I was theorizing about extracting mescaline from dry cacti using warm methanol. Then let's assume extraction is successful and I end up with a mixture of salts and freebased alkaloids, and some other stuff. After evaporating the methanol, will it still remain forming some kind of complex with the organic molecules? Could one proceed to ingest it being sure that there's no methanol remaining?

Why would one end up with a mixture of salts and freebase alkaloids? Aren't cacti alkaloids in base form in vivo? Wouldn't methanol (awesome cactus solvent by the by) only extract the freebase alkaloids without converting any to salts? Will I ever stop with the freakin' questions?

One would assume after evaporating the methanol a nasty goop would be left that would indeed be safe to ingest. One'd also assume adding a couple hundred ml of an acidic aqueous solution to the "nasty goop," sealing it in a jar and letting it sit in the fridge for a few days would force the fats to the bottom leaving a wonderfully golden elixir to decant and ingest with ease.

Ease is good when its opposite involves spending hours scraping up nasty goo that is near impossible to do anything with.

There's hardly any freebase mescaline in the cactus and what the methanol extracts is some mescaline salt among myriads of other stuff. No freebases.


Good question but basically no. It would be interesting to further enquire on the type of reasoning that brought you to this conclusion.

Ditto that. The alkaloids are in salt form. The pH of the plant is acidic (like 5-6 or so) not alkaline. The pKa of mescaline is 9.56. That means the plant would need to have a pH of 11.56 for the mescaline to be 99% freebase. In other words, the plant would need to have a pH higher than sodium carbonate! That's simply not possible. The plant would die.

This idea that alkaloids occur in plants as freebase is a strange one that's been spread all over the net. I don't know where this incorrect idea originated, but it's simply not possible for alkaloids like mescaline.

Methanol doesn't seem to dissolve salts of mescaline very well. SWIM has tried using methanol to extract mescaline from cactus (he used a Soxhlet, so there was heat involved) before and it didn't work well. Water worked much better. Mescaline loves water. Even freebase mescaline is soluble in water.

Just found this website so a little late with entering the discussion...

A few years ago, Swim wanted to try the Mescaline (after reading Huxley's "Doors of Perception)> He tried the acid/base/solvent/re-crystalisation technique from San Pedro but got gelatinous mess (elogantly referred to as "Cactus Snot" on another site)'
He decided to try a methanol extraction from dried san pedro, consuming the unpurifed extract after the methanol evaporated.
It was certainly physcoactive at the published levels -200mg of green gunk gave quite a solid punch lasting a good seven to 8 hours - but the effects were no what he had expected (nothing like LSD, and nothing like Huxley had described). The body load was pretty terrible too with high BP and pulse, probably arrythmia too.
Somewhat put SWIM off, but recently SWIM had been pondering another shot at a crude extraction and was wondering along the lines:

dried San Pedro blended in methanol (or ethanol,
basify with NaOH, mild heat/reflux for an hour or two,
let methanol evaporate

Presumably the gunk remaining should contain as much mescaline as can be extracted by any method? (As well as other alkaloids, plant matter and sodium hydroxide)

wash the "gunk" repeatedly with cold water to remove excess hydroxide (shouldn't the mescaline remain as freebase and be insoluble in cold water?)

Would what remains contain the mescaline(?) and might it be possible to form impure crystals by dissolving directly in weak HCL or H2SO4 without performing any other steps?

SWIM is wishing to avoid not only the Cactus Snot Syndrome, but also the use of solvents if possible, while also removing at least some of the other matter that may have caused an unpleasant trip on his first attempt.

Any comments appreciated