By Admin (Admin) on Sunday, April 22, 2001 - 12:26 am: Edit

ALT.DRUGS.MUSHROOMS FAQ
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Part 1


New to alt.drugs.musheooms? Read me first.
alt.drugs.mushrooms Frequently Asked Questions
Last updated: 9/26/98
This FAQ is maintained at http://admfaq.home.ml.org

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FAQ TABLE OF CONTENTS
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ABOUT THIS FAQ
ABOUT ALT.DRUGS MUSHROOMS
Mushroom & psychedelic-related Links
Related USENET Newsgroups
Sources for Spore Prints and Spore Syringes and General Supplies
Home Canning Supplies Sources
How To Grow: Assorted TEK�s & Success Stories
Casing Information
Mushroom Hunting Information
Search Engines
Books & periodicals
GENERAL MUSHROOM INFORMATION
Psilocybin and Psilocin Info
General "Psychedelics" Info
STERILIZATION & STERILE TECHNIQUES
LAWS
Anonymity, Privacy, and Security
Posting Pictures (binaries)
Posting by (anonymous) e-mail to newsgroups
USENET BASICS
FAQ HISTORY
END

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ABOUT THIS FAQ
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NOTE: This FAQ is meant to be a general overview of the group and the ins & outs of alt.drugs.mushrooms (adm). It is not meant to be an all-inclusive "HOW TO GROW SHROOMS" guide- there are already MANY amazing resources to anyone interested in the subject of mushrooms, most notably the SHROOMERY (http://shroomery.lycaeum.org/)

If you are interested in a FAQ covering mushroom history, etymology,
chemistry, psychology, legality consumption, drying techniques, etc., then you should look at the Psilocybin Mushroom FAQ (http://www.lycaeum.org/drugs/plants/mushrooms/faq/faq-psilocybin-mush.html).

This Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) will be updated fairly frequently and is posted frequently as a public service to answer questions that are asked frequently. More answers will be added in the future or sooner if the questions asked become asked more frequently. There are many questions that are asked, some more frequently than others. The author makes no claim on this FAQ and invites any and all to make additions and post it as you see fit. The author will make additions to it in the future, but releases all claims on it, with the one provision that no other FAQ writer can claim it as possession.

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ABOUT ALT.DRUGS MUSHROOMS
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(1) What is alt.drugs.mushrooms all about?

alt.drugs.mushrooms (adm) is a usenet forum for people to discuss all of the aspects of psilocybin mushrooms. The main focus of the group seems to be the growing and home cultivation of these types of mushrooms, however general discussion regarding the effects of mushrooms, the legal issues surrounding mushrooms, etc. is also welcomed and encouraged.

(2) How does one become an active member of the group?

Anyone who (after utilizing the other resources available on the web) finds he/she has a question or anyone who has any useful pertinent information to share, and who has taken the trouble of learning how his/her posting software works, is warmly invited to join in the fun.

Below is a tried & true formula for learning about the subject:

The Formula
LURK! READ! SEEK! LURK! READ! SEEK! LURK! READ! SEEK! THEN ASK!

The Definitions
LURK=Look at posts & replies that interest you.
READ=Read books & any other texts on the subjects.
SEEK=Use search engines to find information.

Lurking can also reveal some interesting URL's for newbies, not just in the text of the posted message, but in the senders signature block. Most regulars do this with almost every post they make because they know it's important to see these links first to get answers to the most common questions.

Not all newbies are created equally. There are many levels of which one, some, or all may apply to you. To gauge the degree of learning you may be in for ask yourself these questions:
Are you new to growing anything?
Are you new to growing mushrooms?
Are you new to alt.drugs.mushrooms (adm)?
Are you new to news groups and usenet?
Are you new to computers?
Are you new to anonymous posting and email?
It can be easy to feel overwhelmed depending how many yes answers you've made. Just relax, be patient, and lurk read & seek until you feel confident enough to take your next step.

When you make your first post to adm it can be done two ways. One way is simply to introduce yourself. The other is to ask a question. Introductions are "always" accepted gracefully by the regulars of the group. A simple subject line of "Hello" works well, you can mention any experiences you may or may not have cultivating, and what you think of the group from what you've read so far from lurking. Newbie questions, aren't always treated as gracefully by everyone in the group, but it really depends on the question. It would be a good idea to mention that you have read the FAQ and/or exhausted your resources so that the regulars know you at least have some background on the question you're asking. It's frustrating for many to spend time replying with good advice only to find the person incapable of taking advantage of that advice, it's a waste. A little respect for those who are willing to spend their time paying attention to your needs or problems can go a long way, IOW the respect will be returned. BTW an introduction along with a question gets very good results:-)

(3) Are there any rules about posting?

The most important rule is to be sensible about posting. News servers vary greatly in their capacities for retaining posted material, before it must be discarded to make room for newer items. People in areas with relatively poor service will encounter more and more missing item problems as the volume of posting goes up.

In accordance with general Usenet practice, the correct file name should be displayed in the subject line of each posted item.

In order to make the reader's reading job as easy as possible, it is
preferable not to include too much "garbage" in the subject line. Also learn to quote. There is no need to quote back an entire message just to say "I agree". Quote three or four lines as a reminder and trash the rest.

(4) What posting actions are frowned upon?

(a) Posting basic mushroom questions that can be answered by using a search engine, or a dictionary, or thru the Shroomery BBS. Posting a basic question like "How do I grow shrooms?" will probably get replies you still wont understand because of your obvious lack of understanding for the fundamentals, if it gets any serious replies at all. It also shows an unwillingness to read and do your homework, something most experienced growers don't like spending the time to do for others. If you've never grown anything before, you need to learn some basic growing techniques as you endeavor to understand the cultivation of this thing we call mushrooms.

(b) Posting graphic material. There are other news groups to take care of that kind of thing.

(c) Flaming, cross-posting scams and spamming:

You will often see an inflammatory or controversial remark intended to lure responses and clog up the system (trolls), or off-topic posts posted to many newsgroups (spamming). When this happens, DO NOT post to adm telling them to knock it off. The crossposters never read these replies. Many people don't even realize they were cross-posting. Mature newgroupers IGNORE all the crap & just wait for the others to mature.

Responding to spam makes you a spammer, too (surprise!). Replying to their posts is the equivalent of talking back to a recording on the telephone. There's no need to post a spam alert, either. Anyone with a few hours of Usenet experience can recognize it as well as you can. The best way to take care of spammers and trolls is to learn to use the filtering options of your newsreader. There are many types of spam such as an off-topic discussion that just won't die out, especially if YOU perpetuate it.

Because of Usenet's roots in academia, and because Usenet depends so heavily on cooperation (sometimes among competitors), custom dictates that advertising be kept off of USENET. Usenet was created for the free exchange of ideas, not for selling products. It is flagrantly against usenet policies to sell anything through usenet, and all such instances are considered SPAM. If you MUST advertise your amazing new products to the world use the "biz" hierarchy, which is explicitly "advertising-allowed", and which (like all of Usenet) is carried only by those sites that want it.

Free speech guarantees you the right to say what you want, within reason; it does not guarantee you a platform to make yourself heard in. My daily newspaper will take any commercial advertisement, subject to two constraints: (a) it must fit within their advertising guidelines, and (b) the advertiser must pay for the costs of distribution. Spam fails on both of these counts. Spam is the equivalent of third-class mail that arrives postage-due. Real people pay real money, in the form of disk space charges, connect time, or even long-distance net connections, to transmit and receive junk e-mail and newsgroup postings. Unless we utterly overhaul the Internet's mail and news software to charge a mailing fee, spam is taking advantage of the cooperative nature of the Net. Spam can be viewed as machines harassing people in a way which is very cheap for the
machine and a substantial burden to the people. There's a good chance that
spam is illegal under various U.S. state laws. For example, a case has
been brought against a spammer based on the Washington state junk fax law.
The Washington law defines a telefacsimile message as "the transmittal of
electronic signals over telephone lines for conversion into written text.

