This is a curiosity of mine.

Having hung with Ayahuasceros who blow lots of tobacco smoke over their brews, SWIM had always assumed that it was mostly a spiritual thing. However, he did notice a rainbowish shimmer that would appear on the surface after the nifty smoke rising from the brew effect wore off.

Obviously it is not likely to impart a significant amount of beta carbolines into the potion, but it does seem to have some effect.

Any thoughts?

At the very least, it is a way cool shamanic looking thing to do and ties some ritualism into the alchemy...


[EDIT NOTE: This disclaimer is to say that I do NOT want to encourage anyone to take up the nasty and difficult vice/habit of smoking tobacco. Non-indigineous people have a marked inability to use this plant in any healthy way whatsoever. Furthermore, the dangers of its usage far outweigh any benefits it might be able to deliver. You have been warned.]

My brews have crystalline rainbow layers on the top some time. I have no idea why this happens, but I'm not blowing smoke over them either. I'm going to assume there aren't any beta-carbolines or any significant amount of beta-carbolines in tobacco otherwise you'd see a ton of people giving up their qualms about tobacco and smoking it directly to potentiate the effects of DMT. I think the gesture of blowing smoke on brews/people is largely symbolic or if it does have a legitimate spiritual augmenting quality to it, that it's not in the chemistry of the smoke itself.

in my experience tobacco does potentiate things
it is used by shamans with aya and with san pedro
nicotine stimulates glutamate release though, so potentiation can occur that way

but norharman is known from the smoke of tobacco
google norharman and tobacco and you will see a lot of studies about this

I use it to potentiate things actually, but never smoke out of habit

there are harmalas in mapacho tobacco and when it is burned other alkaloids convert to harmalas..when tobacco is smoked one ingests many times more harmalas than when they drink it or chew it. Smoking mapacho does definatily potentiate DMT if I smoke a bit before I smoke DMT.

Fascinating! I can't believe I haven't heard of this until now.

I assumed everyone knew that tobacco was an interesting RIMA on its own...

The fact that it can potentiate things is beyond debate.

I am still wondering if the damp exhaled smoke from a shamans mouth can actually transfer into a fluid state brew via osmosis or some other process. I am no chemist.

I have noticed interesting effects from tobacco in relation to the process of brewing, though.

I doubt it would blow anything other than intentions into the brew...