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OfflineComradez
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Psychedelics in the former Soviet Union? * 1
    #14138336 - 03/17/11 06:13 PM (12 years, 10 months ago)

I'm a history major, and sometimes things like this pique my curiosity.  So, has anyone ever run across mentionings of psychedelic use in the former Soviet Union?  I have to imagine it would be such a major head trip to trip in the Soviet Union surrounded by a whole system of propaganda and naively gullible drones buying into it or going along with it.  I mean, our society isn't really that different, I know, but in the Soviet Union it was even less subtle.  I mean, can you imagine huge-ass murals of Stalin morphing into the devil and whatnot?  It would have been pretty fuckin' rad.  (By the way, I'm not opposed to communism in general.  I'm actually an anarcho-communist.  I just don't recognize the Soviet Union as real communism). 

I know, for instance, that LSD was present in West Germany in the early '70s because that's where my dad first did LSD while in the army there.  What about East Germany? 

I'm sure that it would have been outlawed, not only for the usual reasons, but I'm sure it would have been against communist ideology as far as strict rationalism and materialism were concerned.  Was there perhaps even drug education warning about psychedelics in the Soviet Union?  Would it have been different from what we had here? 

All I could run across with a google search was a brief mention of Russian psychedelic rock (but it wasn't clear if that meant it was inspired by psychedelics or just somewhat imitative of psychedelic rock in the U.S.), and of course references to the CIA's suspicion that the Soviet Union was experimenting with LSD for brainwashing purposes. 

I have to imagine, too, that there would have been some indigenous psychedelics that grew in the Soviet territories, such that maybe psychedelic pioneers in the USSR needn't have even gotten hold of LSD.  For instance, I know they would have had Amanita Muscaria (which, I know isn't nearly the same), but what about liberty caps or other types of psilocybin mushrooms?  Do they grow in the wild in any of the former Soviet territories? 

So, has anybody ever heard whether there was any sort of psychedelic underground in the Soviet Union?  And if not, they why not?  Too much repression?  Too risky?  (I'm aware that the USSR was quite fond of labeling political oppositionists as insane and having them forcibly committed to silence them.  I'm sure people wouldn't have wanted to do anything to make that an even more logical response from the authorities).  Or was there not even enough awareness that psychedelics existed or what they were all about? 

Is it possible that this is an overlooked subject in history, or perhaps are there possibly many Russian-language sources on the subject that just haven't been translated into English?


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Offlinesaxx
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Re: Psychedelics in the former Soviet Union? [Re: Comradez] * 1
    #14138379 - 03/17/11 06:19 PM (12 years, 10 months ago)

Totally interested.

Hope someone comes through on this one.


--------------------
sucking dick for drink tickets
at the free bar at my cousin's bat mitzvah

zappateer said:
I'm not wasting time at school. I'm gaining hella knowledge and life experience, not trying to use my degree for financial gain.


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OfflineBest
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Re: Psychedelics in the former Soviet Union? [Re: saxx] * 1
    #14138568 - 03/17/11 06:46 PM (12 years, 10 months ago)

I don't know much about the actual topic you're looking for.

However, I know that William Leonard Pickard (was involved in the well known LSD bust in 2000) did some research about drug use in the states of the former Soviet Union back in the 90's. He's in prison unfortunately, and I've never seen that research but maybe it's out there somewhere?

According to the always accurate Wikipedia: "...He theorized the booming black market and many unemployed chemists could lead to a flood of the drug market."

I too would be interested in this topic or anything similar to it.


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OfflineComradez
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Re: Psychedelics in the former Soviet Union? [Re: Best] * 1
    #14138614 - 03/17/11 06:52 PM (12 years, 10 months ago)

Interesting reference...although it sounds like he might have been studying contemporary (~1994) drug abuse in the former Soviet Union, rather than psychedelics in the former Soviet Union while it was still the Soviet Union.  That's just what it sounds like to me.


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OfflineComradez
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Re: Psychedelics in the former Soviet Union? [Re: Comradez] * 1
    #14138738 - 03/17/11 07:08 PM (12 years, 10 months ago)

Hmmm, I'm finding plenty on "drug and alcohol abuse in the Soviet Union," but none of it mentions psychedelics. 

This brings me to another question:  in what parts of the earth today are psychedelics still almost unheard of?  I imagine many (most?) African and South American countries have traditional psychedelics (ibogaine, ayahuasca, psilocybin, oliloliqui (spelling?).  The Middle East has hashish, although I'm not familiar with how well it is tolerated in various modern Islamic states.  India obviously has cannabis.  First-world countries are gonna inevitably have some awareness of psychedelics and access to them, although they might not be very popular or prevalent in some strict Asian countries such as South Korea or Singapore.  And I'd bet that most of Eastern Europe has psychedelics on their radar by now. 

