Do reindeer and other wild animals influence drug use?
Reindeer and a range of animals in the wild make use of mind-altering drugs and their crazy behaviour may have encouraged man to try these recreational drugs too, reports an article published in The Pharmaceutical Journal (Vol 285 18/25 December 2010).
What are reindeer used for?
Reindeer are the only deer species to be widely domesticated. They are used as beasts of burden and farmed for their milk, meat, and hides. The antiparasitic drug ivermectin is FDA-approved to treat and control warbles in reindeer.
Can reindeer urine be used as a hallucinogen?
Reindeer can eat them without harm and having observed their effects on their livestock, reindeer herders in Europe and Asia have long collected reindeer urine as a safer way of taking this hallucinogen.
What is Ivermectin used for in reindeer?
The antiparasitic drug ivermectin is FDA-approved to treat and control warbles in reindeer. Warbles is a parasitic infection caused by the reindeer warble fly. The fly’s larvae can penetrate the reindeers’ skin, causing harm to the milk, meat, and hides of domesticated herds.
Can reindeer urine make you high?
Reindeer digestive systems are able to metabolize the more poisonous components of the toadstool, leaving urine with the psychoactive elements of the mushroom intact. The Sami people of Northern Europe would regularly feed fly agaric to reindeers and collect their urine to get a high similar to LSD.01-Mar-2012
How do reindeer get high?
Reindeer go to great lengths to seek out the hallucinogenic fly agaric mushroom (Amanita muscaria) and eating the fungi makes them behave drunkenly, run about aimlessly and make strange noises.22-Dec-2010
What does muscimol feel like?
These include euphoria, dream-like (lucid) state of mind, out-of-body experiences and synesthesia. Negative effects include mild to moderate nausea, stomach discomfort, increased salivation and muscle twitching or tremors. In large doses strong dissociation or delirium may be felt.
What drug is in Amanita muscaria?
muscimolThe pharmacology of Amanita muscaria is not entirely understood. Two primary compounds, ibotenic acid and muscimol, are known to be responsible for its psychoactive effects. Ibotenic acid, a neurotoxin, serves as a pro-drug to muscimol, with approximately 10–20% converting to muscimol after decarboxylation).26-Nov-2020
Does Amanita muscaria make you trip?
All Amanita muscaria varieties, but in particular A. muscaria var. muscaria, are noted for their hallucinogenic properties, with the main psychoactive constituents being the neurotoxins ibotenic acid and muscimol.
What is the stoned ape hypothesis?
He called this the Stoned Ape Hypothesis. McKenna posited that psilocybin caused the primitive brain's information-processing capabilities to rapidly reorganize, which in turn kick-started the rapid evolution of cognition that led to the early art, language, and technology written in Homo sapiens' archeological record.14-Jul-2017
Where can I find muscimol?
Muscimol is produced naturally in the mushrooms Amanita muscaria, Amanita pantherina, and Amanita gemmata, along with muscarine, muscazone, and ibotenic acid.
Is muscimol a benzodiazepine?
In agreement, muscimol differs from benzodiazepines in its more global actions on brain metabolism; eg, muscimol reduces cerebral glucose metabolism more strongly than the benzodiazepine clonazepam that actually shows a ceiling effect at higher receptor occupancy (Ito et al, 1994).23-Dec-2009
What is muscimol used for?
Derived from the iconic Amanita muscaria, or fly agaric mushroom, muscimol has been shown to treat stress and anxiety, ease muscular pain and promote restorative sleep.07-Jun-2021
Is Amanita muscaria legal in the US?
The mushroom, Amanita Muscaria, was not covered under a regulation introduced in January 2006 under the Misuse of Drugs Acts to outlaw the sale and possession of magic mushrooms containing psilocybin. But as the Amanita does not contain psilocybin, it escaped the ban. ...07-Jul-2021
How long does an Amanita muscaria trip last?
We conclude that paranoid psychosis with visual and auditory hallucinations can appear 18 hours after ingestion of A. muscaria and can last for up to five days.
How toxic is Amanita muscaria?
Amanita muscaria is a highly poisonous mushroom; the primary effects usually involve the central nervous system, and in severe poisoning, symptoms may manifest with coma and in rare cases lead to death.02-Feb-2021
How to extract muscimol from amanita?
Muscimol can be extracted from the flesh of the Amanita muscaria by treatment with boiling water, followed by rapid cooling, and further treatment with a basic resin . This is washed with water, and eluted with acetic acid using column chromatography.
What is the chemical compound of Amanita Muscaria?
Chemical compound. Muscimol (also known as agarin or pantherine) is one of the principal psychoactive constituents of Amanita muscaria and related species of mushroom. Muscimol is a potent, selective agonist for the GABA A receptors and displays sedative-hypnotic, depressant and hallucinogenic psychoactivity.
