Cactus Tar experiment—screwing around with Minerals/Agar/Vinegar. Safe? Efficient?

[someblackguy]

I measured 100g of dry Peruvian Torch chips.
I then made a solution of 75% EtOH/H2O (Everclear brand) saturated with Aluminum Sulfate (alum), dissolved by rigorous shaking until no more would go into solution.
This alum saturated everclear was added to cactus chips, just enough to cover. An additional tablespoon (aprox) of dry alum was later added directly to the soggy chips.
This was left for about 18 hrs at room temp, by which time cactus had absorbed all of the liquid.
This was placed onto a food dehydrator sheet and dried at 125F (52C) for about 12 hrs.

The dried alum treated cactus took on a distinctly hard, brittle, rock texture and appearance (like a box of pebbles). This was ground with a coffee mill into powder.

I added 25-30grams of bentonite, a natural silicate clay ("aztec secret" brand), to the milled powder.
A solution of 3g agar powder (telephone brand) stirred into 1L (+/-) of cold H2O then brought to a boil until agar was dissolved and "bloomed." This was mixed by hand into the cactus/alum powder and poured into large ice cube trays. The total volume of the liquid at the point was less than 1.5L. These ice cube trays were placed in the freezer for 12 (+/-) hrs to allow agar to set and then freeze completely.
The green cactus cubes are put onto a dehyrdrator tray and dried at 125F for 12-18hrs, breaking up the drying cubes into smaller pieces every few hours. The cactus cubes went from ice, to jello, to spongy/slimy, leathery, then brittle and dry with the final consistency of similar to chunky cornflakes (but to be more accurate, if obscure, the stuff feels exactly like the textured soy protein isolate/TVP dried chunks sold in bulk sections of healthfood stores in North America.)

These crushed cactus/agar/alum chunks were powdered in the coffee mill. The milled powder was combined with 100g of CaOH (wages brand). This flour was covered with 50/50 EtOH/H2O to a mudpie consistency (like a pancake batter). As expected the alum and lime reacted at this point (fizzing, foaming like baking soda/vinegar, but milder/slower). The bowl went into the dehyrdator (150f) for 2-3hrs until it had a more cookie/biscuit dough texture and could be scooped into "cookie" sized portions and placed onto the dehydrator sheet and "baked" at 125-150f (forgot) for 2-3 hrs until dry and crumbly. This was crumbled into a powder and put back in the dehydrator till dry. This greyish powder had an aromatic/mediciny smell distinct from the plaster smell of lime. This was covered with approx 500-600ml of everclear and placed on a magnetic stirrer for 48hrs.

This was decanted, then poured through coffee filters to separate particulates. This filtered solution was placed into a pyrex dish, adding to this a probably excessive amount of glacial acetic acid (about 5-10ml?). This was evaporated to about 1/2-1/3 at which point insoluble compounds were visible as particulates. These were removed by paper coffee filters.

This lighter, transparent acetate liquid was put into the dehydrator at 125f for about 12hrs until the liquid is evaporated.

The acetate tar was scraped off the baking dish easily and collected for assay or further extraction.

My goal was to produce a cactus reduction/tar that was of comparable quality to those made via IPA soaking, but requiring less solvent than is called for with these alcohol isolates. My research lead me to early patents which utilize processes not often explicitly addressed in the cactus extractions found here. Of particular interest are the known processes treating the pectin-like polysaccharide cactus mucilage with metal salts (alum), adsorption of phytochemicals onto the surface certain minerals/compunds (acid bentonite, agar, and aluminum hydroxide from the alum/lime reaction) and their elution into selected solvents (acidic/basic everclear). Both processes—the selective capture and release of target compounds—are relatively accessible, both conceptually and materially, to laymen (like me); generally the process of desolubilizing pectin-like cactus slime with alum, adsorption of desired alkaloids onto seaweed and minerals and elution into alcohol seem safe, that is safe relative to established methods, and might be used to good effect as an adjunct to standard extractions, like the iso tar/resin routes for cactus medicine.

