*Inhales* hmmm, needs more horse...
September 9, 2011 8:44 AM   Subscribe

"It begins with a freshly showered person riding naked for hours on a clean, washed horse inside a two-meter-high 'forest' of marijuana. Afterwards, the human body and that of the horse are covered with a thick layer of resin mixed with sweat. This produces a substance that is usually dark brown in color, which is then thoroughly scraped off the human and horse's bodies." The Chu (sometimes Chui or Chuy) valley produced much of the marijuana available in the Soviet Union, and continues its unique harvest to this day. Via The World on PRI (audio link). posted by codacorolla (61 comments total) 12 users marked this as a favorite
 
A couple of small, pinhead-sized pieces from one of these bars added to a regular cigarette is enough to make the smoker happy.

From what I recall, this was roughly my mother's description of the only time she tried marijuana. It was in the 1970s in Leningrad -- so it may have been snuck in from Finland, I'm not sure -- and she said it gave her a splitting headache.

So, thanks, Radio Free Europe, for that delightful afternoon mental image of my mother smoking something peeled off a naked Kazakh. Really, thank you.
posted by griphus at 8:50 AM on September 9, 2011 [20 favorites]


It begins with a freshly showered person riding naked for hours on a clean, washed horse inside a two-meter-high 'forest' of marijuana.

Man, what were they smoking?
posted by hydrophonic at 8:50 AM on September 9, 2011 [12 favorites]


I love the image of a naked person riding a white horse through a field of marijuana. It's downright biblical in it's legendary magnitude. Sounds like an alchemical rite. Similar to the stories of naked children running through to collect resin on their honey covered bodies in the mid east. But like some comments point out, it's not actually practical to do it that way so probably just a myth. Awesome idea though.
posted by Liquidwolf at 8:51 AM on September 9, 2011 [3 favorites]


(NB: If it wasn't for that mental image, my comment would have simply read "I know what I want to be when I grow up.")
posted by griphus at 8:52 AM on September 9, 2011 [3 favorites]


I hope this doesn't get coverage. Otherwise in a few months we'll see an episode of COPS where some guy in East Texas, who is probably not freshly showered, is arrested riding through his grow-house naked on a Roomba.
posted by resurrexit at 8:53 AM on September 9, 2011 [50 favorites]


This produces a substance that is usually dark brown in color, which is then thoroughly scraped off the human and horse's bodies.

We're Beatrice.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 8:54 AM on September 9, 2011 [5 favorites]


I hope this doesn't get coverage. Otherwise in a few months we'll see an episode of COPS where some guy in East Texas, who is probably not freshly showered, is arrested riding through his grow-house naked on a Roomba.

Tar ball idea.
posted by hal9k at 8:55 AM on September 9, 2011 [4 favorites]


I don't exactly mean to call shenanigans, but how can this "scrape resin off the horse" thing really be true? I mean, it's a beautiful image, but really? Isn't it simpler just to make hashish?
posted by Nelson at 8:58 AM on September 9, 2011 [3 favorites]


This myth goes back decades. Good to see American journalism setting new standards...
posted by Xoebe at 8:59 AM on September 9, 2011 [2 favorites]


It begins with a freshly showered person riding naked for hours on a clean, washed horse inside a two-meter-high 'forest' of marijuana.

And ends with "The Aristocrats!" How you describe what happens in between is up to you.
posted by quin at 9:00 AM on September 9, 2011 [34 favorites]


Aha! I found this gem, still on the net.
posted by Xoebe at 9:01 AM on September 9, 2011


I hope this doesn't get coverage. Otherwise in a few months we'll see an episode of COPS where some guy in East Texas, who is probably not freshly showered, is arrested riding through his grow-house naked on a Roomba.

Chris Onstead is that you
posted by The Whelk at 9:01 AM on September 9, 2011 [9 favorites]


Mmmmm Chui.....
posted by Sailormom at 9:05 AM on September 9, 2011


Aha! I found this gem, still on the net.

