Smoking is... good?

[Foxx]

I just want to report on the tobacco that I got from:

_http://whole-leaf-tobacco.myshopify.com

I've been really enjoying it so far! I got a pound of the Virginia Bright Leaf and a pound of the Kentucky Burley. I first mixed the burley and the bright leaf at 1/3 burley to 2/3 bright leaf and found to be a bit more potent than I like. Lately I've been smoking just the bright leaf and find it to be very smooth and enjoyable. It seems to be perfectly moist to me (though I'm not an expert), goes well in a pipe and also rolls extremely well. Compared to American Spirit and others I've used for rolling, they always seemed so dry and harsh to me, but this bright leaf results in great cigs so far.

As well, I smoke pretty slowly, but the bright leaf has been staying lit rather well when I roll a cig (could also be from rolling better due to it not being over dry). Cutting the leaves is a bit time consuming, I find, but I like it enough that it's worth the time spent to me. The leaves I got were a little hard to deal with too, being a little bit mangled in the bag and not of uniform quality. Perhaps I'm nitpicking, but having to unravel and untangle the leaves ends up taking a fair amount of time in the cutting process.

I just ordered another pound of virginia bright leaf from:

_http://www.wholeleaftobacco.com/

to compare to the other stuff. This is supposed to be aged for almost two years and goes for a slightly higher price than the other store (I don't think the first store ages it for as long, but I'm not sure). Mainly, I'm hoping that the leaves will be a little more organized and in a little better condition to make cutting go faster and easier, but if it tastes better I'll take that too ;)

 

[Mr. Premise]

Here is a pic of the tobacco patch from Saturday. I've started harvesting some of the lower leaves to test the hanging color cure technique. So far so good.

 

[Voyageur]

[quote author=Mr. Premise]
[...] So far so good.
[/quote]

Your efforts from the start are apparent.

 

[Psalehesost]

In short: Stimulating a sane and healthy mind is a good idea; my mind (particularly the adaptive unconscious/system 1 part thereof) must now become saner and healthier - then, smoking might work.

I'm now smoking again (I have since just two days or so after posting that), but moderating it - particularly the nicotine intake. At first I simply began smoking less at a time and less often, and keeping track of the state of my mind so as not to fuel the wrong state of mind - smoking only when the 'wrong' pattern of mental activity, to the extent discerned, was absent. Now, I've learned in short order to puff on rather than inhale from my pipe, and so I can easily have a milder smoke - and more than ever enjoy the soft, refreshing "burn" of the pipe tobacco as it clears my mouth and throat.

It seems to me that a small amount of nicotine can still be of use, particularly when mentally working hard. A larger amount still might fuel my overall tendency to burn lots of mental energy producing imaginings and illusions.

Now I'm back to full-fledged smoking. In the course of math studies, the efforts it requires and self-imposed pressure, and reflecting on experiences and Redirecting, and so forth, I've changed the worst of the old mental habits for the better - still more to be done, though. Have got cheap tobacco for making cigars which I grind up and use in my pipe - it is strong enough, and can be inhaled.

More recently, I've again also begun chewing tobacco; while not having the mental sharpening effect of smoking, seems to increase energy and prompt greater awareness of my own memories, helping somewhat over time to "consolidate" my awareness. (The "energy increase" can be ridiculous - when tired, often several times greater than used to be the case years back drinking coffee, but somewhat different. But sometimes it can instead make the mind a bit unfocused and mushy. Perhaps because of stirring things.)

I'm led back to my old thoughts: In cases of autistic spectrum conditions, the brain works a bit differently - according to what I've read, gray matter is denser and white matter less dense in the brain, meaning more efficient local processing but less efficient connectivity across the brain. And nicotine increases (doubles, according to one study) connectivity across the brain. So my thought is that it is likely to be very beneficial for those, like me, on the spectrum. But as I've learned, after a life of wrong diet, as well as plenty of emotional suffering and dissociation, there's a lot of stuff that can work wrong in the brain - and before it gets sorted out, increasing connectivity can increase the noise in the brain and its processing, fuel the work of still-faulty circuits.

 

[meta-agnostic]

I searched and couldn't find anything directly addressing this, and I figured asking in the smoking thread made more sense than starting a new one.

I've only been smoking [tobacco] for a couple of years, and I think it's been going pretty well. I try to keep it as organic as possible, mixing in a few natural-but-not-USDA-certified brands now and then. Lately I've been pretty much sticking to American Spirit Organic because it's the easiest to get, and since roughly the start of the summer I've noticed that my lips are starting to get dry and irritated, even spreading a little more red on the bottom. Whether I roll or smoke out of a water pipe, or even a traditional pipe, the problem seems to be concentrated in whatever area is being exposed directly to the most smoke. I've been using beeswax chapstick and cutting back a little bit to try and mitigate it, but I don't particularly want to quit! I probably could still quit fairly easily at this point, not sure how that would affect my circumstances during future events.

