First off, I'd suggest SWIM should try the dpt... why? it is used regularly by a church in New York as their sacrament:
Temple of the True Inner Light - Wikipedia ...so it probably has great spiritual potential. Next, here's the ibogaine study regarding gene expression:
http://www.ibogaine.org/onaivi.html Ah, and now regarding the 5-HT system... I have to argue that is it indeed the most well understood neurotransmitter system as, regardless of the haphazard construction and effects of SSRIs and other antidepressants, look at how the psychiatric field deals with other systems. For example the dopamine and norepinephrine systems... I mean ADHD is still treated with amphetamines, which are horribly unhealthy and addictive... antipsychotics (which act on dopamine) cause all sorts of unsavory heart and vascular problems and cause stroke in the elderly. SSRI's don't cause much of anything but sexual dysfunction and weight gain. Oh and lets not forget, SSRIs are not the state-of-the-art treatments for 5-HT disorders, atypical antidepressants like Wellbutrin and Cymbalta are. With the 5-HT system, we're already on the third wave of treatments that are getting safer and safer and more specific each time we advance (started with MAOIs and tricyclics then moved to SSRIs and finally now to atypical antidepressants). With the dopamine system we're only on the second wave, the first was disgusting things like thorazine which not only acted on dopamine but also on GABA and ended up causing GABA-ergenic seizures (the same sort of seizures heavy alcoholics develop after long-term abuse).... today's dopamine drugs are just nasty and with ADHD treatments, they're actually still on the first wave, although there is the mostly ineffective Straterra (which actually operates only on norepinephrine). I didn't even mention the sorry state of the GABA system, which we pretty much have barely studied and all we really know is that GABA in excess makes you sleepy and happy... although its admitedly hard to understand the GABA system to due its relation to the extremely complex neurotransmitter system of sleep cycles. As for the opiod system, well, there hasn't even really been much of an effort to study it at all, I mean, we understand the action of opiates on the peripheral nervous system pretty damned well but the pain centers of the brain aren't very well studied at all. Oh and by the way, my called salvinorin A a kappa opiod antagonist was just a slip up, you're right in that it is an agonist and not an antagonist. As for 5-HT psychedelics, they are typically both antagonists and agonists, they bind to 5-HT receptor sites and remain there, blocking the re-uptake (antagonist) of serotonin but also stimulating the cell to produce more serotonin (agonist). By the way, I'd like to see where you might have read about salvinorin being used to treat opiod addiction because that seems to me to not be very different from methadone treatments for heroin addiction, in other words, I don't see how effective treating opioid receptor agonist addiction with an opioid receptor agonist could be. Hmm, on a side note, it'd be interesting to see it opioid painkillers potentiate the effects of salvia (know any painkiller addicts? lol just kidding, wow thats cold).... As for AMT, the effects your experience probably had to do with the frequency of which you were taking it..... oh and despite what people think, marijuana and psychedelics don't mix well, personally I think the combination leads to flashbacks as marijuana itself re-emerges with exercise... that is, since un-metabolized THC from sessions of smoking extremely large amounts of weed get stored in your fat cells, during periods of heavy aerobic exercise following such use, THC can be released into your system. Although, I don't trust marijuana much anyway... its a little shifty with its sticking around for month on end
, lol. But that's got more to do with my personal experience with it and my slight preference for NIDA studies regarding it (slight meaning I'm more likely to trust them then marijuana users). Oh and something your more likely to agree with, and which is proven across the board, amphetamines promote the development of psychosis!! No one should ever mix regular use of amphetamines with psychedelics thats bound to lead to a trip down paranoia lane... the next thing you know you'll think that everyone's bodies have been stolen by sea monster and they want to eat you. Haha. Tssk tssk, adderall is bad for you, I mean gosh, I'm prescribed it for ADHD and I barely use it! Oh and lastly, most colloquial MDMA studies aren't acutally studying the effects of MDMA, MAPS has done true MDMA studies on people and animals (back in the 80s and early 90s, as they don't do animal studies anymore). Look around,
www.maps.org has shit-tons of journal entries concerning it. Those studies you see on tv about "holes in the brain" which actually were only showing one girl who used a myriad of other recreational drugs and who actually didn't have any wholes in her brain just an area of decreased blood flow... well they are tainted because they study people who are typically classified as "club drug users" and who claim/think they use MDMA on a regular basis but are probably actually using things like PMA/caffeine/methamphetamines/PCP/heroin/cocaine/MDA/MDE /amphetamines/phentermines/pseudephdrine/dextromethorphan ... which are all typically mixed in a variety of ways and sold as "ecstasy".