Is muscimol a controlled substance?
United States. Neither Amanita muscaria nor muscimol is considered a controlled substance by the Federal government of the United States. This means that cultivation, possession, and distribution are unregulated by the United States Federal Government. Muscimol may be regulated on a state level.
What is the drug used to treat warbles in reindeer?
They are used as beasts of burden and farmed for their milk, meat, and hides. The antiparasitic drug ivermectin is FDA-approved to treat and control warbles in reindeer. Warbles is a parasitic infection caused by the reindeer warble fly. The fly’s larvae can penetrate the reindeers’ skin, causing harm to the milk, meat, ...
Why do reindeer have a nose?
Their specialized nose helps to warm incoming cold air before it enters their lungs, and it’s also an excellent sniffer. Their good sense of smell helps the reindeer find food hidden under snow, locate danger, and recognize direction. Reindeer mainly travel into the wind so they can pick up scents.
How much do reindeer eat?
An average adult reindeer eats 9 to 18 pounds of vegetation a day. Reindeer travel, feed, and rest together throughout the day in herds of 10 to a few hundred.
How big are reindeer's antlers?
Compared to their body size, reindeer have the largest and heaviest antlers of all living deer species. A male’s antlers can be up to 51 inches long, and a female’s antlers can reach 20 inches. Unlike horns, antlers fall off and grow back larger each year. Male reindeer begin to grow antlers in February and female reindeer in May.
How many animals are in a reindeer herd?
In spring, they may form super-herds of 50,000 to 500,000 animals. The herds generally follow food sources, traveling south up to 1,000 miles when food is hard to find in winter. Reindeer are the only deer species to be widely domesticated. They are used as beasts of burden and farmed for their milk, meat, and hides.
When did Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer start guiding Santa's sleigh?
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer began guiding Santa’s sleigh in 1939 , when Robert L. May wrote the story of “the most famous reindeer of all” as a Christmas coloring book for his employer, the department store Montgomery Ward.
When do reindeer drop their antlers?
Males drop their antlers in November, leaving them without antlers until the following spring, while females keep their antlers through the winter until their calves are born in May. Reindeer are covered in hair from their nose to the bottom of their feet (hooves).
Reindeer Juice
Festive Christmas drink made with Cranberry Juice & Cinnamon Whisky. Topped with whipped cream and crushed cinnamon candies.
Notes
This drink can be made hot or cold. To make it non-alcoholic, replace Cinnamon Whisky with cinnamon or cinnamon flavoring.
Overview
Muscimol (also known as agarin or pantherine) is one of the principal psychoactive constituents of Amanita muscaria and related species of mushroom. Muscimol is a potent and selective orthosteric agonist for the GABAA receptors and displays sedative-hypnotic, depressant and hallucinogenic psychoactivity. This colorless or white solid is classified as an isoxazole.
Biochemistry
Muscimol is one of the psychoactive compounds responsible for the effects of Amanita muscaria intoxication. Ibotenic acid, a neurotoxic secondary metabolite of Amanita muscaria, serves as a prodrug to muscimol when the mushroom is ingested or dried, converting to muscimol via decarboxylation.
Muscimol is produced in the mushrooms Amanita muscaria (fly agaric) and Am…
Pharmacology
Muscimol is a potent GABAA agonist, activating the receptor for the brain's principal inhibitory neurotransmitter, GABA. Muscimol binds to the same site on the GABAA receptor complex as GABA itself, as opposed to other GABAergic drugs such as barbiturates and benzodiazepines which bind to separate regulatory sites. GABAA receptors are widely distributed in the brain, and so w…
Chemistry
Muscimol was first isolated from Amanita pantherina by Onda in 1964, and thought to be an amino acid or peptide. Structure was then elucidated by Takemoto, Eugster, and Bowden. Muscimol is a semi-rigid isoxazole containing both alcohol and aminomethyl substituents. Muscimol is commonly portrayed as a tautomer, where it adopts an amide-like configuration. It is also commonly sh…
Toxicity
The median lethal dose in mice is 3.8 mg/kg s.c, 2.5 mg/kg i.p. The LD50 in rats is 4.5 mg/kg i.v, 45 mg/kg orally.
Human deaths are rare, mainly occurring in young children, the elderly, or those with serious chronic illnesses.
Legal status
Muscimol is considered a Schedule 9 prohibited substance in Australia under the Poisons Standard (October 2015). A Schedule 9 substance is a substance "which may be abused or misused, the manufacture, possession, sale or use of which should be prohibited by law except when required for medical or scientific research, or for analytical, teaching or training purposes with approval of Commonwealth and/or State or Territory Health Authorities."
See also
• Ibotenic acid
• Gaboxadol
• Thiomuscimol
• CI-966
• Z-drugs
External links
• Psychoactive Amanitas on Erowid