Trolls are people who like to stir up trouble by disrupting the normal
on-topic nature and flow of a news group. They have nothing constructive to contribute to the news group but off topic mayhem. They will detract from your enjoyment here because there will ultimately be less attention paid to mushroom cultivation. Trolls come in two types. Those that incite off topic arguement between this news group's readers, and those that incite many news groups to unwittingly post in each others group by adding off topic news groups to their headers in an otherwise innocent looking post. Both types of trolls are to be ignored. Their posts are NOT to be replied to. Replying is your way of telling the rest of us that you took the bait:-( Other adm readers will suffer as a result. I'll repeat that louder because it's very important...
DO NOT FEED THE TROLLS! THEY ARE NOT TO BE REPLIED TO! THEY ARE TO BE
I_G_N_O_R_E_D! DO NOT FEED THE TROLLS! THEY ARE NOT TO BE REPLIED TO! DO NOT FEED THE TROLLS! THEY ARE TO BE I_G_N_O_R_E_D!

If you're in a fighting mood, learn what you can do about spam by reading news.admin.net-abuse.usenet and by searching for "antispam" on the web or in DejaNews, an archive for Usenet posts (http://www.dejanews.com. The domain name is a play on the French "deja vu" which means "already seen").

"Make money fast" pyramid schemes are not only illegal, they're outright stupid, since you have to post your name and address in order to participate. Expect a lot of trouble but zero cash. These posts also qualify for instant cancellation by Usenet administrators.

(d) also DO NOT POST:
"Please e-mail me" Most of us don't want to or don't have time to e-mail replies many times to individuals. If you must post a question, ask the person to POST it so that other people can benefit from it too.
"ME TOO" regarding requests, trades, or emails
"I've a new homepage, come look" (not shroom related)
"LOOK AT THIS GREAT PRODUCT I AM SELLING!" (use "biz" hierarchy)
"Let's trade warez"
"Gimme an ftp site"
pictures, sounds, or warez
numerous requests for information - one REQ: is enough
"test" posts- There is alt.test (and others) for that purpose.

Also- typing in ALL CAPITAL LETTERS is the Usenet equivalent to shouting, and is considered to be rude. Please don�t shout.

IMPORTANT:
This newsgroup is alive because of the posters. Please help out by
answering questions and politely pointing them to this FAQ. Members hate answering the same question over and over again. Remember that you get their expertise for "free" (aside from your ISP or phone bill). The members with important info to share may leave the group when they get sick of answering the same questions over & over, or if they get tired of flames and trolls.

(5) What are the rules for behavior in this group? (Posting Courtesies)

Observe "Netiquette" pretty much says it all.

The Golden Rule applies. It doesn't hurt, when writing messages, to
visualize the other person as sitting a few feet away from you, instead of hundreds or thousands of miles. Don't say anything you wouldn't care to defend at close quarters.

If you reply to a post, try to at least quote (paste) the paragraph from the post you're reading into the message you're writing. Without that quote, folks reading just your reply have no clue as to the question or comment you're replying to. In many cases there isn't even a reference for one to find the original post.

Out of thread replies make it difficult to keep continuity in the threaded messages for someone following that thread. Having the Subject header "exactly" the same "almost" guarantees your reply will be listed on a news reader under the thread you're replying to. If your news reader (or other programs you use to post anonymously) can't manage the References: and Message-ID: headers to make your replies stay with the thread on a news server header list, try to at least copy & paste the Subject: header. If it doesn't start with "Re: " type that in at the beginning of the line.

If you reply to a post with the "x-no-archive: yes" header, honor the
posters wish to remain un-archived. Do this by either carrying that same header to your post, or by anonymizing references to the original poster in your reply.

Off topic posts are tolerated by some, and scorned by others. They usually attract flames and should be avoided. The topic here is mushrooms, pure and simple.

Crossposting to other newsgroups is generally frowned upon, except in
special cases where the subject matter is on-topic for those news groups. If you see off topic news groups in a post you're about to reply to, it's best to avoid replying at all. Odds are good it's a troll and that post is bait. Don't bite and don't reply.

If you decide to add a "spamblock" to your existing address, put it on the right-hand side of the @ sign and make it obvious to humans. This avoids making your provider's email server handle undeliverable mail.
DO: yourname@-REMOVE_THIS-example.com
DON'T: [email protected]


For more on USENET netiquette and posting see the following newsgroups:
news.announce.newusers
news.newusers.questions
news.answers

Tools and techniques for limiting spam
http://spam.abuse.net/spam/tools/index.html

Net Abuse FAQ
http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/hypertext/faq/usenet/net-abuse-faq/top.html

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RESOURCES:
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Below are some resources and links.

(Links out of date? Please post your findings or e-mail [email protected] with updated or additional links)

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Mushroom & psychedelic-related Links
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(Note: some of these links are general mycological links, not primarily concerned with psilocybin mushrooms)

The Shroomery http://shroomery.lycaeum.org/
The Lycaeum Archive http://www.lycaeum.org/drugs/plants/mushrooms/
Psilocybin Mushroom FAQ http://www.lycaeum.org/drugs/plants/mushrooms/faq/faq-psilocybin-mush.html or http://www.lycaeum.org/~sputnik/Shrooms/MMFAQ.html or
http://www.hyperreal.org/drugs/psychedelics/mushrooms/misc/FAQ-Psilocybe-Mushroom
North Florida Shroom Guide http://www.jug-or-not.com/shroom/
Erowid Sacred Mushroom Vault http://www.erowid.org/entheogens/mushrooms/mushroom_cult2.shtml
MykoWeb http://www.mykoweb.com/links.html
Jim Berlstein�s Mushroom Page http://members.aol.com/berlstein/Mushrooms.html
Misc. Links: http://www.hyperreal.org/drugs/psychedelics/mushrooms/misc/
Cynase's Hallucinogenic Mushroom Site http://www.lycaeum.org/~cynase/
Field Guide to the Psilocybin Mushroom http://www.hyperreal.org/drugs/psychedelics/mushrooms/misc/picking.guide
Entheogen Dot http://www.entheogen.com/
MYCOELECTRONICA http://www.mv.com/ipusers/dhabolt/dad/mushroom.html
Psychedelicatessen http://www.consciousdreams.nl/
Peter Meyer�s Mushroom with a View http://www.magnet.ch/serendipity/dmt/roomview.html
The Sacred Mushroom Teonanacatl http://www.maui.net/~jms/chapter6.html
Bemis vs. Indiana (law case) http://www.law.indiana.edu/law/incourts/indctapp95/95iac252.html
State of Iowa vs. Lewis J. Atley (law case) http://www.commonlink.com/users/carl-olsen/NORML/LETTERS/statevatley.html
Bemushroomed http://deoxy.org/bmushrmd.htm
yahoo Mycology links http://www.yahoo.ca/Science/Biology/Botany/Mycology__Fungi_/
yahoo Psilocybin links http://www.yahoo.ca/Health/Pharmacy/Drugs_and_Medications/Specific_Drugs_and_Medications/Psilocybe_Mushrooms/
The Albert Hofmann Foundation http://www.hofmann.org/
The Entheogen Law Reporter http://cyberverse.com/~martins/TELR or http://www.bevcom.org/copswatch/telrcw.htm
Mushroom History http://www.namyco.org/mycoth/
Plantasia http://members.iquest.net/~plantone/shrooms.htm
Descriptions of Teananacatl species http://www.hyperreal.org/drugs/psychedelics/mushrooms/teonanacatl/teonlist.html
Teonanacatl: Food of the Gods http://www.hyperreal.org/drugs/psychedelics/mushrooms/teonanacatl/teonatoc.html
Hyperreal Drug Archive http://www.damicon.fi/drugs/psychedelics/mushrooms/
Legal Highs http://www.tardis.ed.ac.uk/~philip/legal_highs.html
Ryan's Ethnogen Information Center http://www.angelfire.com/az/psilostuff/
syringes http://www.air-tite.com/ (germany)
climax net http://www.climax.net/
A Guide to British Psilocybin Mushrooms http://www.dspinner.demon.co.uk/shrooms.htm
The Puget Sound Mycological Society http://www.psms.org/
excerpt From "The Flesh of God: Sacred Mushroom Traditions among the Mazatec
Shamans" by Enrique Gonzalez Rubio http://www.csp.org/nicholas/A27.html
info on psilocybin mushrooms http://healthcenter.ucdavis.edu/mushrooms.html
Andrew Weil discusses Mushrooms http://hyperreal.com/drugs/psychedelics/mushrooms/misc/weil.liberty.caps
Mushroom toxins http://vm.cfsan.fda.gov/~mow/chap40.html
A SHORT 'SHROOM PRIMER http://www.lclark.edu/~wstone/stuff/primer.html
Dave Fischer's Mushroom Page http://members.aol.com/xerula/xprt.html
Mushroom Heaven http://www.aa.net/~reo/mushroom.html