On the other hand, the quality of the product from this or any first "experiment" by a layman are VERY MUCH SUSPECT in terms of errors that could make such a process or its products ineffective, inferior, or even deadly. In this case, using methods and materials which are (as far as I can tell) untested for making cactus tar resulted in a light yellow, transparent liquid that looks about as weak as nun's piss next to the thick black/green ink that I have ALWAYS gotten before with tested and effective alcohol teks using vinegar. I don't have to weigh it to tell that the overall yield is much less material than I would expect from 100g of ANY cactus I've extracted—strange after all nothing was taken out of the cactus/alcohol system, instead I added a large volume of material to end up with less extract.

≈4g of something

QUESTIONS TO THE EXPERTS IN ADVANCE OF BIOASSAY
First off, what the hell is in the tan/brown tar? What's probably not in it vs true ISO tar? It looks almost identical to cannabis wax, so I'm guessing that this is some wax/lipid fraction (as opposed to chlorophyll in typical alcohol extracts). ???

What dangerous reaction products might have formed out of alum, acetic acid, lime, agar, or aluminum silicate clay? Are these likely remaining in the tar and how might I remove them?
What are the chances that this extract will have a comparable effect even close to the darker more complete tar isolates?

Am I totally naive, misunderstanding some key concepts of the science involved here?? I'm not conceding total failure just yet, but I can't find it reassuring that no one within the long shared project of Trichocereus extraction, accomplished kitchen chemists included, would have attempted this route?

And if this hacktus tar is active enough to attempt on another batch—which for all my pessimism I really DO hope it is—what tweaks/improvements can be made? Can/should the dried tar product be dissolved in 99%IPA to eliminate more undesirable compounds? What part(s) of this elaborate, Rube Goldberg of a recipe, can/should be omitted or combined for a simpler route to the same results? Nix the agar? No need for bentonite? Are there any steps that seem glaringly counterproductive or redundant; does the whole procedure qualify for the dustbin of ideas?

Any feedback would be appreciated muchly.

**I have included a pdf of preliminary research, compiled in VERY ROUGH draft (my own journal notes). The document (which will require extensive citations, expansion, and reformatting to be useful to anyone but myself) includes the first part of my notes and research into alum salts. This does not include the background info for the adsorption approach, the use of acid-activated bentonite, agar microfiltration, etc.

 

[someblackguy]

The first bio-assay of the acetate tar revealed that it was _very_ active at 2g, leading to a series of small unwelcome but valuable revelations over the course of an odd day spent in online conversation here at the Nexus.

This is a first hand report of a psychedelic experience and a really "bad trip" that at that. This text includes unpleasant details of negative emotional states, and some limited offensive language cited as its inclusion is relevant to the story. Should this trip report be censored for its critical, unhappy content please kindly remove the FULL item in its entirety, the extraction and all, along with my account someblackguy in which case I would have no further use for either. Please consider my request in earnest—that rather than leaving the work and research I have offered to stand without the documented consequences of ingesting the product in the wrong set and setting. Please honor this request to delete both documents if this one should be censored. I have offered what little I have in the project of extracting a medicine for people who might be helped or healed. If this report, which was no fun to recall and write, is unacceptable per the community standards, than I ask out of decency that you delete the procedure that preceded this sad report.

The moniker someblackguy was the first point of unprovoked contention. Before I was officially acknowledged in the chat the identifier "someblackguy" prompted some of my fellow Nexians to offer their own colorful permutations and linguistic treatments for "people of African descent" which I as a guest felt compelled to take in good faith, and as is often the case, to be excused in the name of cultural misunderstanding for which I will also claim so that all's "fair". Unfortunately the well worn make-it-okay-for-you-even-though-its-really-not-for-me silent reservation did not suffice, in this case, to quell the tone and language that does not bear repeating here.

Admittedly I felt self-conscious, and taken off guard by this unforeseeable reaction to my membername. My first instinct was to diffuse the confrontation quickly making a joke in reference to one particularly resonant epithet for black people that a senior member had offered upon my arrival, "Should I call you Mr. N*$%#?" referencing his senior member status. My shameful offer of playful cowardice and concession, was received by others as confrontational, and even insensitive to language and culture differences others may be negotiating—perhaps understandable as the term "black" and its latin root equivalents are perhaps more flexibly interchangeable in certain cultures' assessments of people of color. I did receive further encouragement from others as to how I might be more considerate of this persons differences, less reactionary less "angry" as some took care to point out that quality in my character and in the tone of my failed and very much unappreciated attempt to insinuate myself, rudely uninvited, into a jocular exchange about the use of the term "boy" and the less savory, N-word.

