Increase Mescaline Content: Cacti Chemical Supplementing

[Kash]

Hey I realize there is already a thread on this topic, but didnt really feel like the thread name applied to this specifically..

dopamine from bananna peels? - Advanced/Enhanced chemistry - Welcome to the DMT-Nexus

An article on erowid claims to be able to significantly increase mescaline content in cacti able to produce mescaline.

Chemical doping - There has been some pioneering work in this area done by Adam Gottlieb.

Increasing the levels of the precursors that lead to mescaline has proven to be a relatively quick and effective way to significantly increase the level of mescaline in a Cactus. There are three major precursors to mescaline, namely dopa, tyramine and dopamine. During mescaline synthesis in the plant, tyrosine is broken down into tyramine and dopa. These then combine to form dopamine, which is later converted to nor-mescaline, and of course mescaline.

It is possible to take advantage of this synthesis route, and use it to vastly increase the mescaline content of the Cactus that will be harvested.

This method can be used successfully on any mescaline bearing Cacti. The steps are as follows:

1. Withhold water from the plant 2 weeks prior to doping. This helps the plant to absorb any injected material more readily.

2. Prepare a saturated solution of free-base dopamine in a .05 N solution of HCL. If dopamine is not available a second best alternative is to use a mixture of tyramine and dopa.

3. Inject approximately 5cc of the solution, half towards the bottom of the plant by the roots. Inject the other half into the green tissue at the base of the plant, and in several other spots up the stem. Do this slowly ,carefully, leaving the needle in place for a few seconds to allow absorption.

4. Wait 4 to 8 weeks before harvest to let the additives metabolize and convert to mescaline. I would not stress the plant during this period, as an actively growing plant is necessary for efficient metabolism.

5. The harvest can be delayed further and a series of booster injections can be given every 6 - 8 weeks to bolster alkaloid levels even more.

Unfortunately many of these precursor compounds are hard to come by or controlled.

Tyrosine is not difficult to get at all from health supplement stores. In theory one could just mix up a solution of Tyrosine and occassionally give your growing cactus some injections to help it along with nutrients for making mescaline.

Sounds alittle bit too good to be true but its still a pretty interesting concept. Does anyone have any experience trying this yet?

 

[benzyme]

piracetam said:
the problem is that plant cells don't take up precursors very well. reports of injecting dopamine into cactus tissue resulted
in necrosis. adding precursors to the soil don't help either, as the roots don't uptake them easily.
DMSO is an option, but data/results are scant or nonexistent. either way, the approach is obviously concentration-dependent.

 

[benzyme]

I'd love to see experiments done with this, particularly the dmso route.
I could possibly try this, as I do have san pedro, tyrosine, and dmso, as well as a spec for testing concentrations.

 

[Kash]

I'd love to see experiments done with this, particularly the dmso route.
I could possibly try this, as I do have san pedro, tyrosine, and dmso, as well as a spec for testing concentrations.

Heck ya you should try if you have time Benzyme. So what you think dmso would help better circulate tyrosine throughout the cacti without causing toxicity? It has been used for medical treatments in the past on people, and although thats no longer practiced, dmso must not be that harmful. I would think if injected into the core, there would be a higher chance for necrosis, but it would distribute alot better. If tyrosine/dmso was injected shallower in the skin area there probably would be less chance of necrosis, but it may not circulate as effectively.

I would definitly like to try testing this down the road as well. I guess you can also buy dmso at health supplement stores just like tyrosine.. lol. How convenient.:d

 

[dg]

topic has been kicked around for many years, my opinion is if you want more mescaline, just grow more cacti

 

[Kash]

topic has been kicked around for many years, my opinion is if you want more mescaline, just grow more cacti

Then why has almost no one tried experimenting with it and got any definitive results? *Cough* Dg you have a vast collection of cacti to work with hint hint...

 

[Infundibulum]

topic has been kicked around for many years, my opinion is if you want more mescaline, just grow more cacti

Then why has almost no one tried experimenting with it and got any definitive results? *Cough* Dg you have a vast collection of cacti to work with hint hint...

There was a guy who tried injecting the cacti and he sort of did it, there is a thread somewhere in the nexus...as predicted, you just cannot inject them as they are rigit and not a sponge. The plunge won't move much and the person who did this ended injurign the cacti resulting in a very bad rotting at and around the injection sites.