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Related USENET Newsgroups
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Note: If your ISP�s newsservice doesn't carry these groups check with
another online newsservice that archives usenet posts such as Supernews (http://wren.supernews.com/) or Deja News (http://www.dejanews.com/)

alt.activism.drug-war
alt.drugs
alt.drugs.busts
alt.drugs.chemistry
alt.drugs.culture
alt.drugs.psychedelic
alt.drugs.psychedelics
alt.drugs.usenet
alt.nature.mushrooms
free.drugs
rec.drugs.announce
rec.drugs.chemistry
rec.drugs.misc
rec.drugs.psychedelic
talk.politics.drugs

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Sources for Spore Prints and Spore Syringes and General Supplies
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When ordering ANYTHING through the mail it is always best to use a Postal Money order, since it is easy to tell if they have been cashed. Several people in the United States have reported that they have had problems with customs despite the fact that spores are not illegal (in every state besides California), so if at all possible it is best to order spores from someone in the country where you live. Many people who live in California have reported receiving syringes successfuly in the mail from sources within the United States.

Foggy Mountain Farms [email protected]
The Ones that Stain Blue http://www.stainblue.com/index.html
JLF Catalog http://www.jlfcatalog.com/
The Herben Shaman http://members.xoom.com/Herben/
FYI Underground Books & Gifts http://www.fyibooks.com/shrooms/index.htm
Homestead Books http://www.homesteadbook.com
Mushroom Magic http://www.mushroommagic.com
Smart Botanics http://www.smartbotanics.nl (They don't ship to the US)
Mushroom People http://www.gaia.org/farm/mushroom/ or
the farm http://www.thefarm.org/mushroom/home.html
Fungi Perfecti Online http://www.fungi.com/
Toronto Hemp Co. http://www.interlog.com/~thcdom/thccat97.htm#MUS (source for canadian spores)
Fun Guy Farm http://home.ican.net/~bpretto
Lambo [email protected]
Psylocybe Fanaticus http://www.fanaticus.com/
AMAZING NATURE http://www.amazing-nature.com/p-mus.html
Bio [email protected]

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Home Canning Supplies Sources
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During certain times of the year canning supplies seem scarce. Keep looking in stores near you like Wal-Mart or K-Mart, or even sometimes grocery stores. If using the PF TEK, the best jars to get are half pint WIDE MOUTH tapered jars. If you can't find them locally you can always buy them from online from a few sources.

Home Canning Supply http://pw1.netcom.com/~rbeaver/hcs.htm
ON-LINE HEALTH PRODUCTS http://www.dhi.com/canning.html (canning supplies)
Altrista: Supplier/maker of many brands of canning jars(Ball, Kerr,
etc.). Phone #: 1-800-240-3340 operational 8:30 am until 4:30 pm Eastern time Monday through Friday.


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How To Grow: Assorted TEK�s & Success Stories
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In modern times, P. Cubensis may be the most commonly cultivated mushroom outside of the standard supermarket varieties. Growing mushrooms is easy. Anyone can do it (and get great yields), and if you're careful it's extremely safe. It is more economical in the long run to become self-sufficient. Strains of mushrooms are easily domesticated and will aggressively and potently fruit over a wide range of environmental parameters. The easiest method for people who are new to growing psilocybin mushrooms is by using the PF TEK, and growing from brown rice and vermiculite cakes in half pint jars. After you get the PF TEK method down, you can experiment with casing and other growing mediums, but it is suggested that you try the PF TEK first. The best time to harvest your mushrooms is shortly after the veil enclosing the gills has broken.

The best resource on the net for finding info on growing mushrooms is (again) the SHROOMERY (http://shroomery.lycaeum.org/findorgrowthem/) as well as the SHROOMERY Bulletin Board (http://shroomery.lycaeum.org/Ultimate.cgi).

The PF TEK http://www.fanaticus.com/pf-tek.htm
The Magic Mushroom Growers Guide Version 3.2
http://shroomery.lycaeum.org/findorgrowthem/MMGG.HTM
The Quart Jar Way Revisited
http://shroomery.lycaeum.org/findorgrowthem/quartjar.html
9er TEK http://www.geocities.com/BourbonStreet/Bayou/7191/
Timothy Hay Cob http://shroomery.lycaeum.org/findorgrowthem/hay.html
Ryche Hawk�s Exotic Psilocybes Growing Success Stories
http://www.primenet.com/~rychhawk/exotic_psilocybes/shrooms.htm
Using Hydrogen Peroxide to Grow Mushrooms
http://members.aol.com/_ht_a/RushWayne/Perox_Mushrooms.html
Internet Mushrooms Growers Survey
http://nepenthes.lycaeum.org/Plants/shrooms/msurvey/msurvey2.html
Success in Growing Psychedelic Mushrooms http://hyperreal.com/drugs/psychedelics/mushrooms/growers/shroom.success
Ancient/historical uses of mushrooms http://www.hyperreal.org/drugs/psychedelics/mushrooms/misc/amanita.info

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Casing Information
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Casing is simply taking colonized substrate and placing it between a
suitable growth medium. Some people have reported great results by using casing, but again it is best for you to get the cake method down first before you attempt casing.

50/50 Casing Tek http://www.primenet.com/~rychhawk/exotic_psilocybes/50-50casing.html
Easy Casing Method http://shroomery.lycaeum.org/findorgrowthem/easycasing.html
casing PF cakes http://shroomery.lycaeum.org/findorgrowthem/pfcasing.html
Oss/Oeric casing method
http://shroomery.lycaeum.org/findorgrowthem/ossoeric.html
Stamets Casing Mixture http://shroomery.lycaeum.org/findorgrowthem/stamets.html

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Mushroom Hunting Information
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Certain poisonous species are known to exist which superficially resemble members of the genus Psilocybe. Do not go out and pick and eat wild mushrooms unless you know exactly what you are doing. It is most likely that you will find something poisonous or useless rather than "Magic Mushrooms". Mushroom identification can be difficult as many different species look similar. People sometimes die from mushroom poisoning after eating the wrong mushroom.

