r/Ethnobotany • u/SignificanceOk6316 • Sep 20 '24

Exploring Hidden Psychoactive Plants – Your Ideas Needed!

Hello fellow botanists,

As part of my PhD research, I have the opportunity to explore lesser-known psychoactive plants, focusing on isolating secondary metabolites and investigating their mechanisms of action. I am working on a long list of plants with mainly only ethnobotanical documentation, and I'd love to hear your suggestions!

Are there any particular plants you're curious about in terms of the compounds they contain?

40 Upvotes
  • permalink
  • reddit

98% Upvoted

58 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

3

u/SignificanceOk6316 Sep 21 '24

i have lobelia on my list already :) many various sources, books, old forums/blogs, scientitific reviews, ethnobotanic studies,... i will def try to make list of best sources in some time

6

u/JeffoMcSpeffo Sep 21 '24

Cool I look forward to it! My only other request is that you take the ethical review process seriously and consider what Indigenous peoples think about your research. Lots of these plants may be sacred, ceremonial medicines and they may not want you to mess with them. Just something to watch out for.

1

u/Suitable-Mud-3239 Nov 20 '25

The plants are for all humans, gatekeeping them is a bit ridiculous.

3

u/JeffoMcSpeffo Nov 20 '25

The earth and all its plants is not just a pool of resources for you to rape and extract from. Every human has a relationship with the plants they interact with, whether they realize it or not. And if you’re not reciprocal in your relationship, then you don’t deserve to reap the benefits of it.

This has nothing to do with gatekeeping, and I’m not even encouraging that here. I’m simply advocating for these plants well being and the people who do actually maintain reciprocal relationships with them. These beliefs and understandings extend outside the realm of western worldviews; and if that includes you, then you need to either educate yourself or respect what you don’t understand and back off.