Hello All!
I was reading High Times the other day at my local bookstore, while I actually should have been at my local library doing stuff that requires knowledge! Anyhoo, I came across an ad in high times that says they sell leagl hydro or bud. I can honestly say that I had never heard of this before, does anyone know of any info on this? Like what substance is used to get you high, but makes it still legal? does it really work? How are they allowed to sell something that gets you high, even if it isnt real marijuana? please give me any and all info you may know on this topic.
Thanks!
~Xerses20
I think that you are conflating the two concepts of ‘mind altering substances’ and ‘illegal substances’. Before 1900, few substances were illegal- Queen Victoria took laudanum (opium) for period pain, George Washington was a pot-head.
Society started to make certain drugs illegal from the beginning of the twentieth century. Because it is not possible to legislate along the lines of ‘all mind altering substances are illegal’ because of problems of due process of law and definition (and the alcohol and tobacco lobbies), it is necessary to define exactly which substances are to be deemed illegal.
Many substances which are mind altering are not (or not yet) deemed illegal. Some of these are natural. It is possible to buy Qat in small stores that service the Indian/Pakistani/Arab communities in Britain; Qat would probably be made illegal if it became a drug of abuse by a group in society that acted criminally (the only such drug that is exempt from this is Alcohol which is so culturally embedded that not even a constitutional amendment could control it!). Similarly if a chemist derived a new substance from non-psychoactive substances that was mind-altering, the law might be changed to make this illegal.
Finally, there is a lot of money to be made selling something that is claimed to be mind-altering, even if it is largely non-psychoactive- like everything else, drug use is mediated by a profit motive- caveat emptor.
Yeah, a friend of mine told me about something like that not too long ago. He said you could get it legally, but you had to smoke a boat load of the shit. Supposedly it was like really bad weed. Don’t know if he ever got his or not though. Take that for what it’s worth…
-Dani
I’ve tried a lot of drugs, legal and illegal, and nothing beats weed. 8^)
Amen. And it ain’t illegal till you get caught.
Not only that, but it’s so @!#?@! easy to make.
If you can get a hold of Kool-Aid, sugar, water, yeast, a length of tubing, and a bottle with a 1-hole stopper, you can make a rudementary wine. I did this in college, making a 15% (30 proof) wine. Very yeasty tasting, but no more than beer. And the price is right.
Cite?
We’ve already talked about this in several different threads. Look here:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=25106
Basically that stuff is just a bunch of legal herbs that give a mild (VERY mild) head spin. I have a feeling that drug dealers may be using it as shake to mix with the real product to extend their profits.
High Times has ads like that all the time. Thats stuff’s fake. They show Panama Red, and hydro and KB and all that stuff, but it has such a minute amount of THC in it that its still legal. Its all mail order too, so you can’t test it before buying it.
Why do you think an ounce costs so cheap in the ads?
http://www.uselessfacts.net/facts/People/Presidents/
http://www.he.net/~brumley/renal/adminmessages/1380.html
Also in print in some histories of the colonial period.
As with Queen Victoria, it was medicinal, but the point is the same, it was used for its psycho/physico-active properties.
George Washington was a pot-head.
[/QUOTE]
Many grew marijuana in American History, they called it hemp.
WRONG! The fake dope sold in High Times contains no amount of THC whatsoever. Not even minute’ traces. First of all, the plants being used in the fake dope do not contain any naturally occuring THC, second of all, no amount of THC is legal. None. Not even a “minute amount”. If these products had even trace amounts of THC the authorities would shut down these businesses faster than you can scream “PERSONAL FREEDOM!”.
Sheesh, calm down PK…it’s not that big of a deal.
Yeah, mail-order “hydro” and whatnot is nothing but crap, not worth the time unless you’re going to rip somebody off
and I don’t think george washington was a pothead. Hemp was grown back then because it was usefull as a source of paper, clothing, rope, etc. In fact, I believe that there was at one point a law requiring colonial farmers to grow hemp.
Calm down? Who’s upset?
The one thing that keeps me from being sure G. Washington didn’t just grow it for rope is that thing about him separating the male from the female plants. The only reason people do that is to increase the potency of the plants.
FYI, Qat is illegal in the USA. It’s on the DEA’s illegal controlled substances list. A farmer in Louisiana was arrested for growing a field of this last year and eveyone was asking ‘what the hell is qat?’