LILLIAN CHARLEY

What is herbal incense? Herbal incense is another smoking alternative for folks who like to smoke. Now, smoking legal herb happens to fall in the "legal" type, whereas many of the other things that people choose to smoke are not. Although that doesn't mean that incense herbal based goods are legal cannabis, far from it. Some people 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 came home 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 began to have very vibrant dreams.

Well, it may have happened that way. Cultures as assorted as African, Chinese, Indian, Native American, and even European have been revealed to have roots in smoking herbal incense. In Southern Africa, hemp cults smoking herbs used the smoking ritual 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 order to converse with the spirits.

Then there are the Native Americans. Though 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 everybody inside the Sweat Lodge then experienced a group smoking high as one. And even in Europe, where stiff penalties for ownership of that other herb dominate, linguistic proof shows that Germanic tribes were smoking legal buds of a cannabis type no later than 500 B.C.

So, where are we at the present? Does civilization still utilize these incense herbal smoking rituals for entertainment and meditation? Everyone is aware that the answer to this question is no. Even though smoking herbs like pot is tolerated in some areas (San Francisco and Amsterdam come to mind) there is no place on earth where these psychoactive plants are legal, free and clear.

Herbal Incense

Enter the appearance of modern-day incense herbal products approximately in the year 2000. Though psychoactive plants and herbs had always been in existence, the herbal incense industry was given a boost in 1995 when organic chemistry professor John Huffman managed to synthesize a number of chemicals that became known as "cannabinoids". The chemicals showed many of the same effects as THC, but without any of the harmful side effects such as paranoia and memory loss.

Starting 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 begin referring to Incense Herbal Smoking as "smoking legal buds". The benefits of these new smoking buds included no known side effects, no fear of failed drug tests or record of criminal charges, and proven calming and stimulating effects.

A lot of folks in todays society need to pass a drug test at some point in their life. In fact, a whole lot 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 include job loss, punitive discipline measures in professional sports, or even actual prison time. Little wonder, then, that after thousands of years of smoking rituals rapidly brought to an end by the government, people unwilling to give up their favorite method of relaxing turned to smoking herbal blends.

Incense Herbal

One very simple and understandable plus of smoking herbal incense is that these products are still very much lawful. Although the DEA is regularly on the move trying to ban 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. A lot of 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 lack of knowledge. Since none of them truly knows, this kind of talk fans the flames of fear until soon they've convinced themselves that all varieties of incense herbal are the same as pot 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 people that consume any number of food products each day that they have no idea of the ingredients. Your typical fast food product has things like trans fats, refined grains, sat, and high-fructose corn syrup, all of which have been demonstrated 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 unhealthy American diet continues to grow while discrimination for connoisseurs of smoking legal herb continues to increase.

Herbal Incense Blends

But the good word for those who have grown to adore herbal incense smoking is that, like Darth Vader in the Sci-Fi classic Star Wars, the more herbal incense products the DEA tries to outlaw, the more original products will pop up on the market. No matter how many substances they forbid or place on the controlled substances list, there will always be more, because you just can't battle 5000 years of human history.