Hate to look at this tragedy in such a way, but a little digging shows that the girl was a less-than-stellar student. There are a lot of factors that go into a media frenzy, and it's good that terms like 'honor student' are not being thrown around.

The presence of DMT in her system (sinuses or something, or I'm sure there are ways to tell of elevated levels VS naturally occurring) will lead ignorant or willfully misleading people (LEOs, media, etc) to conclude that DMT caused this death. This will be the case even if any DMT she might have taken had worn off before she even left the residence and she was shitfaced on liquor. A medical examiner wouldn't know how to differentiate between the body of a person who died while on DMT or who died hours later. More importantly, there is no incentive for such an office to make this distinction.

It's impossible to speculate what may have been in her system without more information. Maybe she was on DXM, maybe the guy was confused and they had all done 4-AcO-DMT, etc etc.

All we can hope for is that this story won't catch on, that local and national politicians won't seize on it for easy "tough on crime" points with voters, and that a terrible and avoidable incident like this won't happen again.

This is unfortunate. I hope they are not uneducated and find DMT in the autopsy results and confirm it was contributing to the cause. One thing I am concluding is maybe she drowned? I have heard of kids drowning on the deleriant datura before. Being in a psychedelic mind state could provoke something like that, however I don't think DMT is the culprit in this case. It's too awkward.

I don't think they're saying that the cause of death was DMT overdose, but in the minds of grieving and "responsible" people, a girl drowning while on drugs -> the drugs contributed to her death.

we all remember the recent moral panic surrounding mephedrone, where legislation was rushed through the British Parliament to criminalise it after two young guys died - the tabloids were screaming about this new horror drug etc and blamed the mephedrone for their deaths.

By the time the toxicology report came in, turns out they hadn't taken mephedrone AT ALL. But by then, it was too late - the substance was outlawed.

Do not expect a rational response in this regard. If it's a slow news day and tabloids get their teeth in to it, we could be in for a rough ride. Right now it depends on whether any news organisations want to take this and run with it, or whether they have other stories that fit their agenda better. Simple as that. Truth has little to do with it.

I agree, but at the same time, if the press uses this to bring DMT into the spotlight (because it's exotic and an easy way to scare the public/entice them to consume their news media) regardless of how she died or what caused it, this could potentially snowball just like salvia and make getting source materials harder. While the circumstances around her death make me highly skeptical dmt played any actual role in her death, the guy's "confession" that his dmt caused this is potentially more harmful as even if it didn't, it gives the press and cops an opportunity to run wild talking about the ills of dmt and the crazed druggies who use it. We will have to see how this unfolds.

Very bad news. All around. Even if this doesn't become the shitstorm that it probably will, maybe now is the time to devise a defensive strategy to protect us and the forum and ideally, our sources of MHRB. Too early for me to have any concrete ideas, just fielding a thought...

This was, unfortunately, inevitable, and if it blows over, it is just as inevitable that it will happen again. And equally as inevitable that the shitstorm will eventually hit.

What can we do to prevent it or, more realistically, mitigate the repercussions?

JBArk

another bad news in brazil, a schizo member of daime church had a psychotic breakdown, he thought he was jesus, and shot and killed the leader of one of the daime churches and his son... so many of the news channels were saying that daime was to blame for his psychotic breakdown, and now in the national congress one of the senators is trying to make a movement to revert the law that allows ayahuasca use.

I dont think they are gonna revert the law because its quite established and there's many politicians that are actually in favor of ayahuasca use, but its still quite bad situation that this whole story is happening and that the sensationalist media is taking advantage of it and influencing the public opinion

Nothing.

The media are, and always will be, in a frenzy against non-standard behavior, whether it's drug-use, "lewd" practices or strange beliefs. They are the stronghold of ultra-conservative forces. And, unfortunately, partly due to the Anglo-Saxon culture which largely fosters such principles both in the US and the UK, all we can do is to duck and hope for the best.

