Incense Herbal – Now and Then
What is herbal incense? Herbal incense is another smoking option for people who like to smoke. Now, smoking legal herb happens to fall in the "legal" category, whereas many of the other things that folks choose to smoke are not. But that doesn't mean that incense herbal based products are legal cannabis, far from it. Some people do refer to herbal incense as smoking legal bud, but the reality is that human beings have been smoking herbal blends that put them at ease, help them to slow down and unwind, and put them in touch with the spiritual side of life for thousands of years.
A long, long time ago, Ug the Caveman returned from a hard day of chasing mammoths, and glanced around for something to relax. He threw the first thing he noticed (a nice pot of blended herbal incense his woman had prepared) on the fire, lay down next to it to sleep...and began to have very vivid dreams.
Well, it might have happened that way. Cultures as diverse as African, Chinese, Indian, Native American, and even European have been shown to have roots in smoking herbal incense. In Southern Africa, hemp cults smoking herbs used the smoking ceremony much as Native American Indian tribes used the peace pipe in North America, to trade deals, or business transactions. Ancient Chinese shamans, known as wu, were smoking Legal buds long before the war on drugs in order to speak with the spirits.
Then there are the Native Americans. Though they weren't smoking legal bud back then, they were certainly lighting up a plethora of Incense Herbal potpourri. Everything from sweetgrass to cedar to sage went inside the peace pipe, and everybody inside the Sweat Lodge then experienced a group smoking high jointly. And even in Europe, where stiff penalties for ownership of that other herb dominate, linguistic proof shows that Germanic tribes were smoking legal buds of a cannabis type no later than 500 B.C.
So, where are we now? Does civilization still use these incense herbal smoking rituals for entertainment and meditation? Everyone knows the answer to this question is no. Even though smoking herbs like marijuana is tolerated in some areas (San Francisco and Amsterdam come to mind) there is no place on earth where these psychoactive plants are legal free and clear.
Enter the appearance of modern-day incense herbal products approximately in the year 2000. Though psychoactive plants and herbs had always been in existence, the herbal incense industry was given an increase in 1995 when organic chemistry professor John Huffman managed to synthesize a number of chemicals that became known as "cannabinoids". The chemicals showed many of the same effects as THC, but without any of the negative side effects such as paranoia and memory loss.
Beginning around 2004, incense herbal smoking products were sprayed with one of more of the cannabinoids. These cannabinoids—with chemical sounding names like JWH-018, JWH-200, CP-47, and JWH-073—are what led people to start referring to Incense Herbal Smoking as "smoking legal herb". The benefits of these new smoking herbs included no known side effects, no fright of failed drug tests or record of criminal charges, and proven relaxing and stimulating effects.
A lot of people in todays society need to pass a drug test at some point in their life. In fact, a large number of them need to be able to pass a random drug test and have it show that they don't even know what a smoking high is. Consequences for a failed drug test might include job loss, punitive discipline measures in professional sports, or even actual prison time. Little wonder, then, that after thousands of years of smoking rituals all of a sudden brought to an end by the government, people reluctant to give up their favorite method of relaxing turned to smoking herbal blends.
One very simple and understandable pro of smoking herbal incense is that these products are still very much legal. Although the DEA is continually on the move trying to ban more and more of them, the sellers are wise to this and constantly change their product formulas so as to make sure maximum legality in the most states possible. Many companies have some herbal incense flavors that are legal in all 50 states.
Many people in authority are now asking each other, "What is herbal incense?" out of fear or ignorance. Since none of them truly knows, this kind of talk fans the flames of paranoia until soon they've convinced themselves that all kinds of incense herbal are the same as marijuana and need to be banned. Opponents of herbal incense bring up concerns such as, "We don't know what's in these products."
The irony of this is that these are the same people that devour any number of food products each day that they have no idea of the ingredients. Your typical fast food product has things like trans fats, refined grains, sat, and high-fructose corn syrup, all of which have been proven scientifically to have negative effects on health in excessive amounts. It seems once again the victors set the rules on what is "good" for you and what isn't, as the damaging American diet continues to grow while discrimination for connoisseurs of smoking legal herb continues to increase.
But the good word for those who have grown to worship herbal incense smoking is that, like Darth Vader in the Sci-Fi classic Star Wars, the more herbal incense products the DEA tries to outlaw, the more innovative products will pop up on the marketplace. No matter how many substances they forbid or place on the controlled substances list, there will always be more, because you just can't fight 5000 years of human history.
There are no comments on this page. [Add comment]