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Comment by ConsiderCrying | Hacker News Reader

> Ingesting the dreamfish Sarpa salpa can result in hallucinations that last for several days.

I wonder why this fish hasn't been 'mined' for its hallucinogenic properties yet. Surely some of the more adventurous drug users would jump at a chance to try something this powerful? The article on the fish itself seems to state that it was available in restaurants, so it's not exactly a rare find, I assume.

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Almost all hallucinogenic drugs lasting for more than 18 hours are considered bad drugs. Eg the DOx series psychedelic amphetamines (excluding DOM, which people like for some reason), most of the benzofurans, the alkaloids of the Datura plant, etc. Even non-hallucinogenic drugs with long half-lives are considered not ideal (see the long lasting benzodiazepines especially).

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DOx

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Substituted_benzofuran

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datura

Datura is known for lasting mental impact. It can can also be really dangerous for potential users due to extreme delirium and confusion. Most trip reports are also negative.

Unviable as a street drug.

From my experience, when used in moderation it doesn't cause any of the negative effects typically described in trip reports. To me it seems that people overdose by ingesting several hundred seeds in one go without having a clue what they're dealing with. I took 3 seeds the first time I tried it, which was enough to get a taste of the effect for me, and then gradually increased the dose by a few seeds at a time over several weeks until I reached a point (around 50 seeds) where it was pulling so hard on my mind that I didn't feel like going further. I haven't noticed any lasting mental impacts.

Drinking a liter of vodka in one go without having any experience with alcohol also potentially causes extreme delirium and confusion, yet people drink alcohol all the time and are mostly fine.

A lot of ethanobotanists report that peoples using datura traditionally or spiritually (eg in the context of Ayurvedic medicine) don't tend to experience as many negative effects as people using it recreationally:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/235762980_A_review_...

But with that said, I would strongly caution people not to take tropane deleriants. Unless you really know what you're doing, there's a solid chance you are going to end up being high for way too long or end up in the hospital.

I'll also caution codr7 that seeds (especially from different sources) can have hugely different potencies, so be careful dosing anything via seed, especially something as serious as datura. It sounds like this works for you, so I don't intend to sound patronizing: I just want to make sure that I am spreading harm reduction everywhere I go, and datura/tropane alkaloids can be very dangerous.

I am aware, it's not like there's a lack of warnings out there. But 3 seeds aren't going to cause a bad trip for anyone, no matter how potent they are. The bad trips are from ingesting 100-300 seeds without prior experience, which is a very stupid and risky thing to do.

> I haven't noticed any lasting mental impacts.

What kind of instruments did you use?

I used my own experience, which I trust more than any external instrument when it comes to my mind.

Some of the benzofurans don't last that long and were pretty popular here in the uk at the beginning of the last decade. 5/6-APB and 5-MAPB in particular. Very MDMA-like.

Never did get around to trying 2CB-Fly...

Yeah, you highlight a good point; I really meant the substituted FLYs and HEMIFLYs (and Bromo-DragonFLY in particular). The empathogenic benzofurans are much shorter-lived.

Among the the empathogenic benzofurans, the APBs you listed seemed to be "gems in the rough" so to speak; most of the others ended up in flavor-of-the-month "Benzofury" blends and were quickly forgotten about.

I tried one or two exotics as I was plugged into the scene a bit back then 5-EAPB was effectively a fast acting laxative with a tiny hint of empathogen. 5-APB-NBOMe was inert as far as anyone could tell.

By the time I got my hands on any 2CB-FLY my life was moving on and I never did try it. Oh well, I had fun...

You don't want to trip for days. Even 8 hours can become quite tedious without it being a bad trip, if things go sideways or it starts out bad then days would be horrible. As a comment [1] in a recent thread I talked some about my past psychotropic use as a youth, including some of the bad experiences during trips that would last only minutes but seriously disturb me, being in that state for even 24 hours could spiral fast and just be horrible.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22225541

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