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Traces of Five Psychoactive Drugs Found in Thousand-Year-Old South American Ritual Kit

posted by martyb on Friday May 10 2019, @08:13PM   Printer-friendly
from the why-booze-when-you-can-bong? dept.

takyon writes:

Traces of five drugs found on 1000-year-old South American ritual kit

A 1000-year-old collection of drug paraphernalia found in a rock shelter in Bolivia features traces of five psychoactive chemicals, including cocaine and components of ayahuasca. This is the largest number of psychoactive compounds detected in a single archaeological find in South America, the researchers say. The plants they come from aren't native to the highland area where they were found, so they may have been brought there by trading networks or travelling shamans.

[...] Radiocarbon dating puts the date of the bag at AD 905 to 1170, roughly coinciding with the collapse of the Tiwanaku state, a once-powerful Andean civilisation that endured for around five centuries. Drugs are thought to have played an important role in Tiwanaku culture, possibly in healing ceremonies and religious rituals believed to enable contact with the dead.

Melanie Miller at the University of Otago, New Zealand, and her colleagues used mass spectrometry to analyse samples from the pouch and plant stems. They detected five psychoactive compounds: cocaine, benzoylecgonine (BZE), bufotenine, harmine and dimethyltryptamine (DMT).

Also at Berkeley News, Science Magazine, National Geographic, and ScienceAlert.

Chemical evidence for the use of multiple psychotropic plants in a 1,000-year-old ritual bundle from South America (DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1902174116) (DX)

Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 10 2019, @08:26PM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 10 2019, @08:26PM (#842047)

    What Columbus was really after.

    He perhaps needed it too, he was a high-strung dude.

    • (Score: 2) by Bot on Friday May 10 2019, @08:40PM (1 child)

      by Bot (3902) on Friday May 10 2019, @08:40PM (#842054) Journal

      Friendly reminder that Columbus missed his objective by a continent plus the biggest ocean. Errors of such scale were only seen quite later, when nokia did not push his smartphone and later adopted windows.

      --
      Account abandoned.

      • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 11 2019, @06:24AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 11 2019, @06:24AM (#842237)

        missed his objective by a continent

        Biggest off-by-one error ever.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 10 2019, @08:35PM (14 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 10 2019, @08:35PM (#842052)

    How exactly did they arrive at this date?

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 10 2019, @09:21PM (13 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 10 2019, @09:21PM (#842066)

      Hint... It was 1019 years ago.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 10 2019, @09:47PM (12 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 10 2019, @09:47PM (#842078)

        The most remarkable, contained in his Chronologiae ex nummis antiquis restitutae (1696) and Prolegomena ad censuram veterum scriptorum, was to the effect that, with the exception of the works of Homer, Herodotus and Cicero, the Natural History of Pliny, the Georgics of Virgil, and the Satires and Epistles of Horace, all the ancient classics of Greece and Rome were spurious, having been manufactured by monks of the 13th century, under the direction of a certain Severus Archontius by whom he might have meant Frederick II.[2] He denied the genuineness of most ancient works of art, coins and inscriptions, and declared that the New Testament was originally written in Latin, as he underlined with good reasoning in his short work Prolegomena which appeared in the year he died, 1729.

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Hardouin [wikipedia.org]

        In The Pauline Epistles and The Rise of English Culture Johnson made the radical claim that the whole of the so-called Dark Ages between 700 and 1400 A. D. had never occurred, but had been invented by Christian writers who created imaginary characters and events. The Church Fathers, the Gospels, St. Paul, the early Christian texts as well as Christianity in general are identified as mere literary creations and attributed to monks (chiefly Benedictines) who drew up the entire Christian mythos in the early 16th century. As one reviewer said, Johnson "undertakes to abolish all English history before the end of the fifteenth century."[3] Johnson contends that before the "age of publication" and the "revival of letters" there are no reliable registers and logs, and there is a lack of records and documents with verifiable dates.

