DOSE:

smoked

Products - Spice-Like Smoking Blends

BODY WEIGHT:

150 lb

Six Experiences with Legal Highs

Overview
This is a report detailing my experiences with 4 “legal high” products – Spice Gold, Magic Silver, Magic Gold, and Dream Herbal Incense - that most likely contain synthetic cannabinoids (I would guess this is the case for all of these products, though with Spice Gold this has been shown to be true). The results are generally positive, though they also describe a potentially dangerous (and quite horrible) situation I accidentally encountered when mixing two products (this is Experience 6, detailed below).

Background
After moving to Japan one year ago, due to the severe drug laws here, I decided to experiment exclusively with legal herbs in an attempt to “get high”. I have extensive experience with marijuana (at least 2000 experiences) and psychedelics (around 100 experiences, some relatively high-dosage leading to many +++ and close to ten ++++ ego-death experiences, with LSD, mushrooms, mescaline, 2ci, HB Woodrose, smoked DMT, ayahuasca, and saliva).

My purposes in “getting high” include seeking relaxation, heightened creativity, insight into personal issues, and escape.

After having taken multi vitamins for 15 years, I decided about one year ago that I would try stopping. I felt no difference, and I haven’t taken more than about 5 multi vitamins in a year. I take no other medications. I exercise regularly and eat a very healthy diet.

I have a good deal of experience with, and regularly practice, other consciousness-expansion techniques, including fasting, yoga, and meditation.

For more background on my history and my philosophy of consciousness expansion, see my other reports on Erowid, including 52150,
35882,
47822,
43726,
35892, and
28265.

I purchased several herbal highs that I had never tried before from a “reputable website” (for whatever that is worth!). These include:

1) Magic Gold, which claims to contain Pukatea, NZ Liverwort, Damiana, Leonotis, Blue lotus extract, Verbascum thapsus, Red clover, Vanilla, and Honey.

2) Magic Silver, with the same ingredients listed as those for Magic Gold.

3) Dream Herbal Incense, which claims to contain Baybean, Blue Lotus, Lion’s Tail, Lousewort, Indian Warrior, Dwarf Skullcap, Macomha Brava, Pink Lotus, Marshmallow, Red Clover, Rose, Siberian (sic), Vanilla, and Honey.

(I say that each herbal product “claims” to contain certain ingredients because it is very likely that each also contains a synthetic cannabinoid.)

I am a regular user of Spice Gold, which I find to be a pleasant marijuana substitute (for more information, see my report on Spice Gold, entitled “Spice up my Life”).

When the new legal highs arrived, I began by trying them, one at a time.

Experience 1 – Magic Silver

The Magic Silver smelled sweet, and looked like marijuana shake. My first experience:

8:00 PM – One smallish hit smoked through a water pipe. The smoke doesn’t taste good to me, but it is not harsh.
8:05 PM – I am already quite strongly affected. My mind is racing, I feel creative and euphoric.
8:25 PM – I believe that my high has peaked, as it remains unchanged since my last update. Appreciation of music apparent. Some confusion is also present.
9:10 PM – The high is unchanged. It is very likeable, considering the flow of ideas I am experiencing, as well as the relaxation I currently feel. My left ear is experiencing some clicking, and it feels like fluid is present and there is unusual pressure in the ear (higher or lower than usual, though I can’t tell which). I am slightly nervous about this, but maintain a calmness (with some effort).
10:05 PM – I am slightly less high than before, but still feel strong effects from the chemicals. My ear pressure has not bothered me much, apart from an occasional feeling of a bubble of fluid popping inside the ear. No pain is present, and I am less concerned with it now. I am enjoying the high thoroughly.

10:48 PM – I am definitely coming down. I still feel the high, but it is around half the strength it had from T+0:05 to T+2:30 or so (when it was continuously present to the same degree).
11:25 PM – Still slightly high, but I’m tired, and going to bed now.

Overview of experience 1, with Magic Silver:
Sleep came easily, unlike when I smoke marijuana.
One hit gave me a strong marijuana-like high that lasted for around 3 hours, complete with time distortion, some euphoria, stress reduction, creativity and personal insight, heightened flow of ideas, and increased appreciation of music and art. There were no closed-eye visuals, which I get with marijuana, and there was no real hunger (the “munchies”).

Experience 2 – Magic Gold

The Magic Gold smelled sweet as well, like fake blueberry smell/flavor. I personally liked the smell very much. It also looked like shake, but included random-looking threads of various types of fibrous plant material, including yellow flower petals.