The Mephedrone ban in the UK is a pale demonstration of what the media can do. And it does not even matter that Mephedrone is implicated or not in any incident. Not even that the majority of the reputed medical community is against the whole madness with articles published in The Lancet and so on. The media got their way and the ban is on. And it will happen again, and again and again. And until the general mentality changes as is hopefully happening in California, we can interfere precisely zilch.

What we as a community can do is to try to inform and warn potential DMT users as best we can so that episodes as the one related do not happen again.

That's a little defeatist, no?



That's more like it! although a little vague and hard to institute...

I need to think about it a little - I admit no immediate ideas jump to mind, but I am appealing to the greater "collective" intelligence of the nexus to see if we can't somehow, all together, devise some kind of a strategy. Better than doing "nothing", no?

JBArk

Here's a metaphor: "In our community, the ocean-defense-nexus, we must do something to stop the BP oil spill. Yes, there's got to be a way to do it, and if we act together we can stop it"

See my point of view?

Back to the topic at hand.
We have to face that we are a small community, seen as the enemy by the media. Whatever we do , if anything can actually be done, will mostly act against us. That is not defeatism, it's realism.

Other organizations (e.g. MAPS) with infinite more resources than we have have been powerless to stop legislators and the media thirst for bizarre news.

Focusing the Nexus not only as a DMT information repository but also as a harm reduction site, like erowid or bluelight, would at least provide us some credibility and a possible voice in this stupid war where "they" control all the heavy weaponry

You misunderstand me. My fault - i wasn't clear. I was encouraging us to think outside the box and come at it from a novel angle. I agree that the media would be a risky avenue, but I don't agree that we are perceived as the enemy by them any more than I believe the media is our enemy. Taken in its entirety, media is extremely neutral. Individual media outlets (fox comes to mind) are by no means neutral, but there is a balance achieved when the press is free - a balance of neutrality.

If "they" control all the "heavy weaponry", then we need to engage them with something other than weaponry. Against all odds. Ghandi and peaceful resistance come to mind.

You may be right, there might be nothing we can do.

But that is an off-the-cuff answer that IS defeatist and fear-mongering. And I don't believe its truth. There is always a way. We just don't always find it because we often, instead of applying our minds, resort to first degree off-the-cuff ideas that are frankly apathetic.

JBArk

My sense is that this story will fade away. DMT is too weird and obscure. I must tell you the local police captain was on the news looking like it was the first time he had ever heard of this stuff.

I can tell you its not a widely used thing around these parts even by the hippie culture.

Unless the mainstream media gets a hold of this and does one of they're pathetic demonizing reports on it maybe.

I don't think there's enough meat to keep this story going. There is no proof that DMT is directly responsible for this girls death.

The whole thing is sad on all fronts really.

Shoot, I was just about to say how the quick recreational DMT smoking and/or snorting style, and what have you, unfortunately don't nearly seem to carry the natural protective sheath that Ayahuasca has. Sorry to see about that news as well. However, I need to express this general observation and thought I have had recently after reconsidering smoking as a form of administration.

I think it is obvious, simply by reading the collective posts of all DMT smokers, as compared to Ayahuasca users, that DMT smokers are much less in it for the healing, of not only themselves, but their friends and for the planet also. Please correct me if you can, I would love to be wrong about this.

For this reason I am starting to think that it is my mistake to re-enter this domain of spice relationship.

By the way, I want to make it clear that I realize that it is wrong to judge and or assume that only healing approaches are appropriate with these molecules.

