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smoking blends

 
                                                
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So this fall i have been getting into foraging for my own ingredients to add to my cigarettes. I have used mullein, sumac berries, mugwart, raspberry leaves, sassafras, chamomile, lavender, mint (don't like it), and rosemary. I mix some combination of these with tobacco and it produces a fine smoke and taste. Just wondering if anyone has read or smoked any other plants that have nice flavor or medicinal qualities. I read that mullein is medicinal for the lungs and actually helps sore throats and improves the lungs. These ingredients also make for tastier spliffs. Any comments would be greatly appreciated. Thanks and Peace.
 
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Location: Helena, Montana
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Did you dry these additions first? Then you grind them, or does it matter?
 
pollinator
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I have not tried them but have heard good things about pennyroyal and white sage.
 
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You could cut the tobacco by adding Lobelia.
 
Posts: 28
Location: ST Albert AB Canada
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Has anyone tried raising tobbaco without all the cides? I enjoy a good cigar but know that conventional tobbaco has lots of unhealthy growing methods
 
                                                
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i do usually dry the plants before i smoke them, although not all plants need a complete dry. mullein seems to be more enjoyable when not fully dried. I did get the chance to smoke a cigarette of only tobacco that was organic. My friends grew it and im not sure if it was dried all the way or not. the flavor is much better and it gets you high, very different from conventional tobacco cigarettes. I use my grinder to grind everything up. I've also tried mint, it gives a very concentrated menthol flavor, not my thing but menthol likers should try it.
 
Posts: 488
Location: Foothills north of L.A., zone 9ish mediterranean
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A traditional ojibway pipe mixture is:

1/4 inner bark of red willow
1/4 inner bark of green willow
1/4 tobacco
1/4 tip leaves of the flowering dogwood

It is quite a mellow mixture.
 
Posts: 66
Location: Spokane and near Diamond Lake, WA
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You might try Arctostaphylos uva-ursi. One if its common names is kinnikinnick, which is the Algonquin word for "smoking mixture". So Indians smoked a lot of it, and I'm told the flavor is good.
 
ronie dean
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Lobelia has a nicotine like analog in it - some use it to quit nicotine products entirely. It has promise of completely ending your "NEED" for tobacco.
 
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Location: Ossineke, MI
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I second Bearberry(Uva-ursi) and Lobielia. Colts foot is also pretty good.
 
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Location: Roanoke Island, North Carolina
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I no longer smoke tobacco, however if I one day grow my own I might then enjoy some. I do smoke cannabis on occasion though I usually don't like to mix anything with it.

I've tried chamomile flowers, catnip & lavener buds as well as wild blackberry, mint, rosemary & wild passion flower leafs before [dried].

For a while I would roll chamomile with catnip or rosemary when I was quitting tobacco if I had the desire to smoke.

Lavender is too harsh for my personal taste but I could see how mint or raspberry would be a nice addition to a spliff or pipe.

I've heard about the medicinal properties of mullein. It is in fact a healer of the lungs even when smoked! I'd like to know if some is growing near where I live and if not grow some!

Also Hops are great for smoking, being that they are a sedative in the Cannabaceae family, and take a look into Skullcap or Scutellaria!

I found this recently as well! http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/academic/medicine/alternative-healthcare/herbal-references/general/2/Herbal.Smoking.Mixtures

Hope you can find this helpful
Cheers!
 
ronie dean
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I saw homegrown tobacco at a garage sale once and it got me to thinking about the Dept of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms. If you grow your own tobacco, the sale of it to another person or even barter or giving it away may be regulated.
 
Posts: 64
Location: Oregon
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ronie, you're thinking is along good lines, and the answer is..... only "tobacco products" are regulated. Unprocessed tobacco isn't regulated. So you can sell plants, seeds and even leaves... so long as you haven't "processed" them in any way.
 
                                  
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The beautiful plant, pearly everlasting and tomato leafs make great substitutes!
 
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A very good lung medicine is jimson weed, thorn apple or datura stramonium. Don't be scared.... no psychic side effects! Dried leaves are part of herbal cigarettes sold for people who suffer asthma. It should grow more or less everywhere. I like the taste!
Felix
 
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Location: Southern Appalachia
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Stinging nettle leaf has a similar action to mullein or coltsfoot, smokes very smooth and cleanses the lungs.

peace
 
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I would strongly urge caution regarding the post about jimson weed/datura. Jimson weed or any datura is nothing to casually fiddle around with. Unless you know how to dose properly, they are dangerous, and it's very difficult to judge strength of anything from raw plant matter. It is also illegal in some states now.

