i've seen there is almost 0 scientific information about trichocereus spp. mescaline contents

i'd ask you if there's any organization or research lab that are doing research on trichocereus alkalids contents...or if there's any lab where people can send them a dried cactus tissue sample to be analyzed!how can a guy know if he's getting good cacti clones?

i've red of a reseach about trichocereus..they tasted some samples and...suprise! the most potent sample was a pachanoi that tested almost 5% mescaline! like a strong peyote!

the bridgesii an peruvianus tested less than 1 or 2%

so is there any site where i can read about test results on that clone or the other? for ex.

kk242 tested 0.62% mesc,juul's giant tested 1.56%?

i know that the real problem is the mislabeling of cacti..but it will be a good starting step or not? thank you!

I think one of the issues with cacti in particular is they seem more variable than other plants. Plants vary enough in their characteristics, and cacti vary even more! The testing could be done for certain species and strains, but like you pointed out, there is a lot of mislabeling. Also, there are probably a lot of hybrids of strains out there, and even some hybrids of species. So, instead of a few clear labels for these things, there's a spectrum with no clear lines.

I suggest to anyone wanting consistent mescaline, find a strong one and grow it. You can then buy weak ones and graft the strong ones on the weak stock. It doesn't take too many plants to be sustainable this way.

Does this study fit fit in your "almost" assertion?

a reason its so understudied is because it is really really hard to say this is a t bridgesii and this is a t peruvianus and this is t XYZ because they interbreed so easily. what really defines each of species? they are more phenotypes than genotypes.
for testing to be relevant to cultivation of potent cacti, a high potency cacti could be cloned repeatedly because even its offspring may be less potent/impotent (or even more potent)
dont get me wrong id love to find a super potent plant and clone it like a madman!!! but what would we call it? ill tell you...

behold, from this day forward this cacti shall be known as "the nexian torch"

:::3

I've recently procured a pachanoi that has potential to be a super pac. My friend tells me 6" of it is a good dose. It is unusually girthy too though, so that helps.

lets pray your friend is not a lightweight

well..i've red that research. it's prolly the only one kinda usefull i've red. BTW it speaks of this matucana pachanoi that i can't find anywhere. i've found a site that clam to have seeds of it. i don't think they're matucana cultivar of it,but even if it could be,is phenotype very influent in mescaline content? are mescaline concentration stable on a generation of same parents or it can vary a lot?

if i find something with 2% i'd be happy btw..5% would be epic,but i don't think to be so lucky to fine The One

I have a pachanoi kk242 from matucana. Shes beautiful

I'd suggest the reason this topic is understudied is less about taxonomy and more about grants and funding being the fuel of science -- funding does not appear to be plentiful for studies trying to find more good mescaline cacti. Its probably a cynical observation but McLaughlin's people received some of their funding from antidrug abuse organizations so I have to wonder had their quest to study mescaline containing cacti been more successful if it would have adversely impacted that source of funding?
The following PDF might be helpful but it only collates what little has been published.
http://www.largelyaccura...BySpecies_2014_Light.pdf

Wanting all research to be done by professional researchers whos results get delivered straight to the presses and to legislators isnt a paradigm that serves us well.

For the former, consider T. peruvianus. On about 1992 or so peruvianus was rare in collections when lots of publications started making fantastical claims about T. peruvianus being radically potent, on par with peyote, but piss-easy to grow. Since it was rare in cultivation the subsequent deluge in market demand was filled by mislabeled T. cuzcoensis, chiloensis, Stetsonia coryne, T. uyupampensis, etc. and lots of people got things they didnt want.
Sudden massive surges in market demand for something as inherently slow to produce as cacti makes for unstable situations.

For the latter, consider that legislators like to legislate. The sooner they find out about a new drug the sooner some 'family values' politician overcompensating for his secret penchant for sniffing coke off the tits of teenage prostitutes tries to ban the transport, sale, or even possession of the newly reported active species.

The current archetype of research is better. Ballsy amateur explorers or isolated shamans test out new materials and when one is found thats good they start propagating it and telling their friends, who start propagating it and telling their friends. The availability grows as the knowledge grows. After ten or twenty years some professional research might be done. If fakes circulate in the cactus trade, not such a tragedy because thousands of people have the real deal to replace fakes with.
Its gone this route with multiple cactus types.

Scientific articles are great. I'd love to read more on mescaline in various cacti and psychoactive tetrahydroisoquinoline alkaloids of the Cactaceae.... in about 20 years after others have done the real work and spread the anecdotal data around in places like this.

