Hi I'm new to the nexus so I couldn't post this in the arts section, but I was wondering, for you musicians, vocalists out there. If any of you have experienced a deterioration in your ability to sing from smoking cannabis, mescaline freebase, extremely harsh substances like DMT, or anything else. I'm a musician and it's actually a really massive part of my life and how I make a living. Any input or personal experiences with this would be greatly appreciated. I've been real worried about it as I smoke a lot of cannabis (which I feel is also very important for my music and creativity) and have started feeling like I need to spit a lot more than I used to over the past couple of years. I get the impression that I'm younger (24) than most of the people on the nexus so I thought there might be some people who have had more time to figure these things out for themselves. I already gave up cigarettes which has been really... irritating.

Smoke does not effect my singing that I have ever noticed - my voice has only gotten better with age so far..... I dont smoke cigs, just cannabis and when in ceremony mapacho.

Well, as we all know, no amount of smoke is really "good" for the lungs. However here is something interesting:

"An RCMP fact sheet published in the Nelson Daily News states a marijuana cigarette's tar content is 50 to 100 per cent greater than one filled with tobacco, and its smoke is typically inhaled 33 per cent deeper and held four times as long. The sheet says, because marijuana contains two powerful carcinogens, smoking three to five joints a week is the same as consuming 16 cigarettes a day.

Defilice, however, said the two habits are actually opposite in effect. "It's not a real comparison to compare cigarette smoke to cannabis smoke because one is harmful and the other is healing."

Cannabis is a vasodilator, said Defilice, meaning it expands blood vessels, rather than vasoconstrictor like cigarette smoke which constricts vessels and that when cannabis is smoked through water pipes, bongs or hookahs, most harmful gassess and 90 per cent of tar are filtered out. Defilice said longterm use by residents in Puerto Rico and India actually show a decrease in incidents of emphysema and lung disease..." Source/Full article

So I believe your cannabis use should not be too detrimental to your singing. I can't really say what would happen with other substances. I smoke changa/enhanced leaf (using mullein, pink lotus, and mugwort) as well as freebase DMT and I have not noticed any ill effects...yet!

The cigarettes are what I would worry about! Those are terrible for you! That being said, I smoked them for nearly 8 years before quitting last October. Congratulations on quitting them as well! It will be very irritating for a while but it passes and your body will thank you for it! You will be able to breathe better....soo much better!

So as long as you smoke things in moderation you will be fine. I exclude cannabis from that (I am a daily toker as well and if anything, MJ can be and is very soothing, IME). Plus, any psychedelic that you can smoke, you can most certainly eat/drink some form of it too. So if the smoke has got you worried you could always try:

Ayahuasca
Mescaline Tea or Extract
Cannabis Edibles
Etc.

oO !?

I began singing on stage at the age of 3.

That continued up until just a few years ago.

I am now just a few years beyond 50.

I have been a lover of smoking just about anything since I was around 14.

In my twenties I smoked nothing but Cannabis & took a few years off even from that.

Since my thirties I have smoked organic, whole leaf, non-filtered tobacco on a daily basis.

It has affected my singing voice somewhat, but nothing that I find too restricting or alarming (although, again, I am no longer singing professionally anymore).

I smoke Cannabis several nights a week & honestly I find that it affects my singing more than the tobacco, but that is just my subjective perception.

I freebase DMT once or twice every two or three weeks.

I have found the DMT actually seems to enhance my voice, but again, that is simply a subjective viewpoint.

The spitting you're experiencing is a good thing all in all. Everyone has crap in their lungs (whether they smoke or not) but very rarely does anyone spit it up or blow it out (the nose) which is the only way one can discharge the respiratory system of accumulated junk. Thus smoking can be beneficial in that you discharge more gunk from your lungs than if you didn't smoke. I know it sounds wierd, but it's a theory I've come to know as pretty close to the truth.

Some secrets that I have found to keep your respiratory system working in great shape while enjoying smoking all the while are:

Applying honey bee propolis to the back of the throat daily (I use a throat spray for this, but occasionally will suck on propolis lozenges or raw propolis if I'm lucky enough to get some from the local beekeepers). From decades of studying traditional plant medicines I've found very little that rivals the gentle, but powerful healing powers of propolis.