There is a simple positive test for Psilocybin mushrooms (again- if you don�t know how to identify mushrooms don�t attempt this!): if pulled up by the roots, the white flesh of the stem, particularly that which was below ground, stains a distinctive green/blue colour after being bruised and exposed to the air for two or three hours. This reaction is apparently an nzymic oxidation of psilocybin. Mushrooms of the genera Russula and Boleous show a similar blueing on bruising: this is not due to the presence of Psilocybin and, apart from this characteristic, they bear no resemblance to Psilocybin at all.

http://www.dspinner.demon.co.uk/shrooms.htm
North Florida Shroom Guide http://www.jug-or-not.com/shroom/

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Search Engines
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Before you ask a question to the group, be sure to check one or more of the search engines that are available for the subject that you are interested in. Simple questions, such as �What is Vermiculite� are best answered this way.

http://www.yahoo.com/
http://www.infoseek.com/
http://www.excite.com/
http://www.altavista.digital.com/
http://www.dejanews.com/
http://www.cyber411.com

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Books & periodicals
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I've found that no one single book has all the answers one looks for,
having more than one source to make up where others lack is the best
approach. Check your local library to see what books they have available on mushrooms, and also do a search through many different search engines, and you will find complete online books. If your Library or the internet doesn�t provide you with enough material, or if you wish to own your own copies of these books, you can order them from many places online that sell books (such as amazon.com) or from Fungi Perfecti (http://www.fungi.com/books/) or Raverbooks (http://www.pulpfiction.com/rave/shroomy.html) or Open Group (http://www.opengroup.com/open/sabooks/welcome.shtml). You can order the PF TEK from Psylocybe Fanaticus (http://fanaticus.com).

The Mushroom Cultivator by Paul Stamets/Chilton
Growing Gourmet and Medicinal Mushroom by Paul Stamets
The PF TEK by Psylocybe Fanaticus
Psilocybin Mushrooms of the World: A Guide to Identification By Paul Stamets
Introduction to In Vitro Propagation By D.F. Wetherell
The Audubon Field Guide to North American Mushrooms By Gary Lincof
MycoMedicinals®: an Informational Booklet on Medicinal Mushrooms by Paul Stamets
Medicinal Mushrooms: An Exploration of Tradition, Healing, & Cultures By
Christopher Hobbs.
Magic Mushrooms of the Pacific Northwest
Magic Mushrooms of Hawaii
Maria Sabina: Saint Mother of the Mushrooms
Magic Mushrooms in Third World Countries
The Entheogen Law Reporter http://cyberverse.com/~martins/TELR or http://www.bevcom.org/copswatch/telrcw.htm
From Chocolate To Morphine by Andrew Weil
All that the Rain Promises and More by D. Arora
Hallucinogenic and Poisonous Mushrooms by G menser

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GENERAL MUSHROOM INFORMATION
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Mushrooms are organic hallucinogens that have been used for thousands of years as a sacred tool for enlightenment. Certain types of naturally occurring mushrooms contain hallucinogenic chemicals -- psilocybin and psilocin. These mushrooms are generally grown in Mexico and Central America and have been used in native rituals for thousands of years.


end part 1

By Admin (Admin) on Sunday, April 22, 2001 - 12:27 am: Edit

Part 2 Also known as Magic mushrooms, Mushies, Shrooms, Mexican mushrooms, they can be one of several species of mushroom, most commonly one of the following:

Stropharia (Psilocybe) cubensis
Panaeolus sphinctrinus,
subbalteatus (benanosis)
Psilocybe baeocystis
caerulescens
cyanescens,
mexicana
pelliculosa
semilanceata
stuntzii.

Some mushroom users order kits with the spores and grow their own in a closet or basement. Others look for naturally growing mushrooms and run the danger of mistakenly selecting poisonous mushrooms, which can cause death or permanent liver damage within hours of ingestion.

When purchased they are usually found as a small packet of dried vegetable matter, mainly grey in colour, with bluish and brownish bits, looking a bit like tree bark. It is often broken into small pieces, or sometimes ground into a grey powder. Magic mushrooms have a distinctive smell and taste,. Occasionally it is available as fresh or semi-wilted whole mushrooms. It is possible to extract the active ingredients to make powder, capsules or pills, though this is not common.

Mushrooms, which have a strong bitter taste and most people find unpleasant, can be eaten or brewed into a tea. The advantages of tea or juice is that you can swallow it quickly and experience the bad taste for only a short time. It is absorbed quickly, and therefor comes on quickly. The advantages of putting it on/in food is that the bad taste is disguised. Take mushrooms on an empty stomach. Drink lots of water - the body may to want to flush itself with water during the mushroom trip.

The effects of mushrooms are unpredictable each time they are used due to varying potency, the amount ingested, and the user's expectations, mood, surroundings, and frame of mind. Once ingested, mushrooms generally cause feelings of slight nausea and other physical symptoms before the desired mental effects appear. The high from using mushrooms is mild and consists of distorted perceptions. Effects may include different perceptions of stimuli like touch, sight, sound and taste. The effects are unpredictable each time they are used due to varying potency, the amount ingested, and the user's expectations, mood, surroundings, and frame of mind. There can be regression to a childish or childlike state. There are often feelings of oneness with everything, melting into your surroundings, or union with the universe. Affection and feeling of unity with things such as trees and rocks. Loss of ego, looking at your self seemingly from outside. Sometimes intense introspection and self-examination occurs as well as profound relaxation and the lack of desire to move. Time may pass without you noticing it. It is even possible to sleep while on mushrooms. Mushrooms have low toxicity on your body, so there are no physical after-effects. Some depression and frustration with everyday life may occur in the days following the mushroom trip. This is believed to be purely psychological. As with any other psychedelic, try a small dose first to get used to the experience. Do not use mushrooms if you are undergoing emotional problems, are depressed or have serious issues that are on your mind. The things that are worrying you can seem greatly magnified during the trip, and you may spend a long time in anguished introspection.

Some users order kits with the spores and grow their own in a closet or basement. Others look for naturally growing mushrooms, running the danger of mistakenly selecting poisonous mushrooms, which can cause death or permanent liver damage within hours of ingestion. Some dealers sell regular grocery store mushrooms laced with LSD or PCP as magic mushrooms.

Preserved mushrooms can vary greatly in potency. They may be just as strong as fresh mushrooms, or they may lose up to 50% of their potency. The determining factor is how they were dried and stored. Plus there's the issue of safety; if you find or grow your own mushrooms, you know that they're not laced with anything, and you're guaranteed 100% potency if you eat them freshly picked. Even if you decide to preserve them, you can do so in a manner which
won't impact their psychoactive compounds much.

Although mushrooms vary in potency (as with any organic substance, the potency will vary with the variety of mushroom, the way it was grown, how it was prepared, how it was stored, age etc.) the minimum dose to feel any effect seems to be around a gram of dried mushroom. Usual doses are one and a half grams or more. A level teaspoon is about two grams. More than six grams can cause temporary loss of contact with reality so take care with large doses. Fresh mushrooms are usually stronger than dried mushrooms and have a slightly different feel to them due to differing ratios of the active ingredients.

**********************************************
Psilocybin and Psilocin Info
**********************************************
Religious use of several psilocybin/psilocin-bearing species has been documented among the Mazatec, and is suspected among other groups ranging from pre-Christian Europeans to the ancient Greek. Psilocybes are used by Mexican healers (curanderos).

Psilocybin and psilocin are the active alcoloids from various kinds of mushrooms, especially Psilocybe Mexicana, though there are types of European mushroom which also contain this substance. Psilocybin and its dephosphorylated relative psilocin are the active substances in mushrooms such as Psilocybe cubensis, Panaeolus subbalteatus, and Gymnopilus spectabilis. Most of these mushrooms contain primarily psilocybin and only traces of psilocin, but the body converts most of the psilocybin ingested to psilocin, which is about ten times as psychoeffective. Psilocin (designated 4-hydroxy-N, N-dimethyltryptamine) and the human neurotransmitter serotonin (designated 5-hydroxytryptamine) differ by only one hydroxy molecule. In this respect, the mushrooms are mirror images of the human brain.

