Incense Herbal – Right now and Then What is herbal incense? Herbal incense is another smoking option for people who like to smoke. Now, smoking legal herb happens to fall in the "legal" class, whereas some of the other things that folks choose to smoke are not. Although that doesn't mean that incense herbal based products are legal cannabis, far from it. Some individuals do refer to herbal incense as smoking legal bud, but the reality is that human beings have been smoking herbal blends that put them at comfort, help them to let go and unwind, and put them in touch with the spiritual area of life for thousands of years.
A long, long time ago, Ug the Caveman returned from a hard day of chasing dinosaurs, and looked around for something to relax. He threw the first thing he noticed (a nice pot of blended herbas his woman had prepared) on the fire, laid down next to it to sleep...and started to have very vivid dreams.
Well, it might have happened that way. Cultures as assorted as African, Chinese, Indian, Native American, and even European have been shown to have ancestry in smoking herbal incense. In Northern Africa, hemp cults smoking herbs used the smoking rite much as Native American Indian tribes used the peace pipe in North America, to trade deals, or business transactions. Ancient Chinese shamans, known as wu, were smoking legal buds long before the war on drugs in an effort to to converse with the spirits.
Then there are the Native Americans. Although they weren't smoking legal buds back then, they were definitely lighting up an abundance of Herbs. Everything from sweetgrass to cedar to sage went inside the peace pipe, and everyone inside the Sweat Lodge then experienced a group smoking high together. And even in Europe, where stiff penalties for ownership of that other herb dominate, linguistic evidence shows that Germanic tribes were smoking legal buds of a marijuana type no later than 500 B.C.
So, where are we right now? Does society still use these incense herbal smoking rituals for relaxation and meditation? Everyone is aware that the answer to this question is no. Even though smoking herbs like marijuana is tolerated in some areas (San Francisco and Amsterdam come to mind) there is no place on the planet where these psychoactive plants are lawful, free and clear.
Herbal IncenseEnter the appearance of modern-day incense herbal products around the year 2000. Though psychoactive plants and herbs had always existed, the herbal incense industry was given an enhancement in 1995 when organic chemistry professor John Huffman managed to synthesize a group of chemicals that became known as "cannabinoids". The chemicals displayed many of the same effects as THC, but without any of the harmful side effects such as paranoia and memory loss.
Commencing around 2004, incense herbal smoking products were sprayed with one of more of the cannabinoids. These cannabinoids—with chemical sounding names like JWH-018, JWH-200, CP-47, and JWH-073—are what led people to start referring to Incense Herbal Smoking as "smoking legal herbs". The benefits of these new smoking buds included no known side effects, no dread of failed drug tests or record of criminal charges, and proven soothing and stimulating effects.
A lot of people in todays society are required to pass a drug test at some point in their life. In fact, a large number of them need to be able to pass a random drug test and have it show that they don't even know what a smoking high is. Consequences for a failed drug test might consist of job loss, punitive discipline measures in professional sports, or even actual jail time. Little wonder, then, that after thousands of years of smoking rituals suddenly brought to an end by the government, people unwilling to give up their favorite method of relaxing turned to smoking herbal blends.
Incense HerbalOne very easy and understandable advantage of smoking herbal incense is that these products are still very much lawful. Although the DEA is regularly on the move trying to prohibit more and more of them, the vendors are wise to this and constantly change their product formulas so as to guarantee maximum legality in the most states possible. Numerous companies have some herbal incense flavors that are legal in all 50 states.
Plenty of people in authority are now asking each other, "What is herbal incense?" out of fear or ignorance. Since none of them really knows, this kind of talk fans the flames of paranoia until soon they've convinced themselves that all types of incense herbal are the same as marijuana and need to be banned. Opponents of herbal incense bring up concerns such as, "We don't know what's in these products."
The irony of this is that these are the same individuals that devour any number of food products every day that they have no conception of the ingredients. Your standard fast food product has things like trans fats, refined grains, sat, and high-fructose corn syrup, all of which have been verified scientifically to have negative effects on health in excessive amounts. It seems once again the victors set the rules on what is "good" for you and what isn't, as the damaging American diet continues to grow while discrimination for connoisseurs of smoking legal herb continues to increase.
Herbal Incense BlendsBut the good word for those who have grown to love herbal incense smoking is that, like Darth Vader in the Sci-Fi classic Star Wars, the more herbal incense products the DEA tries to forbid, the more original products will pop up on the market. No matter how many substances they prohibit or place on the controlled substances list, there will always be more, because you just can't battle 5000 years of human history.