Tobacco - Ally or Enemy?

[nn-DMT]

When I was in school taking a class on herbal and natural medicines I brought up tobacco, but noone really wanted to touch it..even the herbalist dont seem to know anything substancial about using it in a positive way..it is kind of overlooked as an herb in modern herbalism.

that's a good point. unfortunately as are so many other useful plants.

wet tobacco leaves can be used as a topical pain reliever and bug bite reliever

 

[rOm]

I voted ally too.
I consider cigarets enemy but here we speak about the real essence of tobacco, which I consider mapacho or even good cigars (plain natural tobacco leaves) to be representant of human preparation.
It has some quality and when used in special occasion is very valuable admixture (as far as my own experience goes) for a lot of alcaloids.
I never experience the concentrtazted mapacho juice though nor plan to do it so far. But smoking pipes or even cigars while in a lunar state of mind, it def has some grounding qualiity. my reckoning is that again like any other plant ally it has to be used wisely (without abusing both the plant and self).

 

[rOm]

honestly..I have never ever become addicted to tobacco..I never went out and bought packs of smokes though..I have spent entire weeks at a time in the bush, smoking cigars while eating mushrooms and I never felt the need to run out and buy tobacco after and start smoking..maybe cigarettes are different I dunno...for me cannabis was way more addictive than tobacco ever was, but I smoked cannabis the way most people smoke tobacco so who knows..I have not smoked tobacco in a long long time now..I dont really have any desire to anyway, other than an interest in combining mapacho with ayahuasca.

Actually I'm like you on this one.
I start smoking cigs as a training to soke spliff properly !
So I came into spliff and was really psychologically addictted to canabis smoke, using cigs only when I couldn't smoke or try smoking less spliffs.
However addiction teach you a lot whenever you decided to stop.
There is a time when addicted when you see the misery in which you put yourself in for some reason and decide not to take it anymore in the name of freedom.
Now I don't find cigs attractive but smoking mapacho or snuffing nu-nu when working with others plants or smoking a proper cigar while peaking on other psychedelics is really good and doesn't lead you at all into a bad habit.
I have mapacho and nu-nu in my herbal cabinet that stay there untouched for a month or two.
Ally_allies !

 

[soulfood]

I'd say to me it's both. I don't have an addiction just to tobacco without reason and I never get the urge to freakout when I can't have one, but sometimes it can feel quite cosy and sometimes it can be a dirty end to a dirty night just to make it all the more dirty.

Sometimes when I get myself stuck in a negative loop I can go outside and have a smoke and get away from that space. Although sometimes I find when smoking, a few tokes in my mood just seems to drop and I'm left with an unsettled feeling. A bit like a bad trip but no where near as intense but defo a similar anxiety.

 

[arimane]

Definitly ally. I dont' smoke, don't like the smell of burnt stuff, but since I've tried snuff water preparation of nicotiana rustica, I really enjoy preparing some of that for some activities. The Tzaang is the first substance assumed by Shuar, at little ages, and the plant is envolved in so many ritual and religious contest all over America, that I can't not have a huge respect for it.

 

[mapp]

I never smoked commercial cigarettes but at times I do enjoy the switch of mixing a small pinch of the crushed mapacho leaves with cannabis, I try to hold the smoke in for the hit, something different... ;D

IME I wouldn't label tobacco enemy, the shamans put it up there with ayahuasca and other plant teachers..

Anthropologist Luna thus reported on the importance of the use of tobacco among the vegetalistas of the Peruvian Amazon:

“Although I emphasized [..] the use and role of ayahuasca, it is important to realize that this plant is one among others which belong to the category of the plant teachers. Tobacco, one of them, is in a way more important than ayahuasca, because it is considered to be a mediator between the vegetalista and other plant spirits. Sin el tabaco no se puede usar ningun vegetal (without tobacco no other plant can be used), says Don Emilio. Tobacco purifies the body and expels the illness. [...] Tobacco is also the food of spirits [...] Mastering the use of tobacco, either smoked, or ingested orally or through the nostrils, is part of the shamanic initiation [...]. Tobacco is always present at ayahuasca sessions.” (*)
...
The spirits of the Ayahuasca and Tobacco plants are believed to be – by all the vegetalistas of the Peruvian Amazon – closely related.

..Although personally I've only used mapacho in small amounts for synergistic smoke. I do have to say that the commercial cigarette/modern tobacco bastardization is truly unfortunate, and not an accurate portrayal of the plant, but hey, we already knew that right?

 

[Ayawasqero]

The secret of shamanic use of tobacco you must behave the proper genus. Not the rustica, but the tabacorum.