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_Johnson_(historian) [wikipedia.org]

        So what exact evidence did they use to date this to that time?

        • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday May 10 2019, @10:47PM (8 children)

          by c0lo (156) on Friday May 10 2019, @10:47PM (#842107) Journal

          So what exact evidence did they use to date this to that time?

          Hint: not written accounts, much less English Christian ones. 'Cause they couldn't find any in that rock shelter in Bolivia.

          --
          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 10 2019, @11:27PM (7 children)

            by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 10 2019, @11:27PM (#842132)

            Hint: not written accounts, much less English Christian ones. 'Cause they couldn't find any in that rock shelter in Bolivia.

            This is the tough part, because those accounts were used to calibrate the radiocarbon reference curve. Ie, this one: https://i.stack.imgur.com/SK8DR.png [imgur.com] (http://www.radiocarbon.org/IntCal13.htm)

            • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday May 10 2019, @11:46PM (6 children)

              by c0lo (156) on Friday May 10 2019, @11:46PM (#842141) Journal

              This is the tough part, because those accounts were used to calibrate the radiocarbon reference curve.

              False [wikipedia.org]

              --
              https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0

              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 11 2019, @12:06AM (5 children)

                by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 11 2019, @12:06AM (#842150)

                Among Libby’s first tests was Egyptian material with known historical age, but to more fully explore
                radiocarbon’s accuracy, he enlisted the assistance of archaeologists and geologists from their respec-
                tive professional societies to identify appropriate samples (Libby 1967). The initially reported rela-
                tionship between historical age and 14 C activity (Arnold and Libby 1949), called the “Curve of
                Knowns,” contained 2 samples dendrodated by A E Douglass himself along with 4 other samples
                dated from historical records (including wood from other sources not dated by dendrochronology).
                The younger sample was a Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menzesii) post (Figure 2) from a pithouse at
                Broken Flute Cave in the Red Rock Valley of northeastern Arizona whose ring sequence dated from
                AD 530 to 623, provided by Terah L (“Ted”) Smiley of LTRR. The older sample, called “redwood”
                by Libby but properly termed “giant sequoia” (Sequoiadendron giganteum), was from the “Centen-
                nial Tree” (Figure 3) in the Sierra Nevada of California, which contained rings from 1031 to 928 BC
                as provided by Edmund Schulman. The “Curve of Knowns” was expanded over the years by Libby
                and colleagues until a much later version (Libby 1961) added another piece of dated wood from
                LTRR (provenience not specified in that publication) and 7 additional samples dated from written
                records.

                True: https://journals.uair.arizona.edu/index.php/radiocarbon/article/viewFile/3496/3012 [arizona.edu]

                • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Saturday May 11 2019, @12:14AM (4 children)

                  by c0lo (156) on Saturday May 11 2019, @12:14AM (#842154) Journal

                  No texts written by English Christian monks were used for dating, then.
                  Which makes the method totally reliable (grin)

                  --
                  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0

                  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 11 2019, @12:37AM

                    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 11 2019, @12:37AM (#842162)

                    The dates of ancient Egyptian artifacts primarily come from:

                    Joseph Justus Scaliger (/ˈskælɪdʒər/; 5 August 1540 – 21 January 1609) was a French religious leader and scholar, known for expanding the notion of classical history from Greek and ancient Roman history to include Persian, Babylonian, Jewish and ancient Egyptian history. He spent the last sixteen years of his life in the Netherlands.
                    [...]
                    It was reserved for his edition of Manilius (1579), and his De emendatione temporum (1583), to revolutionize perceived ideas of ancient chronology—to show that ancient history is not confined to that of the Greeks and Romans, but also comprises that of the Persians, the Babylonians and the Egyptians, hitherto neglected, and that of the Jews, hitherto treated as a thing apart; and that the historical narratives and fragments of each of these, and their several systems of chronology, must be critically compared.