Traditional Chinese herb formulas for the lungs:

Look up & explore options such as: Bai He Gu Jin (Tang, San or Wan), "Lily Bulb Decoction To Preserve The Metal" ; Qing Qi Hua Tan (Tang, San or Wan), "Clear Lung Qi Transform Phlegm Decoction"; Bu Fei (Tang [decoction], San [powder], or Wan [teapill]), "Tonify Lung Decoction". To name just a few.

The lungs & the rest of the respiratory system (your sinuses, etc.) all like to keep moist & cool. Smoking anything introduces dryness & heat to the system & thus you must counteract the dry heat with cooling, moistening substances & formulas.

Hope this helps.

First of all, thank you! all of you. I am so glad I inquired on this.

@The Grateful One: Grateful One! excellent article friend! I clicked the link to dig in further and found it was quite extensive and full of great info. And immediately it addresses the thing that mainly started causing me to fret over my cannabis use which is that it contains so much tar/resin. I really liked what Paul Defilice had to say on the subject! Also what you and Doc Buxin said about DMT/changa not effecting your singing whatsoever is encouraging as well. And yes I do make edibles! SWIM uses his leftover trim to make various edibles most of which he gives to his mother and godmother as they both find the bud to be overly strong and mom actually freaks out if she uses it(they're much more acclimated to the weed people had in the 60s and 70s). I have gotten super thin with age though and perhaps could use a few edibles. As for the mescaline freebase that's been a whole new thing for me and we will see where that goes! I would eat it as well but would like to try smoking it first as I've heard the ingested duration can be very long. I've never TRULY done mescaline (I've done it but it wasn't enough for a full experience) and I usually don't like to trip for very long at a time anymore. But SWIMS connection to this new joy have both forms available for him to try so we'll see on that one.

@Doc Buxin: Wow what a history man! Haha yeah 14 must be like "the age" or something cause that's also when I started smoking weed, cigarettes, and like you said, anything else that I could get. Yeah I agree that cannabis DOES effect my singing voice, especially if I'm not using a bong or other water-filtration device. But for me, at least so far, it always has gone back to normal if I abstain for a little bit. I guess my worry was it eventually not going back to normal but I'm feeling better about that the more I learn. Good to know that spitting is a good thing. That logic makes perfect sense. I never thought of it that way. And I guess when I think about it my spitting is a bit more habit driven, like you said most people just swallow it, which is what I used to do. I don't know when but at some point I guess I subconsciously changed my mind on that. Thanks for all the ideas for treatments as well! I will definitely be looking into those today. I have a good friend who knows a lot about Chinese medicine and I will talk to him about it (there's apparently a place in the city we live in that carries a good stock of such things). I also have a house that I rent with a backyard and everything. I've actually been thinking of setting up a little beehive for honeybees in back to do my part to fight against they're rapid endangerment which is just so horrifyingly destructive to the life on this planet. I'm going to look online about possibly harvesting this propolis myself which is something I've never heard of.

Well once again thank you so much guys/gals! I can't believe how ready to help this community can be.Terrific and helpful advice without a doubt.
Really made my morning

Glad to be of service to my fellow psychonauts (never really like that term so much; sounds as if we're in an insane asylum!)

Sounds like you're on the right track ninjaxmasparty...

One thing though, when you commented that I said "most people just swallow it"...I didn't say that.. I simply said that most people don't hack it up. Some people swallow the stuff, which just renews the whole cycle since most all the mucoidal substances originate from the stomach & other digestive organs.

Actually most people don't even notice it. They've got crap in their lungs that they have NO IDEA it's even there. How do you think people who have never smoked get lung cancer or COPD or pneumonia? It's because there's stuff in your respiratory system that hasn't "come up & out".

Modern, Western culture considers spitting (up out of the lungs/bronchials) & blowing (of the nose/sinuses) gross & vulgar, but in fact it is an essential thing to do, every morning at the very least, to keep your respiratory system healthy & unclogged!!!