Maybe it's mainly related to the weather? I'm sure the heat can't help, but I figured winter would be worse for dryness. I remember getting a few lip irritations early on but they were relatively minor and short-lived.

Has anyone else experienced anything like this, and/or can you offer any advice? Thanks in advance!

 

[Foxx]

Has anyone else experienced anything like this, and/or can you offer any advice? Thanks in advance!

I personally haven't experienced anything like that, but I'd say the first route in trying to determine the cause would be to try another brand. The simplest (only?) alternative certified organic tobacco brand is Kentucky Select Organic. There are some other brands that may be organic or very close, but not certified. KSO can be bought online--I've not seen it in a store yet.

And, for me, my top tobacco pick right now is the whole leaf organic stuff that I mentioned a few posts up.

FWIW

 

[meta-agnostic]

Has anyone else experienced anything like this, and/or can you offer any advice? Thanks in advance!

I personally haven't experienced anything like that, but I'd say the first route in trying to determine the cause would be to try another brand. The simplest (only?) alternative certified organic tobacco brand is Kentucky Select Organic. There are some other brands that may be organic or very close, but not certified. KSO can be bought online--I've not seen it in a store yet.

And, for me, my top tobacco pick right now is the whole leaf organic stuff that I mentioned a few posts up.

FWIW

Thanks. That's what I'm leaning towards. Due to my living and work situation, ordering online is just a hassle I would rather not deal with but I'll probably have to try it at some point. Every time I find myself in some big tobacco shop I look for some other organic brand, and if I ever ask they either point me to AS or just seem dumbfounded. One even had other Kentucky Select varieties and I asked them about their organic line and they didn't seem to think it existed. I would have worked with them about ordering but I was passing through on a road trip. Here in NYC, there was a roll-your-own shop that had some pretty decent stuff I got a half pound of a while back. It wasn't certified but they were talking up a line about how "the term organic is overused", so I asked the clerk if they used phosphate fertilizers and that stumped him. I posted about it several pages back (page 88) and now it looks like it's been shut down by either the Bloomberg or Federal Gestapo. I did read something about how those places were due to be taxed into irrelevancy soon and I should have tried to stock up! Oh well, finding a perfect, easily available brand doesn't seem like a high priority to keep for too long in these times. We'll all be trying to grow our own soon enough if we're lucky(?) and I did stash away a couple packets of seeds.

 

[dant]

Nice Tobacco growing guys!

I forgot to add the following information I obtained
some time ago. I contacted Mr. Boucher and asked
if he knew of a commercial shredder and I also explained
that I was getting *really* dizzy from the effects of Turkish
tobacco:

[...]
Shredder: _http://www.ebay.com/itm/110919874964;jsessionid=6140E712351C94772FCD098D6B1A625A?ru=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.com%2Fsch%2Fi.html%3F_sacat%3D0%26_nkw%3D110919874964%26_rdc%3D1
{The site _http://shop.wholeleaftobacco.com/main.sc was updated (I think) and now includes the shredder on the left sidebar!}
[...]
Try mixing less turkish here is what the big tobacco companies use:

60% Bright leaf ( Flue )
30% Burley
10% Turkish

Seems to work better.

FWIW,
Dan

 

[Voyageur]

Nice Tobacco growing guys!

I forgot to add the following information I obtained
some time ago. I contacted Mr. Boucher and asked
if he knew of a commercial shredder and I also explained
that I was getting *really* dizzy from the effects of Turkish
tobacco:

[...]
Shredder: _http://www.ebay.com/itm/110919874964;jsessionid=6140E712351C94772FCD098D6B1A625A?ru=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.com%2Fsch%2Fi.html%3F_sacat%3D0%26_nkw%3D110919874964%26_rdc%3D1
{The site _http://shop.wholeleaftobacco.com/main.sc was updated (I think) and now includes the shredder on the left sidebar!}
[...]
Try mixing less turkish here is what the big tobacco companies use:

60% Bright leaf ( Flue )
30% Burley
10% Turkish

Seems to work better.

FWIW,
Dan

Thanks dant, that looks like a fine looking machine. Also, if people are growing alongside others who have planted tobacco, and they may not even know it, might be a good thing to community network and pool together on a machines such as this to lower costs, if that is a factor, aside from the beneficial general sharing of experiences, such as here. :)

 

[dant]

You are most welcome, the power of LIKE=LIKE Networking is AWESOME! Mirth!
Thanks to the ground-breaking works by Laura, Ark, the Château, and the true
members of the SOTT/Forum!

