SWIM may be getting a section of San Pedro cactus to keep aside for a rainy day (a lonnggggg rainy day lol).

Does the cactus spoil or go rotten? SWIM has zero knowledge on them and have tried searching around and cant find if there is a shelf life, or if the mescaline must be extracted within a certain period of time. Thanks!

If there is any damage, that needs to be addressed first.
Any break in the skin should be covered by a white or tan corky callous (scab). If theres a cut in the flesh not covered by a callous put it some place at room temp and aim a fan at it for a day, then turn the fan off and leave it there for a week or two before moving it someplace darker and cooler for long term storage.
If there is any rot, cut that out and callous the cut while watching for returning rot.
Once a pedro stem is nice and calloused and stable it can last over a year in a cold dimly lit room, easy.
If planning to grow it come spring just stand it up in a bowl and fill the bowl shallowly with sand so it knows where it will be making roots.

Many have found that stems stored as such for 4 months or more are actually more potent.
Dried flesh stored in a cool dark place has been found to still retain most or all of its potency after 5,000 years of storage... just in case your planning a gift for the great great great great great great great great great grandkids.

Beautifully answered, thank you. Ive done SOME reading on Erowid thus far, as I have literally just begun my interest last night. Do you have any other places that you know of that I could go to read some information from A to Z, such as one could find about DMT on the Nexus? I'd like to read further on brewing, what exactly to expect, do's and don'ts, how to dry, etc.

I believe I will skip extracting alkaloids for freebase as it seems much simpler to just go ahead and juice the cacti and then either drink it fresh or boil it for a few hours. I see a lot of talk about dosage and potency and it seems to be rather erratic and very inconsistent. Seems like more of a crapshoot than DMT in terms of consistency, if you could use that word haha.


Is it safe to say also that if the specimen is in good shape that it could be thrown into the freezer and kept indefinitely as well?

Tossing it in the freezer would probably kill it.

If the piece is well calloused where previously cut then I recommend rooting it by placing the bottom 2 inches into dry sand. If you place the container with the dry sand somewhere warm then the piece may root - if the conditions are right then it will send out roots in just a few days. Later you can just cut it above the sand and let it grow out. So you get to have your cake and eat it.

I dont think HT intends to grow it
Yup, freezer would preserve the alkaloids just as they are indefinitely, it'd brew a bit faster too. Cool storage in a closet or on a dark shelf may or may not make it a bit more potent but at the cost of needing to look at it every few weeks just in case a unnoticed damaged area lets rot set in.
For drying, chop up into little pieces, throw away the core or brew it into hair conditioner, lay the pieces on plates or cookie sheets in a shaded but warm to hot place, aim a little fan at them- just enough to keep the air moving, and after a day or two when they have a dry skin on the exposed portions turn all the pieces over or they'll glue to the cookie sheet Drying may take 10 days, give or take 5 depending on conditions. Good way to dry most medicines that dont have essential oils in.

Sadly, I dont know of an encyclopedic 'mescaline-nexus' like site, that would be cool. Loads of good growing and cutting-care advice can be found on the shaman-australis forums- those ozzies know their cacti, but potency and prep knowledge just needs to be slowly collected from a multitude of more general sources from my experience.

The closest thing to a "Mescaline Nexus" is here:

http://www.thenook.org/

Check out the Cacti Forum and the Botanical section in the archives.

All you seek is there.

Again thank you for such a detailed answer! Now, am I reading that right...hair conditioner? Like, what you put into your hair in the shower?! haha. I will be using the freezer for the time being just because I dont think Im ready for any form of consumption. Or I supposed I could actually give it some time to potentially increase potency and then after it sits for a little while, then throw it in the freezer til I use it.



Thank you very much! I will look thru there.

The nook is pretty good on extraction teks.