                    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Justus_Scaliger [wikipedia.org]

                    Much of his source material was the bible and what this guy found and became rich off:

                    Gian Francesco Poggio Bracciolini (11 February 1380[2] – 30 October 1459), best known simply as Poggio Bracciolini, was an Italian scholar and an early humanist. He was responsible for rediscovering and recovering a great number of classical Latin manuscripts, mostly decaying and forgotten in German, Swiss, and French monastic libraries.

                    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poggio_Bracciolini [wikipedia.org]

                    All those "decaying manuscripts" that supposedly lasted 1500 years in random European libraries have since been "lost".

                    You can read that Libby 1961 paper to see he just took the historians word for it:

                    The oldest samples of known age
                    measured were "Hemaka" and "Zet"
                    from the Ist Dynasty in Egypt. Both
                    were wood found in the subterranean
                    brick structures of the Ist Dynasty
                    tombs of the Vizier Hemaka and of
                    King Zet, both at Saqqara. Hemaka was
                    contemporaneous with King Udimu,
                    and both tombs were generally agreed
                    to date from 4900 + 200 years before
                    the present. The next oldest samples
                    were cedar wood from the upper cham-
                    ber of the Southern Pyramid of Sneferu
                    at Dahshur. The next sample, marked
                    "Sesostris," is a very interesting one. It
                    is a part of the deck of the funeral
                    ship which was placed in the tomb of
                    Sesostris III of Egypt and is now in the
                    Chicago Museum of Natural History.
                    It is about 20 feet long and six feet
                    wide and is quite an imposing object,
                    complete with paddles. The next sample
                    is "Aha-nakht." It consists of wood,
                    probably cedar, from the outer sar-
                    cophagus of Aha-nakht, at El Bersheh.
                    It was found in the tomb, which was
                    covered with earth. The coffin was pre-
                    sumably excavated by the natives at the
                    same time as the El Bersheh coffin ob-
                    tained for the British Museum by
                    E. -A. W. Budge, after 1895.
                    [...etc... it is a pain to copy/paste]

                    Libby, W. F. (1961). Radiocarbon Dating: The method is of increasing use to the archeologist, the geologist, the meteorologist, and the oceanographer. Science, 133(3453), 621–629. doi:10.1126/science.133.3453.621

                  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 11 2019, @01:11AM (1 child)

                    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 11 2019, @01:11AM (#842172)

                    Joseph Scaligers father is also very interesting:

                    Julius Caesar[!!!] Scaliger (/ˈskælɪdʒər/; April 23, 1484 – October 21, 1558), or Giulio Cesare della Scala, was an Italian scholar and physician, who spent a major part of his career in France. He employed the techniques and discoveries of Renaissance humanism to defend Aristotelianism against the New Learning. In spite of his arrogant and contentious disposition, his contemporary reputation was high. Jacques Auguste de Thou claimed that none of the ancients could be placed above him and that he had no equal in his own time.[1]

                    In 1512 at the Battle of Ravenna, where his father and elder brother were killed, his conduct earned him Order of the Golden Spur, augmented with the collar and the eagle of gold.

                    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_Caesar_Scaliger [wikipedia.org]

                    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 11 2019, @01:20PM

                      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 11 2019, @01:20PM (#842296)

                      It's also interesting to look at the lifespan of all these people. Not much different from today, despite all supposed medical advances in the last 400 years.