Auxin, I agree with most of what you are saying but in a minor way the thought of trying to avoid legislation ignores there is an elephant in the room.
Which is that no one seems to be adequately addressing our basic right to exist as valid humans or that communion with these plants is a valid experience for humans to have whether it is spiritual or whether it is recreational. (I've often wondered when and how 'recreation' became a dirty word?)
The courts (usually) recognize not just the right but the ability of Native Americans to have a genuine spiritual interaction with peyote. So I probably should be asking which nationality of my ancestors it was that befouled the integrity of my blood line and neurological system so badly it has caused me to become so spiritually incompetent that I am now perceived to be incapable of having genuine direct spiritual experience if it involves a plant-based communion and did so to such a degree that any effort I might now make is simply a disingenuous act of hedonism or delusional or worse? That question begs for an answer from those proposing any legislation aimed at prohibition.

What you mention is truly the conundrum: Better available information informs those who hate as well as those who love.
Its difficult to impossible to be able to successfully serve as a gate keeper controlling who can access information once it exists.
Either we do not know as a community and the plants remain better protected or they can find legislation along with their knowledge leading to use.
Publication alone does not typically do it, but rather its the perceptions that widespread use is either occurring or looming on the horizon. Most legislators don't read many journal articles, it seems to be works like Shulgin, Ott, Ratsch or me that they prefer as those summarize much literature in single books and let the reader avoid doing a lot of the reading that those authors did.
Plus they don't seem to actually read them a decent bit of the time. When TIHKAL and PIHKAL were used as basis for laws in England all listed compounds were illegalized which included a number of entries for inactive or unevaluated compounds, suggesting the legislators involved did not bother getting past the table of contents.

Forums are another way the powers-that-be have learned to monitor our interests, sometimes to our clear detriment. I'd suggest that its actually easier, more efficient and more productive to just monitor our conversations about these plants than to cull through the literature. If it is put on line it is just as vulnerable as if it went into print. Its not simply out of concern for their own existence that SAB banned discussions of controlled substances and potencies in plant discussions there, they learned for certain that active monitoring by law enforcement was ongoing and its not realistic to believe that is not a common practice on ALL forums.

I don't believe that I ever said or implied that research should be limited to professional scientists or that they are somehow ideal for performing it, I'd suggest that professionals are the least likely to perform this work as it lacks adequate novelty for thesis or dissertation material and it will take work to find a place to publish it. In fact, when the topic has been discussed I've always suggested that our community is the best place for this work to occur (along with a plea for much greater rigor in the process as well as broader investigation as the vast majority has been focused on clone lines within recognized known mescaline containers -- many of which can be tracked back to earlier clones known to be good that got renamed -- for instance what was circulating a few years ago as Osprey's macrogonus that turned out to be RS0004 which was a commercial offering that Kakster obtained from Jerry Wright). Collating clones and synonyms is potentially valuable.
I agree that science is not an ideal vehicle, even if it is the one with the right tools and sometimes funding. My comment was simply about why more research has not been done and published.
When asked if I had suggestions for trichs Ogunbodede to analyze a few years ago I jumped at the chance to organize some specimens even though I did have concerns about Juul's and scopulicola being 'put on the map'.
However, if Bode had not added the odd layer about shamans and preferential use (which has drawn him a good bit of criticism) I suspect that he would never have gotten it published in JEP and he might even still be looking for a place to publish it.
No matter what avenue of study is involved (academic or private) the lack of adequate funding is usually the single largest brake on progress.
Private labs can do testing for individuals but simple gc-ms cost around $200 a sample the last time I looked several years ago so its not within everyone's reach. Sometimes nice people who are in school pop up and graciously perform this work for our community but there are not nearly enough of them.

On peruvianus there is another piece of the puzzle worth adding. It was not just demand that brought peruvianus into greater availability it was the cessation of the crazy activity of a single wealthy individual (D.Z.) who for years aggressively tried to buy *every* single peruvianus and macrogonus that he could locate in an attempt to prevent the rest of us from getting one. He believed he was protecting the plants from legislation. For whatever reason after amassing what a mutual friend describes as "a forest" of trichs he thankfully moved into collecting cowboy hats and left peruvianus/macrogonus alone.
In the 1960-70s T. peruvianus was not hard to find in the cactus nurseries that grew the larger cactus species -- based on catalog entries from that era. Entries for it appear as late as in the 1981 Cactus Gems catalog. T. macrogonus was offered as late as the Abbey Garden catalog from that same year.
You bring up an important point about the demand for peruvianus causing a ton of bad lineages and IDs to become marketed as peruvianus. Most of that collapses to being the input of no more than several people (primarily Knize, Riviere, Ramirez & Van Geest) but WOW did they add some noise.

My bad, I didnt mean to imply that you implied that- I just wasnt clear that I was stating one polar extreme position I often see people generally gravitate toward. Sort of the notion that the scientists should do the discovery work so we can buy the right clones and seed with confidence, lol.

And my apologies if I sounded reactive, Auxin, our thoughts are much more in a line with each other's than not.

I have about as much faith in science to serve us well as I do in politicians.

Interesting discussion you two, thanks!

I think not knowing is what I enjoy the most!