Unique, Rewarding Range of Experiences

DOSE: T+ 0:00 7.0 g oral Kratom (extract) T+ 0:15 1.5 g oral Kratom (extract) T+ 0:00 10 mg oral Pharms - Diazepam (pill / tablet) T+ 0:45 1 hit smoked Cannabis (plant material) T+ 1:00 2.0 mg oral Pharms - Clonazepam (pill / tablet) T+ 0:00 10 mg oral Pharms - Cyclobenzaprine (pill / tablet) T+ 0:00
oral Alcohol - Hard (liquid)

       BODY WEIGHT:
   165 lb
     

What a joy to find a legal, potent, euphoric high! I have tried many legal so-called 'highs' and found that usually they did not get me off at all, or if they did affect me mildly it was usually not a 'high' but more of either a jittery or a mentally-dulled sleepy feeling. But I had read some interesting reports about kratom ... and then when I learned that possession of an ounce or more is a death-penalty crime on Thailand and Burma/Myanmar, I figured that anything that carries that sort of criminal sentence MUST be worth trying out! (It is, thankfully, legal in most countries, including here in the U.S.) I bought a 50-gram wad of resinous kratom leaf extract, which the vendor said should be enough for 7 strong doses. Lacking a scale, I 'eyeballed' it and cut off a chunk that looked like it was about 1/7 of the wad of resin (the resin was a bit sticky but much more dry and brittle than gummy).

5:00 p.m. The only 'drugs' I had consumed that day were some green tea and some lithium, along with amino acid neurotransmitter precursors Tyrosine and 5-HTP and a high-dose B-complex vitamin. A few minutes before 5:00, I was alone at home, getting into a mellow and high headspace listening to Gregorian chants, when I slowly melted the chunk of resin in about a cup and a half of water in a small saucepan on the stove, then after it had dissolved I drank it down. It did not taste good, but it wasn't horrible either. (I steeped a bag of herbal tea in the solution to cover up the taste, but that did not work at all.)

5:15 I had read that kratom should kick in after about 15 minutes but nothing was happening, so I cut another (this time a good bit smaller) piece off the wad of resin, melted it in water and drank it too. (This time I added some miso to cover the taste, but that did not work any better than the herbal tea had.) I ate a 10 mg diazepam (the blue Valium) to potentiate the anticipated effects.

5:40 By now I was definitely starting to get off, but it is difficult to describe exactly how. There was definitely a speedy stimulant effect, but at the same time a tranquil, opium-like effect. But I have mixed all sorts of ups with all sorts of downs or dope, and this was not like speedballing heroin with cocaine, or mixing BZP with 1,4-BD, or whatever. A different sort of high.

5:45 I took one single bong hit of some high-quality cannabis 75% sativa/25% indica hybrid, and within seconds I was stoned silly: very, very high. It was a quite euphoric high -- again, impossible to really describe, but if I had to draw a comparison I'd say it felt sort of like being on a combination of a half-hit of strong pure MDMA, a strong cup or two of opium tea, and a sizeable quantity (a good bit more than I had actually smoked) of strong but mellow and breezy cannabis. I noticed a little bit of the slightly itchy sensation I get when I take codeine.

I had been listening to Gregorian chants which had sounded great, but at the end of that disc I switched to a CD of Krishna Das singing kirtan, accompanied by tabla drums and a harmonium and a kirtan choir. A perfect choice! Unlike the Gregorian stuff, I knew the words to these chants, so I began singing along. I'm not a Hindu or anything, so I perceive no need to sing praises to Rama or Hanuman or whomever, but I do find that chanting kirtan for a while can be a powerful mind-altering activity. So there I was in front of my computer screen, catching up on emails and singing 'Om Namo Bhagavate, Vasudevaaya' and 'Hare Krishna' to my heart's content. This was a delightfully euphoric high -- I was just very happy to be alive. I was trembling a bit as if I were on MDMA or another amphetamine-like substance, but my body felt both an Ecstasy-type electrical energy and an opioid-type warmth and comfort, and my mind was lucid but definitely very lit up.