5:50 PM – I smoked one smallish hit of Magic Gold. The smoke tasted good, unlike Magic Silver, and it was equally mild.
6:10 PM – I am fully high, as if I smoked two hits of strong marijuana (which is the amount I usually did smoke, when I smoked marijuana). There is less confusion than with marijuana, but confusion is also present here. Music sounds incredible, as with marijuana. I have the same feeling in my left ear that I got with Magic Silver, with fluid and strange pressure present.
6:30 PM – I am playing with my children. I am having a wonderful time, and feel like I have regressed to childhood myself. I am full of energy and my kids are loving playing with me.
7:15 PM – Still just as high. I switched roles, and became the wise adult. I helped my children to put aside their differences and conflicts and look each other in the eyes and say “I love you!” It was a fabulous experience/lesson for all of us. They typically like to compete with each other, but I helped them express camaraderie and love in a way that I hadn’t before. Thanks, Magic Gold!

8:30 PM – I am still quite high, though it is slightly weaker than it had been for the past 2.5 hours. I put the kids to bed and am writing a poem. This high encourages the linking of abstract thoughts, it seems, and my poem is very creative, and very wild. Yet it is not jumble, as I sometimes get with marijuana, but actually makes sense (though I will double-check this tomorrow morning to be certain!).
9:25 PM – I am still feeling residual effects, but I need to sleep now. My ear acted up several times, but there is no pain associated with the feeling – just fluid and pressure.

Overview of experience 2 with Magic Gold:
Magic Gold is great!
It gave me effects extremely similar to those from Magic Silver, though possibly slightly stronger. One smallish hit through a water pipe also resulted in a strong marijuana-like high that lasted for around 3 to 3.5 hours, and included time distortion, euphoria, stress reduction, great creativity and personal insight, heightened flow of ideas, and increased appreciation of music and art. It also helped me relate to my children with increased compassion and insight into how to reconcile some of their differences.

The poem I wrote, by the way, still looks really good, to me, the next day. Very creative, with unusual and interesting metaphors and rhythmic patterns. I like it!

Experience 3 – Dream (Herbal Incense)

The Dream Herbal Incense smelled like fake lemon air freshener.
5:28 PM – I took one medium hit through a water pipe. I had trouble smoking it due to this revolting smell. It tasted harsh and synthetic.
5:40 PM – I am slowly getting high, though this is not as strong as with Magic Silver or Magic Gold. Dream seems to take longer to show its effects (about as long as Spice Gold). I am feeling, well, “dreamy”. There is no euphoria present, but I do feel reduced stress, some limited temporal distortion which generally makes me feel very slow, a “body high” (or “body load”, if you prefer), and exaggerated awareness of my body. No racing thoughts, like with marijuana and the two Magic products, and only limited creative boost and insight.
6:05 PM – The high has stabilized, and it is (at this dosage) less intense than the Magic products, and less intense than marijuana. It is more like the high from Spice Gold, which permits me to easily function socially without being suspected of being high.

7:10 PM – I am still high from the Dream, but it is an extremely mellow, relaxing high. No huge insights, no bursts of energy, but enhanced music appreciation, comfortable slowness, and some pain relief.
8:20 PM – I still feel the Dream, though the effects are fading. It was a more mild experience than the Magic products, similar to an equivalent dose of Spice Gold (one hit, which is my usual dosage).
9:00 PM – I feel residual effects, but nothing too interesting at this point. Still, compared to the Magic products, these effects are longer-lasting. At this point, sleep is needed (I woke up at 4 AM today).

Overview of Experience 3: Dream
Not a bad legal high, most similar to Spice Gold in its effects. Not as powerful as the Magic products in intensity, but longer duration, again like Spice Gold. I wonder if it contains the same synthetic cannabinoid as Spice Gold?

Following the first three experiences, I spent a few weeks gaining familiarity with each substance by itself before deciding to mix them. In this time period, I experienced each substance approximately 4 times by itself. It became clear to me that I prefer Magic Gold to Magic Silver, though the primary difference seems to be one of taste and smell, and the effects are minimally different, with Magic Gold being very slightly stronger than Magic Silver.

What follows is three reports describing my experiences with combinations of these legal highs.

Experience 4 – Mixing Dream and Spice Gold

8:00 PM – I smoked a single hit of 65% Spice Gold and 35% Dream. The smell/flavor of the Dream was still present, and disturbed me, though it was muted somewhat by the Spice Gold.
8:20 PM – Wow! This feels more marijuana-like than either of the two products alone. It has given me time distortion, euphoria, and relaxation. Unlike the “frames” which seem to make up the world when I am incredibly high on marijuana (and which I experienced regularly for my first year or so of smoking), this feels more smooth.
9:10 PM – This is a good high. I like it better than Spice Gold alone. It took a while to kick in, as is common with Spice Gold, but when it did, I felt almost stoned on marijuana. Enhanced creativity, dream-like mental state of confusion and euphoria, very relaxed.
10:35 PM – Still going strong. I am recording some music, and my creative levels are one or two notches above when I am sober.
11:50 PM – I am coming down somewhat, though effects are still present at lower levels. I am tired but cannot sleep due to my racing mind.