On a lighter note,

I found that walnut leaves are not unpleasant. They do have that characteristic 'burnt plant' taste that you get with almost anything but cured tobacco, but it was less so if semi-dry yellowed leaves were used. I bet if you worked out a way to cure them longer they would lose most of this and make for an pleasant smoke either by themselves or blended with tobacco. I have no idea of the possibility of health effects of this, adverse or otherwise, just noting that the taste seemed decent.
 
Posts: 35
Location: Oregon Coast Range zone 8b
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I have tried a mullein and lavender mix (light on the lavender) with tobacco and liked it. I haven't tried but would suggest calendula petals, strawberry leaf, blackberry leaf (probably young leaves would be better).
I have grown tobacco and it was super easy. It seeded in the compost and came up as volunteers all over the garden. No pests bothered it in the PNW climate. Curing was kinda tricky though. I aged it for about 6 months after drying. It was smooth but tasted more like pipe tobacco than cigarette tobacco. I'm not sure if that is curing technique or the variety we were growing.
 
Felix Habel
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darktwist McCoy wrote:I would strongly urge caution regarding the post about jimson weed/datura. Jimson weed or any datura is nothing to casually fiddle around with....


tranquillo! Datura smoking is safe and has been used for centuries! look up "datura stramonium asthma" on google.... legal or illegal wouldn't bother me... it grows spontaneously!!
 
Jonathan Patrick
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Felix,
Legal or illegal might not bother *you*, but you're suggesting it to someone without mentioning so, and without knowing where they live or if they care.

I also feel like it's wrong to call it safe. The length of time a dangerous thing has been done does not make it safe. Awareness of possible danger is what allows safety. It wouldn't bug me so much if you hadn't so cavalierly said "don't be scared... no psychic side effects!". That's just irresponsible. From wikipedia: "Datura intoxication typically produces a complete inability to differentiate reality from fantasy (delirium, as contrasted to hallucination); hyperthermia; tachycardia; bizarre, and possibly violent behavior; and severe mydriasis with resultant painful photophobia that can last several days. Pronounced amnesia is another commonly reported effect."
 
Felix Habel
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darktwist McCoy wrote:I also feel like it's wrong to call it safe....


ok, ok.... I'll don't do that again. I think this is a place where adult people gather that are conscious about nature's power. First: I have problems to accept that someone declares illegal a plant that grows spontaneously all around and I feel free to use it if I know what it does. But this is a political point of view ( my own one!). Anyway in this thread someone suggests other illegal plants that are fun to smoke...
Second: we should make neat difference between smoking dried leafes and drinking the boiling af the seeds! I'm aware of the danger it brings but I never suggested that! I was only talking about smoking the leafes! I do this for some years now. I first heard of it in Portugal from some freak friends but then I read about it in a very serious book about medical plants written by a German pharmacist W. Pahlow. It contains alcaloids like tobacco and coffe so: smoke responsibly! It's up to you...
 
pollinator
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Tabacco is easy to grow, curing is a little trickier.

Can someone clue me in the reason for so many Hatfields and McCoys on this thread?
 
out to pasture
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CJin VT wrote:Can someone clue me in the reason for so many Hatfields and McCoys on this thread?



Check out this thread.
 
                        
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Maybe the confusion you two are having about Jimson weed/Datura is the age old problem of referring to plants by their common name. I don't know too much about Jimson weed, but I do know that there are countless different species of Datura. Most of them are totally harmless, but a few (mostly those from South America) are 100% psychoactive and EXTREMELY toxic so much so that many people who smoke too much of it die or are mentally altered for the rest of their lives. Concerning the Jimson weed we have here in northern CA my friends have smoked it when we were young and got HIGH AS A KITE, furthermore they vomited til the cows came home.