                  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 11 2019, @05:34PM

                    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 11 2019, @05:34PM (#842389)

                    And his father (who was accused of making up his own family history) had a friend named Mark Antony:

                    When a certain Mark Anthony of the famous Italian family of the Roveres arrived in Agen, in Southwestern France, in the second decade of the sixteenth century, he brought along with him his personal physician, Mas-ter Julius Caesar, who had been under the protection of his family for some time.

                    https://www.jstor.org/stable/1005626 [jstor.org]

                    This is too ridiculous. So the guy responsible for our modern chronology had a father (who it is thought made up a fake history for himself) named Julius Caesar with a friend named Mark Antony.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 10 2019, @10:52PM (2 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 10 2019, @10:52PM (#842110)

          Radiocarbon dating puts the date of the bag at AD 905 to 1170. Or if you believe the Earth is flat (Dark Ages between 700 and 1400 A. D. had never occurred) then it was a wibbily wobbly timey wimey malfunction.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 10 2019, @11:31PM (1 child)

            by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 10 2019, @11:31PM (#842135)

            Radiocarbon dating puts the date of the bag at AD 905 to 1170.

            Yes, of course. But how exactly was the info plugged into this radiocarbon dating equation arrived at?

            The delta-C14/delta-C12 ratio is not constant over time, so it needs to be calibrated to something else. It is possible they did this *only* by sampling from tree rings without using any (possibly incorrectly dated) historical references, but how do we find out?

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 11 2019, @12:37AM

              by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 11 2019, @12:37AM (#842161)

              OK... They took a wild guess.

  • (Score: 2) by Barenflimski on Friday May 10 2019, @08:40PM (2 children)

    by Barenflimski (6836) on Friday May 10 2019, @08:40PM (#842053)

    People that lived in the woods used the tools available to them. I'm shocked.

    Speaks volumes about where we are today when this is even interesting.

    Would anyone, 1000 years ago, be surprised to know that some other people around them were priests, shamans, healers and witches?

    • (Score: 5, Informative) by takyon on Friday May 10 2019, @09:19PM (1 child)

      by takyon (881) <{takyon} {at} {soylentnews.org}> on Friday May 10 2019, @09:19PM (#842064) Journal

      It's interesting that we can detect 5 psychoactive compounds after so long. And the combo is important.

      “This is the first evidence of ancient South Americans potentially combining different medicinal plants to produce a powerful substance like ayahuasca,” said Miller, a researcher with UC Berkeley’s Archaeological Research Facility who uses chemistry and various technologies to study how ancient humans lived.

      “Whoever had this bag of amazing goodies … would have had to travel great distances to acquire those plants,” says Melanie Miller, lead author of a new study on the discovery and a bioarchaeologist at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand. “[Either that], or they had really extensive exchange networks.”

      Nearly every culture on Earth has dabbled with consciousness- and perception-altering substances. Indigenous groups from Central and South America have used hallucinogens such as peyote and psilocybin mushrooms during rituals and religious ceremonies for thousands of years. Archaeologists have uncovered hundreds of items that provide a glimpse into these ancient practices, but few are as complete as the Bolivian find.

      [...] Shamans “say they’ve had [ayahuasca] for a very long time. So in some ways, I wasn’t surprised,” she says. But because archaeological evidence has been lacking, the new find is “exciting.”

      Though ayahuasca is touted today as an “ancient” preparation, the actual age of the brew and ritual are contested. Capriles’s find can be considered the world’s earliest archaeological evidence of ayahuasca consumption, although there’s no way to prove that the shaman at Cueva del Chileno actually brewed or administered ayahuasca from the ingredients detected in the pouch.

      Modern ayahuasca preparations “are idiosyncratic,” says Dennis McKenna, an ethnopharmacologist who specializes in plant hallucinogens and leads modern-day ayahuasca retreats. “Every shaman practically has his own brew.” But he agrees that the substances found in the Cueva del Chileno shaman’s pouch could have been used to prepare ayahuasca.

      “People have been arguing that [ayahuasca] was mostly a recent thing,” says Scott Fitzpatrick, an archaeologist at the University of Oregon who was not involved with the research. “The ayahuasca ritual has a deep time perspective now.”

