- Merits
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I addressed that above: the problem with the iNaturalist map for a region as scarcely populated as Siberia is that it's not possible to know if it's the species that is scarce, or it's just the people posting it who are scarce. If you check species that are known to be common there, you'll see that they're lacking from most of the map of Siberia too.
This is true. It's not known to occur outside of Siberia. I personally favor the hypothesis that it was done to cope with a lack of easy access to Amanita muscaria, but it's not clear yet if that was the case. There may have been ritual reasons, or a preference for the effects of the urine over the mushroom. Thus, this thread.
Yes, that's fair, due to metabolism ibotenic acid may not reach the brain, and only muscimol do so. But from a lack of evidence that ibotenic acid reaches the brain, it can't be concluded that it doesn't. Thus, ingesting ibotenic acid is a risky practice until it's better understood, and there's no reason to not decarboxylate.
I don't know who Amanita Dreamer is, but they seem to be doing the classic double standard maneuver of requesting a high degree of evidence to accepting opposing views, while not having any evidence whatsoever to support their own claims of ibotenic acid being a "wonderful medicine". There's much more evidence for its ingestion being harmful (even if it's still insufficient to be fully able to say that that's the case) than for it being a "wonderful medicine". So, without more knowledge about them than what I've been told, they seem to be disingenuous in their arguments.
