SWIM recalls that on his strongest mescaline experience, he had taken in a good deal of Vitamin C, and that other doses from the same batch hadn't been nearly as powerful. On most of SWIM mescaline experiences, he had made a point of consuming a good deal of theobromine and caffeine but hadn't considered the specific consumption of vitamin C, and most were rather lackluster compared to previously mentioned one and others he had had in the past.

This thread is to be a two part inquiry into the occurrence of redox reactions of mescaline within the body: Whether oxidized mescaline can be reduced with reduction agent such as ascorbic acid within the body to potentiate its bio-availability and whether mescaline can oxidize within the body, decreasing its bio-availability (possibly not being able to cross the blood brain barrier). Perhaps this can partially explain the variations that many experience in the mescaline experience and possibly resin's effectiveness and resistance to heat (in the case that lemon juice is used in its production):



While ascorbic acid is generally accepted for the preservation and potentiation of psilocin--in vivo or otherwise--there seems to be very little discussion of it's function with mescaline.

The easiest way to test this is that if anyone's having trouble getting the desired effects from mescaline acetate or any other form that seems to oxidize easily or just doesn't seem as potent as expected, try consuming a fair amount of vitamin C prior to administration and see if that makes a difference.

SWIM has something some-what related to add:
Mescaline citrate cannot survive in a 200F oven, even when only mostly evaporated, taken out slightly prematurely, the effect of 40g worth of torch was comparable to 5-10g.
Though SWIM did not add any vitamin C.

SWIM found that using plain water worked fine in non-simmered pulls with boiling water from a kettle.
Though vitamin C could help that too. SWIM has some pure ascorbic acid, he'll try it sometime.

I remember people on mycotopia saying that adding vitamin C to cactus tea prep caused a decline in potency.

SWIM got to thinking that if heat seems to reduce the potency of mescaline, though not diminish it altogether, is it possible that conversion to freebase by heat-induced dissociation of acetic acid from mescaline isn't necessarily rendering the freebase so much more susceptible to oxidization that the reduction in potency is due primely to the freebase form? This generally seems to be the case with pharmahuasca when freebase is capped and administered orally, so it would follow that a tightly packed ball of freebase would yield only a fraction of the potency. It's possible that SWIM's own variability with a relative increase of potency coinciding with the ingestion of a citrus drink was due to the high acidity of the beverage, rather than the anti-oxidant properties.

SWIM also once tried to dissolve mescaline of a seemingly low potency in a strong cup of hot chocolate. He was surprised to find that it did not seem to dissolve easily and he ended up scooping up the gooey substance and eating it.