My protaganist in a piece of musical theatre I am writing (from now on referred to as 'me' or 'I' etc for ease of writing) has experienced very painful lungs after smoking a DMT/herb blend (is this technically still changa as it contains no MAOI?)

I first extracted some DMT from mimosa hostilis using a STB tek, and crystals obtained by freeze precipitation. The first time I smoked it, I just mixed a measured amount of crystal mixed by hand into a herbal smoking blend (which is not a harsh blend, its fairly easy on the lungs). It was smoked in a small regular wooden pipe, and then because the pipe was lost, some more was smoked rolled up in a rizla. I know that these are both terrible smoking methods for DMT, however I was left with really battered lungs. I felt short of breath for the majority of a week and I became quite concerned. I then remembered (I know, I know) that I never did an evaporation test with my solvent. Upon doing an evaporation test with some of the unused solvent i still had in the bottle, quite a considerable layer of a clear oil was left after evaporation, upon which a moth died just to prove the point.

I reasoned that this must be what caused the buggered lungs, so I performed a FASA conversion to salt, and then converted back to freebase using sodium carb paste and seperating the freebase with acetone and then evaporating.

So thinking my problem was solved, I smoked some more. This time I used a still awful ingestion method Im sure, but slightly better - I made another 'changa' blend with the same smoking mixture, but this time used acetone to dissolve the DMT and infuse onto the smoking blend. This was then smoked in a small glass water bong with a regular lighter which probably just burned the hell out of the product (there wasnt much subtle holding the lighter at a distance stuff going on). The first time it was hard for me to enjoy the experience as I was not expecting it to taste anywhere near that harsh. I felt like id just smoked a piece of lego or something. The effect was pretty physical but fairly mild visually eyc (think i just didnt get that much due to inefficient smoking method etc). I was sort of worried about the painful sensation in my lungs for the whole trip. I then tried again later, and tried to do it in two or three tokes instead of all in one. This was better but still unreasonably painful. Later that night I couldnt sleep as I was anxious about my lungs - there was an uncomfortable feeling in the centre of my chest (in fact there still is a bit 24 hrs later) and I felt shallow of breath. It is obviously better now than it was as I feel almost back to normal now 24 hrs later, whreas when I smoked before I cleaned with FASA it took almost a week to feel back to normal and there was a much more pronounced shortness of breath effect lasting for almost a week. However this is still far from ideal and common sense tells me that it was very very far from a healthy thing to smoke....

So obviously a part of me is slightly worried whether I cleaned out all the impurities properly, but I followed the FASA method carefully and produced DMT fumarate which was filtered from the acetone by coffee filter (the acetone should have taken away any impurities that could have been present). FASA was recommended to me by nexus members when I made a post about the potential impurities in my product.

So the second option is that DMT or changa is just naturally a ridiculously harsh smoke? Is this why most people use a vape method of some sort? Because I was under the impression that most people who made changa or blended the spice with herbs just smoked in a regular bong or pipe. But the mind boggles to think that people would go through such a profoundly unhealthy sensation on the lungs and think that it was OK to keep doing? I am about to order a vapor genie, but I guess I'm looking for some reassurance that a) yes spice is just harsh and it doesnt sound like my spice is contaminated and b) that it will be much better (and healthier!) if I buy a VG.

Thanks all!

EDIT: I dont know whether this is noteworthy or not, but when making the 'changa' by infusing with acetone/DMT, after the acetone evaporated (no smell of acetone remaining at all) a rather oily looking mix was now left. I suspect that this is just because I used too much crystal to changa ratio (I used 50%) and DMT is naturally oily? When I crystalised my freebase again after FASA by evaporating acetone, it first formed a clear transparent oil, out of which snowflakes began to form. some of the crystals once scraped up and combined with oils stuck to the plate had a waxy consistency quite a lot like earwax and a similar colour. Does this sound OK? Also when we smoked our oily 'changa' it actually caught fire briefly a couple times.... I dont suppose there is any chance that there was still acetone sort of trapped in the herb somehow even though there was no smell whatsoever of acetone remaining, and this is what caused the harshness?

