Old Vice documentary about it. This is where I had first heard about it. Used to be really hard to find the honey online, like only one or 2 places that sold it
> Every article you read here is written by university scholars and researchers with deep expertise in their subjects, sharing their knowledge in their own words. We don’t oversimplify complicated issues, but we do explain and clarify. We believe bringing the voices of experts into the public discourse is good for democracy.
Quite the opposite. It's the completely devoid of creativity section titles, the use of triades, and the general rhythm of the text. All of this garnered with the general sense of filler content...
I imagine the native also built up tolerance over generations, not just knowledge as the article contends . Dying from a specific action is quite the evolutionary motivator
They mention the toxin comes from the rhododendron flower. I remember camping in North Carolina once and one of the people I was with warned against burning anything from the rhododendron in the area, as supposedly the smoke would give you the runs.
I mostly thought they were joking, and I have no idea what specific type of rhododendron would be there (if any), but maybe there’s a glimmer of merit to it? Or maybe they were thinking of a different plant?
This was somewhere in the Blue Ridge Mountains, if I remember correctly.
I was wondering if someone would mention this. I grew up in the Blue Ridge Mountains of NC and heard this all my life. Once had a camp councilor who would inspect every twig to make sure there was none burned.
I also burned Rhododendron wood in campfires and brush fires more times than I can count without any adverse effects that I know of.
I also wondered why, if it has this effect, it has not been purified to a standard concentration (or synthesized) and used to treat high blood pressure. Possibly because accidental overdose can be fatal?
There could be a case for doing it for people that will refuse anything but natural and it doesn't have other problem, assuming not synthesized, but there's a problem of funding the safety studies and standardization process if a patent is unlikely to result.
>Eat a teaspoonful, and you might feel pleasantly warm and slightly lightheaded. Eat more than a few tablespoons, and your heart rate can drop to life-threatening levels.
Reminds me of the Futurama episode with the space bee honey. Wonder if the writers got the inspiration from this.
Wait till you're 65. It's more than disbelief, people start to actively moronify you. I'm not that age yet, but I've see it happening to purple my parent's age
Even further off-topic, but I recommend you and the parent poster watch the Buffy episode Normal Again, and the 116 episodes before it. Not waking up, but also an example of the "none of this is real" idea.
I'm not sure if I'm entirely joking with this recommendation. For those who haven't watched - even for a show about a vampire slayer, it gets decreasingly plausible as the series go on (as do many long running shows). I remember being hit pretty hard when this episode suddenly offered a sensible explanation for everything, but a stone-cold path to get there.
Should I feel compelled to not offer spoilers on what is probably a joke recommendation anyway (117 episodes of a decades old TV show)?
I can imagining that being scary two different ways. I would not want to wake up because whatever this thing is, I love it. I'm having an amazing time, dream or not.
Another is Kalmia latifolia, the mountain laurel, the state flower of Pennsylvania. According to records at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History [1], "Benjamin Smith Barton (an American botanist in the late 1700s) wrote that in the autumn and winter of the year 1790, many people died in Pennsylvania from the effects of wild honey, collected from Kalmia plants."
Joe Rogan endorses consuming mad honey according to the copy on this site: https://realmadhoney.com/products/mad-honey-us. So there is an entire supply chain from Nepal to the consumer.
If anyone's interested there's also this recently released documentary in french by Hit the Road, where they show the process of collecting the honey and also the ritual side of it.
Just like many of the novel synthetiser drugs, unknown substances are very dangerous. The culprit here seems to be the victim thought he was consuming regular honey.
This article seems rather reckless. They admit that there is insufficient evidence to secure the safety of consuming ghost pipe, and go on to talk about creating an ethanol extraction (intended for consumption), without really explaining why one would extract with ethanol.
I’m all for wild medicinal remedies but in 2026 we could take a slightly more scientific approach than a paper from 1889.
Funny though, it grows in my back yard, perhaps I could find I way to study the full chemical composition. I do certainly lack the equipment however.
saw a video on youtube the other week, some guys made mead out of this stuff. Claimed the effects were still present. I wonder what the concentration of the psychedelic comounds ends up being vs raw honey.
Discussed in a 2017 National Geographic article[0], archived here[1]. Notice the article text's description of the honey being sold on the black market. Seems that now everyone is shopping there.
For you guys that watch YouTube. The channel is Mass Spec Everything. Here are a couple of interesting videos he did on various honey brands and regions. Pretty interesting stuff.
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[ 0.30 ms ] story [ 19.1 ms ] threadhttps://youtu.be/wDOvmhqvIA8
> Every article you read here is written by university scholars and researchers with deep expertise in their subjects, sharing their knowledge in their own words. We don’t oversimplify complicated issues, but we do explain and clarify. We believe bringing the voices of experts into the public discourse is good for democracy.
Probably the usual "big words hard" mindset of people who aren't used to reading well-written prose.
Only if it is before you breed, or you kill your own kids.
I mostly thought they were joking, and I have no idea what specific type of rhododendron would be there (if any), but maybe there’s a glimmer of merit to it? Or maybe they were thinking of a different plant?
This was somewhere in the Blue Ridge Mountains, if I remember correctly.
I also burned Rhododendron wood in campfires and brush fires more times than I can count without any adverse effects that I know of.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11946565/
What's this claim based on? I don't think it's the rat study linked nearby. I looked through it and they didn't really compare doses.
If it's a linear effect on dropping blood pressure, that seems like an overblown way to talk about it. If it's something else, I'd love to hear more.
The concentration varies considerably due to bees harvesting pollen from different flowers and from some batches of honey being mixed and some not.
Reminds me of the Futurama episode with the space bee honey. Wonder if the writers got the inspiration from this.
> You have to wake up. Please wake up. We're all here at your bedside waiting for you to wake up. Just wake up. We love you. Please.
And I'm convinced it's because of that episode.
But seriously, I find that the one recurring theme in nightmares I have is that people simply won’t believe me.
Any man who's been told to "man up" (most) has experienced the same.
"Wake up, Mr. Quaid!"
I'm not sure if I'm entirely joking with this recommendation. For those who haven't watched - even for a show about a vampire slayer, it gets decreasingly plausible as the series go on (as do many long running shows). I remember being hit pretty hard when this episode suddenly offered a sensible explanation for everything, but a stone-cold path to get there.
Should I feel compelled to not offer spoilers on what is probably a joke recommendation anyway (117 episodes of a decades old TV show)?
Kenneth! What's the frequency? What's the frequency, Kenneth!
https://theconversation.com/mad-honey-that-can-stop-your-hea...
Grayanotoxin containing Rhododendron occur not just in Nepal, but in Turkey, North America, and Europe.
I think there are other plants that the bees concentrate the toxins of.
It must end up being rare for some other reason.
[1] https://carnegiemnh.org/collected-day-1959/
https://youtu.be/r-jZyTP4K4g
> The information about ghost pipe containing grayanotoxin is based on a single source from 1889. (Yes 1889, not 1989!)
https://unrulygardening.com/ghost-pipe-faqs/
They are also listed as endangered in several states. I see them with some regularity in Wisconsin, even had one in my yard a few years back.
Tattletaling losers that can’t appreciate anything novel or innovative.
edit:typo
[0] https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/article/honey-hu...
[1] https://archive.is/Xdd01
That said, clinicians have been writing about this for some time, eg [2] from 2007:
[2] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17540490/
https://youtu.be/FTaRFX4bKhI
https://youtu.be/FCFtVu6hFdw