Hallucinogens abuse – foreword

What are hallucinogens / psychedelics?

Most hallucinogens are natural substances that are present in some plants, cacti and fungi. They can be extracted to get a chemically pure form but much more common situation is simple ingesting without any processing or modification – for example hallucinogenic fungi may be eaten raw or simply boiled in water in order to make a brewing – let's call it 'soup' or 'tea'. Such a tea is drunk afterwards.

History

Psychedelic plants have some fascinating history during last ages, and during civilization development. Hallucinogenic properties were taken by many cultures as a precious ability to cross the borders between real and spiritual worlds. Obvious reason why hallucinogens were so popular, is that those substances are natural compounds and always were easily available. Interesting historical case is for example fly agaric mushroom which have been using by shamans of Siberia and North-east Asia during religious rituals, and because of wrong beliefs about its positive medical properties. Hallucinogens were also common in such an ancient cultures like Egyptian, Inca, Aztec, and Maya. Deadly nightshade (also known as belladonna) and Stinking nightshade (also known as henbane) have been using during the Middle Ages by European witches as ingredients of magic mixtures.

Law

Nowadays possessing of hallucinogens is restricted by law and considered a crime. Nevertheless law is a bit complicated. For example in UK possessing, using and picking liberty caps is not illegal. But situation is quite contrary when under concern is psychedelic substance (in liberty caps it's psilocybin) in its chemically pure, isolated form.