Keep on keepin' on ninjaxmasparty!

Sing your heart out as best you can!

^^^I know I have crap in my lungs, that is for sure. As much as "coughing up a lung" when smoking MJ feels horrible, there is this strange "cleansed" feeling I get when the toking is done. So coughing definitely has its purpose.

It makes sense, I mean, when you are sick with a chest cold, what does your body do? It makes you cough and cough and cough some more until you hack up the crap that was making you ill.



^^^I get this feeling all the time from this place. I love it! I find myself on this site more and more as time passes.

*ahem* [clears throat and begins to sing] "The best part of waking up, is The Nexus in your cup!"



The Nexus:

It is better than your morning coffee...well more informative anyway...

Okay I will stop there!

Have a good one!

Was just thinking the same thing? I've never heard of anyone smoking mescaline in freebase form? Is it possible?

I've been a vocalist for metal bands for several years now and my respiratory health is extremely important.

I find Cannabis does irritate the respiratory system and negatively affect your vocal performance more than tobacco ever did, for me at least. I tend to take massive bong tokes, however.

I have completely removed any dairy from my diet and it has done wonders for me as a vocalist. Smoking is something I can do fairly regularly and not notice any real detriment but I try to keep it in moderation. Smoke or vapor of any kind that is, including DMT I think one of the worst things to smoke (in terms of harming your voice) was Calea zacatechichi. It's soooo harsh and I noticed my voice was off for a day or two after smoking it before bed.

The style of vocals I perform are very taxing on the vocal chords and it's extremely important to maintain good respiratory health.

I am definitely getting some honey bee propolis, that sounds fantastic.

@Doc Buxin: Thank you Doc Buxin! You have been of great help actually. Ohhh okay I think (hope) I get it now. That's actually really interesting. So whether a person smokes anything or not, it's important for them to clear out their lungs then (via spitting it out), although it's probably more than safe to say that smoking most things, doesn't help. Man I can't believe most people aren't aware of that stuff in there. I can't help but feel it, I mean I have to hack it out or it irritates the hell out of me. Makes me think of like how dust just collects on things unless it is removed by an external force of some sort. I hope I understood correctly this time!

@The Grateful One: Haha yeah I know I didn't think I'd be on here even close to as much as I have been! Really like the community and the way things are set up here. And yes it is a great thing to do in the morning to get the brain churning! Thank you Grateful One!

@Metanola: Oh man yeah I bet taking care of the throat/vocal chords/etc. is particularly important for you. I also don't eat dairy products for a lot of different reasons. I've actually been meaning to try calea zacatechichi. I have some serious dream issues that started after some years of really heavy drug abuse and gnarly gnarly living and I really want to figure out what the hell is going on now as it's persisted for years after getting off those drugs. Sounds like smoking it is definitely not the way to go I gotta remember that haha.


Haha okay about the mescaline freebase. I have never heard of this either and also am very curious. I was recently offered mescaline in it's normal form (not freebase) which I really do believe to be mescaline and not 2C-B which I am always suspicious of when I hear "mescaline". For me mescaline has always been extremely rare to come by, especially living in the Midwest. It's almost nonexistent. Friend uses a Froehde reagent and performed test for me. The regular (not freebase) mescaline turned green so it was apparently a match as far as that goes and it also looked right. One dose was a massive amount of powder as opposed to every dose I've ever taken of ANY kind of RC(looked like several hundred milligrams rather than like 20mg). That much 2C-B would put you in the hospital I imagine and my friend would not allow for that. The powder was also not pure white but more brownish/tan while RCs, especially 2Cs seem to be more of a pure white and dosed in much smaller amounts IME. NOW as for this apparent mescaline freebase that I have been offered. Friend has it bundled tightly in small bags and it looks reminiscent of black tar heroin (I DON'T use heroin but did a long long time ago). None was tested in front of me although I'm sure if I asked, that'd be fine. I'm thinking I will just go for the normal mescaline powder as it looks much better. Even my friend recommended to not go for the freebase as its a lot of undesirable looking stuff to smoke and surely doesn't taste nice. So yeah I don't know.