6:00 I ate a 2 mg clonazepam (Klonopin) and had another bong hit. When the Krishna Das CD was finished, I felt like hearing some soukous music. I put on a Loketo CD and danced around a bit.

6:45 I felt keyed-up and speedy (but in a good way) and wanted to get outside and take a walk. I thoroughly enjoyed the bodily sensations of walking, and I decided to turned my stroll into a stoned variant of a walking Vipassana meditation. I found it somewhat more difficult than usual difficult to stay mindful of my body's walking sensations when my thoughts wanted to wander all over the place. But I kept at it, and in Vipassana manner, I observed my experiences, identified and put labels on them, and then let go of them. 'Legs feel pleasantly electric. Thinking about a passing car with a huge mutt in the passenger seat; thinking about the bumper sticker on the car that says 'Dog Is My Co-Pilot.' Laughing, and wondering how many people will get it. Right knee bending a bit and right foot lifting and moving forward. Right foot stepping down now.' And so forth.

7:00 With the benzos and ganja having kicked in as well as a strong dose of kratom, I felt like I was floating, and didn't have a care in the world. I decided to direct my walking meditation into the grocery store to pick up some things for dinner. All the fruits and vegetables looked beautiful, and corn tortillas and chili peppers looked like the most wonderful foods in the world (well, aren't they?). I felt very empathetic and spoke to the fellow shoppers and store workers with truly heartfelt goodwill toward them. I was all smiles and gratuitous politeness, but it was all sincere.

After walking home I ate a 10 mg cyclobenzaprene or two (Flexeril, a muscle relaxant that is also pleasantly sedating) and drank some vodka and smoked some more ganja, all of which mixed nicely and kept the kratom high lasting longer than it otherwise would have (I had felt it starting to wear off until I had a drink or two and a bong hit). I think I ate another diazepam, but am not sure -- maybe I just considered the idea and then discarded it ... anyway, I stayed up late, thinking and/or reading and -- when the Flexeril raised its voice -- sometimes just lying on the floor examining the ceiling.

I did not experience any of the sleepiness, nausea, or other problems that some people have reported even though I took a big dose and mixed it with some other substances with synergistic effects. In fact, I experienced no adverse effects at all, other than a slightly uncomfortable restlessness before I decided to go for a walk. This was a wonderful first experience with kratom! Having tried nearly everything else (or at least some of its chemical cousins), I am happy to have found something that feels both really good and is a new type of high for me.

The next day I slept late, then took half of a 10 mg diazepam and a standard 2-pill dose of the antihistimine Benadryl to help out a combination slight vodka hangover/seasonal allergy sinus headache. Ah what the hell, I thought a few minutes later, and ate the other half of the diazepam.

I drank a good bit of yerba mate to get properly caffeinated, and took care of some email and other work- or activism-related stuff. It was a beautiful sunny springtime Saturday with a temperature of about 75-80 Fahrenheit. In the early-mid afternoon, I consumed about 7 or 8 grams or so of the kratom extract and had a couple of small bong hits, filled a plastic bottle with drinking water, and headed out for a day (well, OK, a half-day) on the river. The river runs trough a beautiful, steep boulder-strewn canyon with oaks, Douglas firs and Ponderosa pines, manzanita, etc. I hiked through the canyon for while, marvelling at how immensely stoned I was from the kratom and how it was different from any other high I had tried (and I've tried most of them) -- and trodding the somewhat rough trail carefully because I knew I was stoned enough to lose my footing and fall if not cautious.

I saw an inviting pebble-and-boulder beach on the riverbank with nobody around, so I descended from the main trail toward the bank. I then took off all my clothes and spent a while looking around near the water's edge for a rare species of frog (which should really be on the Endangered Species list, if it weren't for very litigious and politically active special interest groups such as the National Association of Homebuilders). I had seen a couple of these frogs two weeks earlier a few miles upstream of this site and I knew there had been sightings of them along some of the river's upstream tributary streams too. No such luck for me this day, as far as rare frog sightings go, but I was blissed out enough just being naked in the sun on the riverbank. As I looked around on the bank and in the shallows of the river I noticed a certain enhancement of my visual perception of a peculiar sort that has often happened to me on sunny days when I was on LSD or other psychedelics ... and, like the previous evening, I felt a bit like I was on a combination of MDMA and an opioid.