IF YOU DON"T KNOW, DON"T SMOKE IT
 
Posts: 1273
Location: Central Wyoming -zone 4
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i can't say i've ever been a fan of smoking tobacco but here is some things that i know can be smoked, though i don't know if they all would be good with tobacco or not
the 2 most common things that are smoked in my area are:
tobacco
cannabis
other than that i know you can smoike:
catnip: supposedly gives a cannabis sorta high but has some negative side effects like nausea and such(this isn't from experience though and im sure most of us know that there is tons of misinformation out there about just about every drug in existence, im sure catnip isn't excluded)
cloves: gives a numbing snesation but no high that i know of, supposedly has more carcinogen content than tobacco and i heard that too much can cause blindless(not sure if thats just temp or ont)
salvia: a hallucinagin(sp) that hits within seconds and stops within minutes, supposedly not a very fun trip and no terrible side effects besides un-fun trip that i have heard of, probably not safe to smoke in public as you are reccomended to have someone watch over you during use, unregulated in states as far as i know

thats all i can think off the top of my head, but im sure you could try drying and grinding different herbs to mix with your smokes or to smoke alone, others can probably give you more advice than i can but thats about what i know

good luck findin your favorite smoke though:)
 
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Kinnickinnick leaves & bark, willow bark, and dogwood bark were all traditionally used to add body to the smoke. Skullcap and wood betony have a nice mildly sedative effect. Mugwort, mint for flavour. Mullein as the base.

Just a few that i've tried.

Ive heard that Elephant's head pedicularis is a very desireable smoking ingredient for it's effect. (A better marijuana?) but ive never found it. I think it is somewhat particular in where it chooses to grow.

A video on growing tabbacky:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2AiXJA7BsQ
 
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I tried chamomile cigarettes for about a week, very enjoyable. But, I got sick of the flem that built up in the back of my throat because of it.
 
gardener
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Devon Olsen wrote:
other than that i know you can smoike:
catnip: supposedly gives a cannabis sorta high but has some negative side effects like nausea and such(this isn't from experience though and im sure most of us know that there is tons of misinformation out there about just about every drug in existence, im sure catnip isn't excluded)
cloves: gives a numbing snesation but no high that i know of, supposedly has more carcinogen content than tobacco and i heard that too much can cause blindless(not sure if thats just temp or ont)
salvia: a hallucinagin(sp) that hits within seconds and stops within minutes, supposedly not a very fun trip and no terrible side effects besides un-fun trip that i have heard of, probably not safe to smoke in public as you are reccomended to have someone watch over you during use, unregulated in states as far as i know



Catnip: I've smoked this on a number of occasions, it made me a little lightheaded, but not high. I have used it in mixes with other things. Smooth smoke.
Cloves: Again, a bit light headed, but not high. Nice flavoring agent though.
Salvia Divinorum, not just ANY salvia (sage): The most potent hallucinogen I know of, and its legal in MOST of the USA. I grow my own, but extremely rarely ever "use it". I occasionally mix in small amounts into other smoking mixtures to give an "edge of weirdness".
Its simply not fun, it doesnt get you high- it just temporarily puts you in a different universe. Terrifying sometimes. Great possibilities for research and figuring out the brain/psychology.

Other things I like:

Damiana: Very nice as a base to a smoking mixture, or by itself. Spicy scent and taste. Has been used to aid in stopping cigarette smokiing, as a "sexual aid" (I never noticed this effect) and various other herbal medicine uses.
Lion's Tail (leonotis sp.) : Used in Africa as a substitute for marijuana, I found it to be a pleasant mood lifter. I've grown this (its legal in the USA) and it makes crazy looking exotic plants too.
Native tobacco (Nicotiana rustica) This contains a much higher content of nicotine than the commercial varieties. Native Indians used in shamanic and divination ceremonies, also used as a natural insecticide. I grew my own, but didn't cure it well so it was very harsh, but major nicotine buzz.

I've tried various other things, but these above are the ones that were at least nice smokes if not had a uplifting feeling or other mental change.
 
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I use a blend of tobacco, bearberry, lovage, mint, mullein, red willow, red sumac and yerba santa in my pipe, it's a very calming and soothing blend, good to use for meditation and communing with spirit. Can also leave the tobacco out and just smoke an herbal blend.
 
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soaring spirit wrote:Has anyone tried raising tobbaco without all the cides? I enjoy a good cigar but know that conventional tobbaco has lots of unhealthy growing methods



Yes, I've grown it for quite a few years now. It's an easy plant, though a little time-consuming to get started at the beginning. My method is here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2AiXJA7BsQ

As for other items to add to the blend, I've heard red clover is decent though I haven't tried it. Mullein burns too fast and hot for me, and cloves definitely are numbing.

