Is there any studies out there? Any doctors here with an opinion? I am talking like say people who smoke maybe 1 pipe of jungle mapacho or other organic tobacco a day compared to commerical cigarettes with all the toxins they add to them..even once a day is too much for me but I do use it occasionally in small ammounts with ayahuasca.

You never hear about this and it is very taboo amongst herbalists that tobacco can be used and is as a medicine.

I'm not aware of any studies on this but an organic N Rustica preparations' advantage over commercial ready-rolled cigarettes will be the absence of additives.Other than that, I think that because mapacho can be more nicotine-heavy than alot of other tobaccos, one would need to smoke less weight and less frequently, thereby limiting the exposure of the lungs to its adverse effects.

Mapacho will be almost as bad as other tobacco. The reason why smoking tobacco is so much worse than smoking other plants is because the nicotine paralyzes your cilia and obstructs tar removal, but as corpus callosum said, just the fact that you're smoking less plant material is better.

All in all, I wouldn't classify it as a risk for occasional usage..

people smoke packs of toxic laden cancer every day and it takes 10-20 years for the really horrible stuff to start happening. 1 few tokes on aya of organic tobacco while probably not good for you will I doubt have the same affect as nibbling on some dead flesh or meat.

Also, cannabis users or smokers of any kind will have almost any adverse effects from smoking tobacco occasionally (I.E once a week or something) removed from the expectorant powers of cannabis helping cough up any tar.

I think no smoke is good for our lungs, even if it is less worse then real cigarettes, it is still a step in wrong direction, our body don't need it.

Also, nicotine is one of most addictive substances out there, so it is easy for smoking to grow into a habit.

Regarding Cannabis, no coughing is going to help you, ever. It is just a sign that you are torturing your lungs. The statement: "I'm coughing, therefore my lungs are cleaned" is very funny but not true at all. It is basic reaction from you body trying to protect itself from the smoke, any smoke harsh enough to cause harm. So yes, you are evacuating some impurities by coughing, but your lungs are still dirtier then before smoking. Smoking and healthy life don't go well together, some discipline and willpower is needed to live healthy life.

That being said, if you really are addicted and/or concerned by health, I think vaporizing is the less harmful way.

it is funny you know..I can totally feel and understand the addictice pull of tobacco. However, I feel somewhat immune to it as well..it does not phase me really..like I understand that pull to have more and more..but I just dont. Maybe this is just because I have never used it on a frequent basis though..I smoke it and then dont touch it for a while..unless you count me adding like 25-50mg of it into a brew of like more than 10 doses of aya..

I dont like the way my lungs feel after I smoke it though, and half the time it will give me a headache. I generally dont like smoking anything these days though..I have not smoked cannabis at all in about a month even. I did smoke DMT once this week for the first time in about 4 months..if I smoke to much of anything though it bothers me these days..I used to smoke weed all day long for years..dont ask me how..cannabis smoking does not feel good for my lungs.

I think mapacho is very heavy to smoke if you inhale it fully, i wanted to use it for spliffs with cannabis but after just a few tokes i´m full.

Usually i roll up a mapacho cigg and just take small tokes that i rinse in my mouth, and mayb just 1/5 of the toke goes down my lungs.

I too am very interested in this. While i occasionally smoke RYO American Spirits (about once a week), I have never felt any "pull" or addiction to it, a lot of times going weeks or months between.

I got a roll of mapacho, and have tried smoking it, but the smoke is just way to harsh for me. Also, it kind of tastes alkaloid-y to me, and i really don't like the nausea that can come with either.

So instead, I dried it and used it to make an intranasal snuff. I really enjoy this snuff, and it brings a nice head rush and attentiveness to any other experience, as well as being quite enjoyable on its own. I have felt a small addictive pull to it, but only right after use, and this subsides within a day.

So my question is, how often could I use the snuff without harming my sinuses and avoiding most other health problems?

The snuff is mostly mapacho, with a pinch of coca leaf and a punch of hydrated lime.

Agreed.



I can relate. I used to smoke cigs on and off, with no withdrawals or addictive pull towards it. I've quit for good now though. I hate the smell, the taste, and the way it makes my lungs feel. That, and I don't want to get cancer.



That's why you vaporize or eat it!

For me Aya has shown me what that pull actually is in its essence. The pull you speak of is an energy that is present in many things. Its addictive energy. Aya has shown me how to turn that pull on and off like a light switch. Perhaps the same thing has occurred for you but you just haven't put it into words. Life is so easy to control now that I've been shown its mechanism.

People complain about how "this is too hard" or "I cant do that" when in reality we have much more control over out reality than most realize.

Cheers

I think Mapacho has it's uses in ceremonial settings for Ayahuasca, dmt, or whatever other entheogen you are planning to journey on: It helps create a special sacred space. Occasional use should be relatively fine as long as you don't inhale it , or only slightly inhale it.

I smoke mapacho maybe once every other day but always in a pipe and never rolling a whole log of it, as well as puffing my cheeks and never inhaling. I always pray when I'm using it and never take it for granted as it's another ally plant spirit like ayahuasca. In fact, most shamans believe smoking mapacho regularly builds up your "magic darts" of phlegm which help in healing yourself and others. I personally gain benefit from the nicotine and harmalas in it for my writing and over all well being.

All the people saying tobacco is unhealthy are not quite informed. In fact nicotine is healthy for the heart and is an anti-inflamatory. The harmalas in mapacho obviously help under the MAOI function. Of course smoking a lot of plant matter is bad for your lungs but if you have a good diet and smoke occasionally you'll be fine. It's ironic to hear people talk about problems of tobacco and lungs when they probably freebase DMT. Most of them are referring to commercial tobacco anyways which has 400 additives.

