ethnobotanicals that work really good only when very fresh?

[genaro]

ok, it seems that many people had no effect, or uninteresting effect from many ethnobotanicals sold from webshop (dried plant material or extracts) when other people report the same plants to be active and enjoyable as they use fresh material.

I think that many plants are active when very fresh (meaning less than 24h after harvesting from the living plant) but quickly loose much of their potency with time, so they turn out to be of poor interest once dried (which is always the case with plants sold from webshops: they never sell fresh material).

Of course, any psychoactive plant will loose some of its power upon drying (this is even true for shrooms), but what I'm pointing out here is that many plants will loose most of their interest upon drying (meaning not a simple loss of potency, but a real loss of interest, while dried shrooms are less potent than fresh but still very fun).

Therefore I think that scientifically speaking, it is a non-sense to say that a given plant has no real activity, basing your statement on experiences with dried material, considering that most reports of poor activity on this forum (and on erowid too) involve dried material!

Many plants listed as psychoactive in books such as "plant of the gods" seem to owe their activity to volatil essential oils or compounds that quickly degrades with time.
So I think it's important to list such plants so people will know that a disapointing experience with the plant doesn't necessarly means that the plant isn't a fun one (nor that the plant material they had was low quality), as it's quite possible that the reason for their disapointment is as simple as the plant material not beeing fresh.

From personal experience or things I heard from other people, here are at least 4 plants that are active but loose much of their power and fun once dried (the difference of effects between fresh and dried material beeing quite big):

-khat: stimulant/ophoriant when fresh, but slightly relaxing and no ophoria once dried
-kava: ophoriant/inebriant when fresh, but simple sedative/relaxant/anti-anxiety and no ophoria once dried (or extract)
-calamus: active ophoriant when fresh (really pleasant one to my opinion), but much much less efficient when dried and therefore not really fun in this form.
-spice highs, notably nutmeg: whole fresh nutmeg can bring a real stony feeling and even hallucinations, while pre-ground dried nutmeg (packaged) only brings me a headache and sedation.

I think it might also be the case with many of the so called "MJ substitutes/smokin herbs" which activity is often linked, at least in part, to volatil oils content, for instance I think that might well be the case for tagetes, leonorus, leonotis, coleus and such, those are probably best to be used fresh as a tea or smoked immediatly after rapid drying (but I have no clue about these)


SO, if you have personal experience with one plant both in the fresh and dried form, and you noted a real loss of fun from the fresh material to the dried one, please mention this plant in this thread (explaining the differences you noted).
This will allow us not to point erroneously a plant as beeing inactive (or of poor interest) when that's wrong.

[Thirdedge]

Mexican Tarragon (Targetes lucidia) - freshly dried leaf and flowers give a euphoria when smoked, dried material seems useless.

Sinicuichi - Freshly picked leaves are allowed to ferment in the sun for a day to produce a brew with pronounced effects, dried material far less effective and side effects such as muscle aches reported.

Catmint / Catnip - many users report fresh leaves and flowers to produce mild Cannabis like effects, dried leaves work but a huge amount is needed.

LSA seeds - seem to loose much potency over time. Old Rivea is crap, yet natives report divine inebriation from as little as 10 seeds.

Coleus b - fresh leaves used by natives as substitute for Salvia divinorum, dried leaves inactive.

Of course other factors such as time of harvest, drying / curing and storage must also play a part in final potency.