Dude, you are so full of shit!

I know, man, I can hardly stand up!
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 9:08 AM on September 9, 2011 [1 favorite]


And then, over the course of several moonless nights, the rider is slowly fed to the horse. The droppings are collected and ...
posted by Auden at 9:12 AM on September 9, 2011 [5 favorites]


I thought they did something like this, with their 'naked' hands to get that stuff.
posted by dabitch at 9:13 AM on September 9, 2011


I don't want it unless the naked person is a virgin Estonian albino who has never tasted refined sugar, and the horse has been fed on a diet of McIntosh apples.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 9:15 AM on September 9, 2011 [6 favorites]


I still remember the day an older "professional student" taught me how to heat up a block of hash in order to pinch off a softened piece to stick in a pipe...
posted by KokuRyu at 9:15 AM on September 9, 2011 [1 favorite]


Would this make the rider high? Being coated in a drug seems like there would be some ingestion. Provided this is a true(once true?) story.
posted by hot_monster at 9:17 AM on September 9, 2011 [1 favorite]


....I've been thinking of a career change.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:19 AM on September 9, 2011 [4 favorites]


the horse has been fed on a diet of McIntosh apples.

actually i think honeycrisp is what all the cool kids like now.
posted by elizardbits at 9:24 AM on September 9, 2011


Dude, where's my horse?
posted by stormpooper at 9:26 AM on September 9, 2011 [3 favorites]


So that doper who lived in the basement, stealing our food (and every single utensil in the house) and was chronically behind in the rent was actually getting off on the sweat from some Russian dude's butt crack?

There is justice in this world after all.
posted by bonehead at 9:29 AM on September 9, 2011 [3 favorites]


Dude, where's my horse?

Yours says "чувак," yours says "сладкий."
posted by uncleozzy at 9:31 AM on September 9, 2011 [2 favorites]


Giddyup!
posted by kinnakeet at 9:43 AM on September 9, 2011


In Soviet Russia, dope does you.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 9:46 AM on September 9, 2011 [5 favorites]


Dude, where's my horse?

Are you looking for the heroin of this story?
posted by hal9k at 9:49 AM on September 9, 2011 [2 favorites]


Oh, Old Spice, you never cease to entertain us!
posted by ericbop at 9:52 AM on September 9, 2011 [3 favorites]


It's a nice idea, but surely impractical. The horse and rider would be found giggling in the forest a few days later, convinced they were a centaur.
posted by omnikron at 9:54 AM on September 9, 2011 [21 favorites]


Plain old hashish or high grade pot will have precisely the same psychoactive effects.

Well, no. Not precisely at all. Hash tends to be mainly THC without the full spectrum of cannabinoids found in the body of the raw plant. Studies using extracted or synthetic THC have shown that ingesting THC alone often exacerbates the highly psychoactive and sometimes unwanted effects of THC. Like paranoia, or severe munchies, or tripping out.

They're discovering that CBDs (cannabidiol) has a large role in regulating THC, and these are a major constituent of the whole plant that are lost when making hash or THC extracts or oils.
posted by loquacious at 10:01 AM on September 9, 2011 [1 favorite]


Yeah,I bet every one of you immediately thought of the old spice guy.
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 10:08 AM on September 9, 2011 [3 favorites]


I think that this is about as likely as The Merciless Peppers of Quetzlzacatenango - Grown deep in the jungle primeval by the inmates of a Guatemalan insane asylum
posted by double block and bleed at 10:08 AM on September 9, 2011 [2 favorites]


Aha! I found this gem, still on the net.

Dude, you are so full of shit!

I know, man, I can hardly stand up!


Kids in Iowa NEVER sniff cow pies to get high. NEVER, I swear.
posted by Lutoslawski at 10:17 AM on September 9, 2011 [1 favorite]


And the story about using naked humans or horses running through fields is probably bullshit. I originally heard the rumor as a version where someone would run through a field wearing a leather jacket, then they'd scrape resin off the jacket.

