by Mr. X and Mr. Q

staff writers

 

Are you looking for a little high that won’t leave you utterly unable to form coherent sentences or foaming at the mouth?  How about a cheap, easy way to enhance your hard-earned study breaks?  How about making your weed that much better?  Well, friends, if you have any of these desires, we have just the product for you!  That’s right, it’s wormwood, Artemisia absinthium!  Guaranteed to be  just the legal herb you’re looking for!  Now, and for a limited time only, my dear friends, you can…

 

Well, that’s quite enough of that.  This is not an advertisement (but we really had you going, didn’t we?).  This is actually the latest adventure of Messrs. Q. and X.  It’s called wormwood: Artemisia absinthium.  Now, since we’re sure all of you are very adept at noticing cognates, and certainly don’t just skip over technical mumbo-jumbo, you are surely noticing the presence of the word absinthe as wormwood’s species.

Unfortunately, the alcoholic drink known as Absinthe is illegal in the United States (Mr. X’s side rant:  what the hell?  Give me a good reason for that.), and it takes about two weeks to make a rudimentary wormwood-vodka absinthe drink (trust us, we checked and were disappointed; for those who are interested, home Absinthe kits are readily available on the Interweb).  However, unbeknownst to many, wormwood is useful for more than just Absinthe and witchery.  Let us, your friendly campus psychonauts (and now, friendly campus warlocks—hey, we warned you about the witchery) drop some knowledge on y’all.

So, journalistic integrity demands that we first explicate the historical bullshit about this stuff.  Wormwood grows in both Europe and North America.  The etymology of wormwood is simple:  it is named for one of its common traditional uses, to remove inconvenient (and ever so unattractive) intestinal worms.  It was also, in medieval days of yore, used as an aid to women in labor and as a general cure for indigestion.  It also was used as a tincture, and was often an ingredient found in wine.

And now, the more interesting science-y bullshit:  the active ingredient in wormwood is supposed to be thujone, although this is a source of some debate.  At any rate, thujone is a good choice because it is a very similar shape to everyone’s friend THC, although it does not act on the brain in the same way.  Most wormwood must be dried in some way before it can be smoked, drank after being absorbed in alcohol, or otherwise consumed.  Wormwood oil is also sometimes available, and purportedly is, in the proper dosage, very good for both cardiac stimulation and increasing blood flow.  Neither Mr. Q nor Mr. X is entirely sure what cardiac stimulation is supposed to feel like, but both are fairly certain they did not experience it.

So here’s why you, the hopeful psychonaut, should like the proposition of wormwood:  we really like it.  It’s a lot of fun, although it is a very subtle drug.  When used alone, a mere bowl of wormwood gave us a general sense of well-being, which we cannot emphasize enough:  we felt pretty damn good about life, for no apparent reason other than stuff was great.  Mr. X also reported a light, pleasant tingling in his cheeks and forehead, which he also experiences after smoking other, more scheduled drugs (wormwood isn’t, by the way).  He also noticed he felt very “on top of things,” another sentiment that cannot be stressed enough (pun intended) during this week before finals.

As good as wormwood is solo, like sex or table water crackers, it works even better with an accomplice.  This accomplice is not to be named in this article on legal highs, but let’s just say its name is very similar to the phrase “catch a bus.”  Not much more has to be said about this:  all of the effects we mentioned above make getting high all the more pleasant.  For the more docile, it has been said that cigarettes taste particularly excellent after some wormwood smoking.  Regardless of what you smoke it with, or what you put it in, wormwood has the recommendations of Messrs. Q and X.

 

Surgeon General’s Warning:  Never, ever, ever, attempt to use pure wormwood oil in any way.  It is extremely poisonous.

 

Surgeon General’s Disclaimer:  Ok, the Surgeon General never said either of these things.  But it’s just good advice.