Hi,

May we get a thread going please with a list of 'man-made substances' that turned out to be found in nature.

---

Acacia spp (amphetamines,etc)
Nauclea latifolia (Tramadol)
Any others?

DMT

I'm extremely skeptical regarding that paper that found amphetamines etc in acacia. Have you found any additional papers that verify those findings?

sorry I don't have much more to add than that!

Yep, DMT is one of them, was first synthesized, only later found to be natural.

Diazepam/valium and other benzodiazepines (found in potatoes and wheat) also.

Tramadol (found in Nauclea latifolia)

Supposedly methamphetamine, amphetamine and PMA found in Acacias ( source) , though these findings have been questioned.


Maybe we'll find plants making MDMA and LSD one day

Wasn't LSA first synthesized from ergot-alkaloids before it was discovered LSA was present
in Hawaiian Baby Woodrose seeds and Morning Glory seeds? Not sure.


A plant or fungus that made LSD would be a treasure for sure.
Could Ergot(Claviceps species) not be genetically modified to make LSD?
That might be worthwhile.

It's interesting that there aren't known plants that naturally produce entactogens. The MD group is pretty common in nature, you think something would have stumbled on it.

If you include substituted tryptamines, sponges produce tons, including 5,6-dibromo-dmt and a few others.

Blessings
~ND

don't hold your breath, ethyltransferases aren't ubiquitous in nature.

Someone posted this article over at STS that questions whether tramadol was actually produced by the nauclea Latifolia. It appears that the samples may have been contaminated with tramadol from animals.

That's awesome!

Oxycodone found in Epipactis helleborine
http://www.ecology.kee.hu/pdf/0302_029038.pdf

Nice, so the plants seem to produce these opioids to make bees sluggish and stay for longer in contact with the polen, therefore increasing chances of pollination. Makes one wonder to what extent the presence of these psychoactive substances in plantsare related with species using them and culturing/spreading them.

Michael Pollan wrote an interesting book examining just that, looking at human being's relationships with grain, apples, and cannabis.

You could make the claim that cannabis, for example, uses it's psychoactive properties to make it desirable to those stupid naked monkeys, that then propagate it and increase it's likelihood of reproductive success.

The same is true of grain.

Also, someone above me posted about Tramadol, but that seems to have been thrown into question, so we might want to strike it from the list
http://cen.acs.org/artic...ural-Product-Status.html

Blessings
~ND

Interesting points, endlessness and Nathanial.Dread!
I believe there could be numerous functions of these chemicals...that certainly sounds like a plausible one!

Diazepam and others are natural?, wow. Nice find, thanks.

Could Diazepam/other benzos be found in other plants that would have a high enough effect on humans?,

is there any plant out there?

And to follow that up, Cannabis heals the ecosystem. in the book 'Plant Intelligence and the Imaginal Realm: Beyond the Doors of Perception into the Dreaming of Earth ', the writer states that ecosystem and the earth gets high, cannabis gives pain killing effects. same would go for poppies in my opinion, maybe that's why poppies grow in wasteland ?

Unless the planet earth has opioid receptors somewhere that we haven't noticed, I don't think it makes much sense to say that poppies grow in wastelands to sooth it's pain.

Blessings
~ND

Well, here's what this writer said from the book;

That excerpt is interesting, but the author makes a lot of sweeping, general claims without any specific examples or evidence to support it.

Yeah, but Poppies grow in fields, but also in waste ground,roadsides. Waste ground.

They also grow in my well kept garden.

I also agree with Psybin, it was a nice piece to read but it would be even nicer if the author could back up his/her claims.


Kind regards,

The Traveler

Greenmoss: If you're trying to draw some kind of analogy between the analgesic activity of opium/poppy alkaloids and painkilling in some environmental sense, you need to make sure that there are relationships that are isomorphic to each other across the two scales.

Morphine (the principle component in opium) reduces pain perception by binding to mu opioid receptors that inhibit the activity of GABAergic cells that in turn inhibit the release of dopamine the nucleus acumbens (among other regions). When the mu-opioid receptors are activated, the decrease in inhibitory GABA activity causes an increase in dopamine release, which (somehow) correlates to changes in our conscious perception of pain.

If you have poppies growing in a wasteland, or a garden, there isn't any structure in the natural environment that mimics the behavior of the opioid system (poppies releasing some thing that inhibits the behavior of anything that increases the release or growth of something else). To me, that suggests that the relationships aren't conserved across scales. It's not fractal (at least, not in this particular case)

Blessings
~ND