Mr_DMT, I respect your views, but you can't trust Peter Mandel's stuff because of things like http://www. colorpuncture .com/products.html ... generally speaking you should always be very weary of anyone claiming scientific knowledge whilst selling something that relies on that knowledge... it's a simple rule that is easy to stick to, especially on the web... look, I think it's terrible that these people mislead people like this, it's easy to get taken in, you read a paper that looks independent, you say, hey, I want some of that, but you never realise that you're actually buying magic beans.... acupuncture in some forms is not unreasonable, of course we have nervous systems, but I believe that mechanism is extremely poorly understood. Don't forget anything considered "alternative medicine" is called alternative because it hasn't been shown to work, if it worked it would just be called "medicine", that delimitation is based strictly on the fact that is not respected by science... and I believe a lack of respect for academic scientific knowledge is the real problem with all this stuff.

This is now quite off-topic.

Here's another example of the natural vs. unnatural argument, one that I'm sure many of you will appreciate because it's based on DMT.

A is DMT extracted from mimosa using d-Limonene and other food safe compounds.

B is DMT made in a lab and is completely artificial.

Is A the same as B? No it's not. DMT A contains impurities that are from the plant which are natural, and some impurities from the extraction which are also natural. DMT B contains impurities from the lab synthesis, some of which are highly toxic chemicals used in synthesis. Which is better for you DMT A or DMT B?

Because DMT A is made by mimosa, DMT A will always be DMT. Mimosa doesn't make DMT wrong. It doesn't make those kinds of mistakes. Because DMT B is made by a human, and humans are known for making mistakes in the lab, from time to time it will be made wrong because of human error. Which is better? The natural version which you know is always DMT, or the unnatural version which might be made wrong accidentally?


When pharmaceutical companies release drugs they normally have a lot number. The reason they do is because even large scale pharmaceutical companies make mistakes and occasionally produce a drug that was not made properly and have to recall it. Mimosa never makes DMT wrong. So in this case natural is clearly better than unnatural.

The majority of these cases will have natural coming out in favor of unnatural. I'm sure you guys all know this. That's why we eat natural food and not artificial foods. There are some cases where natural is not better, but in the majority of the cases it is.

So the odds of someone making a mistake in a home extraction, in your estimation, are lower than the odds of a company selling "DMT 99.9% USP" that is contaminated or mislabeled? I would agree if we were talking about a Chinese RC company selling to the US, but properly regulated domestic labs don't make many of these errors in relation to how much volume they produce.

I think it's safe to say that in general, the "natural vs. artificial" distinction is not one we should use to make safety judgments. We know that meth is terrible and oranges are good because we can examine the effects of their use and production by humans. Similarly, we know that aspirin is useful and poison wasps are to be avoided for the same reasons.

Basically, correlation does not equal causation and it is harmful for people to make the blanket assumption that a natural thing is safe to take and an artificial thing is not.

Let's go to the LSD topic now. LSD has no natural counterpart. All LSD is artificial. All LSD contains impurities some of which are toxic. The impurities are very small and even though some are highly toxic, they are present in such a small amount that they can do little harm. From time to time, these are enough to negatively affect the trip. Anyone who's used LSD many times knows what badly made LSD can be like. It can feel quite toxic on the body.

Because LSD is unnatural and illegal, you cannot buy it and know that it's 100% LSD. Sometimes it's an RC, sometimes just plain blotter paper, sometimes it's badly made LSD, and sometimes it's pure LSD.

The toxicity profile of clean LSD is very low. It's a fairly safe drug that is unnatural.

Now if one day a fruit was found that contained LSD naturally, would you prefer to extract it from the fruit or still use the blotter papers which are of questionable purity and questionable chemical identity?

SWIM would use the fruit and extract it. Only then will you know what you're getting is actually what you think it is.

But unfortunately there is no natural LSD counterpart. All LSD is unnatural. Because of this SWIM no longer uses it. You cannot know that the blotter you bought is pure LSD. There is no way to know 100%.

That has nothing to do with my point. No one is saying that natural vs. unnatural is always 100% better, but in most cases it is and the examples I give prove it.

I did not mean to imply that you were of that mindset, but I have definitely met people who are both on these forums and in my travels.

Of course I agree with the "LSD fruit" hypothetical. But the argument there is kind of off-base, because LSD is illegal and therefore not subject to quality control. So again, its risk is not inherent in its artificial origin but in the sociopolitical conditions in which it must be produced and distributed.

Imagine if mescaline-containing cacti were as or more controlled than cannabis. People selling "mescaline cactus" that could be anything from san pedro to an inactive succulent spiked with an RC.

I don't know if it matters in any way. 69rons line of thinking seems very solid an logical. I find it plausible to believe that the human body evolved in time to become perfectly adepted to certain substances that naturally occur in our diet and that every substance that's alien to this system is more of a challenge for the body to deal with.

But whether this also aplies to psychedelics or pharmaceuticals is a different thing.
I don't know how natural it is to take psychedelics or farmaceuticals.

The whole idea of psychedelics and pharmaceuticals already seems to be to confront the body with something alien, something outside of the system we've became adapted to.

So whether it makes any difference then, when you already are 'fooling' the body with something artificial i don't know if it makes much of a difference if something is MORE artificial.

For every source of nutrition the logic however, does aply and is as solid as a rock. Vitaminpills are definately an inferiour source of vitamins compared to real fruits and vegetables. And supplements with anti-oxidants are inferiour to plants in wich they occur.

Its illegality is part of the problem for sure because that's the state of LSD. But even so, if it was completely legal, SWIM would still very likely prefer the fruit for health reasons.