This seemed to diffuse over the course of hours, until I found myself again the victim of my own naive presumptions, this time over the use of the term "integration" as it's meaning extends from the realm of racial politics to that of the Western psychedelic experience. IT was made clear, through a series of sudden dogpiled conversations, overlapping arguments, where I was given the convene ice of not having to accuse any one person of racism as they were already defending themselves against any presumptive charge that I would surely have made "How can I be racist when..." "I guess black people have it pretty hard nowadays unlike the 50s..." these from strangers, their rejoinder to the accusations of racism that for my shock and confusion I had completely neglected to make. Later I would look back at my broader critique of the entheocolonial culture (again mistakenly presuming that those in this space were engaged in addressing social justice and ethical work that must be accounted for by in the psychedelic culture, ie how its direction of certain indigenous groups' material culture and spiritual practice to a largely Western counterculure might not represent the long term good of the other humans/cultures, or how these practices of medical/religious tourism reflect the values of diversity, cultural affirmation, consciousness expansion, land stewardship, and cosmopolitan liberalism that are the hallmarks of the psychedelic ethos, such as it postures itself. Once I realized the degree to which it had implied avarice to others in the chat, I changed my chat moniker from the offending "someblackguy" to an innocuous, depoliticized pseudonym. I am not prepared to violate the space intended to be a safe forum to free the development of the knowledge and explore and even debate values constantly renegotiated in the course of an ambitious and moral undertaking as is the mission of DMT-Nexus and the psychedelic community that supports it.

Without the "black" label, with the previous exchange all but dismissed (for my part) I let down my guard and thus overstepped the cultural taboos against the unsmiling discourse and identity politics which are an unwelcome distractions from the harmony, diversity, and consensus building intent of the chat participants. While I shudder to blame any substance or state of use for my mistakes and misdeeds, I admit under the rosy eye empathy of the phenethylamine buzz, I betrayed the sense of my separateness that I sensed others had trusted me with keeping as if on safe display for easy assessment but without my bothering the dialogue by bringing attention to its reality. I allowed that this discussion of race would stay in the hands of the majority, those for whose enlightened acceptance a wretch such as myself should hope to prove one day worthy. To be fair, I admit I was given several opportunities to defend the validity of my (by then it was decidedly anti-white) positions never expressed or implied.

I refused several chances to provide a fair and honest account of the drugs that I have taken over an undefined period, as evidence of my use might grant me the authority to broach these apparently very sensitive topics. Admittedly when finally pinned for a response, I could not list one drug that I had taken in sufficient amounts to be make me an authority on the issues of race, an issue that according to group's quickly developing consensus I had been so insistent upon readdressing, constantly harping if not by word then by implication of my silently once having been known as someblackguy and still being someblackguy despite the name change.

Later changed to some_gay_blackguy, but alas my realization that what I was seeing was more than just personally bizarre, but indicative of moral situation that had gone so far from the mooring of decency and civility that I never should have attempted to engage after the first jocular N-bomb.

It was wrong and I was wrong. I accept my part in the unfortunate exchange. Ignoring then joining in making "joke" out of a racial epithet that adult knowingly lodged for my benefit was wrong. Going along with the premise, rather then demannd an apology, for the insult and the implicaiton there is any such real reasonable situation where one mistakes the English word black for the English word N&$%&. I can see how my actions gave permission for the statements that followed from the chat. I won't blame the effects of cactus medcine for my complicity—this was old hat learned from growing up in Alabama—but I will thank the mescaline for the perspective of a swirling unsettled calm, an ability to withstand madness, hatred, and my own hurt feelings by those presumed to be the stewards and protectors of a very battered, abused, non-all-that-developed world and the fractured human heart.

What was I afraid of?