Psilocybin is the active ingredient in the Psilocybe mexicana mushroom and some other mushroom species. Psilocin is an accompanying alkaloid, usually present in small amounts. Psilocybin and psilocin are derivatives of tryptamine, and are chemically related to both LSD and DMT.

Pure psilocybin is a white crystalline substance, but the drug also may be distributed in crude mushroom preparations, in dried brown mushrooms, or as a capsule containing a powdered material of any color. It is usually taken orally, but may also be injected. Doses of the pure compound generally vary from 4 to 10 mg, although amounts up to 60 mg are not unusual.

Psilocybin is an indolamine. Its effects are not significantly different from those of LSD. The effective dose is approx. 10 mg. The effects are primarily on the seritonergic systems of the brain, and are similar to the activities of mescaline or LSD. Psilocybin acts via 5HT2A and 2C receptors and possibly additional ones. All psilocybin is immediately turned into psilocin by the body upon ingestion. Psilocin Goes into your brain and mixes with the natural chemicals (serotonin) in your brain (which are almost identical chemically to psilocin) that are responsible for plugging into your sensory receptors, and thus distorts your perception. Sensory effects are common, particularly intensifications of color perception, and "kaleidescope effects" with eyes closed. One elderly individual suffering from chronic hearing degredation reported that "small amounts of (Psilocybe cyanescens), too small to cause intoxication, had a remarkably positive effect on his hearing" (reported in Paul Stamets, Growing Gourmet and Medicinal Mushrooms). Mood alteration is also common, ranging from elation to anxiety. Feelings of paranormal occurances such as leaving the body or travelling through time are not uncommon.

First-time users have been known to find the experience a little frightening or overwhelming. The virgin should start with 4-5 psilocybe cubensis caps of average size. If picked in the wild and really big even one mushroom can be enough. Those who are more experienced can take more or less. Other varieties demand more or less depending on variety. Duration is generally 4-10 hours, and there are no lingering effects. The initial effects of this drug are felt after approximately half an hour and usually last several hours. A small dose (4 to 8 mg) may produce sensations of mental and physical relaxation, fatigue, detachment from surroundings, and sometimes feelings of physical heaviness or, conversely, lightness. Changes in mood and vivid perceptual distortion (particularly visual) may also occur. Thought patterns are disrupted, and intense preoccupation with trivial details often occurs. Users often report profound mystical or religious experiences.

Larger doses (13 mg or more) can produce dizziness; lightheadedness; abdominal discomfort; numbness of tongue, lips, or mouth; nausea; anxiety; and shivering. Marked changes in perception gradually develop, and the user experiences effects similar to those of LSD. Other reported effects include a sense of time passing slowly, yawning, facial flushing, sweating, depersonalization (a feeling of separation from one's body), feelings of unreality, and inability to concentrate.

Children often run high fevers after eating certain psilocybin mushrooms. In adults, the primary danger to long-term health is misidentification of the mushroom species. Many psilocybin- and psilocin-bearing fungi are "little brown mushrooms" and may be confused with other, poisonous kinds of "little brown mushrooms" by the mycologically naive. The substance purchased on the street as psilocybin is only occasionally the pure drug. Often such drugs as LSD and PCP are misrepresented as psilocybin. A fake variety of Psilocybin 'mushrooms' appeared on the market in Europe in the 1970's but they proved to be nothing but instant mushroom soup to which LSD had been added.

The psilometric scale of comparative potency of selected Psilocybe mushrooms:

P. azurenscens 1.78% PSILOCYBIN .38% PSILOCIN .35% BAEOCYSTIN
P. bohemica 1.34% PSILOCYBIN .11% PSILOCIN .02% BAEOCYSTIN
P. semilanceata .98% PSILOCYBIN .02% PSILOCIN .36% BAEOCYSTIN
P. baeocystis .85% PSILOCYBIN .59% PSILOCIN .10% BAEOCYSTIN
P. cyanescens .85% PSILOCYBIN .36% PSILOCIN .03% BAEOCYSTIN
P. tampanensis .68% PSILOCYBIN .32% PSILOCIN n/a% BAEOCYSTIN
P. cubensis .63% PSILOCYBIN .60% PSILOCIN .025% BAEOCYSTIN
P. weilii .61% PSILOCYBIN .27% PSILOCIN .05% BAEOCYSTIN
P. hoogshagenii .60% PSILOCYBIN .10% PSILOCIN n/a% BAEOCYSTIN
P. stuntzii .36% PSILOCYBIN .12% PSILOCIN .02% BAEOCYSTIN
P. cyanofibrillosa .21% PSILOCYBIN .04% PSILOCIN n/a% BAEOCYSTIN
P. liniformans .16% PSILOCYBIN n/d% PSILOCIN .005 % BAEOCYSTIN

**********************************************
General "Psychedelics" Info
**********************************************
The psychedelic ("mind-manifesting" or "mind-revealing") drugs are substances with unusually wide-ranging psychological effects that vary greatly depending on the setting and the user's personality and expectations. The difficulty of defining these effects is indicated by some of the other proposed names: hallucinogenic ("producing hallucinations"), psychotomimetic ("mimicking psychosis"), psychodysleptic ("mind-disrupting"), and psycholytic ("mind-loosening"). What the drugs have in common is the capacity more or less consistently to produce vivid and unusual changes in thought, feeling, and perception without delirium or severe generalized toxic physical effects.

There are about a half dozen natural psychedelic drugs and scores of synthetic ones, most of them variants on a few chemical structures. The best known natural psychedelics are mescaline, ound in the peyote cactus, and psilocybin, found in about a hundred species of mushrooms. Others are harmine, harmaline, and dimethyltryptamine (DMT), which are found in the bark and seeds of certain South American vines and trees; and ibogaine, from the root of an African plant.
Among synthetic psychedelics, the best known is lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), which is chemically related to the lysergic acid amides, substances found in certain morning glory seeds. Other synthetic psychedelics are diethyltryptamine (DET), dipropyltryptamine (DPT), and a number of substances classified as methoxylated amphetamines, such as 2,5-dimethoxy-4-methylamphetamine (DOM) and 2,5-dimethoxy-4ethylamphetamine (DOET).

All these drugs act similarly on the human brain, although some have more intense or longer-lasting effects than others. They probably work by substituting themselves for the neurotransmitter serotonin at certain nerve receptors, increasing their activity and thereby inhibiting the transmission of nerve impulses that restrain activity in other parts of the brain. The most potent of them, LSD, is active at a dose of 50 micrograms, which is less than one five hundred thousandth of an ounce; mescaline is about four thousand times less powerful. LSD and mescaline are active for six to ten hours, psilocybin for two to four hours, and DOM for as long as 24 hours.

The quality of psychedelic experiences is well conveyed by the colloquial term �trip.� Changes in thought, feeling, and perception, especially at high doses, are often profound and complex. Dreamlike imagery appears before closed eyes, and the world looks strange to open eyes. Perceptions are intensified, and ordinarily unnoticed details compel attention. Although true hallucinations are rare, visual distortions are common, and the appearance of faces and objects is often transformed. The user's body image is altered, and time and space may seem warped. Emotions become unusually intense and may change abruptly; suggestibility increases greatly. The self may seem to lose its boundaries, merge with internal images or the external world, or even dissolve in mystical oneness. The experience is often suffused with a sense of heightened reality and significance that may produce feelings of personal, religious, or philosophical insight. Physically, the drugs act as stimulants, producing enlarged pupils, increased heart rate, and faster breathing. Their effects on the mind can also produce a great variety of accompanying psychosomatic sensations.

