Kava: Fiji’s psychoactive brew | Hacker News Reader

Kava: Fiji’s psychoactive brew

theguardian.com

46 pointsThevet45 comments

I recently tried kava, and found it to be quite relaxing. I found the numbing effect to be mild, even after having quite a few, and otherwise would compare the experience to drinking coffee (but obviously going the other direction) in the sense that it was enjoyable and seemed mostly harmless. It had the added benefit of being a way to enjoy a night out with a friend in a sort of bar like atmosphere, but without the negative effects of alcohol. In fact, I think what was most noticible was that the atmosphere was festive and convivial, but without all the stupid bullshit that happens with drunk people. I would recommend trying this to anyone looking for that kind of alternative.

If there was a downside, it was that getting myself stuck with a $70 kava-bar tab from tieing one on in the Haight kind of made me want to rethink my life choices at the end of the night. On the other hand, much greater regrets can be had from going out drinking...

Don't beat yourself up. A $70 bar tab for a night of drinking anything in SF is par for the course.

haha, thanks, true that. You could drop a hundred bucks going out for donuts in this town.

Bulk kava is crazy cheap on Amazon.

I’m curious what they purport adds so much value to their kava in the OP comment.

Same reason a beer that's $8 at the bar costs $1-$2 if you buy it at the supermarket.

Right, everything sold in a bar environment needs enough margin to offset the overhead of dealing with people at their worst behavior.

I was hoping it was some brand name I could look up for their pitch.

But like anything "crazy cheap" on Amazon... is it genuine? I'd be concerned about additives like melamine.

Random note: the word "kava" is Tongan, not Fijian. In Fiji, it's called yaqona, pronounced "yanggona".

I also don't think kava is ever going to take off worldwide until they figure out a way to deal with the taste and appearance. It's not actively terrible, but it really does look and taste like a muddy puddle.

> Random note: the word "kava" is Tongan, not Fijian. In Fiji, it's called yaqona, pronounced "yanggona".

This is correct. However, kava is the word used in the west, in international trade, and in the Codex Alimentarius.

> I also don't think kava is ever going to take off worldwide until they figure out a way to deal with the taste and appearance.

Kava drinkers hope that never happens. Kava is difficult to grow and already expensive. Having it become more popular would only serve to increase prices beyond what the average person can afford. Also, I reckon the taste is a feature, not a bug. It keeps the kids away from it lol

Agreed, a muddy puddle is perfect. Friends wanted me to try some at a local kava bar. The buzz I got from a "double dose" drink was basically a decently mild nicotine buzz except my mouth went numb a bit like after getting a novacaine shot. Not really for me.

Keep in mind the strength varies wildly, even on pacific islands the difference between bars 10 minutes apart can vary and the tourists ones are generally much more watered down, or so I've been told. I had the opportunity to go to a locals bar in Vanuatu and 2 cups was like being severely stoned, right down to the room spinning and the desire to vomit. I had considerably more at a tourist trap and could barely feel the effects.

Really flushes out the internals too.

Fun fact: even in Fiji, Vanuatu kava is sold at a premium. The cheaper/stronger varieties are known in pidgin as tudei kava (as in, 2 day) because that's how long the buzz/hangover lasts.

> even in Fiji, Vanuatu kava is sold at a premium

Not true. In fact Vanuatu kava is hard to Fiji in Fiji despite the fact that so much of it is imported. Tudei kava, when imported to Fiji (and the US) is usually mixed in with Fijian kava to temper the horrible side-effects.

> The cheaper/stronger varieties are known in pidgin as tudei kava (as in, 2 day) because that's how long the buzz/hangover lasts.

Stronger yes, but not at all in a good way. Think headaches, horrible nausea, and worse. Hence the export of tudei kava is banned in Vanuatu except for if the buyer explicitly requests it. Tudei kava should not be sold for recreational consumption and its use is strongly discouraged.

I guess we're totally different because this sounds like exactly what I'm looking for.

I don't think people particularly mind those things. At least at the kava bar I go to, I've never heard any of my friends be too hesitant to drink it after seeing its appearance or after taking their first sip. After a large quantity, the flavor does start to make me want to vomit though lol

For anyone interested in trying kava recreationally (or really any new psychoactive drug), I highly recommend you read up on Erowid before partaking in consumption. Erowid is an amazing repository of knowledge, from scientific articles to dosage recommendations to anecdotal trip reports.