Being ostracized? Being banned outright for accusing someone of being racist for the innocent mistake (though I am not as familiar with the phenomenon as the others in the forum seemed) that black people are mistaken for "niggaz" in some cultures? Yes. I was afraid of that, even though I knew that it was an irrational fear there were enough irrationally invested in the mass of anger that formed in protest for what ultimately was my mere presence in that room. It was a Stockholm syndrome guilt and sympathy for... i'm sorry utterly inexcusable ignorance, unchecked arrogance, under the guise of some shared spiritual aspiration that doesn't even give pause to consider the fact that variations of the theme of "nigger" is something we really shoudn't do in response to black people when they seem like they might be too "uppity" for their place in the discourse, where's the DMT catharsis that preempts self analysis, ethical soul searching, that excuses the aspirant from any analysis or accountability for what is becoming the latest colonial adventure into the lands of people who only now have found their religion itself as the prized raw material for export.

How did I get here? No. How did HERE get HERE?

As their argument against my very presence revealed itself to be sourced from outside of any statement or implication made by me or anyone, it become more and more surreal. Finally I gave into a bizarre confrontation with what I believe is an particular element of this "culture" revealed to be no more that a series of shared interests among phyto-hobbyists touting vague spiritual postures that when pressed at any moral or human point default to an ethically stalled cosmology, the tenets of a hobby, at most a defense of the "cause" rather than the default to human decency that even conservative politicians are even held to. I had to admit defeat and demoralization, that these good people are nonetheless not united in any humanitarian mission to address the movement's own colonialism, corporatism, much less a larger situation of gender, sex, race, or, as I understand, any prolonged discussion of unpleasant emotional content which detracts from the context of a safe, even legally sanctioned enjoyment of the drug-exoticism chemo-vacations, or the promise of the cure-all for enlighmentment. No line of inquiry that labels this latest rehearsal of age old colonial subjugation. But ultimately I never would have believed shrill anger of New Age White Supremacy, its disdain at the encroachment of the "other" even the other in screenname only. When reality encroaches into the dream, when those the pained, the foreign, the ethnic, the poor, when those queer "human voices wake us and we drown" (as Eliot closes the sickly Lovesong of J Alfred Prufrock) the psychedelic backdrop falls away, but quick, and hypocrisy emerge as if waiting all the while to pounce full-force to the defense of values system that, like others can be grossly immature and even dangerously naive of the consequences of its actions.

Now that I've seen it up close, seen it manifest into ideologies that seem impossible from a distance: a New Age colonialism. I will not be ignoring it as I thought I had the spiritual "pass" to do. Because this isn't a game. Or a hobby. Or a cause. This medicine for sick people in a sickening world and it does not belong to me, or you.

If some unwelcome catharsis might come to this insular, self-affirming, and ethically stunted "psychedelic/etheogenic" culture, which is just a culture after all, a culture which devolves into a fortress of denailism, belligerent when asked to account for basic compassion and its treatment of those who are different. I was never more saddened by the situation of any drug culture than today when I paid a visit to the nexus, a safe hold of gnosis, love, compassion, and consciousness expansion.

 

[Poekus]

I tried to understand your post, but the language is very hard for non native english (that's my lack of vocabulary though). I had to look up so many words until I gave up.

From what I make up from it, you had a bad experience emotionally, because of a focus on discrimination issues. That's a pitty. Maybe I didn't understand it properly, but I think this place does not harbour a lot of people who value people by their colour or sexual preference for that matter.

It's unfortunate that these issues ruined your experience somewhat.

 

[SachiTheSearcher]

It honestly saddens me to read that recall of your experience. Often mother aya can be a rude slap in the face and bring people to a seemingly impossible state of enlightenment. I say embrace these new feelings and channel them into something positive. Make the best of of everything.
And as for the brew. I truely hope youll give it another shot

 

[Psilosopher?]

OK, that was a hell of a read. Regarding your point about race and "New Age colonialism", I can kinda get what you mean.

First, let's look at this point: "I had to admit defeat and demoralization, that these good people are nonetheless not united in any humanitarian mission to address the movement's own colonialism, corporatism, much less a larger situation of gender, sex, race, or, as I understand, any prolonged discussion of unpleasant emotional content which detracts from the context of a safe, even legally sanctioned enjoyment of the drug-exoticism chemo-vacations, or the promise of the cure-all for enlighmentment."