The most common disturbing reaction to psychedelic drugs is psychiatrically classified as hallucinogen hallucinosis and better known as a bad trip. It resembles an acute paranoid or acute anxiety reaction; the symptoms may include panic, depression, confusion, and fear of insanity as well as perceptual distortions and, less often, psychotic inability to test the reality of thoughts and perceptions. The reaction ends soon after the drug leaves the body -- almost always within 24 hours. Bad trips are apparently more likely if the person taking the drug already has serious emotional problems or is not comfortable with the setting and company. Reassurance is the best treatment; the patient should be made comfortable and "talked down." A tranquilizer or sedative may be needed, preferably diazepam (Valium). Antipsychotic drugs are used as a last resort.

Prolonged or delayed adverse reactions can take almost as many forms as the drug experience itself, from a mild recurrence of a drug-induced perceptual change to a true psychosis. The most common delayed reaction is the flashback, a transitory recurrence of perceptual and emotional changes originally produced by the drug. Although visual effects are especially common -- flashes of color, after-images, visual distortions -- flashbacks may replicate almost any aspect of the drug experience. They usually last a few seconds to a few minutes; most are regarded as merely annoying, interesting, or even pleasant, but some are frightening. They usually decrease quickly in number and intensity with time, but in a small percentage of cases they become intrusive and disturbing and continue for months or even years.

Flashbacks are more likely to occur at times of fatigue or emotional stress and under the influence of alcohol or drugs (especially marijuana), they are also associated with repeated psychedelic drug use and with bad trips. There is no good evidence that psychedelic drug users who have flashbacks differ from others in personality and previous psychiatric history. Flashbacks have been explained as a posttraumatic reaction, as a kind of automatic memory retrieval, or as the effect of a lowered brain threshold for the involuntary production of imagery and fantasy.

Prolonged reactions to psychedelic drugs may take the form of panic attacks, mood disorders, anxiety, paranoia, or psychosis. Most end within 48 hours, but a few continue for weeks or even months. In these cases it is sometimes difficult to distinguish drug effects from unrelated psychiatric disorders with symptoms colored by the drug experience.

People with a history of drug abuse, psychiatric illness, or personality disorders are most susceptible; for example, researchers comparing psychotic reactions following LSD use with psychotic episodes unrelated to drugs found that the patients in both groups were similar in personality, previous psychiatric history, and outcome. In general, psychedelic experiences seem to produce a prolonged psychosis mainly in people who are vulnerable to stress because of heredity, personality, psychiatric disorders, or current circumstances. There are no specific treatments for prolonged reactions; they are managed with the same combination of psychotherapy and medication that would be used for similar symptoms not caused by drugs.

Psychedelic drug use is mostly experimental and driven by curiosity; long-term or frequent use is uncommon. Tolerance develops quickly, probably because serotonin nerve receptors lose their sensitivity after constant stimulation. A person who becomes tolerant to one psychedelic drug will be tolerant to others as well. As a result, the drugs are rarely used more than once or twice a week. Even if tolerance were not so high, most people would find the effects too powerful and unpredictable for frequent use. Craving, withdrawal reactions, and drug dependence in the ordinary sense are unknown; laboratory animals offered LSD refuse to take it.

Nevertheless, a few people may become chronic abusers, taking a psychedelic drug repeatedly when they know or should know that it is harming them. Most studies suggest that chronic LSD users tend to be eccentric and socially marginal, but have no consistent psychotic or other psychiatric symptoms, and no signs of organic brain damage or major abnormalities on neuropsychological tests. Many American Indians who are members of the Native American Church use peyote every few weeks for years in their religious services; there is no evidence that it causes them to develop brain damage or chronic psychiatric symptoms. There are reports of abnormalities in the vision of some habitual LSD users -- especially prolonged after-images and trails, illusions of movement, slow adaptation to darkness, and a low critical flicker fusion rate (the speed at which images presented successively to the eye fuse into one).

In our society, people who habitually use psychedelic drugs are unusual, and any symptoms they show might be causes as well as effects of drug use. Some researchers report a chronic psychosis resembling schizophrenia that is said to be associated with prolonged psychedelic use. The evidence is hard to evaluate. The people described might have been developing schizophrenia independently of their drug use; LSD might have brought on the symptoms earlier or reinforced their psychotic tendencies; or they might have been using LSD in a futile attempt at self-medication. Some severely disturbed persons may take psychedelic drugs in an attempt to rationalize and justify their feelings of being different.

In many cases the habits and beliefs of a psychedelic drug user change not because of any pharmacological effect but because of the way the experience is interpreted. Psychedelic drugs create the conditions for change by loosening associations, disrupting the stability of perceptions allowing the normally unconscious backdrop of experience to emerge into the foreground, and altering the sense of reality. In this situation, restless persons already dissatisfied with themselves and their culture may find their world views, goals, and personal habits changing. How deep this change goes, how long it persists, and what residues it leaves depend more on culture, personality, companions, and circumstances than on specific effects of the drug. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, some people used LSD as a way of establishing membership in a certain social group and declaring a cultural allegiance. They were sometimes called �acidheads� or �acid freaks.� Today, repeated psychedelic use is not only less common but more often associated with other kinds of drug use.

LSD is by far the most common psychedelic drug on the illicit market. Mescaline and psilocybin are available only in their natural forms; any white powder or pill sold under these labels is almost certainly either LSD or phencyclidine (PCP). Illicit psychedelic drug use, like most illicit drug use, has been steadily declining since the late 1970s. Among people aged 18 to 25, surveys show that in 1979, 29 percent had used a psychedelic drug at least once; in 1985 only 12 percent had. At ages 12 to 17, the figures are 7.1 percent and 3.2 percent. Even in 1979, only four percent of people aged 18 to 25 said they had used a psychedelic drug in the previous month; by 1985 that number had fallen to one percent. Most observers also believe that doses have become lower, expectations less exalted, and adverse reactions correspondingly less common.

Therapeutic potential has been claimed for psychedelic drugs ever since they were discovered. In Mexico, South America, and elsewhere, indigenous peoples have used peyote, psilocybin mushrooms, and plants containing harmaline, ibogaine, and DMT for thousands of years as religious and healing agents. In the Native American Church, periodic use of mescaline is, in part, an attempt to treat alcoholism. Many users of LSD come to believe that the sense of insight it creates is at least sometimes genuine rather than delusional. From 1950 to mid-1960s, researchers extensively investigated the therapeutic use of various psychedelic drugs. The research has almost stopped because of legal restrictions, lack of funds, and the equivocal results of experiments, but interest has not died out entirely.

Two types of psychedelic drug therapy were developed. In psychedelic therapy, a high dose of LSD or a related drug was used, usually no more than once or twice, in an attempt to provoke a transforming mystical or spiritual experience. In psycholytic therapy smaller doses were given at regular intervals to enhance the production of feelings and fantasies and probe the sources of emotional problems in personal history. Many combinations and variations of both types of therapy were used in the experimental treatment of alcoholism, obsessive-compulsive disorder, psychosomatic symptoms, sociopathic behavior, and other disorders. Psychedelic drugs were also given to dying cancer patients to ease their pain and help them resolve unfinished emotional business with their families.

Although occasional adverse reactions occurred, most studies show a low rate of serious complications, especially when patients were properly screened, prepared, and supervised. But long-term effectiveness was never proved. Psychedelic drug researchers did not come to agreement about how to conduct therapy for specific problems. Because the effects of the drug are unmistakable, it is impossible to use the standard technique of a controlled experiment in which neither the person administering the drug nor the one taking it knows whether it is an active substance or a placebo. Reports of adverse reactions in the recreational use of psychedelics began to appear in the 1960s and dealt therapeutic research a blow from which it has not recovered.