Link here: https://erowid.org/plants/kava/

While Erowid is great for obscure drugs, you'll get much better info from communities of thousands of active kava drinkers like /r/kava and kavaforums.com

That Erowid page is pretty useless since the vast majority of reports on there aren't about kava at all but about kavalactones extracted from kava root and put into capsules and tinctures. That's like a review page claiming to be about coffee but in fact filled with reports of people taking caffeine powder. This is a problem because just like caffeine doesn't have a long history of safe use (and in fact there have been recent fatalities from it) in comparison to coffee, kavalactone products have been blamed in a number of liver injury cases while kava has a long history of safe use.

Also, the Erowid page on the liver FUD is almost two decades out of date. The WHO report in 2016 pretty much cleared traditionally prepared noble kava. See also: https://www.reddit.com/r/Kava/wiki/does-kava-cause-liver-dam...

Kava is a beverage made from water and the root of the kava plant. This is so both in the traditional sense (what the word means in the Pacific Islands) as well as in legal sense (as it will soon be listed in the Codex Alimentarius). Pharma and nutraceutical firms trying to peddle kavalactone products while piggybacking on the long history of safe use of kava are doing the world a disservice.

Thank you for the clarification. I personally have never drank kava or used any sort of kava derived product, but I have used Erowid to great benefit concerning a wide range of other substances and thought that the information there would be up to a similar standard. Still, there is information there that echoes what you’ve outlined in your comment - so it doesn’t seem like it was all hooey.

How does that saying go? The road to good answers is paved through Cunningham’s law? :)

I’ve drinken kava myself and I recommend it over alcohol. It gives an immediate clarity in the head and an overall very pleasant music-like feeling. The thoughts in the head get unstuck.

I recommend you to try it as well.

People with Bipolar: Seriously talk with your psychiatrist before trying Kava - it was great for me at first, but then I noticed some undesirable mood changes. I wish we knew more about Kava and also drug interactions.

(This comment doesn't really need a thread or arguments about natural solutions :-P ... just a note/data point to maybe save someone a bit of trouble)

Thanks for the anecdote; it's probably the first one I've read from someone who's Bipolar. There are a lot of anecdotes from people with OCD (mostly positive). The latest study found kava to be ineffective in the treatment of Generalised Anxiety Disorder (GAD), although the authors of the study (and countless anecdotes online) still recommend it for situational anxiety (say before public speaking or an interview).

Like you, I wish we knew more about drug interactions. One to keep in mind is the grapefruit rule. Drugs that are incompatible with grapefruit are incompatible with kava.

Thank you for bringing up the grapefruit rule. I only learned about it recently. At first it sounds kind of silly, but then when you hear the stories you realize it has to be taken seriously.

If you regularly eat grapefruit, make sure your doctor knows. Be careful ramping medications up or down without discussion first.

And definitely go research this for yourself as well. :)

Nice! It sounds like you are keeping tabs on this anecdotally/with studies for multiple mental disorders. Maybe my comment is sort of useful to some! Also, I'd like to expand a bit, actually. My "version" of BP is "Type 1 with Psychotic Features" - it's a rough one, so doc recommended __total__ sobriety (for me, that was only quitting marijuana). The reasoning was because of potential med interactions and a higher chance of going into mania/depression. My comment above says "[Kava] was great for me at first" because it was like 20% of a marijuana high, very calming, and I thought it was safe/not a "drug". I actually felt like I was cheating and then noticed instabity pretty quickly after that.

I've been sober for over a year and a half (strictly for my disorder, not because of typical reasons e.g.: drug addiction). At this point, I'll take stability over any tea (or anything) that provides a light high. :-)

For everyone else, I'm hopeful Kava is a helpful medicine.

> Maybe my comment is sort of useful to some

It definitely is. And thank you for the extra details. In Fiji (where I live), kava is a recreational beverage and there is almost no info on medicinal use. As kava use grows in the west we're slowly learning from anecdotes like yours.