Overview of Experience 4: Dream and Spice Gold
I really enjoyed this combination. I prefer it to Spice Gold alone, and it is far superior to Dream alone. It lasted a long time – I couldn’t sleep until nearly 1AM, though I was tired. It contained some of the marijuana effects that Spice Gold is missing, making it a lot of fun.

Experience 5 – Mixing the Golds - Magic Gold and Spice Gold

After yesterday’s rewarding experience with Dream and Spice Gold, I decided that the intense, shorter-term effects of the Magic Gold might mix well with the less intense, longer-term effects of the Spice Gold, hopefully creating something very close to a marijuana high.

6:15 PM – I smoked a medium hit of half Magic Gold and half Spice Gold through a water pipe. The smoke was not as harsh as Spice Gold alone, and for this reason it was slightly preferable to me.
6:20 – I am already very high. The speed of the Magic Gold high is clear, as I felt high immediately after putting the pipe down. I feel different than if I had smoked Magic Gold alone, however, though the Spice Gold high isn’t apparent as such, at least at this point.
6:30 – I cannot tell what is the Magic and what is the Spice. I am unquestionably high, and yet this high is not as clear as I would have hoped. I feel subjectively that the two chemicals are somewhat antagonistic, and cancel out each other’s effects to a small degree. In other ways, however, this is a good high – better than Spice alone. I feel most of the intensity of the Magic Gold, though less than when I smoked it alone (though this was a smaller dose). I do not feel the Spice Gold per se, though this experience is different than (but possibly inferior to) Magic Gold alone.

7:15 No complaints here. While this combination doesn’t seem “perfect”, it is also relatively enjoyable and strong. Slowness, some time distortion, relaxation, limited euphoria, and heightened creativity are present.
8:55 I am still going strong. I can’t tell if this is a Magic high or a Spice high, still, as it seems to have some effects of both, but lacks the full experience of either individually.
I am writing a poem, and I feel creativity flowing, faster than with Spice alone (for poetry, at least – music is a different story, with Spice providing the most creativity of the herbal highs I have tried). This is good.
10:20 PM – I am still high, but less so than before. The feeling of relaxation is preserved, but the creativity seems to have dissipated, probably due to my increasing fatigue.
11:30 PM – I spend the past hour browsing the internet, reading about the history of various cities in Europe, and I was able to process information in a relatively regular manner, though slightly slower than when sober. I am now going to bed.

Overview of Experience 5 : Mixing Magic Gold and Spice Gold
My experience was not as good as I had hoped, though it wasn’t bad in any way. The high was not as intense as Magic Gold, and not as “smooth” and “complete” as with marijuana or Dream + Spice Gold.

Experience 6 – Magic Gold and Dream (Herbal Incense)

In my continuing quest to find the ultimate marijuana-like high, I decided that mixing Magic Gold and Dream might be rewarding.

5:30 PM – I smoked one hit of Magic Gold (by itself). I began to experience the effects immediately, as usual. Time distortion, euphoria, stress reduction, creativity and personal insight, heightened flow of ideas, and increased appreciation of music and art were all present. I am playing with my kids as if I, too, were a kid, enjoying myself immensely.
7:40 PM - My nose is stuffed up, and I have put some drops of a menthol liquid (sold for this purpose; I follow the instructions on the package precisely, apart from breathing it for longer than was written) onto a tissue and breathe it in. I continue doing this for 15 minutes or so before my nose is nearly totally clear.
7:50 PM – I am still feeling the full effects of the Magic Gold, but since the kids have gone to sleep, I have decided to explore more deeply by smoking another hit of Magic Gold, this time mixed with a bit of Dream. I have never smoked two hits of Magic Gold, as one hit has always gotten me as high as I could hope for. This hit will be about one-third Dream, two-thirds Magic Gold. I hope to feel an intense, well-rounded high.

