> >Then you are far more aquainted with the
> subject than I. But I hesitate to let you frame
> the discussion and restrict it to epinephrine. Is
> enough known of brain chemistry to account for the
> biological action of the whole complex panalopy of
> hormones, dopamine, MAO inhibitors? There was a
> documentry I saw some years ago about some
> southeast Asian customs including eating fresh
> monkey brains as a means of intoxication. And no,
> we are not talking about hallucinogens, although
> you are familiar with the wide spectrum of
> innovative ways that New World tribes used for
> intoxication; Buffo Marinus, Cactii of several
> species, tobacco, pulque, peyote, barks of trees,
> plants of the wild. Eating the substance seems to
> be the least popular. Maybe a section of
> hypothalamus was placed between cheek and gum to
> await absorption ala' vitamin b12. Stamina,
> resistance to altitude sickness and warmth are not
> hallucinogenic, but would be valued. So the
> method of ingestion may be suspect, but there are
> epidemiological studies that show a link between
> agressiveness, analgesia and even psychopathic
> behaviour (however culturally relative that term
> is). I could test the speculation, but Halloween
> is still six weeks away. ;')

We are getting away from the original proposal. What I was trying to stay with was the idea that "rage" cannibalism was going on. The original proposal was shifted to the idea that the cannibals became enraged as a consequence of eating their victims, and it was in this context that epinephrine was brought up. I showed that this is not a feasible hypothesis.

The question now shifts to the whole question of psychoactive substances. As you list, there are a bunch-- particularly in the New World. First, let's deal with the question of mode of administration. A number of psychoactive substances-- psilocin, psylocibin (the Oxacan mushrooms), muscarine, muscimol (Amanita muscaria, the Siberian mushroom), bufotoxin (the toad sweat), hyoscyamine (jimson weed, i.e Datura), lysergic acid amides (ololiuhqui, morning glory), harmine (ayahuasca) are all active orally. Tryptamine (the bark from Virola) like epinephrine is rapidly metabolized so that its ingestion is to get it directly into the blood stream, either by using it as a snuff or applying it in the form of an enema; alternatively it ingested together with a MOA inhibitor that allows it to take effect.

We are familiar with the effects of alcohol (pulque, and a variety of other fermented products) although given the low percentage of alcohol present you have to work at getting drunk (now this could produce rage ). Although the literature mentions tobacco, I don't think that nicotine is hallucinogenic per se-- you could get hallucinations as a side effect of nicotine poisoning since the usual method is to chew and swallow a lot of tobacco juice.

There are a limited number of neurotransmitters involved in hallucinations produced by either agonists (substances that replace the normal neurotrasmitters: i.e. muscarine (acetyl choline); epineprine (nor-epinephrine) or antagonist (blocks the normal action): LSD, psylocin (serotonin).

Still nothing that fits "rage cannibalism).

Bernard