Colonialism and corporatism? I can understand New Age colonialism, a bunch of people devaluing ancient cultures by pretending to be knowledgeable about said cultures and only exuding this New Age persona for the benefit of their ego. The Nexus is not that. This is the Nexus in a nutshell: extractions, experiments, trip reports and miscellaneous ramblings. We all come from widely different backgrounds. Since you care about race so much, I ain't a white guy. Does that change anything? No, and it never will. If you don't see a fellow human as an equal, I don't know what to tell you. There are plenty of people that will not consider you or I to be their equal, purely because of our skin tone. So what? Will the sun cease to rise in the east? Will all the birds drop out of the sky? No, it just means there is another ignorant person in the world. You were talking about racism to non-racists. That's like going to a vegetarian restaurant and reprimanding people who eat meat.

I don't even know how the Nexus is corporate? You mean the ranking of members? Trav is CEO, the mods are in the executive boardroom getting wasted on a smorgasbord of psychs, the senior members are yelling at the full members to finish that spreadsheet by next Tuesday, and the new members are interning away, waiting for that promotion. Is this how you're picturing it?

Racism is an archaic way of thinking, and thankfully it's on the decline compared to 100 years ago. Yes, it is still prevalent in many parts of the world. This is a war of attrition. It can be hastened by making social reforms on a global scale, but who are we to implement such changes? These changes will not happen by legislation or by some meaningless mandate. It will happen when the majority of people are able to recognise inequality and address it. Swarm intelligence.

This is a place for the research and study of entheogenic substances, with a focus on DMT. This is not a civil rights activist forum. This is not a place focused on battling world injustices. Sure, these are very important issues. This is not the medium to solve these problems. All these problems you speak of are born of hate, something this community has none of. Parading around with the attitude that everyone else is responsible for cultural appropriation shows one's lack of knowledge regarding the ethos of this place. As far as I understand, this community is filled with people with one thing in common: a love for psychedelic experiences. It is filled with people eager to learn about new experiences and the cultures that discovered them before us. No race, no religion, no nationality, no identity.


tl;dr The chat is not the place to discuss contentious issues. If you want to start a civil discussion, start a thread. And keep it civil.

By the way, excellent OP on the cactus experiment. I look forward to more posts by you.

 

[Pandora]

Hello someblackguy,

Thank you very much for taking the time to explain yourself. I for one want to apologize for any way I may have contributed to your feeling abused in chat this past Friday. I was using the moniker Old Soft Cat. Things got real weird and not in a good way. I did not understand that you were tripping. You appeared from my perspective to be deliberately not answering questions and saying things designed to get a rise out of folks. In these respects I experienced your communications as a bit confusing, but I was lacking context. Nonetheless, I apologize, as it takes two to miscommunicate.

I did not see the use of the ugly epithet you reference. That kind of behavior has zero tolerance and is grounds for immediate and permanent banning. Please feel free to document and take such issues to The Traveler or any Moderator.

Let's admit it, we know you about as well as you know us. That was a rough start. But we are all adults. There is some common ground here. That's at a minimum, giving a damn about some important issues and loving cactus. Your tek and info is fascinating and your product looks like candy.

And just for the record, Nexus has as many racists, sexists, ignorants, homophobes and haters as anywhere else. We'd be fooling ourselves to say otherwise. We'd be fooling ourselves to say we didn't all have work to do.

I hope we will see more of you around and that we can all learn from each other.

Peace, Love and Respect
(Just one woman's opinion)

 

[someblackguy]

Apologies accepted.

Here is a transcript of that day. I may have been tripping, but my computer's save function thankfully was not. The exchange where my new community members greeted me by adopting racial epithets isn't included because I left the room at that point and returned later on. I didn't say anything that I'm afraid for others to read, but then I don't purposefully say rude things to strangers in public forums. Never been my thing. Maybe I'm mistaken, take a look at your community and judge for yourself—there's some gem's in there.

Believe me I would never mistake this place for a "civil rights activist forum," but we've certainly got some powerful tools for social transformation at our disposal. Let's start here, by being nice to each other.