The curandero I work with has said, "mapacho in the cheek or stomach, good; mapacho in the lungs, not so good". So I try to cheek smoke when I use mapacho, although I really have no idea how to do that or if I'm doing it right :-)

That said, I have felt absolutely zero addictive pull in working with it. It's led me to question everything I was taught about tobacco during the Just Say No & DARE years. Of course working with mapacho is so completely different than cigarette smoking:

- Subjectively, mapacho use is intentional, usually with a mindset of prayer or healing; cigarette smoking is habitual, often with an unconscious/default mindset.
- Objectively, mapacho is a different species of tobacco and free of additives; cigarettes are laced with hundreds of different additives, many of which are particularly nasty and unhealthful. ETA: mapacho is at least in some traditions not inhaled into the lungs the way cigarette smokers in our culture smoke. It's also worked with in other ways such as nasal snuffs and infusions.
- Intersubjectively, mapacho use originates from a tribal cultural context and is held as a powerful, sacred ally. Cigarette smoking in our culture is held as an unhealthful, shameful addiction.
- Interobjectively, mapacho use occurs mostly in ceremonies and during private prayer, etc. Cigarettes are produced by corporations for profit, distributed as consumer commodities, and smoked casually at any time.

I suspect that somewhere in these types of differences—probably mostly additives, cultural story, and perhaps the magnification of corporate intent by the tobacco—is the difference between something addictive and something not.

Well said Lagomorph. I haven't smoked mapacho in a couple weeks now and never felt the pull to use. Each time I do smoke though, it is an experience in itself. The haramalas give you more of trance state so it's almost like a very brief pot trip. & Just like the ganja, it should be respected and not used so constantly. I am sad when I hear habitual pot smokers talk down on tobacco.

Can you cite any sources for this ?



Are you proposing that the physical dynamic of the smoke and lung tissue contact is somehow altered because of these factors ?

It seems toombak (mixture of fermented Nicotiana rustica and aqueous solution of sodium bicarbonate) contains nitrosamine that might be carcinogenic.

http://carcin.oxfordjour.../content/12/6/1115.short
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9930371

I wasn't able to find any studies that deal with smoking Nicotiana rustica.

Nope. If I thought there were a difference there (whether caused by the above listed factors or some other cause), I would have listed that in the "objective" category.

Do allow me to refer you back to the beginning of my post and the ayahuascero's quote about smoke and lung tissue contact.

I think it´s quite naive to think smoking mapacho can be beneficial for your health, or that anything that comes from the south american jungle or that is practiced by shamans is by definition good for you, or at least harmless.

You probably don´t get cancer from smoking it just a few times a year or something, but to expect beneficial effects from smoking tobaco...everyone knows that smoking tobaco ain´t good for you. I don´t see how another cultural setting etc, would change any of that.

If it would be the culture in wich smoking cigarettes is embedded, wich would cause it to be harmfull, then everybody in western society, smokers and non-smokers alike, would have an equal chance of getting lungcancer. This clearly aint the case. If it would be the 'corporate karma' of cigarettes that would cause it to be harmfull, then you should expect LSD to be extremely harmfull, as it was used by the CIA in sadistic experiments, and you should also expect cannabis to be extremely harmfull, because cannabis traffic and trade is being dominated by criminal organisations like those nasty mexican cartels that terrorise the country.

If 'being an integrated part of modern western lifestyle' would automatically make a thing harmfull, or 'being sold and produced by big corporations' for that matter, then brushing your teeth would be extremely harmfull as well. But the fact is that most western people will still have all of their teeth at the age of 70, while most of the indigenous people of the amazonian region will have lost nearly all of their teeth at the age of 20.

The life expectancy of people who live in indigenous tribes is actually lower than that of people who live in industrialised places, by the way. They don´t even live half as long as most people in industrialised nations.

I can see how many people don´t like some aspects of industrialised society. But often-not meaning to offend anyone here-that resentment takes weird and irrational forms. Believing that smoking tobaco in a traditional setting is beneficial is definately one of them.

Actually polytrip nicotine itself has some benificial effects in the brain when used in moderation..like most things.

Tobacco is also one of the strongest anti parasitic herbs you will come across, as well as anti fungal. Nematodes in the lungs for instance can be treated quite effectivly by simply having a puff of tobacco for a few days.

I think tobacco has been sort of forgotten by traditional herbalists and this is a sad sort of dogmatic thing to have happened. It has it's uses just like other "poisons" like mugwort, black walnut or even strychnine containing seeds.

"it would be the culture in wich smoking cigarettes is embedded, wich would cause it to be harmfull, then everybody in western society, smokers and non-smokers alike, would have an equal chance of getting lungcancer. This clearly aint the case. If it would be the 'corporate karma' of cigarettes that would cause it to be harmfull, then you should expect LSD to be extremely harmfull, as it was used by the CIA in sadistic experiments, and you should also expect cannabis to be extremely harmfull, because cannabis traffic and trade is being dominated by criminal organisations like those nasty mexican cartels that terrorise the country."


This is not a fair depiction thogh polytrip. You should be comparing tobacco in our culture to LSD that is cut with other toxins, and additives like partcles of fiberglass put there to be lodged inside of the body to increase uptake of that LSD.

Tobacco the way it is used in our society is like some kind of frankenstein model of how this plant would naturally be used.

Also, how much do you undertand of amerindian culture in relation to tobacco? There is not a whole lot of evidence as far as I know of native american chain smokers, outside of the present situation and some extreme amazonian use. Most tribes seem to have used it for prayer often smudging with it, mouth smoking it to blow over someone without inhaling(you see this in the amazon as well) and then only really inhaling it durring special pipe ceremonies. I dont think native peoples of north america at least were a bunch of chain smokers.

Context is everything, just like with anything else.