Posted by pinksharkmark (196.3.74.235) on July 25, 2000 at 18:57:29:
In Reply to: Flash and Others - You saved my life!!!!! (very long) posted by stavi on July 25, 2000 at 12:55:57:
I was going to hold off posting this until I had a chance to try this therapy myself, but since I am having no success finding local mushrooms yet (it's too hot and dry at this time of year here in the Dominican Republic for them to grow) who knows how long it will be before I get a chance to do so. Posting this information now may help ease the pain of dozens of others, so here goes.
The safest way to get your hands on REAL psilocybin mushrooms is to grow them yourself. It is absurdly simple, dirt cheap, (less than the price of a single Imitrex injector) and requires less than four square feet of space. All you need is psilocybin mushroom spores, some half-pint glass canning jars, some powdered brown rice, and some vermiculite. Vermiculite is a kind of puffed-mica substance that is used to "fluff up" regular potting soil. It is available at any garden supply shop.
In the old days, the hardest part used to be obtaining viable, uncontaminated spores of the right type. These days it's easy to get them. Once you have the spores, the rest is a snap. It's even fun... kind of like a science project. Although growing time is, of course, variable, the average time from the start of the project until you have your first crop of mushrooms should be about thirty days, if you are growing Psilocybe Cubensis.
Although there are over forty known species of psilocybin mushroom, the easiest and quickest species to cultivate is Psilocybe Cubensis, sometimes (incorrectly) called Stropharia Cubensis. Recreational users often call them "cubes" or "cubies". If I had to bet on what kind of mushroom Stavi had, I'd bet it was p. cubensis. I STRONGLY recommend that anyone wanting to grow their own start with p. cubensis spores.
How do I know all this? In my wild and crazy youth, a decade before I developed cluster headaches, I grew a whole bunch of them myself. This was back in the mid-seventies, when I still lived in Canada, and it was the last time that I took any kind of illegal drug. Not because I had bad experiences, far from it. I just kind of outgrew it, I guess.
Take my word for it, growing mushrooms is dead simple, as long as you observe proper sterile technique. Cleanliness is essential, especially in the early stages of mushroom cultivation.
For those who are in a hurry, it is not even necessary to wait until you have full-grown mushrooms. The mycelium of psilocybin mushrooms contains just as much psilocybin and psilocin by weight as a mature mushroom does. For all you non-botanists out there, think of the mycelium as a mushroom's version of a root mass. Usually after about fourteen days, the mycelial mass will have fully permeated the vermiculite/brown rice mixture in the sterile canning jar, and can be extracted using cranberry juice. The resulting cocktail has the side benefit of tasting quite a bit better than the standard mushroom tea.
There are places in Europe, Canada, and the United States that will send you "spore syringes" by mail order, for US $10 per syringe. A spore syringe is a hypodermic needle filled with sterilized water that has been infused with billions of mushroom spores. Each syringe contains enough spores to innoculate about eight or so half-pint mason (canning) jars. Each jar will produce from one to ten "recreational" doses of mushrooms, depending how much work you want to put into it.... far more than a clusterhead will ever need.
The interesting thing from a legal point of view is that the spores themselves are perfectly legal to own, ship, sell, whatever, since they contain absolutely no psilocybin or psilocin. There have been several test cases in the courts that affirm this, at least in the US and Canada.... don't know about Europe.
I don't know how DJ would feel about me posting the links to these spore-selling sites here on the board, so until he gives me the go-ahead, I won't. I will tell you that it is pretty darn easy to find them on your own.... it took me about ten minutes, and I am no Web Wizard. I should warn you, however, that my research has revealed that most of the sites in the US deliver spore syringes that are next to worthless... too weak a concentration of spores or, even worse, contaminated spores. There's really only one site in the US worth buying from.
If anyone has a hard time finding the same info as I did, or wants to confirm that they have found the same site that I did.... well.... you'll notice that I have included my e-mail address.
I want to go on record here and now... I have absolutely NO CONNECTION WHATSOEVER with any of these sites, and receive no commission or kickback of any kind. These sites don't even know I exist. I am only providing this info because I have been helped by many who post here, and I want to help in any way I can to kill the beast.
Ironically, I myself can't take advantage of this information until I return to Canada for my fall vacation, since if a Dominican customs inspector were to open a parcel containing a hypodermic needle filled with murky liquid, the pink one would be in deep doo-doo. I will just order a spore syringe or two while I am in Canada and bring it in my carry-on luggage (perhaps in an Imitrex injector kit) since they never bother to inspect the luggage of tourists at the airport here.
In closing, I would like to give my heartfelt thanks to Flash, who started the ball rolling in the first place, and is tireless in his efforts to interest the research community in this area. I also thank Stavi and all the others who have posted their results with this therapy (yes, it is a THERAPY, not a hippy-dippy psychedelic adventure). With a bit of luck, you'll soon see my results posted as well, if the rainy season starts early here.
pinky