7:52 PM – Something is dreadfully wrong. That hit pushed me too far, or maybe in a bad direction. I can’t tell what is happening. I don’t feel good. I am dizzy and lightheaded. What is happening to me? Confusion. My chest may be pounding, but I can’t tell for sure. Am I just really, really high, or am I experiencing some physical problems? Some panic, though I have enough experience to try and reduce the panic with deep breathing. Yet I can’t focus my mind for long enough to continue my deep breathing for more than a breath or two. Fear. Panic. More deep breathing, reducing the levels of fear and panic. Short-term memory processing interrupted (what was I thinking a second ago?). Forget to breathe deeply, and more fear and panic. I am shaking. I cannot walk. I cannot stand. I feel lost. My wife is downstairs in the shower, and I deeply wish I were downstairs so that I could ask for her help. I look at the curtains, and it looks like they have an additional “layer” that is not normally present, similar to LSD visuals. There is no waving, as with mushroom visuals.

I long for some relaxing music, but my computer is downstairs as well. I think that music might help me a lot. I decide to create some music, hoping that it helps. I begin to stamp my feet and sing African-influenced rhythms. My shaking immediately becomes the feeling of the music. Maybe the intense vibrations I felt in my body were just music that needed to be expressed? During this period, I focus intensely on the music and I don’t feel bad. I quickly tire, and stop, and the dizziness, the shaking, and the lightheadness hit me again immediately. I purposefully fall down in a controlled manner, since I can’t really use my body effectively now, and I manage to open my guitar case by squirming around on the ground to position my hands in the correct places. Forget tuning, which would be impossible now – hope for something reasonably close and begin strumming.

The music immediately helps me, and after starting with a song, I begin to improvise. The improvised music is funky as hell, with polyrhythms over polyrhythms, and a constantly changing time signature despite (subjectively) solid rhythm – the beats don’t change, but one measure has 4, the next 5, the next 7, and then back to 4. I am playing with triplets, then quarter notes, then 6 against 4 crossrhythms, going back and forth as the time signature changes, and the overall feeling created is one of bluesy and funky and African motion, without the certainty of knowing where the next downbeat is coming. Fantastic music, with a cascade of minor droplets in the high notes over a drone on the low E string. I am not aware of my body as I play. Instead, I am involved deeply in an amazingly intense head-trip. I notice that my windows are open, as it is very warm here. I live in a very quiet neighborhood, and I realize that many people might be able to hear my playing.

I begin to believe that my fantastic improvisation is actually not “from me” – it is from God. It is also not for me – I am receiving a download directly from God, but the music is for the person who is listening to me, somewhere outside my open window. They must need to hear this music, I think, this opening of the heart and spirit, this funky improvised ode to the human condition. Maybe they need to know that such improvisation is possible. Maybe they need to believe in the power of the musical experience. A thousand thoughts run through my mind, which has disconnected from both the music and my body. The music is running as it of itself, and I have the pleasure of witnessing it, as well as the pleasure of performing. My fingers are hurting, though, since I haven’t played much lately, and suddenly I am jamming as if my life depended on it. Maybe somehow, it does. The music stretches out for a long time – maybe 10 or 20 minutes of real time? I cannot possibly judge with any accuracy. The flow of the music is the flow of my spirit, the stream of my consciousness. There is no making sense of the music – it is to be felt, not understood.

After a while, I make the decision to stop, as it is too intense to continue. Yet when I stop, the shaking beat that was the source of the music reverts to shaking in my body, which is linked to emotional pain, fear, and panic. I can’t take any more, with or without music. I try to start playing again, but nothing interesting is coming out. I feel tentative. The magic is gone. I hear that the shower has been turned off. When did that happen? I decide to try to make my way downstairs. I should not be walking, I think to myself, just as someone who is too drunk or high thinks “I should not be driving”. I am aware that descending the stairs is very risky, as my balance is almost entirely wrecked. But I need human contact, I need my wife’s loving touch, and I need some calm music. When I get to the first floor, my wife has a mask of white covering her face –some cleansing ritual. It is bizarre to look at. I tell her, in a great achievement of understatement, that I could use a massage. She looks at my face, and suggests that I do yoga while I wait for her to finish what she’s doing. I open the yoga mat, though even this takes an incredible effort. I sit on the mat. It is futile.

I decide to put some calm music on. I can’t find any. Jimi Hendrix comes out of the speakers for a minute, but that is not the right soundtrack for my disaster. I reject Bach, Coltrane, and everyone else that my computer displays. I can’t do it. I should not be standing up now. I get back down, without turning any music on. I try to do some yoga – any yoga. I cannot. I lie down, into “the corpse”, but I can’t even remember to breathe deeply for more than about 2 breaths, and revert to shallow chest-breathing that induces more fear and panic. My heart is not functioning correctly. Am I having a heart attack? I am not ready to die. I am scared of God. There is no pain, but there is something wrong in my chest. Is my heart beating incorrectly? It seems very irregular, and alternates between weak and strong. I feel like each beat does no good. Am I just experiencing God, or am I just incredibly high, or am I having a physical problem? Is there a difference? I feel very scared of God. I ask myself - Why am I scared of God? The answer comes intuitively, immediately: Because I have not lived up to my side of the bargain. I have been using drugs to avoid reality, not to expand it or to dive into my consciousness occasionally. I have gotten high nearly every day for months. This is not what I should be doing, and I know it.