Try a re-x tek for a couple iterations. I find this very effective for purification.
But there is no guarantee that any single cleaning will take everything from the dirty solvent out. If you can, I would highly recommend starting over with clean solvent.
But even if you do start over, use a re-x tek. Once you start seeing crystals rather than wax, a good amount of that harshness will be gone.

Also, direct flame is really tricky. You never want to allow flame and spice to touch, just heat. Even in vaporization devices, DMT oxides can form which is a large source of harshness.

But in the end even if you get to 99.99%, DMT is still a bit harsh.

I had a similar problem with my first extraction which, like yours was stb, naphtha, freeze precip, then one batch of enhanced leaf and one of changa. The lighter fluid did leave a bit of oil on a test evap, but I figured the freeze precipitation would leave impurities behind.

Anyway, although not too harsh tasting, these changas left me with headaches and sore lungs and just felt generally unhealthy.

I switched to using xylene (did evap test and all good), salting out, freebasing, pull with alcohol etc. Now I can smoke a 1:1 enhanced leaf or 1:1:1 changa out of a normal wooden pipe, no special lighter technique and it's comparable to weed smoke in terms of harshness. Its actually cured headaches rather than caused them, and lungs feel better than they do after smoking other substances.

Finally threw away that first lot, although I considered doing a reverse changa and then trying a few cleaning stages. Not sure if that would work for every type of impurity though.

Pure dmt can exist in oily forms, as well as crystals, so appearances can be deceptive.

How would one do a reverse changa? and what type of cleaning stages would you use? I already did FASA and converting back to freebase. I guess I should do some re-x with a clean solvent which I do now have? (I have bought some ronsonol lighter fluid and it evaporates completely clean, compared to the bird brand BBQ lighter fluid I used in my extraction)




One would expect a lot less harshness in a vapor device though right? Especially a reputable one such as the VG? I'm just thinking it's almost certainly worth me getting one, no matter what happens anyway?

I am not familiar with the VG. My initial success was oily/waxy DMT+parsley at about 1:4. When I was able to get crystals and use them in an oil burner, it was night and day difference. It was no longer a punch in the chest to arrive in hyperspace. It's still not very pleasant and care must be taken with too much heat or oxides form that make the lips and throat burn. My next endeavor is going to be a sub-ohm e-cig as it seems like a much safer and efficient delivery method.
I don't know if DMT oxides or aluminum oxides are more harmful, but using a piece of tinfoil shaped into a vaporizing device and a pen shell as a straw has proven less harsh than an oil burner. The aluminum transfers heat rapidly and doesn't hold onto the heat for long, thus creating less DMT oxides. I can't imagine that a whole lot of aluminum is ingested and this is the method that I have been most successful in inhaling large doses.

it is if you burn it!!

DMT crystal MUST be vaped not smoked. DMT smoke is nasty and has no effect.

Changa, leaves can be a harsh smoke, I highly recommend making changa with a decent % mullein.

When you light the changa, light a small corner of it with a yellow flame, not torch lighter. Pull hard on it in the bong and let the cherry spread across the herb, don't light the whole herb.

^^^

There was a thread on reverse changa. Basically it's just a mini a/b, so extract the dmt out of the changa with an acid solution (FASA, vinegar etc), add base, pull with clean solvent and freeze precip again. Hopefully some impurities will get lost along the way. A sodium carbonate wash on the crystals should get rid of some more.

Wish Id tried this myself now.

That's currently my approach, I recomend a dripper. You dissolve the dmt into pg, and ramp up the vg content to get a smoother feel. Although I feel too much vg messes with the absorption of the alkaloids.

Most mods will do it. I've wrapped all sorts of coils and I really like the fused claptons. They have good surface area and wick rather nicely. I cut the cotton pretty short when vaping dmt, so only a little pokes out beyond the coils.

I'm using a dual fused clapton build at .10 ohms. One hit will get me there, but I prefer a smaller hit, followed by a big one.

Edit:

You could also wrap ss coils, my mod will read as low as .07 in temp control mode, and can handle up to 400C.

I suppose if you find the sweet spot here you can just drip away amd hold down the button until you're good, though I've never had any trouble in wattage mode.