Caveat: It is my understanding, that each of us needs to process their own
Tobacco leaves and not ship the processed results to others for fee or free,
otherwise one could be faced with violating the Tobacco tax! If one is using a
shredding/processing machine within the group/family, I see no problem, but
if one has to ship processed tobacco to a member - that could be seen by the
PTB as to violating the tobacco tax? There was a SOTT article about the woman
growing, harvesting and processing tobacco for herself and gave some out for
free, caught the attention of the authorities.

I could be wrong... just make sure one understand why we are harvesting or
buying whole leaf for ourselves - to do the processing ourselves and to avoid
the tax penalty! This could change in the future though, that tobacco leaves
itself may become taxable? Let's hope not!

FWIW,
Dan

 

[LQB]

You are most welcome, the power of LIKE=LIKE Networking is AWESOME! Mirth!
Thanks to the ground-breaking works by Laura, Ark, the Château, and the true
members of the SOTT/Forum!

Caveat: It is my understanding, that each of us needs to process their own
Tobacco leaves and not ship the processed results to others for fee or free,
otherwise one could be faced with violating the Tobacco tax! If one is using a
shredding/processing machine within the group/family, I see no problem, but
if one has to ship processed tobacco to a member - that could be seen by the
PTB as to violating the tobacco tax? There was a SOTT article about the woman
growing, harvesting and processing tobacco for herself and gave some out for
free, caught the attention of the authorities.

I could be wrong... just make sure one understand why we are harvesting or
buying whole leaf for ourselves - to do the processing ourselves and to avoid
the tax penalty! This could change in the future though, that tobacco leaves
itself may become taxable? Let's hope not!

FWIW,
Dan

Well, considering how things are progressing on the tobacco front, I think an all out ban is possible in the future - at least for US smokers. Tenn just shut down all the state RYO shops so now its truly RYO.

 

[realitybugll]

I was kind of surprised to read in some articles that "smokeless tobacco" causes throat and mouth cancer. It seems pretty well established from what I read that long term use of chewing tobacco means elevated risk of mouth/throat cancer.

I was surprised to read this because I guess i didn't expect from what I read here for tobacco to have bad health properties.

scientists think they know which compounds in tobacco are carcinogenic and have identified some... though I wouldn't really put much significance on this.

my thought is that it doesn't matter too much. still use tobacco if it works well with you.

my problem perhaps is that I think of tobacco as a good drug in terms of spirituality. and then I wonder how it could do a bad thing (i.e cancer). but this is a simple minded view I understand.

I don't smoke. but if I decided I wanted to, I would value the immediate effects much greater than a risk of cancer down the road. if the effect helped toward my aims I suppose. also diet and health practices could negate the risk of cancer I imagine. And thinking ahead about this topic seems like a waste of time.

 

[Psalehesost]

I was kind of surprised to read in some articles that "smokeless tobacco" causes throat and mouth cancer. It seems pretty well established from what I read that long term use of chewing tobacco means elevated risk of mouth/throat cancer.

I was surprised to read this because I guess i didn't expect from what I read here for tobacco to have bad health properties.

Snus (the Swedish kind of spitless "chewing" tobacco) has been studied over and over, and the the warning - previously in place on packages for many years - that it might cause cancer had to be removed, because studies ultimately showed no link at all.

(So instead, naturally, there is now a new, more generic warning - stating that it "may harm your health" - no evidence needed - and "is addictive".)

 

[Mr. Premise]

I've read that Snus are made in ways that limit the carcinogens that cause mouth and throat cancer. What they do in making Swedish Snus is to heat the tobacco initially to eradicate bacteria then refrigerate it so that TSNAs (Tobacco Specific Nitrosamines) are not produced by bacteria. So that probably doesn't apply to other brands or types.

 

[Mr. Premise]

Harvest time! I've started priming (picking individual leaves) the lower leaves, one or two weeks after topping (cutting off the flowering tops). That's earlier than some suggest, but it results in milder smoking leaves, so I thought I'd try it that way. I hung them on 17 gauge electric fence wire in my garage which was cleaned out and no cars put in it for the duration of color curing. The conditions have been very good. There are windows in the garage - it's separate from the house - and I leave the door open. This results in moving air which is good for preventing mold and cooling it at night, which is good for raising the humidity so the leaves don't dry green or generally dry too fast. The humidity in the daytime in there has been around 40% in the day and goes up to 80% at night with the cooler temperatures. When the leaves are completely dry, I am hanging them in the attic. I've picked over two hundred leaves and there's probably 6 to 8 hundred more to go.