But horses? Naked human skin? Sounds like a good way to waste and ruin hash. It's impossible to get resin off of human skin without a strong solvent and I can't imagine how impossible it is for horsehide. Soap and water doesn't do it, you need rubbing alcohol or something.

And there's no way you could get horse or human hair out of it, which... yeah. I've never seen "hairy" hash. That would taste really foul.

I have sesn photos of hash-harvesters using their hands to gather resin, which is scraped or rubbed off after it builds up, but they usually leave the bottom layer on ('cause you can't get it off if you tried) before going out and collecting more.

But the primary way people make hash around the world is using the whole (usually dried) plant and screens to make bubble hash, or other extraction processes. Much of the hash in Europe is likely synthetically or solvent-extracted or something, from what I've heard, which means it's often using the whole plant or waste trimmings.

Also, if you did actually coat your entire body in enough fresh cannabis trichomes to make hash you'd get one hell of a contact high. A few years ago I trimmed and groomed plant for a (legit, legal) dispensary garden and... man. That stuff is sticky. And, yeah, you can get totally buzzed just handling the plant if you do it long enough.
posted by loquacious at 10:21 AM on September 9, 2011 [4 favorites]


I heard this when it aired and immediately had to take a shower to get rid of my heebie-jeebies.

Now I may need another.
posted by mwhybark at 10:35 AM on September 9, 2011


Pfft, loquacious. Next you'll be pointing out that a horse is 14.2 hands high.

But you're wrong on all fronts. Its actually a whole team of well shaven midgets on Shetland ponies. After the ride, they're dipped in vegetable oil and massaged until they're almost clean. Next they're carefully swabbed with alcohol to extract the final high grade product from their pores. Then they're let loose with as many mars bars as they can eat until they straighten up.

Nothing unbelievable about it at all.
posted by Ahab at 10:39 AM on September 9, 2011 [5 favorites]


I think you folks volunteering are underestimating the experience of having a residue "scraped off" your skin. Ow.
posted by maryr at 10:48 AM on September 9, 2011


It's an excellent depilatory. Forget the Brazilian, here comes the Kazakh!
posted by exogenous at 10:55 AM on September 9, 2011 [1 favorite]


Sound great except for the naked on a horse all day. Oh the bruising.
posted by yerfatma at 10:59 AM on September 9, 2011


If the person riding the horse were Kate Winslet, I would destroy the cure for cancer in order to get a taste.

even if it came off the horse, because Kate's naked thighs had touched it
posted by Halloween Jack at 11:04 AM on September 9, 2011 [2 favorites]


Sound great except for the naked on a horse all day. Oh the bruising.
This was my first thought as well. Ouch. To say nothing of the chafing.
posted by ashirys at 11:04 AM on September 9, 2011 [2 favorites]


That's not a horse. You've got two empty halves of coconuts and you're banging them together.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 11:08 AM on September 9, 2011 [9 favorites]


Sound great except for the naked on a horse all day. Oh the bruising.
This was my first thought as well. Ouch. To say nothing of the chafing.


Meh, after a few acres you could care less, all you need are some tacos.
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 11:21 AM on September 9, 2011 [1 favorite]


It's an excellent depilatory. Forget the Brazilian, here comes the Kazakh!