So that leaves places like Central Asia (do they use hashish?), China (I know they are on the cutting edge of putting out research chemicals, but how many Chinese actually use psychedelics?), Indonesia (although kratom use is quite on the radar there, but I'm not sure we can call that a "psychedelic"), some African states, North Korea (probably), and Cuba.  Hmmm, it looks like state socialism has not been good for psychedelics.  Too much Hive-mentality?


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OfflineDest
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Re: Psychedelics in the former Soviet Union? [Re: Comradez] * 1
    #14138861 - 03/17/11 07:28 PM (12 years, 10 months ago)

Check out the "Leningrad Letters" chapter in Tihkal. one of the most interesting storys I've ever had the pleasure of reading. It fails to mention anything about psychedelics; however you will get a good idea of what the underground scene during that time period was like.


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Offlinetokinman21
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Re: Psychedelics in the former Soviet Union? [Re: Dest] * 1
    #14139109 - 03/17/11 08:05 PM (12 years, 10 months ago)

Wow, this has me really interested...I'm just thinking about what tripping as a citizen of that time/place would be like, it would have been so mind-blowing. That "layered" or "accordion" maze that your thoughts feel like they're looping around would probably be a lot more intense, and it would just be crushing realization after crushing realization as your entire world collapsed around you and you realized everything that was happening right under your nose...it would be mortifying.  That would either be the best or the worst decision of your entire life, depending on your viewpoint.


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OfflineComradez
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Re: Psychedelics in the former Soviet Union? [Re: tokinman21] * 1
    #14139131 - 03/17/11 08:08 PM (12 years, 10 months ago)

Yeah, now that I think about it, I think I can see why alcohol is generally the drug of choice for Russians.


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Offlinetokinman21
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Re: Psychedelics in the former Soviet Union? [Re: Comradez] * 1
    #14139144 - 03/17/11 08:09 PM (12 years, 10 months ago)

Quote:

Comradez said:
Yeah, now that I think about it, I think I can see why alcohol is generally the drug of choice for Russians.




Yeah, because it's the *opposite* of LSD lol it dulls your thoughts/senses


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OfflineBest
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Re: Psychedelics in the former Soviet Union? [Re: tokinman21] * 1
    #14139289 - 03/17/11 08:30 PM (12 years, 10 months ago)

Quote:

Comradez said:
Interesting reference...although it sounds like he might have been studying contemporary (~1994) drug abuse in the former Soviet Union, rather than psychedelics in the former Soviet Union while it was still the Soviet Union.  That's just what it sounds like to me.



Yeah it definitely seems to say that it's based on mid 1990's research. I'd imagine it's possible some of the documents might have some interesting history about times prior to that, but there's little hope of finding it easily.

I'm also trying to find some info and the first thing I came across was some questionable looking site talking about the Soviet's testing LSD on dogs in the 1960s but that's not really what you're looking for.

Quote:

tokinman21 said:
Wow, this has me really interested...I'm just thinking about what tripping as a citizen of that time/place would be like, it would have been so mind-blowing. That "layered" or "accordion" maze that your thoughts feel like they're looping around would probably be a lot more intense, and it would just be crushing realization after crushing realization as your entire world collapsed around you and you realized everything that was happening right under your nose...it would be mortifying.  That would either be the best or the worst decision of your entire life, depending on your viewpoint.



I've wondered how it would be to trip as an American in North Korea during the Arirang Mass Games. Maybe smuggle the blotters inside an MP3 player or something. Watch some videos of it and tell me it wouldn't be amazing. I doubt it's ever been done before but I understand why. You have to have a guide with you the whole time, and can't really choose where you go, so I guess bring some sunglasses or something and try to play it cool. Would suck to go to North Korean prison tripping balls. Might be quite the international incident lol.


Edited by Best (03/17/11 08:35 PM)


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OfflinephxBoomer
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Re: Psychedelics in the former Soviet Union? [Re: Best] * 1
    #14139387 - 03/17/11 08:49 PM (12 years, 10 months ago)

My brother-in-law grew up in moscow. He was 14 when soviet union collapsed. When I first asked him about L he believed it was a myth, as in didnt really exist.

I believe nowadays there are cells of psychonauts in russia. Its amazing what capitalizim can do, good and bad.