But as to the charge that this is not a place focused on batting world injustices, well that's not quite fair. I've only been here for a short while, but I think there's hope yet. After all we've already got the injustice, now all we need is the battle. There's so much we can accomplish if we work together.

[Spoiler Alert: The good guys win in the end.]

Stay tuned.

8)

 

[someblackguy]

Hello, Pandora aka Old Soft Cat. I wanted to thank you for taking the time to read and respond to my post and for seriously addressing some of the issues that came up on Friday. It means a great deal to me that you care about this community, even those who are in the margin. Please know that I was not aware of the ongoing situation here regarding identity politics—I would not have engaged directly in chat had I known (especially with “someblackguy” as the name, especially with a psychedelic drug in my system). Not knowing the situation had me thinking it was either an anomaly or specific to me—I see how my constant “seriously—what is happening here?” questioning, and confusion and frustration looked like trolling or prodding to others in the context of the chat culture here.

More helpful than a restriction of all new members from the chat, might be a more extensive and honest warning in the Attitudes section to alert new members to the culture of the Nexus chat. The only such warning is that posted by The Traveler in an item from last year regarding new chat guidelines:

"For a while I have been away from the DMT-Nexus, mostly due to me being way too busy with work. When I finally returned however and read the chat I was shocked about the topics discussed there.

The talk about topics that were so non-nexian worthy was stunning! The usual constructive talk about the things we promote as the DMT-Nexus were gone while talk about rape, violence, drug trading and obsessive and opressive talk seemed to have become the norm.”

The Traveler

"The norm." This is not the biased opinion of some new outsider with a political agenda, that’s the man (or woman) who created the chatroom. If I had known or suspected that oppressive talk was common, “the norm” for the chat (so much that it threatens shut down that resource completely) I would have engaged the situation differently. I would have known that this is not a safe set or setting for me, and the situation would have certainly been different for everyone involved. Further I wouldn’t have been asking “What are we fighting about?” I would have known, and your job as moderator, for which I am thankful, would have been SO much easier.

I worry about the next person who makes the mistake of wandering into the chat unprepared for the situation of "talk about rape, violence, drug trading and obsessive and opressive [sic] talk.” What if they’re tripping or vulnerable and have “gay” or “asian” or some other identifier visible? I truly didn’t realize what was meant by “we don’t talk about race here.” What that meant was "We don’t know how to deal with that ongoing use of racially offensive language and we’re afraid that even talking about the problem could get this resource shut down.” Finally the answer to my question: “What are we fighting about?” Asking the question itself (implying that there even is a conflict) became the reason for the "fight," and the angrier the room became in response to this "trolling" the more I desperate and freaked out I became: "Seriously, please just tell me what we are arguing about?" which in Trollish roughly translates to "I'm trying to provoke you, get you banned or censored, and/or ruin this resource for everyone." The guideline was stopgap for a situation that had gotten out of hand long before I arrived. Even if not intended to blur distinction between "oppressive talk" and "talking about oppression," in effect that is what happened, leaving no avenue for dialogue.

The difference between "rape" and a discussion of rape is very clear; the difference between "drug trading" and the discussion of drug trading, also pretty clear. No one would mistake an act of "violence" for a conversation on the topic of violence. But in a situation where there is less ethnic diversity, the line between "oppressive talk" (calling someone the N-word) and "talking about oppression" (telling someone not call you the N-word) is the difference between language that makes people very uncomfortable and language that makes people very uncomfortable. That is, no difference at all. If I'd known that I would have simply stayed silent; I surely wouldn't have tried to reason it out or asked others to explain what was happening. My doing so became the thing that was causing the feedback loop of stupid. How could I know that I was asking a question without any possible answer but more escalation? The closet that anyone came to explaining the situation was the when someone said, "We don't talk about race here."

It's sad, but perhaps that should be the guideline: just "No Race." No Race rule means both "No overt racism ("niggas" are ok, but those "-ers" are trouble)." It means "We can't help the attitudes here but it's not a huge problem, for us. So why is it for you? Be a sport about it or leave." That policy would certainly keep people like me from making trouble here. In a "No Race" situation you could ban the “black” right out of someblackguy while appearing politically neutral, heck even progressive. A name like that is just asking for trouble when people "don't believe in race." I find that very few people who claim they don't believe in race actually apply that disbelief equally; they tend to find some races more... "believable" than others.