There are indeed risks inherent to its artificial origin. Because it's artificial, it can be made incorrectly and make people sick. Also, it's manufacture requires an industrial system that pollutes the environment. That's another risk that is inherent to its artificial origin which we are totally not even discussing here. These chemical pharmaceutical companies produce a lot of toxic waste on a daily basis. So even if the LSD was made perfectly, it would be at the cost of our environment, so in that case again natural LSD would be better.

Here's something I was pondering. Does food-safe mean smoke-safe? Meaning, just because d-limonene is food-grade, is this the same as saying it is safe to smoke(the method most people use with spice)? I myself am not very educated in this area, and am genuinely interested to know the answer to this. Because, while you can use only food-grade chemicals when extracting spice, this will often result in a product that has at least some amount of d-limonene left in it. Not knowing the effects of smoked d-limonene(assuming here that we do not), can we really say it is 'safer' to use only food-grade chemicals, when resorting to using chemicals like heptane can result in a much more pure, and potentially 'safer' product? Just out of curiosity...

I find limonene residue quite abrasive on my throat, but my understanding is that it should not have toxic effect.

Generally, your stomach is a much more resilient organ than your lungs. You can eat flour, but breathe enough of it and you'll get bakers' lung.

On the flip side, ingesting butane will cause you all sorts of problems. Ingesting butane's products of combustion (water and carbon dioxide) will not.

just a side question here but, why would your spice have limonene remains? Wouldnt it be better instead of evapping the limonene, to pull from it with vinegar, then freebasing with sodium carbonate and redissolving/evapping with IPA instead? Then there would be no limonene remains and one could reuse limonene

I was just speaking of my experiences with limonene tainted bufotenine after boiling to remove impurities.

Removing that aint so easy

But when using jorkests tek with IPA like you suggested, no I don't have leftover limonene.

hmmm yeah, in the bufotenine I guess its tricky.. What about dissolving and redissolving in alcohol several times, is there still a considerable amount of limonene residues?

There is no difference between a chemical produced synthetically (assuming stereochemistry is being considered here) and a chemical isolated from a plant.

But ron you are right that impurities may vary and LSD made by some guy in his basement probably isn't the safest bet. But pure LSD is fine there is nothing wrong with it at the doses in which is it normally consumed. But this impurity profile depends on who made it where it came from and what process was used.

There are many cases where synthetic procedures leads to purer products then isolation procedures. MANY.

I am looking at this issue not from a kitchen basement chemist point of view but from an industry point of view. Many people in society think that natural is safer automatically. They are wrong. There is NO quality control on the VAST majority of herbal and dietary products. This has lead to deaths from adulterants or improper doses or unsafe combinations.



No bad blood coming from me even if sometimes I make rough statements it just an internet debate Ron and coatl overall I respect you both you both make strong contributions to the site and the field in general. But thats one reason I like to debate both of you.

I guess my entire view point comes from working with chemicals from nature and knowing how toxic many are. Also in my field its common that people find a poison from nature and then change it synthetically to make a safer better drug. So an unnatural process can change a natural compound into a safet better more effective compound. If this is not what happened in the industrial and acedemic world I would not be argueing this point.

My second real concern is the lack of public knowledge on these subject. This is causing serious problems withing the healthcare industry but thats a long subject that I don't want to get into know.



Well again look at the example of taxol. Man has figured unnatural ways to make a natural drug produced safer at less cost to the environment. That only one example. Also the pharmaceutical industry has some of the strictest quality and cleaniness requirements of any industry. The modern dietary supplement industry has none.

I would also argue that LSH is not better then LSD because it comes in a seed with toxic impurities. LSD when made correctly is fine and potent so you only need to make a little.

One last point concerning food. Most fruits were barely edible by our modern standards. They had to be manipulated to become palatable by man. Also apple seeds contain toxins

Burnt,

You have some valid points and some things I disagree with, but I sort of lost my enthusiasm for this subject. This argument will go on until the end of time. I still have my opinions, they have not really changed. I’m just very tired of this subject for now.

I’ll probably revisit this subject in the near future.

"One last point concerning food. Most fruits were barely edible by our modern standards. They had to be manipulated to become palatable by man. Also apple seeds contain toxins "

What?..if by manipulated you mean now more toxic becasue of pesticides than yes...modern standards are bullshit then..people evolved eating fruits the way they are..not genetically modified and full of pesticides..who eats apple seeds? I sure dont..

People also starved a lot. I don't know about you, but I enjoy almonds not being full of cyanide.

Limonene is toxic. Everyone seems to think limonene is this magical natural safe substance. Its not. Of course inhaling it isn't going to harm you much because your not exposed to much. Inhaling limonene is also safer then inhaling xylene lets say. Getting a ml or two on your skin might be a bit irritating but thats all. But drinking a shot or so of limonene will make you seriously sick.

Most essential oils in pure form are toxic if consumed undiluted.



Many of the crops we now eat if you saw their wild type you wouldn't eat it. It would be rough on your stomach, it might contain toxins your body might not be capable of dealing with, and it would have less nutritional value. Many crops have been highly selected by man to be as palatable as they are now. Unfortunately that also makes them highly palatable to insects and other assorted pests hence why we use things like pesticides and GMO.



All good. You also make good points and honestly it would be better overall if people stopped popping pills like its candy and realized there is a host of safer natural and very effective drugs out there. I'm talking recreational drugs. But I guess the main point is that there is and always will be a valid place for synthetic drugs whether in medicine and also recreational.

Nice job ad hominem (or appeal to motive).

You got other amazing arguments?


Hahahahahaha.

Sorry for the laughter. You actually got any reference of evidence for this statement? That would be very interesting to look at!