I get up, feel very lightheaded, almost pass out, and then slowly hobble in to the bathroom. I tell my wife that I think I am having a heart attack. She says that is fine, and asks why I am not enjoying it. We both laugh. She tells me to relax. She massages my shoulders, but I feel that I need her hands on my heart. She places her hands on my chest, and I cover them with my own hands. I ask her to pray. I send up a silent prayer to let me live through this. I do not understand if I am enlightened, tripping, or dying. Maybe all three at once? I am seriously considering asking her to call an ambulance. I have only been this close to calling an ambulance once before in my life (also drug-related). My wife keeps telling jokes, and being ridiculous. I laugh each time. She keeps her hands on my heart, and they feel incredibly warm and healing. I am calm now, and my heart doesn’t seem to be much of a problem, I think. However, I can’t stand up. Wait a minute, my heart seems like it is missing beats, or alternating between strong and weak beats. My wife reminds me to breathe deeply. She breathes deeply, and this helps me to remember to do so as well. My wife tells me to relax my shoulders, which are up around my ears, showing the tension inside.

Slowly, the acuteness of the situation fades, and I feel the blood washing through my heart as the muscle itself beats wastefully, not focusing its efforts on pumping the blood through my body, but leaking blood out in every direction, spewing its pointless efforts without thought or care. Is this a metaphor for how God sees me, with my drug use? However, my body is in no immediate danger, it seems. I feel calm now, and my wife is still joking with me. She knows how to get me to relax. But is relaxation all I need? I can’t tell if my heart is freaking out, or if I am hallucinating this. Mentally, I am totally calm now, but it still seems that my heart is not beating regularly. My wife looks very relaxed, and has left my side to continue her own getting-ready-for-bed process. I still don’t understand what just happened, or if it is still happening. I have had some slight worries about my heart before, though not in more than a year. They all involved the feeling that my heart is not beating efficiently.

I look at the clock. It reads 10:15. More than 2 hours have passed, 2 hours of hell. I feel that the immediate danger is over, though the strange feeling in my heart persists. I ask my wife to make me some tea. The warm liquid feels good in my mouth and throat. I lie down with my computer and do something relaxing, reading about an upcoming vacation. I cannot sleep for 3 hours. I am too high. At around 1:30, I finally fall asleep.

[The next day] 7:00 AM – I wake up with an intense headache. I try to swallow, but my throat feels as if it has large knife cuts in it, as if it were so dry that it split open. After a cup of tea, my throat feels better, but I feel as if my body went through a lot last night. I feel like I have a bad hangover. I take an hour nap from 9:30, and wake up feeling somewhat better, though I am clearly more than just tired. After a strong cup of coffee (and I am not a regular coffee drinker), I improve to the level of feeling “just tired”. I take 4 60-mg pills of CO-Q10 during the course of the day, all with food, hoping to help out my poor heart muscle. I also take a good multi-vitamin and an extra gram of buffered vitamin C. I manage to go out with my family, and shop for their shoes. I have fun, though I am still tired. I go to sleep early.

[The following day] 6:30 AM – I wake up with the same feeling in my throat. Not pleasant. I drink some water, and it soothes it somewhat. I feel like I’m getting a cold.

Overview of experience 6 – Magic Gold and Dream (Herbal incense)
This was the worst experience I have had in a long, long time. What went wrong? Too much Magic Gold? The combination? The combination including the menthol I sniffed beforehand? An inherent physical problem that was brought out by the experience? I do not believe that it was solely due to fear at having an intense experience, though this is also a logical possibility.

I will never smoke this combination again.

I will never smoke 2 hits of Magic Gold again.

I will take a break from all drugs now.

This experience was horrible, but I learned something from it. It is time to be clean and clear, and to experience what life gives me without drugs for a while. I will redouble my efforts in yoga, running, biking, and meditation. I will certainly use drugs again, but I will aim for more moderation in my usage.

Exp Year: 2009	ExpID: 79488
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Jun 28, 2009	Views: 70,302
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Products - Spice-Like Smoking Blends (472) : Alone (16), Difficult Experiences (5), Combinations (3)