The Nexus community needs help with this problem. The Traveler's post was from last March; this hasn't gone away. This space is not the same as other online chatrooms because of the real possibility that someone may be harmed or traumatized when under the influence of psychedelics. The situation is reckless, dangerous, and someone could get hurt. You need to engage these discussions as a community. A vague policy against “hateful speech” doesn’t explain what could happen to someone who goes into the battle zone thinking its a lovefest, or a safe place for assistance with a difficult experience. It’s not. Not yet, but it can be. But "not talking about race"? Not having any real top-down address except censorship, banning, or shutting down the chatroom is apparently not a way to fix the problem—it passes the blame in the wrong direction. So now I get to deal with everyone’s “liberal censorship” angst as if I were taking down names.

I don’t go into every situation dragging racism into the conversation. But I would never presume that it was "the norm." How can that be?

Shutting down the conversation shuts down the possibility for a solution. You can’t just pretend that it suddenly becomes an issue when someone black enters the room: the "What were you wearing?” question posed to sexual assault victims follows that same reasoning. This is dangerous, particularly given the cultural situation of the Nexus chatroom and the very real likelihood that vulnerable young persons, or someone who is having a psychedelic crisis, might seek help or community here.

Brandon Carl Vedas (April 21, 1981 – January 12, 2003),
Brandon was 21 years old. On the night of January 12th 2003, Brandon, a member of another psychedelic forum shroomery.org, logged onto the IRC chat where he was known to his fellow forum members by the screen name “ripper.” Brandon died that night. He died of an overdose of the multiple drugs that he had consumed over the course of his time in the chatroom. The transcript reveals that other members of the room were in communication with Brandon during the hours he spent consuming what was a fatal combination of pharmaceuticals, recreational drugs, and psilocybin mushrooms. The chatroom members watched as Brandon took a massive overdose of these drugs via his webcam, some members even goading him on as he did. As the log reveals at one point Brandon became unresponsive:

[05:06] <Oea> he can't talk?
[05:07] <Smoke2k> I don't know he just mumbled into phone something like fuck that and hung up
[05:07] <Smoke2k> but he was working on vpn
[05:07] <Smoke2k> I guess lol
[05:07] <Oea> he hung up??
[05:07] <Smoke2k> hes prolly goin to black out again or something
[05:07] <Oea> uhh
[05:07] <Oea> if he blacks out
[05:07] <Oea> he is gone
[05:07] <Oea> u kno dis?
[05:07] <Oea> he will cease to breath autonomically
[05:08] <Smoke2k> what does he list his last name as?
[05:08] <JaP> uh
[05:08] <JaP> is ripper dead?
[05:08] <Oea> yeah

This first known death of a person broadcast live on the internet happened there in the chat room of a forum dedicated to the topic of psychedelic drugs. He after died telling everyone there what he was doing. wiki:

"When Vedas lost consciousness, users of the chatroom considered informing the police and asking that they trace Vedas's cellphone in order to locate him. However, the members of the channel were hesitant to contact the authorities for fear of involving Vedas and/or themselves in a police investigation. According to the chat logs, one user had even called 9-1-1 and asked the group if he was doing the right thing. After an emphatic "NO" response from another user, the user said "I talked my way out of it." and claimed that the police told them that there was no way to find Vedas with the information available. His mother discovered his body in the afternoon of January 12, 2003.
According to Vedas's brother, the information Brandon gave to the users in the chat, as well as the address in his domain name registration would have been enough for the police to locate Brandon, which he confirmed with local police. Later, Vedas's brother said about the incident, "It seems like the group mentality really contributed to it. These people treat it like somehow it's not the real world. They [the members of a chat room in his online psychedelic drug community] forget it's not just words on a screen."
(wiki)

This is the extreme case, and I'm assured there are safeguards against that kind of event here, but that dialogue about net community and the attitudes on display in online drug culture is still unsettled—let it not be silenced here in the one place in the online/entheogenic world where it should have begun.