Based on the studies I've read kavalactones, the group of related psychoactive compounds in kava, indirectly activates the GABA-A receptors without directly binding to the benzodiazepine receptors. So it produces the same effect as a mild benzodiazepine, similar to Xanax. But the exact mechanism is still unknown, so there's definitely a risk of interactions with medications, especially benzodiazepines or medication or supplements that interact with the GABA receptors. Plus one of the kavalactones, yangonin, binds to the cannabinoid receptors. It's a selective agonist of the CB1 cannabinoid receptors and a full agonist of the CB2 receptors.

One of my best client experiences was advising a surf resort in Fiji, and of course we had to go stay there in order to understand the business model.

Part of their community support is organising a welcome ceremony, hosted by the local village (where they also fund the school) and given to every guest. Sadly for us, no other guests overlapped with our visit and we missed out. No doubt watered down for the tourists, but that would have been my kava opportunity.

I keep offering them a Strategy Review! Next time...

For those who are interested in buying, look for "noble Hawaiian kava," preferably certified. The quality standards are way higher and you're less likely to get hit with an unpleasant feeling after drinking it.

Thank you, this was helpful

Anyone curious about trying kava should check out /r/kava or kavaforums.com for advice on reputable vendors. This is especially important if you're in the US where dietary supplements are barely regulated.

The only effect I ever experienced drinking Kava some 30 years ago was that my tongue went numb... severely so :)

It tastes — and looks — like water from a puddle on a gravelled country road.

It's a subtle high. Once you notice it you will notice it every time you drink it, and it's very pleasent, but it's subtle. It's about as strong as one beer and the effects don't get much stronger the more you drink.

Im from Hawaii, my parents used to give it to me when I had a soar throat and I never noticed the high. Tried it again as an adult and felt the high, since then I notice it everytime I drink it.

I wish the article had said more about what the alleged psychoactive effects are. The description makes it sound like a pretty run-of-the-mill CNS depressant.

Yeah. I'd say it was like I took half a Xanax. Relaxing and mildly dis-inhibiting, but I couldn't get to sloppy. I'd call it pleasantly relaxing, but not terribly strong. Perhaps out of an abundance of caution, I would hesitate to drive home after having a lot of it, or if I wasn't a seasoned kava drinker.

A bar or a football?

OK, I guess I don't know that much about Xanax(TM). I meant, like 500mcg of alprazolam.

I suspect the effects may differ a little from person to person. A friend of mine, who is a recovering alcoholic, said it was like being drunk for him, only not drunk.

For me it was a feeling of euphoria that was a little like being drunk but, as he said, not. It’s hard to explain now that I think about it.

I do know that the couple of times I’ve had it I had an upset stomach an hour or two later that lasted for three out for hours. I don’t know if I got a bad batch or what.

Drank enough to upset my tummy but no real buzz beyond young numbness. Tried it at multiple sources in Fiji always the same effect or lack thereof

How much did you drink? Fijians (and Tongans) love their kava weak. It's often more about the socialising around the kava bowl rather than getting "drunk" off kava. You'll find Fijians mix weak batches of kava and then drink it for hours.

ni-Vanuatu on the other hand, make really strong kava and then only drink 2-3 shells of it.

If you drink it in Fiji as a tourist chances are it was even weaker than the already weak kava the locals drink. You'd have to drink maybe 6 shells before you'd begin to feel anything.

I've tried Kava twice at "The Root Kava Company" in Boulder CO - $12/pop and I can't say that I felt anything specific. I was hoping for sort of an anti-coffee that wasn't alcohol.

The taste was really good though, at least based on my assumption that the drink would taste like medicine. It tasted more like a raspberry lemonade.

> It tasted more like a raspberry lemonade.

:O Are you sure you had kava? I've never heard kava descried that way, and I'm a kava farmer.

Perhaps you felt nothing from it due to the drink having only a tiny amount of kava in it. Did your mouth go numb at least?

There's also cava, which is either the Spanish version of champagne or the Greek specialty wine.

I lived in Vanuatu for a couple of months working, I used to have kava once a week. I found it to be a lot better than alcohol at helping me wind down from work, got used to the taste after a little bit.

As far as I know, kava is still banned in the UK. It seems strange that a British newspaper doesn't mention this.

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