On my list of Scientific Things To Do this year is to build a small smokehouse and run some of my tobacco through there. That's the way latakia pipe tobacco is created - and it's delicious.

 
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Jonathan Patrick wrote:I would strongly urge caution regarding the post about jimson weed/datura. Jimson weed or any datura is nothing to casually fiddle around with. Unless you know how to dose properly, they are dangerous, and it's very difficult to judge strength of anything from raw plant matter. It is also illegal in some states now.

Absolutely correct. Jimson weed (and Belladonna, datura, and other similar alkaloid rich herbs) can/will cause hallucinations and is dosage dependent and not personality dependent. These hallucinations are akin to the Carlos Castaneda experience, as in you CANNOT tell what is real and is not. Hmmm. That is too weak. You are not aware that you are hallucinating, which makes it kind of a psychotic break. You act on your perceptions (potentially incredibly dangerous, eh?) which have nothing to do with the shared reality most of us experience. As with so many herbal substances, dosage or concentration is extremely variable and almost impossible to determine without analytical quantitative equipment and the knowledge of how to use it. Dosage, dosage, dosage.

This is not like horehound, or dill, or cannabis, or skullcap. More along the dangerous as hell line, like taking capsules of foxglove to see what happens. The effects can take weeks, months or YEARS to finally disappear. They can include loss of fine motor control, loss of the ability to relate to others and their emotions, and the failure to realize that you are operating under a deficit.

Imagine that everything you choose to do takes twice as long as it once did. Driving? Double your reaction time. Skating on ice? Sorry. Were you once an artist or musician? Sorry. Conversations with people who matter to you? Sad.

Don't play with this. It is not fun, or consciousness expanding, or rewarding on any level. Yes, low dosages, smoked, were and are used in many countries to treat chronic and acute asthmatic symptoms. Stick to safe things, like pot, or mushrooms, or cactus if you insist on transcendence. This is not a parental attitude; this is me wanting you to live, and live without unnecessary deficits, self induced.

 
Devon Olsen
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garrett lacey wrote:Kinnickinnick leaves & bark, willow bark, and dogwood bark were all traditionally used to add body to the smoke. Skullcap and wood betony have a nice mildly sedative effect. Mugwort, mint for flavour. Mullein as the base.

Just a few that i've tried.

Ive heard that Elephant's head pedicularis is a very desireable smoking ingredient for it's effect. (A better marijuana?) but ive never found it. I think it is somewhat particular in where it chooses to grow.

A video on growing tabbacky:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2AiXJA7BsQ



had to look up that elephant's head
its hemiparasitic which means it prefers a host plant
supposedly its rare enough that those who do sell it have to go out and forage it from the wild- its not propogated domestically, if it is then not common enough to hit the internet... and prefers the mountainous regions of the sw, with some species growinga little further north, may be why you can't find any in your region
indian warrior or pendicularis densiflora is one of the more potent species, beautiful purple buds as well
gainbotanicals has some for sell i do believe
 
Posts: 145
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With my previous husband we used to grow tobacco for the native elders m(we were are native).The tobacco culture itself was as easy as tomatoes which of course shares in the same family and diseases..As one of the above states it is in the curing process..This at our home was done using screens ,air circulation and time..This tobacco was then used as cured or mixed with natural additives, based on what the use of it was to become.Ceremonial purposes use different smoke blends then medicinal purposes.. Now days I grow it not for this purpose but for the flowers which give off an amazing smell in the evening or for use in my gardens as a pesticide..
Mary
 
Devon Olsen
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i just got an email saying this was updated, but its been over a year since the last post, anyone else ever have this problem?
 
Mary James
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Devon,
We also received a notice.about an update to the thread.I checked the name of the person who supposedly added it.Found it was the persons first post so I assume it may of been a spammer advertising his "smoking blend" not an actual post worthy of the discussion..
Mary
 
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Yep, when the friendly neighborhood spammers come to visit, an email gets sent, then the advert for ****(insert stupid stuff here) gets deleted and you come to visit a thread that's the same as you left it.

Ain't stupid people fun?
 
Devon Olsen
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^ i see, thanks
 
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