Yeah it's definitely an extreme style and if done improperly it can really harm your voice. Technique is very important, and anything else I can do to keep my vocal chords, as well as my entire respiratory system, in optimum health.

I noticed that the Calea was messing with my voice from smoking it several nights in a row before bed, just to clarify. It's harsh to smoke but ooohhh man, the tea is absolutely horrible. It's worse than sludgy Ayahuasca or any other nasty, bitter liquid I've ever consumed. When I powdered a bunch up and put it in capsules that worked fairly well.

If you really want to do some dream work I always recommend the Ubulawu dream herbs. There are others besides probably the most well known, Silene capensis.I've had the most success with combinations of those herbs, they're fantastic.

If they were willing to test it for me beforehand I would go for it, just for the experience Either it's not legit or it's something pretty friggin' rare, like unicorn rare

If you can find propolis throat spray, that is the ticket! (or lozenges, although they are more expensive per dose usually, albeit more tasty)

There are several brands that make it here in the states.

Otherwise, scoring some raw propolis resin from your local beekeeper & sucking on it or quidding it is the way to go although some people don't appreciate the tooth staining that can occur with this ROA. You simply have to brush your teeth more to avoid that.

I discovered propolis for vocal cord health (besides all the other wonderful health benefits it bestows when swallowed orally) 20 years ago when I was managing a health food store here in Nor Cal.

The owner of the store decided to put in a barbeque in the front of the store & at first, it was a wood-fired barbeque. The smoke from the wood would creep in to the store & aggravate the heck out of my (and my co-workers) throat to the point where we'd all be coming down with respiratory illnesses quite frequently.

A co-manager & I were trying all sorts of herbs & supplements to help curtail the horrid affect the wood smoke was having on our respiratory health. One day she came to me all excited saying that she had found the very thing we were looking for. They were propolis lozenges. I tried them out & wow, they were the ticket. No more respiratory problems even while working in a thick fog of wood barbeque smoke for 8 hours a day.

Luckily the owner of the store finally switched to natural gas after enough complaints from employees & customers (this guy was not the brightest crayon in the box).

But that's how I discovered the wonders of propolis for the first time!

What an awesome story! It must be incredibly effective if you were working all day in that kind of environment. Funny, I worked at a health food store and we had some lozenges with honey or bee pollen or something in them. We didn't carry a propolis spray though. I'm going to go searching for some of that spray, that sounds perfect for me. Thanks!

I've been a hard rock/grunge singer since 2003 and I can tell you that it has a lot to do with how well you clean and maintain your pieces. Every time I start getting mad at my voice sucking from smoking weed (which does tend to happen, especially from bongs for some reason) I give my pipe a good alcohol wash and it definitely helps. I'm actually trying to stop altogether, I'm 28 now and I feel it's adding a little too much distortion to my clean voice. I've also found that taking a few clean hits off a vaporizer helps the voice if you do decide to smoke right before singing. I have a lot of experience with weed use/vocals haha.

This is also very good advice.

So, my girlfriend and I burn a lot of incense (store bought from Walmart or head shops). That being said, I've been noticing lately that my throat gets a bit scratchy and uncomfortable after being exposed to it for a couple hours. This scratchiness most definitely affects my ability to sing and even causes me to cough sometimes.

To remedy this I put the incense in another room and let it flow throughout the apartment but to no avail. I'm wondering if this happens to other people? I burn different "scents" and brands so I don't think it will boil down to being allergic to one scent or anything like that. Perhaps the smoke is just too acrid for my throat and I am becoming overly sensitive to it...?

Any smoke can do this after enough exposure to it.

The intensity of the body's reaction to it, when it happens & how long it lasts are all entirely dependent upon the individual's state of health, body type, etc.

There are more & less toxic versions of incense though & I don't know what kind Walmart or your local headshops sell so...

If you're in the Bay Area you should be able to find a really good quality propolis throat spray like I mentioned above on this thread. It can be a seriously effective tool in these kinds of situations (I certainly love burning incense myself & would hate to tell anyone that they should stop).

Thanks, Doc! I will be looking into that!