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STERILIZATION & STERILE TECHNIQUES
**********************************************
Endospores are difficult to kill (sterilization schemes generally are deemed effective only if they are capable of killing endospores and endospores are often the most difficult to kill organisms in any sterilization scheme). If you fail to kill endospores they will germinate and contamination of your media, etc. . Higher temperatures are employed because water boils at a higher temperature when heated under the higher pressures attainable in the autoclave. An application of pressure is required to guarantee sterilization since the heat of steam generated by boiling water at normal atmospheric pressure is 100°C.

Dry heat kills by oxidizing organic compounds (i.e., it burns things). Sterilization employing dry heat requires much higher temperatures then moist heat. Nevertheless, application of dry heat is very useful when sterilizing materials that are resistant to these high temperatures. Direct flaming employs dry heat (e.g., such as the flaming of a loop). Hot-air sterilization is also known as baking in an oven. Effective sterilization typically conservatively occurs by two hours at 170°C.

Autoclaving is a method of sterilization employing moist heat at temperatures in excess of that of boiling water at sea level (i.e., > 100°C). This is done by using high pressure steam. Autoclaving tends to be used for sterilizing under all circumstances where the high temperatures employed (typically 121°C and higher) will not damage the item or substance being sterilized. Under circumstances where the item or substance is in direct contact (or nearly so) with the steam, sterilization will occur after 15 minutes at 121°C. Higher temperatures may be employed for faster sterilization but only if the item or substance will not break down at these higher temperatures. When heating larger, bulky items or high volume liquids it is necessary to autoclave for longer. Generally, though, once a moist item is up to temperature it takes only 15 minutes for complete sterilization to occur at 121°C.

Anything that impedes the flow of moist heat (trapped air, materials
impervious to moisture but not microorganisms, etc.) will not necessarily
be sterilized by autoclaving.

Microwaves work through hydroxyl bonds. Microwaves excite the O-H bond in water (both of them) and sometimes the O-H bond in alcohol (one of them), and produce heat in this way. Basically causing friction on an atomic level that results in food, etc. getting hot. True that bacteria may explode in a microwave but why take the chance of contamination. Microwaves would most likely have little to no effect on bacterial endospores, which have virtually no water (the source of hydroxyl bonds). Remember that indoor cultivation of fungi is dependent on a non-selective medium...this means that it is suitable, if not optimized, for the growth of most microorganisms. In the wild there is much pressure on organisms. As a result, most have evolved to occupy definite niches. A cowpie (and the dead grass under it) is an extremely selective environment. Most of the bacteria found in your kitchen won't do very well there, just as most mushrooms won't grow in your kitchen!

Do yourself a favor and get a pressure cooker. You can frequently find them
in good condition at Thrift Stores for a few dollars.

Ryche Hawk's STERILE TEK http://www.primenet.com/~rychhawk/exotic_psilocybes/steriletips.html


**********************************************
LAWS
**********************************************


Because spores contain no psilocybin, spores are legal in all states except California. But in most states, it is illegal to cultivate or propogate spores into mycelium since mycelium generally contains psilocybin. Psilocybin is on the DEA�s schedule one drug list (http://www.usdoj.gov/dea/pubs/abuse/chap1/control/sched1.htm) because it is considered that:
� The drug or other substance has a high potential for abuse.
� The drug or other substance has no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States.
� There is a lack of accepted safety for use of the drug or other substance under medical supervision.

In Canada, the drug is governed by the Food and Drugs Act, Part 4. It is a restricted drug. Upon summary conviction for possession, first offense, penalty is a fine of up to $1,000 and/or up to six months' imprisonment; for subsequent offenses $2,000 and/or one year; upon conviction by indictment $5,000 and/or three years. Trafficking and possession for the purpose of trafficking are punishable upon summary conviction by up to 18 months' imprisonment and upon conviction by indictment up to 10 years. However, posession of spores is legal.

Here is the part if the California Health & safety code that pertains to psilocybin:

California Health and Safety Code
(notes)
ARTICLE 7. MUSHROOMS
Section 11390. Cultivation of spores or mycelium capable of producing
mushrooms or other material containing controlled substance; punishment Except as otherwise authorized by law, every person who, with intent to produce a controlled substance specified in paragraph (18) or (19) of subdivision (d) of Section 11054, cultivates any spores or mycelium capable of producing mushrooms or other material which contains such a controlled substance shall be punished by imprisonment in the county jail for a period of not more than one year or in the state prison. . (Added by Stats. 1985, c. 1264, section 2.)
Section 11391. Transporting, importing, selling, furnishing, giving away, etc. spores or mycelium capable of producing mushrooms containing controlled substance to violate Section 11390; punishment Except as otherwise authorized by law, every person who transports, imports into this state, sells, furnishes, gives away, or offers to transport, import into this state, sell, furnish, or give away any spores or mycelium capable of producing mushrooms or other material which contain a controlled substance specified in paragraph (18) or (19) of subdivision (d) of Section 11054 for the purpose of facilitating a violation of Section 11390 shall be punished by imprisonment in the county jail for a period of not more than one year or in the state prison. . (Added by Stats. 1985,
c. 1264, Section 2.)
Section 11392. Spores or mycelium capable of producing mushrooms or other material containing psilocyn or psyocylin [SIC]; use in research, instruction, or analysis. Spores or mycelium capable of producing mushrooms or other material which contains psilocyn or psyoclyin [SIC] may be lawfully obtained and used for bona fide research, instruction, or analysis, of not in violation of federal law, and if the research, instruction, or analysis is approved by the Research Advisory Panel established pursuant to Sections 11480 and 11481. (Added by Stats. 1985, c. 1264, Section 2.)

**********************************************
Anonymity, Privacy, and Security
**********************************************

Anonymity, privacy, and security are each separate issues. There's enough information in the headers of your posts for the authorities to identify you, even if you use a fake name and email address. You can always be found out. Fortunately, not too many people have the time nor desire to hunt you down. To see what information you're giving away, look at the complete header of a post. Since e-stuff isn't protected like phone calls or regular mail, anybody can look at your transmitted stuff and you can't do anything about it. To somewhat hide yourself, change the name/ address personal information in your newsreader's preferences section or post via an anonymous remailer. Note that many remailers won't handle binaries because of the load and if they do, they take a long time. To help cover yourself, post items at off times when admin won't likely be watching. You'd be amazed at how cooperative your Internet Service Provider can be about closing an account and sharing information with law enforcement agencies. They'd rather lose your small fee than harbor a criminal or troublemaker. In Usenet, behave like you're in a public place and under scrutiny, because you are. You'd be wise to keep your real identity out of Usenet. No need to make it easy for them.

Generally, today people's `identity' on the internet is primarily
determined by their email address in the sense that this is their most
unchanging 'face' in the electronic realm. This is your login name
qualified by the complete address domain information, for example
``[email protected]''. People see this address when
receiving mail or reading USENET posts from you and in other situations where programs record usage. Some obsolete forms of addresses (such as BITNET) still persist.

In e-mail messages, additional information on the path that a message takes is prepended to the message received by the recipient. This information identifies the chain of hosts involved in the transmission and is a very accurate trace of its origination. This type of identify-and-forward
protocol is also used in the USENET protocol to a lesser extent. Forging these fields requires corrupted mailing software at sites involved in the forwarding and is very uncommon. Not so uncommon is forging the chain at the origination point, so that all initial sites in the list are faked at the time the message is created. Tracing these messages can be difficult or impossible when the initial faked fields are names of real machines and represent real transfer routes.

Generally, you should expect little privacy on your account for various reasons:

- Potentially, every keystroke you type could be intercepted by
someone else.

- System administrators make extensive backups that are completely
invisible to users which may record the states of an account over
many weeks.

- Erased files can, under many operating systems, be undeleted.

- Most automated services keep logs of use for troubleshooting or
otherwise; for example FTP sites usually log the commands and
record the domain originations of users, including anonymous
ones.

- Some software exacerbates these problems.