I lay down on a smooth, sun-warmed boulder on the bank, closed my eyes, and let my feet dip into the icy water. I did a sort of meditation in which every 5 to 10 minutes or so I alternated between letting my mind daydream and wander wherever it wanted to, and then reflecting upon where my mind had wandered, and then applied a more focused Vipassana-type mindfulness to my breathing and the feeling on the sun on my naked body, and the feeling of my body on the boulder, and the ever-present murmuring song of the river; then started the cycle over again with the daydreaming. As I lay there, I noticed that, unlike the day before, the kratom was feeling much less like a stimulant and much more like Demerol or a hefty dose of opium or something similar. (Perhaps the Benadryl -- which has he same ingredient used in some over-the-counter sleep aids -- suppressed the stimulant aspect of the kratom? ... or perhaps it was just the passage of time -- I had consumed the kratom a couple or few hours earlier). Then a few times, when in the daydreaming phase of the alternating mental modes, I felt like I had drifted off into the Land of Nod -- that dreamy half-asleep/half-awake state that happens with a solid dose of opioids.

I sat up, opened my eyes to the beautiful sunny day and the river canyon, then decided to slip myself off the boulder on the bank and promptly into the river. The river was about 8 feet deep there so right away I went in over my head ... into what, until very recently, was snow from a few thousand feet higher in elevation. Immediately, every nerve receptor everywhere on my skin was telling my brain that it was COLD! but it sure woke me up quickly and it was a fun shock to the system -- like the reputed Scandinavian habit of diving into snow or a cold shower after a long stay in a sauna. This day's high still felt more like on an opioid than a stimulant, but I was wide awake now to enjoy it, and felt blissed-out as I stood in the sun on a huge riverside boulder, naked and stoned -- and knowing in my heart that those are both perfectly natural things to be.

I enjoyed a while longer at the river, then hiked out and went home a little before dusk. I drank another few (5?) grams worth of kratom extract and took a clonazepam and a diazepam before going to a bar to hear some live music. After a couple shots of bourbon whiskey, I danced in a very mellow way (the sort of stoned-shuffle-and-sway-type dance that can sometimes be best for crowded rooms), and dancing felt like bliss ... the rythmic movements of my body combined with the music was a delight. I had left my car at home, so I walked the twenty minutes or half-hour back to my place -- and enjoyed the bodily sensation of every step of the walk.

These two experiences -- in which I took similar amounts of kratom and mixed them with similar amounts of other substances -- were both very pleasant, but different from each other. The first felt speedier and more unique, whereas the second -- although still a unique high -- felt more like a familiar opioid-and-cannabis high with markedly less of the coke- or speed- or MDMA-type of feeling. (As noted above, the difference might be due to the Benadryl I took the second day.) Both experiences were very enjoyable, were reasonably compatible with meditation, with communing with nature, dancing, etc.

I hope that people will consciously remember that drugs can affect different people very differently, and the relatively big doses I was taking have caused unpleasant experiences in other people. I have also read that kratom trees vary widely in their potency so the proper number of grams of one leaf extract might be way too many grams of a different leaf extract. [Also, I have been actively and consciously mixing opiates, benzodiazepines, alcohol, and numerous other sedatives, etc., for two decades, so I know how to sense my level of central nervous system depression and how for me to mix CNS-depressant substances fairly safely ...]

Please be careful if you use this stuff. If we can keep people from kratom overdoses that require emergency room visits, date rapes, and/or people getting badly strung out on it, maybe we can keep it off the controlled substances list and continue to enjoy it legally! Also, some of the kratom alkaloids reportedly bind to some of the endorphin/opioid receptor neurotransmitter receptors, so let's watch out for the jones.

Exp Year: 2004ExpID: 33101 Gender: Male Age at time of experience: Not Given Published: Aug 23, 2004Views: Not Supported [ View PDF (to print) ] [ View LaTeX (for geeks) ] [ Swap Dark/Light ]

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