Woah sorry for starting the placebo discussion. Anyways I'm with Cadwaller, if it works, who the ♥♥♥♥ cares if it is due to placebo or not? Just because it isn't back scientifically doesn't mean it isn't useful as a recreational drug.

Because if it's not a placebo, then there may be side effects you are not aware of.
Just as if you didn't know what the side effects of any recreational drug. Not knowing exactly which mushroom is poisonous for example. Messing with your mind is dangerous if you don't know exactly what you're doing.

EDIT: And if it is a placebo, then the point would be if there are easier ways to experience the same mental effects, like putting half pingpong balls on your eyes. While you can torrent this, there are still people buying it and wasting money.

*buzzer* Stop right there! This is an idiotic claim.

That's not how that works sorry.

A placebo effect is still a real effect.

As anyone who has tried i-doser with a skeptic's mind can tell you, it's a placebo effect.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ganzfeld_experiment
This article, associated articles, and their citations are all pretty interesting. If you're not as tired of this subject as I am then you can give it a read.

This is an excellent mindset to have and I applaud you for it.

This argument is paper thin and I'm sure you know why.

I HOPE WE HAVE ALL LEARNED AN IMPORTANT LESSON ABOUT BRINGING ANECDOTAL EVIDENCE IN HERE.
That lesson is that soon after I will dismantle your argument and make you look the fool (even though that didn't happen to cadwaller).


Please stop asking questions like this.

Oph, I understand where you're coming from, but I'd already googled it, and I'd gotten all sorts of different answers. Some say it doesn't matter, because it doesn't show up, some say a week, some say 24 hours. I'd like a little bit of certainty.

Well specify that from now on, laddie, I don't mind helping you find answers, I just hate finding them for you.
http://www.erowid.org/psychoactives/tes ... nfo1.shtml
http://www.bluelight.ru/vb/showthread.php?t=266339 <- this is extremely useful if you are at all interested in IV drugs

Go nuts, kid.

So I tried to use a bowl and I don't know what the ♥♥♥♥ I'm supposed to do with the carb. I finally actually got kinda high, but is it supposed to rape your lungs that much? I was coughing for a good five minutes after taking a hit. Worth it, yeah, but I'd rather not deal with the discomfort.

When the carb is closed, you suck smoke into the chamber. When the carb is open, you suck the smoke in the chamber into your lungs.

Huh-I was doing it wrong, then. My sister told me some ♥♥♥♥ way to do it that confused the hell out o' me.

This is flawed, you're also pulling smoke into your lungs. With a bong, you fill the piece and clear it. A pipe is more like a smoke straw. The carb really isn't hard to understand. The point of it is to make another entry for air that isn't through burning plant material. The only point of it is to clear the piece of smoke. You can fiddle with it to make your hits a little easier, I believe I explained it somewhere in the thread, do a search. Basically, on off on off on off will make the smoke come through less thick and be easier for your lungs to handle. Funnily enough, though, below a certain point, less smoke is harsher for some reason. You'll pick it up, it's not exactly rocket science.

Here have this:

Top left is carb, top center is bowl, bottom center is mouth piece. When the carb is covered and you pull from the mouth piece, air comes through the burning plant material and creates smoke and etc. When the carb is uncovered, air comes through it instead, as the carb is the path of least resistance, and as there is no burning plant material there, no smoke is produced, thus filling the piece and subsequently your lungs with clear air. By putting your thumb on and off, and controlling interior pressure with your mouth, you can control smoke density quite concisely.

Up here we call it a choke.

Well here's something i like to think about: sometimes, when a religious person sees "visions," they are on drugs. People who dislike drugs then say that because the drugs altered your state of mind the visions were not really there. They have a point.

Yet this cannot be assumed with utter certainty. Our brains have been wired by evolution to perceive things in a certain way. While on drugs, this wiring gets all ♥♥♥♥ up. What if the "visions" that people see are real, and the drugs have simply removed a filter which has been preventing us from seeing clearly?

Uh...what?

Then the world would be one ♥♥♥♥ up place, since the visions I've heard about are quite trippy.
However, one cannot assert whether the vision or the accepted reality is the true reality. Many philosophers have wrestled with the question of the fundamental reality, and all of them thought they found one only to have another philosopher poke holes in their arguments.
The rest of us are left with deciding whether we want to try and live in a world we cannot see, or the one that's accepted by the rest of humanity as the real one.

The reason it's accepted by the rest of humanity as the real world, is because A) it IS the real world and B) if it isn't, then it doesn't affect life as we know it anyway.

pseudorastafari if that were the case then 'visions' would be consistent between two people in the same circumstances

You have given no backing to this.
The generally accepted reality is generally accepted because in a majority of cases it is agreed upon. We have no particular way to be sure it is the 'correct' one though.