This method always reeked of bullshit, not on the biochemical side but the practical one. Also, ,in your OP, you write:

An article on erowid claims to be able to significantly increase mescaline content in cacti able to produce mescaline

.
You need to ask what it means and your motives. A statistically significant increase from 0.5% mescaline to 0.501% (just throwing numbers for the sake of argument here) means nothing. Also, what "significant" increase mean to you? For all practical purposes I highly doubt if you can increase mescaline by more than 10% by injecting precursor which, brings to dg's point: use more cactus if you want more.

 

[Kash]

There was a guy who tried injecting the cacti and he sort of did it, there is a thread somewhere in the nexus...as predicted, you just cannot inject them as they are rigit and not a sponge. The plunge won't move much and the person who did this ended injurign the cacti resulting in a very bad rotting at and around the injection sites.

This method always reeked of bullshit, not on the biochemical side but the practical one.

Yes, but a trial report from one person is not enough to give conclusive results by any means. Normally when a cactus is punctured, it will blemish and heal. There are alot of reasons that could factor into the cacti rotting such as: the injecting agent was too concentrated/too much was used, the needle was not sterile, poor/improper insertion techniques, was the cactus dehydrated properly, ect. At the very least, I dont see it as a reason to cast aside the idea completely. From a practical view, you would think if more natural precursor were available, more end product would be yielded... and who doesnt want that?

-On a side note, you can most definitly can inject cacti with 5cc of solution. Did it myself with distilled water yesterday.

 

[dg]

the guy who injected his cacti here at nexus was not the first to try
injections, topical dsmo, watering it in
none have proven effective,
but it is true none of the tests i know of were terribly scientific

stupid ass gotlieb spreading bs, been stinking up the place for years

 

[AlbertKLloyd]

I consider feeding them lots of N and then harvesting and allowing them to sit out, (in the dark usually but not always) to be the best way to get the most out of them.

Treating them with chemicals does not seem as ideal or as effective, it slows their growth and thus less cactus per growing season results and that correlates to decreased yield and lower overall extraction yield.

 

[Yerba]

That (apparently suspect) Erowid article mentions that dopamine is difficult to come by, and suggests moving farther up the chain and adding tyrosine. If tyrosine is poorly-absorbed by the roots, would it make sense to try supplementing with phenylalanine or something else that is more bioavailable?

Endophytic fungi have been shown to increase nutrient absorption by the roots of plants. Has anything been studied with regard to the possibility of cultivating such a symbiotic relationship with mescaline-producing cacti?

 

[Nathaniel]

Do San Pedros increase their potency with age similar to Peyote? Or do they have a set amount for life? Also does stressing them actually increase their potency?

 

[nameless]

Gotlieb was referring to a university study from the late 70's. I have a copy of it some where but it is not very interesting. If i remember correctly only about 10% of the cacti were successful, it was done using Lophophora. Somewhere in the end notes they speculate that tyrosine can be used in conjunction with dopa, but it was only speculation no further experiments were performed.

dg is right about him spreading unverified bs.

 

[benzyme]

Also does stressing them actually increase their potency?

more so than supplementation, the reason being gene upregulation.
but as suggested by Al K. Lloyd, feed the cacti nitrogen, but also deprive it of water, and let it do the rest.

 

[The Day Tripper]

Also does stressing them actually increase their potency?

more so than supplementation, the reason being gene upregulation.
but as suggested by Al K. Lloyd, feed the cacti nitrogen, but also deprive it of water, and let it do the rest.

What i was going to say. I think the fact that the topic has been around for so long, but no reported verified results showing it works and is practical/worth the effort & cost, is suspect it doesn't work or isn't worth the effort/risk.

And as far as testing goes, you'd have to be pretty on the nugs as far as having identical specimens. That means pups taken from the same mother at the same time, and grown identically. That's not exactly easy for your standard cactus cultivator.

Along with the equipment needed to verify if the doping actually works, and the know how to do said testing.


I think your best bet if you want to increase the amount of mescaline produced overall, would be cloning pups as often as possible from the mothers, and stressing/more nitrogen before harvesting. Then figure out which of your cacti are the most potent, and take more pups from those mothers.

