) that cannabis is known to cause, because I get the tell-tale signs of that harmalas like that stutter-vision effect when shifting your eyes focus, and similar dreamy trance states/visions, with weed alone.

Synergy, not potentiation.

^ id agree with that.

I have never combined cannabis with Rue but have combined with caapi.... I think potentiation is possible and I can share a personal story....

Drank caapi tea and had a small ceremony at night. Was very light - minimal visions and minimal insights but overall nice. Went to sleep a few hours into the experience and woke the next morning feeling back to baseline.

That afternoon I went to the park and smoked a spliff of cannabis with mapacho under a nice cedar tree. As soon as I finished the spliff I was deep in the Ayahuasca world - deeper then in ceremony the night before when I had actually drank the Ayahuasca. The cannabis took me very deep and I had much more visions and insights then I had the night before actually.

I didnt feel super "stoned" and it was more of an Ayahuasca type experience then a cannabis experience but I certainly felt like the cannabis potentiated the Ayahuasca. I find cannabis has the ability to make any plant I work with stronger - at least in visual and physical effects.... Sometimes smoking too much in ceremony makes it hard to listen to the medicine, so I prefer just a small puff or two which always makes the medicine stronger for me.

I would describe it as cannabis potentiating the Ayahuasca more then the other way around though - that is what the experience feels like to me.

I agree with the above. For me, it feels more like a synergistic union of the two rather than a potentiation. It also seems to get rid of the paranoia aspect of cannabis but of course that is subjective.

Synergistic for sure. I find that sublingual harmalas before smoking or vaping cannabis prior to my nightly mediation/relaxation gives me some crazy CEV's. Rue has that portal opening effect.

I gave up on the argument, but thanks for the feedback. I guess synergy is a better term than potentiaion.

I have not tried with rue specifically, but my favorite combo has always been sublingual harmalas, then smoking a couple hits of good cannabis. It makes the cannabis stronger, but also changes the character of the experience and makes it more psychedelic and trance like for me.

I would say there is both potentiation and synergistic effects going on. I say this because it does synergize more then potentiate, but I can't deny the fact that the cannabis does become a lot stronger when harmalas are in the mix.

It depends on the person, their neurology, for me it synergised sometimes and other times clashed..

I also like em sublingually. When I smoke cannabis then I become massively couch locked and dreamy for an hour or so.

Once, after a period of continuous use of cannabis, I was down to my last little bud. I knew it was not enough for where I wanted to be that night, so I tried pre-dosing on 2g of rue, brewed the usual way, before smoking. It definitely felt stronger and lasted longer. Just an anecdote here, for all it's worth.

^^what Orion said

I think it's dopamine related. Cannabis causes a quick release of dopamine. Some people are more sensitive to this dopamine rush than others, so that might explain why some people feel these synergistic effects while others don't. MAOI's can significantly elevate dopamine levels, so combining them could amplify the dopaminergic effect, and in that way alter the cannabis experience.

Working with this combo quite a bit the past few weeks. It has an aforementioned distinct, dreamy glow that neither the cannabis nor harmalas have on their own. Think of an impressionist painting with lots of movement and that's close to the pacing of the lazy river headspace I'm pointing at.

The best point of reference I'd be able to point towards would be a low dose of ibogaine (~150mgs or so?) or another way might be the thick totally dense quiet of a strong indica stone without any notable sedation, and perhaps even some stimuation. I don't personally experience noticeable OEV or CEV, but find myself locking into drifting thoughtspaces that are equally engaging in their own way.

Synergistic, yes. Flowing, dreamy, inclined towards internal narratives and self-speak.

Synergy is the term you are looking for. MAOi's don't inhibit the breakdown of THC or other cannabinoids, since they aren't even amines in the first place. Potentiation is not occuring here.

If we're speaking about harmalas increases in the neurotransmitters that are also related to the high achieved through smoking cannabis - I'd argue they might have some potentiation relationship without being a direct agonist of any type.

Being an agonist is irrelevant as we're talking about potentiation, not agonism. Harmalas do not modulate levels of cannabinoids in the brain and thus do NOT potentiate cannabinoids.

yes, but cannabis causes a surge in dopamine levels. It's that euphoric feeling when you feel the cannabis hitting your brain. Harmala's will prevent the breakdown of dopamine, so they elevate dopamine levels as well. So i argue that at least one part of the cannabis experience IS amplified. The dopaminergic dimension of cannabis.