Time to move to San Francisco, I now have a great idea for a business...
posted by ennui.bz at 11:44 AM on September 9, 2011


Nothing wrong with Borat and his buddies horsing around, getting high and bathing (not necessarily in that order). Meanwhile in America, we can't really get much further from this kind of naturally derived high and we arguably look much stupider; naked in our lack of foresight.
posted by obscurator at 12:11 PM on September 9, 2011


Kyrgyzstan is the best 'stan.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 12:30 PM on September 9, 2011


I think they're mistaking it for how Kvass is made.
posted by not_on_display at 1:25 PM on September 9, 2011


The rap link goes to this page.
posted by BurnChao at 2:32 PM on September 9, 2011


Huh, I guess I missed the empty link warning when I was posting:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdmaLyHDrWU

That's the proper link. Thanks for letting me know.
posted by codacorolla at 2:34 PM on September 9, 2011 [1 favorite]


as someone who was born and raised in Kyrgyzstan (Bishkek is the capital and located in Chui valley), I call this bullshit. No sane person will ride horse naked. Neither will insane.
posted by usertm at 3:20 PM on September 9, 2011 [5 favorites]


But anyway, this is obviously a silly gimmick. Plain old hashish or high grade pot will have precisely the same psychoactive effects.

Maybe for you. I've noticed a difference between hash/edibles/vaporized cannabis (basically just THC), and just plain smoking it (which releases other compounds).
posted by Pruitt-Igoe at 3:46 PM on September 9, 2011


It's impossible to get resin off of human skin without a strong solvent and I can't imagine how impossible it is for horsehide. Soap and water doesn't do it, you need rubbing alcohol or something.

Did they leave out the bit about the vodka baths?
posted by pompomtom at 3:50 PM on September 9, 2011


Its actually a whole team of well shaven midgets on Shetland ponies.

Yup. The resin turns their skin orange and their hair green ...
posted by sebastienbailard at 4:33 PM on September 9, 2011 [1 favorite]


I do this except it's on a "horsie" with wheels and handlebars, and it's just in other people's back yards. I leave my "resin" as a gift in their mailboxes.
posted by tumid dahlia at 6:05 PM on September 9, 2011


I'd hit it.
posted by warbaby at 8:48 PM on September 9, 2011


Let's get Mythbusters on this.
posted by Challahtronix at 10:52 PM on September 9, 2011


Soap and water doesn't do it, you need rubbing alcohol or something.

When a friend of mine was scoring in Kyrgyzstan, he'd occasionally come across a matchbox tainted with the evil garlic. I guess it was used in getting that resin scraped off the hands and made for a really icky smoke. The hash would get waxy and the garlic just totally corrupted the smell and taste. Eeeuhch.
posted by Meatbomb at 10:10 AM on September 10, 2011


The Chu Valley's wild marijuana -- well known among drug users in the former Soviet republics as "dichka" -- was always of the "highest quality."

LOL. The hash there is very poor quality, and the variation from one matchbox to the next huge. Compared to what you'll find in Afghanistan or (from hearing secondhand) Nepal and northern India, it is crap. I guess calling it the best says something about the quality of dope in the former Soviet Union.
posted by Meatbomb at 10:15 AM on September 10, 2011


I hope this doesn't get coverage. Otherwise in a few months we'll see an episode of COPS where some guy in East Texas, who is probably not freshly showered....

I have had kind of a shitty week, but resurrexit just almost made me spew beer across my laptop as I began to laugh as hard as I have in ages. If I had a uterus I would wish to have your children, resurr. Take it as a compliment, just don't pondering it too long.....

I remember, back in the 80s, long past the statute of limitations Mr. Man so don't start the car, I got to fondle a brick of Afghani hash wrapped with gold foil stamped with the mujaheddin seal - ahh, the memories!
posted by pdxjmorris at 2:42 PM on September 10, 2011


We lived on a commune when I was little. And I distinctly remember that most of the kids ran around in various stages of undress, and if we had been out in the back fields, one of the grownups would stand us on sheets in the barn and scrape or whisk us off to get all the red hairs we ended up covered in.

Who knew it was a tradition?
posted by dejah420 at 5:59 PM on September 10, 2011


Kids in Iowa NEVER sniff cow pies to get high. NEVER, I swear.

Apparently the word "shithead" comes from the practice of some veteran stoners in rural states, who developed too much of a tolerance to regular weed, of spiking their joints with cow dung.
posted by acb at 7:00 PM on September 10, 2011


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