It is a good idea to use PGP (Pretty Good Privacy -- Public key encryption. You generate two keys, one public and one private. You publicly give out your public key to the public. When a message is sent to you, only you can decrypt it because you have your private key, which you keep private. Not even the person sending the message can decrypt it. Only you, having the private key and your pass phrase, can decrypt it.

An excellent resource for anyone interested in security is eff.net (the Electronic Frontier Foundation) (http://www.eff.net.org).

From ftp.eff.org:/pub/EFF/mission_statement:

> The Electronic Frontier Foundation has been established to help
> civilize the electronic frontier; to make it truly useful and
> beneficial not just to a technical elite, but to everyone; and to
> do this in a way which is in keeping with our society's highest
> traditions of the free and open flow of information and
> communication.

EFF was started by the multimillionaire Mitchell Kapor, founder of Lotus software, and John Barlow, lyricist for the Grateful Dead rock band. A highly publicized endeavor of the organization involved the legal defense of Steve Jackson Games after an FBI raid and an accompanying civil suit. The foundation publishes EFF News (EFFector Online) electronically, send requests to [email protected].

some privacy-related newsgroups:

alt.comp.acad-freedom.news
alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk
--------------------------
Moderated and unmoderated issues related to academic freedom and privacy at universities. Documented examples of violated privacy in e.g. email. Documented examples of `censorship' as in e.g. limiting USENET groups local availability.

alt.cyberpunks
--------------
Virtual reality, (science) fiction by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling, cyberpunk in the mainstream.

alt.hackers
-----------
USENET Network News Transfer Protocol (NNTP) posting mechanisms, Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP), `obligatory hack' reports.

alt.privacy and alt.privacy.anon-server
-----------
General privacy issues involving taxpaying, licensing, social security
numbers, etc.

alt.security
comp.security.misc
------------------
Computer related security issues. FAQ in news.answers below.

alt.security.pgp
----------------
Dedicated to discussing PGP, or ``Pretty Good Privacy'' Software developed
by Phil Zimmerman for public key encryption.


comp.society.privacy
--------------------
Privacy issues associated with computer technologies. Examples: caller identification, social security numbers, credit applications, mailing lists, etc. Moderated.

comp.eff.news
comp.eff.talk
-------------
Moderated and unmoderated groups associated with the Electronic Frontier Foundation started by Mitch Kapor for protecting civil and constitutional rights in the electronic realm.

news.admin
news.admin.policy
-----------------
Concerns of news administrators. NNTP standards and mechanisms.

news.lists
----------
USENET traffic distributions. Most frequent posters, most voluminous
groups, most active sites, etc.

sci.crypt
---------
Considers scientific and social issues of cryptography. Examples:
legitimate use of PGP, public-key patents, DES, cryptographic security, cypher breaking, etc.

For accessing web sites anonymously:
http://www.anonymizer.com/

For nym.alias.net home page:
http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~raph/n.a.n.html

For PGP encryption software:
http://web.mit.edu/network/pgp-form.html

For AnonPost software:
http://home.clara.net/j.davies/anonpost/index.htm

For Private Idaho software (makes nym.alias.net setup and remailers easy):
http://www.eskimo.com/~joelm/popcrypt.html (for PI version 2.8b3)
http://home.sn.no/~balchen/igloo/pidaho/ (for version 3.52t as of 7/98)

Jack B Nymble (for Win95) and Potato Software (DOS)
The Potato Software Homepage:
http://www.bigfoot.com/~potatoware
http://members.tripod.com/~l4795

Remailer information:
http://www.publius.net/rlist.html

Also you can add "x-no-archive: yes" without the quotes as the first line of your posted message, or in the �extra headers� section of your
newsbrowser. The post will not be archived by DejaNews, etc.

web-based FREE e-mail accounts:
http://hotmail.com
http://yahoo.com
http://tripod.com
http://iname.com
http://freeyellow.com
http://rocketmail.com
http://mailcity.com

**********************************************
Posting Pictures (binaries)
**********************************************

adm is a non-binary news group.

To post pictures anonymously for use with adm, use a UUEncoder to convert the picture to a .uue text file. Paste the text of that file into the body of your anon message, then post the message anonymously as you usually do. There may be other ways to do the same, but this does work.

There doesn't have to be any explanitory text with the posted picture.
Post it to alt.binaries.pictures.misc, alt.binaries.test (or another
suitable binary NG that is on your news server) and prefix the subject line with "adm" so our pics will be listed together on the server. (eg - Subject: adm yadayada)

Once the picture shows up on your server, then make a post to
alt.drugs.mushrooms indicating the exact subject line, binary newsgroup, and (if possible) the Message-ID of the binary post along with the reason why you want the NG to look at it. The easiest way to do this is to
copy/paste those three headers directly from the binary post when you check your server.

I think most news readers would see that picture as an attachment. If
yours does not, save the file to disk. Then use your UU decoder to
convert the file to its image format to view it.

Make sure your picture contains no identifying objects, like your face.

**********************************************
Posting by (anonymous) e-mail to newsgroups:
**********************************************

Information on posting by (anonymous) e-mail to newsgroups can be found at http://www.replay.com/mail2news/

To use one of these gateways to post anonymously, you must use an anonymous remailer to send email. Galactus has a good remailer page, or consult the cannonical remailer list. Remailers are not strictly mail to news gateways, and typically use an outside mail to news gateway to post, for these
reasons I do not list any here. For Private Idaho, you may wish to consult a PIdaho mail2news help page. If you need need an open NNTP server to read news from, there are lists maintained by Dark Demon, Jammed and Rob.

For posting news via the web, visit DejaNews or Reference.com.

For more info on remailers see:
http://electron.rutgers.edu/~gambino/anon_servers/anon.html
http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~raph/remailer-list.html

For more on info on general security and privacy see:
http://www.stack.urc.tue.nl/~galactus/remailers/
http://www.well.com/user/abacard

**********************************************
USENET BASICS
**********************************************

How It Works:

Each part of the Internet was designed to carry certain types of data; that is, they use different "transfer protocols." For instance:

o The Worldwide Web is HTTP, short for HyperText Transfer Protocol.
(Hypertext refers to the links you see in web pages and help files.) Web pages can contain text, videos, music, java scripts - just about anything.

o FTP is File Transfer Protocol. Any type of file can be accepted by FTP servers.

o Email servers use SMTP, Simple Mail Transfer Protocol, limited to ASCII text. Ah, but you can email binary attachments, you say? Read on!

Usenet articles are sent from one news server to another much like email, via Network News Transfer Protocol (NNTP). The articles I post to my server are forwarded to my server's "mailing list" of other news servers, which then send the articles to their list of servers, and so on. Usenet articles ripple out from the originating site, taking varying amounts of time and various routes to travel to you.

Since posted articles are treated like email, Usenet was never meant to handle binary material; just ASCII text. To work around this, early net gods devised ways of converting (encoding) binaries into text for posting to "bulletin boards" (the ancestors of Usenet), and then back to their
original binary form (decoding) after downloading. Many encoding schemes are available, but UUencode/UUdecode is the accepted Usenet standard. A good newsreader can detect binaries and perform all of the
encoding/decoding for you. Many email programs do the same, enabling you to send binary files via SMTP, converted into ASCII.

Usenet/Internet Info:

o alt.answers or news.answers - tons of FAQs
o http://www.dejanews.com - Usenet archive
o http://www.dogpile.com - use 11 search engines at once
o http://www.netlingo.com - Internet dictionary
o http://www.newbie.net - courses, FAQs
o http://www.newbie-u.com - courses, FAQs

**********************************************
FAQ HISTORY:
**********************************************

updated 9/26/98
updated 9/25/98
updated 9/21/98
beta version (posted 9/19/98) created by Sex Cow

-------------END OF FAQ--------