      --
      [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 10 2019, @10:49PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 10 2019, @10:49PM (#842109)

        > although there’s no way to prove that the shaman at Cueva del Chileno actually brewed or administered ayahuasca from the ingredients detected in the pouch.
        Maybe not prove, but I'm not aware of anything containing high enough DMT concentrations to smoke, and the oral route requires an MAOI to actually work, which yields ayahuasca. So it's at least highly suggestive, unless someone knows any other viable way they'd have used it at all.

  • (Score: 1, Troll) by realDonaldTrump on Friday May 10 2019, @09:24PM (4 children)

    by realDonaldTrump (6614) on Friday May 10 2019, @09:24PM (#842068) Homepage Journal

    I did the Sub about Melanie Miller's interesting work. On, the Studio 54 of ancient times. And 15 minutes later, Editor Takyon did a Sub about the same story. That one got approved, mine's still waiting. Why?

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 10 2019, @09:36PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 10 2019, @09:36PM (#842075)

      Because it's the democratic way of doing things.

    • (Score: 4, Informative) by martyb on Saturday May 11 2019, @12:38AM (2 children)

      by martyb (76) on Saturday May 11 2019, @12:38AM (#842163) Journal

      Was there something wrong with my Sub?

      I did the Sub about Melanie Miller's interesting work. On, the Studio 54 of ancient times. And 15 minutes later, Editor Takyon did a Sub about the same story. That one got approved, mine's still waiting. Why?

      First off, this question is addressed in the FAQ [soylentnews.org]. I take it you have read that?

      Secondly, being first to submit a story does not guarantee that your version of the story is the one that gets published.

      Here is what you submitted [soylentnews.org] and here is what takyon submitted [soylentnews.org].

      Takyon's submission, though it came a few minutes later, was much more complete.

      It included the radiocarbon dating that was used to determine the date of the bag. Further, his submission identified all five of the substances that were found.

      Beyond those points, he also included alternate sources for the casual reader to see other media's take on the story.

      Still further, his submission contained a link to the actual journal article. This is the primary article that the other articles are based on.

      Lastly, let me make this abundantly clear. On several occasions I have seen complaints from you about how a comment of yours was moderated, or how a story submission was not accepted, etc. But each time, you have failed to provide a link to the item in question. Heck, even a copy/paste of the item's title would have gone a long way. I have repeatedly had to do some searching to find the item in question... when you already had it to hand. I have previously provided clear instructions in reply to comments of yours on how to copy links and include them in a comment.

      I have acted in good faith in these cases. I fail to see the same from you.

      This very comment is another case in point.

      If you cannot bother to provide a link to the item in question, then do not expect us to bother with anything in your comment.

      --
      Wit is intellect, dancing.

      • (Score: 1, Redundant) by realDonaldTrump on Saturday May 11 2019, @04:34AM (1 child)

        by realDonaldTrump (6614) on Saturday May 11 2019, @04:34AM (#842215) Homepage Journal

        I asked, why my Sub is still waiting. Otherwise known as, Pending. You "answered" something else I didn’t ask. You didn't answer that one.

        But you wrote 4 Paragraphs to say, I didn't put the Link, you wanted the Link. Which, if you'd looked at my Sub, I assume you would remember it. Without needing to look again, without needing the Link. Because it wasn't long ago at all -- Friday morning. So I assume, you hadn't looked at mine. Until I asked what was going on. You didn’t say so. But, you put up the Takyon Sub about the same story. And according to you, mine is inferior. But, you didn’t reject it. And you didn’t "merge" it. I think if you’d looked at it, if it was bad, you could reject it. And if it was OK, you could merge it. But, you didn’t do either. So I asked.

        And you said, look at FAQ. At, I’m guessing, "Why didn't you post my story?" 7 "answers" to that one. And, none of them apply. Especially because nobody "declined" (rejected).

        So I’m left to guess, possibly a lot of my Subs don’t get looked at. Or possibly the Editors look at them, then they do their own "version" of the story. And go with that one -- no credit to Donald J. Trump. I'm not asking for a royalty. But possibly I'm asking too much!!