However, stories like this one remind me that quick, convenient, and refined applications of traditional herbs can seem to shed the shroud of ceremonial. And even though I know there can be other valid reasons for exploring, even in traditional shamanism, or maybe no reason at all: I pose the question:

What is the point of journeying for the sake of some roller-coaster ride entertainment light show, if all you can do is come back and say WOW dude, that was indescribable and really far out. What is that doing for anyone, oneself, or otherwise?

ive been doing dmt for about three years..and would have to say..that sometimes i have used it for the light show...but most of the time..its about exploring and learning about myself..and healing old wounds...i have grown so much since i started using spice..that i can barely remember who i was before...this medicine in all its forms has helped me..and i will continue to use it in all its many forms(except snorting...OUCH) for healing and growth

I think you're wrong and I definitely don't think it's OBVIOUS that dmt smokers are less for healing than ayahuasca users. I use both smoked dmt and traditional brews for healing purposes. They provide different perspectives and very different experiences. I know many people claim the smoked dmt flash is too short for healing or to glean anything. All I can say to that is, well, that sucks for them. Personally I can get a lot of beneficial information and perspective out of the smoked experience. It is not for anyone else to determine what benefit I can get from the smoked experience just because it doesn't do much for them when it comes to healing.

I feel you are incredibly mistaken and am more than a little offended by your uninformed deduction that you claim to be "obvious". In the case of "festy kids" or other similar stereotypical "druggie" groups you are probably right, but you made an over-broad generalization about all dmt smokers.

I'm pretty sure endless gave a curandero extracted dmt and he said the spirit was in it, so take that for what you will. I have administered smoked dmt to a man who was dire need of healing and it began him down the path, completely turned his life around. I gave him freebase cuz he didn't know if he was ready for/could handle an ayahuasca experience. The smoked experience happened about a year ago and led to immediate positive changes in his life. We spoke about six months ago and I found out his therapist had recommended ayahuasca and this combined with what I'd already told him led him to join the local Santo Daime church where he has been attending at least one or two sessions per month. He is doing much better now than he was a year ago and this entire healing began with smoked dmt and finished with ayahuasca. He acknowledges without smoked dmt he would never have tried ayahuasca and feels that the smoked experiences was incredibly beneficial and healing in its own right.

SB


EDIT: Also, lest this thread gets hijacked, can we please keep it on topic and related to this horrific incident? If you want to discuss the merits of smoked dmt vs ayahuasca, you can start another thread.

peace

Word.
It definatly has been helpful to me.

The annoying thing about news stories like this one isn’t what they say, but rather what they don’t say. “Teen was given hallucinogen prior to her death” OK, but what else did she do? Given the headline, you are left to conclude (especially if you don’t know anything about DMT) that DMT led to her death. I believe that the author intended to lead people to that conclusion.

Was she drinking alcohol? If so, how much and how quickly? Was she taking any other drugs? If so, what and how much? etc… The article doesn’t answer any of these questions. If it did, there might not be a story.

Sad sad death.

I think we are seeing more and more of these types of story's, "someone die's taking some drug" with very little evidence pointing towards the actual drug causing the death. But I do think that some of the general public are starting to question what the actual cause to these deaths is.

Wow. Reading the stories, the attitudes and the replies here makes me believe we are in for some dark days ahead.

-spiceworm

Exactly, this is the propagandistic media influence that essentially seeks to sensationalize such tragedies in order to sell more news media. It makes me quite mad that there are no mentions of toxicology reports in these articles (beyond the fact that the autopsy was inconclusive and they want to do more tests). This is the kind of reprehensible reporting that the drug war has made commonplace.

DMT, if she actually dosed any or actually got enough of it into her system is metabolized so quickly there's no way it shows up. I wonder if they're not searching for dmt in the tox-screen hoping to find it. It wouldn't be surprising to hear that whoever's in charge of the autopsy has no clue how fast it is metabolized and is on a wild goose chase in order to label dmt as the culprit. Right now the only real link between dmt and this girl's death is the text from the guy where HE implicates dmt as causing her death. Since when is this dude any sort of medical or chemical expert? It seems that his statement as the main suspect of interest is being taken literally by the media which is nonsensical and evidences poor researching on the part of the reporters behind these stories, imo.