Some of the tone and culture from that chat log are all too familiar. I have attached the transcript of the Shroomery chat from that night. Perhaps that will give some perspective of the stakes and the responsibility of assuring the space that you have set up here is safe, not just censored. It's not just a chat. That's the thing about psychedelics: nothing is "just" anything. There is meaning there, a bigger reality than the self, and a call to action. You are called to act. I am more than willing to be of any assistance in helping fix this situation in any way. Moving the Traveler's warning to the Attitudes section would be a good start—it certainly would have been an easier way to answer my only question: "What is going on here?"

Best regards.

 

[Studio1one]

I thought we had a nice chat.

Sorry to hear you were upset man. I never realised.

 

[someblackguy]

We had a nice conversation; but the "chat" we were a part of was... well... you be the judge.

But it turned out okay the end. For everyone I think. :| Funny things, cacti.

Aaaanyway, back to the original question: :

I never really suspected the tar would have anything too unsafe in it as far as reaction byproducts. These are food safe ingredients; the products of their reactions aren't readily soluble in the 75% EtOH "Everclear," but I did want to make the disclaimer about safety of any untested procedures. And there are many more in the Akashic cookbook. That's why I came here to begin with, but the ambassadors of the plant kingdom had other plans. I'm almost afraid to guess what this might conjure but here goes... let's try this procedure with 100g of ACRB and see if we can address the underlying homophobia inherent in ....kidding! Sheesh, y'all... lol

"Effective?" Yes. There is a route to the crude alkaloids of the cactus materials not requiring boiling or nonpolar solvents.

"Safe?" Nothing's "safe." Nowhere...:shock:

So, next trial looks like this...

I like keeping everything together (pulling from plant material direct to final extract rather than an acid wash that leaves some alks behind in cactus material, then defat (takes some alks with the fat)... then fb/pull to NP (leaving some alks behind in the aq. solution) THEN pulling to vinegar/acid water (leaves some behind in NP). From what I glean some loss comes from the only slightly non-polar mescaline fb being ambiguously soluble in both water and some NPs, so that it doesn't migrate as efficiently/cleanly to the organic solvent layer e.g. the more non-polar dmt fb). Anyway it's messy.

But like I say: for all we know you could accomplish the aceTar or a better product by omitting/combing any of these adsorption media. Or using one I haven't tied yet (gelatin, isinglass, alternative minerals for flocculation, adsorption)... But before I go screwing with that stuff, here's the next mod.

AceTar 1.1

—2x pulls!

—99% ISOpropyl Alc for final extraction (maybe?)

Mescaline fb has been described as "very soluble" in IPA by authoritative web sources. I was using IPA (91%) up till this point for the standard ISO tar. Works great, but have never done a side-by-side comparison w/everclear. I'm afraid of IPA x2 pulling a lot more non-polar lipid/wax vs EtOH) SO...

—"Winterize" the filtered extract

Winterization is a standard in purifying IPA cannabis oil extracts. The alcohol solution goes into the freezer for 24-48hrs to precipitate waxes and fats. These are easily filtered out before the final evap.


I moved this over to shroomery too. I figured an "open source" model, where everyone can claim a bit of the work, might be the best way to develop this into something that might work much better than this drawn out proto-tek. There you can just be racist without censure: seriously do a search for "n----r" on their message board; its a hoot. 7000+ hits. No censorship so everyone's not all freaked out, turning into Shirley Jackson's Lotto winners, when you call em on it—they're just fratboys; and they know it, so they don't CARE when you call em on their forum culture. They don't go into some white-guilt panic, and doesn't come as some shocking "news" to them. Ironically that might be a much easier place to get a conversation on racism started (not that that was ever my goal before), more honest and less fearful of censorship, but I'll let some other nut handle that. Between the socialist government here and the libertarian anarchy there I might just be able to eke out some of the goals of this project. Then we can ALL sing "Kumbaya" or whatever.

Hell maybe I'll toss it to the tweakers at drugs-forum too; see what they do with it. They don't give a s&#t if you're a talking squirrel... long as you ain't "a cop".

I was serious about the ACRB thing tho. Any reason it wouldn't work?