DOSE:		smoked	Leonotis leonurus
		oral	Leonotis leonurus	(tea)

BODY WEIGHT:

180 kg

Having a little lions tail growing in my garden, and knowing this is one of the important ingredients in modern smoking blends, I thought id give it a go. Research indicates the flowers are strongest, and that a leaf tea works well, but that both taste foul. Yuck indeed!

On several occasions I tried pipes, bongs and cigerettes of the dried fresh flowers. It tastes like bad tobacco sorta, hard to hold and also makes me cough and salivate. Not great for a casual relax. The buzz from smoking is very mild, lasts about 10-30 mins. Similarly the tea is mega foul - like a tobacco tea almost, bitter as! Yuck. However the buzz from this, the tea, is longer, peak effects 1 hour, then relaxed feelings for awhile after.

Neither are really worth it, even if the buzz was really nice. An extract is clearly best here - much nicer to actually imbibe, and strong, which I want. The buzz itself is both stimulating and relaxing in waves, with more stimulation toward the begining. The stimulation feels a bit like tobacco, only it makes me shifty, and inclined to change activities. Its not really like any other kind of stimulation I know, its not strong, but noticable. I have noticed this somewhat with smoking blends, but not as much - a bit of energy. The relaxation is quite deep, but in waves, so not entirely perfect for chilling. Theres also a certain slight diziness, a nice head buzz, and initially I sweated a bit with the tea. (tea was about 3 grams of fresh leaves, boiled for ten mins). When the head buzz (there most of the time) and relaxation (in waves) are both present, its nice, but certainly not worth the flavour.

I'm a big fan of smoking blends, of which there are many variations. Wild dagga and similar plants are totally key ingredients to most of them. However the other plants, in these mixes seem to even out the feeling, adding more relaxation to counter leonurine's stimulant side. (They add things like lotus, skullcap and indian warrior). And of course, even the blends arent everyones cup of tea either. I like them with a few drinks, but they arent amazing.

So in summary, this is a very useful part of any overall smoking blend, it is far better as extract than plant material - and it needs a higher dose, like tea, to get real effects from the plant. Its also prolly better with other relaxants - even perhaps alcohol. (which also goes nice with smoking blends). Alone, the stimulant side may make it more of a shared social thing, than a chill out. Me? I'm going to use this plant for blends, not alone. It needs a bit more mellowness to be a nice chill out IMO, and alot less crappy taste.

Exp Year: 2008	ExpID: 75690
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Oct 9, 2018	Views: 1,763
[ View PDF (to print) ] [ View LaTeX (for geeks) ] [ Swap Dark/Light ]
Leonotis leonurus (119) : Retrospective / Summary (11), Unknown Context (20)