I think that method would give better results than chemical doping would. Hell, I'll even bet on it .

 

[Loveall]

How about blending the caci? Idea would be to make a mush with (hopefully) all the enzymes needed. A freeze/thaw cycle may help release enzymes from cell walls.

Would this soup be reactive to Tyrosine? Pyridoxal phosphate (PLP) and SAMe are two compounds in the biosynthesis path that are also available as dietary supplements (others are not easily available unfortunately).

Has something like this been tried? Simply freeze/thaw cacti, blend to a liquid, add L-Tyr, PLP, SAMe, and allow to react at a biological warm temperature. Extract and see what happens (and/or check reaction with TLC).

I imagine it probably doesn't work, wondering if anyone has tried it yet or if anyone knows why this is not worth trying.

Cheers

 

[Spiralout]

Very interesting idea Loveall.. Those suppplements are readily available and inexpensive (SAMe maybe not so inexpensive but it depends on the amount needed and outcome of course).

I think a freeze/thaw defniitely releases everything in there pretty darn well. I still don't understand enough about chemoistry to understand what is going on but is the idea with enzymes basically that they are molecules which, if intact, will automatically "perform their function" as long as they are in the correct environment: have the needed cofactors, catylsts, and don't have inhibitory/antagonistic compounds working against them, and are in the correct temperature?

I wonder if this idea has been thought out already... If my understanding of this stuff is correct then it certainly seems plausible. I don't understand the biosynthetic pathway/ metabolism well enough (again, chem ignorance)but it seems like the only bottleneck would be environmental conditions and having the correct compounds.

 

[downwardsfromzero]

Surely freezing would release all the enzymes that happened to be present at the time? How would you guarantee that Tyr hydroxylase and COMT would get a look in? If, through a stroke of luck, freezing temperatures prove to be a trigger for gene expression of the target enzymes this could then be a winner.

Considering the way the CAM metabolism works - the cacti absorb CO2 at night to form malic acid and, it is claimed, the pH balance is maintained through the formation of alkaloids - it appears that darkness would have a particular set of triggering effects on gene expression. It would be worth checking to see whether any studies exist on the effect of low temperatures on gene expression in mescaline-producing cacti. This could inform any decisions made on the rate and degree of cooling used during a nutritionally supplemented cactus freezing experiment.

 

[Loveall]

Surely freezing would release all the enzymes that happened to be present at the time? How would you guarantee that Tyr hydroxylase and COMT would get a look in? If, through a stroke of luck, freezing temperatures prove to be a trigger for gene expression of the target enzymes this could then be a winner.

Considering the way the CAM metabolism works - the cacti absorb CO2 at night to form malic acid and, it is claimed, the pH balance is maintained through the formation of alkaloids - it appears that darkness would have a particular set of triggering effects on gene expression. It would be worth checking to see whether any studies exist on the effect of low temperatures on gene expression in mescaline-producing cacti. This could inform any decisions made on the rate and degree of cooling used during a nutritionally supplemented cactus freezing experiment.

Well, it is more of a brute force idea. Liberate all the enzymes that may happen to be there and then overload the inputs, hoping for some output.

In separate mushroom work (cubensis), freezing and thawing resulted in a lot of blue, presumably from all the enzymes being released and doing their thing.

Of course, the approach will not work at all if enzymes are not present by default and need to be expressed. I was hoping that there is some level of them around, otherwise it won't work. If stress/darkness triggers gene expression that could increase chances of this working.

I wonder what the rate limiting step is in biosynthesis (or of there is more than one limiting step). Usually decarboxylase uses up a lot of energy, so hoping the PLP will help. If we get to dopamine (a big if), the subsequent steps use SAMe which can be added to try to help.

Adding dopamine instead of tyrosine would have higher success chances, but that is not easily available as far as I can see (prescription needed)

Thanks for the feedback.

 

[downwardsfromzero]

Looking at the biosynthetic pathways, adding tyramine or/and L-DOPA would be worth a try. So, ripe cheese :? or Mucuna pruriens?

We'd indeed have to rely on the necessary enzymes being present simultaneously and we don't know if this can be guaranteed.