And yeah, theres virtually no alkaloids, but lots of slime in the core so you can get creative. Hair conditioner, hair gel, glue for letters, personal lubricant for when a whole pint is needed I once read an account of lactose intolerant villagers being given powdered milk in a misguided famine relief program, they mixed it with cactus snot and painted their houses white

Hahah thats awesome

Just wanted to post some photos of my two cuttings of san pedro, as I have NO idea as to what may be good/bad on the skin of the cacti. One cutting has a good 2 inch long gouge in it and its browned. Just looking to see if these marks are a problem and what I can/should do, if anything, about them.

looks ok
i wouldn't do anything unless the damaged spots get soft and sqiushy. then it'd be time to cut off the rotten area.

The one time I froze a cutting, a ton of the cactus snot drained out of it. Put it in a plastic bag if you decide to freeze it. I can't say whether or not the slime could potentially contain alkaloids.

Just a heads up, alkaloid content in cacti can vary tremendously. I'm no expert, but that looks like a PC San Pedro to me. So there might be an extremely small amount of mescaline in it, there might be a whole lot. Hopefully someone more experienced with cacti can chime in here and verify/elaborate/correct me here.

That also looks like PC pedro to me. And freezing a live cutting has resulted in a giant mess of slime for me as well. You're probably better off throwing it in a closet for a while.

Interesting on the slime discharge lol, Ill definitely bag it if I do freeze.


What exactly is a PC San Pedro? Upon purchasing from a very excellent seller who Ive purchased a lot from (never cacti tho), it was advertised as Trichocereus Pachanoi San Pedro

PC stands for primary cultivar. It is the breed (or strain or whatever the correct word would be here) of T. pachanoi that is almost exclusively grown and sold commercially in North America, and I believe in Europe as well. It is still a pachanoi, but it contains only trace amounts of mescaline (or sometimes even none if I am not mistaken). You can read more on the differences in the wonderful guide that KT has put together, here.

In short, it is a great cactus to cultivate and it works wonderfully as grafting stock. But a person would most likely have to eat/extract something like 15 feet of cuttings in order to get a proper dose.

Stick that little guy in some dirt!

Very interesting, Ill read that link now. I have 2 cuttings actually, looks like I'll need to head to the nursery for some pots and plant these pieces hahah

Is it true that if I were to taste a slice of the cactus that it should be bitter? No bitter = no mescaline?

I know theres a lot of questioning/confusion on a 'proper' dose of mescaline since it can be so variable with cacti potency, if these were 'low' potency but still did have trace amounts of mescaline, what would happen if drank? Would there be a weak trip? No trip? A shorter than normal trip?


Aaaaand are there any subtle tips you/anyone may be able to pass my way for acquiring a proper 'non-bootleg' variant wink wink nudge nudge of san pedro?

I have my doubts about the accuracy of the "taste-test" for cacti. Other alkaloids can be bitter, not just mescaline.

I would bet that two cuttings of PC San Pedro would produce next to no effects. The one exception I could think of would be if a person was extremely sensitive to mescaline, but even then I am not certain that they would have a high enough mescaline content. However, I could be wrong on this. All I know is that I tried to extract 10lb (approx 6 feet of relatively thick cuttings) of PC San Pedro a while back and I yielded >100mg of mescaline. Not even enough to produce threshold effects

The link I posted has tips on how to identify PC and non-PC San Pedros. Personally, I think the safest bet is probably T. bridgessi (Achuma). I have heard anecdotal reports of inactive species being passed off as T. peruvianus, as well as anecdotal reports of legitimate peruvianus specimens having very low alkaloid content. From what I have gathered, T. bridgessi is probably the easiest to identify for the novice, and more consistent than some other species as far as alkaloid content goes.

My PC pedro is very bitter still. There are still other alkaloids. Just not much mescaline. I've heard a few people say PC pedro is a good entheogen, but most people i've talked to say you have to have a ton of it for it to do much.

If you don't mind me asking. Where did you get it? It's fine to talk about sources of live cacti cuttings i'm pretty sure.