        • (Score: 2) by martyb on Saturday May 11 2019, @12:35PM

          by martyb (76) on Saturday May 11 2019, @12:35PM (#842283) Journal

          I asked, why my Sub is still waiting. Otherwise known as, Pending. You "answered" something else I didn’t ask. You didn't answer that one.

          (emphasis added)

          The subject of the comment you posted, which I quoted in my reply, and which was still referenced in the subject your reply was:

          Was there something wrong with my Sub?

          That is a question.

          I answered it.

          As for your pending story submission, that was an oversight on my part; thank you for bringing it to my attention. I will delete it now.

          --
          Wit is intellect, dancing.

  • (Score: 1) by RandomFactor on Friday May 10 2019, @09:39PM (3 children)

    by RandomFactor (3682) Subscriber Badge on Friday May 10 2019, @09:39PM (#842076) Journal

    That's new (or well, the opposite of that). Usually I've at least heard of things in passing.

    --
    В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды

    • (Score: 4, Informative) by takyon on Friday May 10 2019, @09:55PM (2 children)

      by takyon (881) <{takyon} {at} {soylentnews.org}> on Friday May 10 2019, @09:55PM (#842081) Journal

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayahuasca [wikipedia.org]

      Basically a brewed South American drug mix associated with shamans. It's all the rage right now with the hip crowd. It contains a variety of substances (differing from brew to brew), but typically contains DMT [wikipedia.org]. Unlike the DMT "businessman's trip", the effects can last for hours and likely include some vomiting.

      The psychedelic effects of ayahuasca include visual and auditory stimulation, the mixing of sensory modalities, and psychological introspection that may lead to great elation, fear, or illumination. Its purgative properties are important (known as la purga or "the purge"). The intense vomiting and occasional diarrhea it induces can clear the body of worms and other tropical parasites, and harmala alkaloids themselves have been shown to be anthelmintic. Thus, this action is twofold; a direct action on the parasites by these harmala alkaloids (particularly harmine in ayahuasca) works to kill the parasites, and parasites are expelled through the increased intestinal motility caused by these alkaloids.

      [...] The shamans lead the ceremonial consumption of the ayahuasca beverage, in a rite that typically takes place over the entire night. During the ceremony, the effect of the drink lasts for hours. Prior to the ceremony, participant are instructed to abstain from spicy foods, red meat and sex. The ceremony is usually accompanied with purging which include vomiting and diarrhea, which is believed to release built up emotions and negative energy.

      Scientists Prolong Length of DMT Trips [soylentnews.org]
      Amazonian Psychedelic May Ease Severe Depression, New Study Shows [soylentnews.org]

      and a bonus: "The new ayahuasca is kambo" [soylentnews.org]

      --
      [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]

      • (Score: 1) by RandomFactor on Friday May 10 2019, @10:12PM (1 child)

        by RandomFactor (3682) Subscriber Badge on Friday May 10 2019, @10:12PM (#842096) Journal

        It's all the rage right now with the hip crowd.

        Well that explains me never having heard of it at least :-p

        Prior to the ceremony, participant are instructed to abstain from spicy foods, red meat and sex.

        Three strikes in a row

        The ceremony is usually accompanied with purging which include vomiting and diarrhea

        Aaaand two bonus strikes. I think we're done here.

        --
        В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 10 2019, @10:41PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 10 2019, @10:41PM (#842104)

          >> Prior to the ceremony, participant are instructed to abstain from spicy foods, red meat and sex.
          > Three strikes in a row
          Everything I've read is more about avoiding foods with serotonin precursors (tryptophan, etc) long enough to clear it out before taking the MAOI-containing brew, to avoid serotonin syndrome. If there's sound rationale for the other things, it's still just some temporary prep phase leading up to the trip, maybe a day to a week of it, I think. It's not about living that way.