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Offline1tokeovrtheline
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Re: Psychedelics in the former Soviet Union? [Re: phxBoomer] * 1
    #14140821 - 03/18/11 12:16 AM (12 years, 10 months ago)

I've talked to some people in countries like singapore where the risk for that sort of thing is insane, like one guy I talked to said in his country you could get 20 years for a single cannabis seed, but he still grew because he believed in it that much. You'd be surprised what people are willing to risk, and I'm sure there were people in the soviet union that did psychedelics, but I'm sure it was more extreme and there would have been a higher risk:reward ratio which could have attracted people in such desperate economical situations which they legally had no control over.

Also I heard that certain bands, mostly the beatles, were very popular in the soviet union but they couldn't get the american records or guitars or anything so there became a big industry of knockoff fenders and that sort of thing. I'd imagine at least a few of those people dropped some acid or smoked some weed. As for the mushrooms, thats a very old tradition, so I'd bet there were (mayyyybbbeee still are?) some people in siberia that still do it, but I'd be interested in learning more about the modern traditions.

And of course there are always gangbangers and thugs, crazy ass psychopathic criminals, and in a place with as much poverty and fucked up government as soviet russia, I'd bet that would breed some crazy fuckers like that. I would suspect more drugs like heroin and coke though than psychedelics.


--------------------


Music, business as usual
Mi' spliff and Guiness as usual
Highgrade we puffin as usual
Fight down the system as usual
The system fight we down as usual
The cops dem a watch we as usual
And a we a watch the cops as usual


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OfflineLangolyer
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Re: Psychedelics in the former Soviet Union? [Re: Comradez] * 1
    #27061168 - 11/28/20 07:17 AM (3 years, 2 months ago)

USSR regime basically destroyed psychedelics culture within its domain. Before it was a different story though.
Shamanism was a huge deal in Siberia and other eastern parts of the land, recreational Amanita muscaria usage was also documented by scholars and writers alike. In the end, there was not even a memory – 99% of the population will tell you without a blink that it is a deadly poisonous mushroom. Though the situation is changing nowadays thanks to a couple of fungi popularizers. Also, it is somewhat different in rural areas and small villages, where you can often find local medicine men trained by their elders, links unbroken through the centuries.
Liberty caps are mostly the same, though it is harder to find direct mentions of them in the annals of history. Dostoevsky was partial to them, some other poets, and maybe Lenin (not quite sure if it's true because we actually have a very popular "Lenin is a mushroom" meme, which was originated back in the 90s, making it hard to find reliable information on the matter). It was always a prerogative of lower classes, though. Villagers loved shrooms of both types (liberty caps here have a folk name "veselushka", which means "merry" or "cheery", amanita has like a couple of dozens of them), city folk was mostly content with opium and later morphin.
USSR tried to sweep it all under the rag but ironically ended up with an unwinnable drug war on its hands. Heroin became a nation-wide menace and things actually went so bad that nowadays Russia is the biggest drug market in Europe (millions of drug-users, 90% of them opium-based). It didn't help that problem wasn't officially acknowledged – at all. The word of state was simple – there is no drug usage in USSR whatsoever.
PS Dunno if it is actually interesting to someone since OP question is almost ten years old. :laugh:


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OfflineHikeadellic
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Re: Psychedelics in the former Soviet Union? [Re: Langolyer]
    #27061976 - 11/28/20 05:49 PM (3 years, 2 months ago)

I liked reading this thread and I never would have found it unless you posted to it. Thread necromancy can be a good thing sometimes!


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OfflineLoaded Shaman
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Re: Psychedelics in the former Soviet Union? [Re: Comradez]
    #27062290 - 11/28/20 11:32 PM (3 years, 2 months ago)

Now THIS is an interesting AF topic, OP!


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"Real knowledge is to know the extent of one’s ignorance." — Confucius


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InvisibleMindMeower
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Re: Psychedelics in the former Soviet Union? [Re: Loaded Shaman] * 1
    #27063366 - 11/29/20 04:53 PM (3 years, 1 month ago)

As far as liberty caps go, when they are mentioned in various soviet era mushroom books that I have seen, they are always descibed as poisonous inedible mushrooms that one should stay away from. Many people still knew what the actual reality was though...


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M(e)owing minds :mushroom2:


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Invisiblepineninja
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Re: Psychedelics in the former Soviet Union? [Re: MindMeower]
    #27063408 - 11/29/20 05:25 PM (3 years, 1 month ago)



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OfflineShroomDoom
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Re: Psychedelics in the former Soviet Union? [Re: pineninja]
    #27064027 - 11/30/20 06:12 AM (3 years, 1 month ago)

You will have to dig for more information but LSD was widely available behind the Iron Curtain. Some of the most important advancements in ergot culture were invented in what is now the Czech republic so it is no surprise that during the cold war plenty of LSD was avaliable in eastern block countries.


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