          >> The ceremony is usually accompanied with purging which include vomiting and diarrhea
          > Aaaand two bonus strikes. I think we're done here.
          Oh, don't worry, those are nothing in the face of the eternity in an utterly alien reality, anyway ;)

  • (Score: -1, Troll) by NPC-131073 on Friday May 10 2019, @11:07PM (2 children)

    by NPC-131073 (7147) on Friday May 10 2019, @11:07PM (#842122)

    How many $$$$$ did they confiscate and how many brown people did they put in jail? No wonder those Mexicans live in mud huts. All they do is get hopped up on goofballs all the time and rape white women!

    Build that wall! Build that wall! Build that wall!

    Trump! Trump! Trump!

    • (Score: 2) by Snospar on Friday May 10 2019, @11:12PM (1 child)

      by Snospar (5366) Subscriber Badge on Friday May 10 2019, @11:12PM (#842124)

      You're busy "tonight"... are you in my hemisphere?

      No, I hope we don't meet.

      --
      Huge thanks to all the Soylent volunteers without whom this community (and this post) would not be possible.

  • (Score: 2) by Snospar on Friday May 10 2019, @11:10PM (1 child)

    by Snospar (5366) Subscriber Badge on Friday May 10 2019, @11:10PM (#842123)

    I'd be more interested if this story stated they could track this drug use through the genome and see whether these were "wasters" or "innovaters" or whatever... If it's just "for religious purposes" I'll be disappointed... but not surprised.

    --
    Huge thanks to all the Soylent volunteers without whom this community (and this post) would not be possible.

  • (Score: 4, Funny) by Gaaark on Saturday May 11 2019, @12:00AM (2 children)

    by Gaaark (41) Subscriber Badge on Saturday May 11 2019, @12:00AM (#842145) Journal

    (Soft knocks at the door)
    CHONG: Who is it?
    CHEECH: It's me, Dave. Open up, man, I got the stuff.
    (More knocks)
    CHONG: Who is it?
    CHEECH: It's me, Dave, man. Open up, I got the stuff.
    CHONG: Who?
    CHEECH: It's, Dave, man. Open up, I think the cops saw me come in here.
    (More knocks)
    CHONG: Who is it?
    CHEECH: It's, Dave, man. Will you open up, I got the stuff with me.
    CHONG: Who?
    CHEECH: Dave, man. Open up.
    CHONG: Dave?
    CHEECH: Yeah, Dave. C'mon, man, open up, I think the cops saw me.
    CHONG: Dave's not here.
    CHEECH: No, man, I'm Dave, man.
    (Sharp knocks at the door)
    CHEECH: Hey, c'mon, man.
    CHONG: Who is it?
    CHEECH: It's Dave, man. Will you open up? I got the stuff with me.
    CHONG: Who?
    CHEECH: Dave, man. Open up.
    CHONG: Dave?
    CHEECH: Yeah, Dave.
    CHONG: Dave's not here.
    CHEECH: What the hell? No, man, I am Dave, man. Will you...
    (More knocks)
    CHEECH: C'mon! Open up the door, will you? I got the stuff with me, I think the cops saw me.
    CHONG: Who is it?
    CHEECH: Oh, what the hell is it... c'mon. Open up the door! It's Dave!
    CHONG: Who?
    CHEECH: Dave! D-A-V-E! Will you open up the goddam door!
    CHONG: Dave?
    CHEECH: Yeah, Dave!
    CHONG: Dave?
    CHEECH: Right, man. Dave. Now will you open up the door?
    CHONG: Dave's not here

    --
    --- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---

    • (Score: 2) by captain normal on Saturday May 11 2019, @01:39AM (1 child)

      by captain normal (2205) on Saturday May 11 2019, @01:39AM (#842184)

      he...he...That's kinda like some of the threads here on S/N.

      --
      "It is easier to fool someone than it is to convince them that they have been fooled" Mark Twain

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 11 2019, @03:31AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 11 2019, @03:31AM (#842205)

        What thread?!

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