http://www.clearwhitelight.org/hatter/alklist.htm
Archaic info but still informative.


One consideration perhaps worthy of entertaining is that generalizations fail... generally speaking.

Speaking of all peruvianus, bridgesii and pachanoi as if all bridgesii are the same etc is problematic. It's like saying all white people are the same etc, it lacks accuracy.
There is significant diversity in the species.

There was a study in Peru published a few years back that focused solely upon mescaline concentrations and was not looking at other alkaloids, however in that study a decent range was found to exist. There are peruvianus and pachanoi that for all intents and purposes do not have much mescaline at all. They are properly identified plants. There are some forms known to have significant quantities of mescaline. The literature over the years mentions this. One area was known for having rather strong cacti and a tradition of use.

Years ago someone I know did bitterness testing. They found that some plants had zero detectable bitterness and then just a few days later were strongly bitter. Those plants may have produced alkaloid as a response to being cut for sampling and they were mostly peruvianus. Several bridgesii plants were strongly bitter and then again a short time later they seemed go increase in bitterness. Some pachanoi from the region known for potent cactus were extremely bitter and an increase was not detected.

In most plants the most bitter portion found was the new growth at the top, older growth in peruvianus was significantly less bitter on average. However in pachanoi the older growth was not apparent as less or more bitter.

When something is very bitter it kinda maxes out the flavor. Past a certain threshold more of the bitter substance does not taste more bitter because it is already so strong.
A friend once reported blending up and drinking dozens of small seedlings, each only a couple of inches tall and 1/2 to 1 inch wide. They were hybrids with genes of peruvianus, pachanoi and bridgesii, he reported them to be very strongly active and then regretted losing the genetics!

Older tissue and older plants may not always be stronger. In many plants the strongest concentration of alkaloids is at the soft vulnerable and sugar rich tender new growth. In many plants alkaloids are produced defensively and reactively. Some plants may have been inadvertently selected over time for accumulating greater concentration of alkaloid automatically instead of responsively. If such plants existed they would likely be found either in cultivation for use or in close proximity to those who use them. Pachanoi and bridgesii are both found in such situations. The plants growing in close proximity to people, in their yards and cities etc, are more likely to have resulted from selection than those growing in more isolated areas. While a few forms of peruvianus are grown for the witches market the species still just doesn't have the presence that bridgesii and pachanoi do.


Trouts TN3B contains some interesting information such as the GCMS of Juuls Giant showing 2 chemically distinct results from what was anecdotally said to be the same plant. The situation is not clear there however.

I read that private studies had been done about a decade ago showing some bridgesii, Bakers 5452 and SS02, to be strong sources of mescaline with no other alkaloids. It is said that Health Canada ordered some dried peruvianus incense a few years ago and found mescaline was present but was not the major alkaloid. It would be nice to learn more about this.


The ethnobotanical and anthropological literature makes mention of at least a half a dozen distinct forms and uses, however there is not much to go on there and it just isn't clear what they all are and things in the Andes have changed a lot over the last century.

The agriculture strategies of the Incas and their forbears were to encourage diversity and to select and propagate from that diversity. Find the ones you like and plant it in the yard or next to the city etc.

Ogunbodede did publish 4.7 but... why? Could it have had something to do with the testing equipment?

I suspect that most bridgesii contain very little of anything except mescaline.
In the peruvianoids there is a lot of genetic diversity and in some peruvianoids tyramine and or variations of it have been reported. Cuzcoensis is one such peruvianoid. Intermediates in phenotypes are known and I suspect that their chemistry is likely to reflect their intermediacy.

I would expect that at some point we may see data showing tyramine, 3meoTyramine, dimethoxyPEA and possibly some cycled PEAs like isoquinolines. I also expect N methyl variations of tyramines and PEAs and such like NN dimethyls and NNN trimethyls etc.

I am speculating here but there is some evidence to suggest these are likely to occur in some of these plants.

The old literature mentions that in some use the natives would take a dose and lay down and see and or fly etc. At least one claim was made that the Nazca lines were used for some type of remote viewing or projecting practice but that this was only applicable to a minority of initiates. The old literature mentions that in some rare cases those who laid down died.
Since the San Pedro brews were often of mixed ingredients including things like Brugmansia and Nicotiana we must consider that such deaths may have been a result of the toxicity of the non-cactus ingredients however we should consider that the reported effect of sedation may be a result of a non-mescaline cactus alkaloid. I doubt this personally but it is worth considering that large doses of tyramines and isoquinolines might not be safe. Medical side effects occur in a minority of people for generally safe molecules so it is possible that a person could have an abnormal and negative reaction to mescaline.

And let's point out that PC is often extremely bitter and yet isn't particularly mescaline rich. Anecdotes likewise illustrate that sulfate salts extracted from PC tend to be about half as strong as those from other forms and DMPEA is suspected, though more information is needed. The HCL salts have not been said to suffer from this issue and the aforementioned sulfate salts are still quite active though. These rumors, leads and anecdotes illustrate the need to keep testing and collecting data.

This is a great project insofar as it will produce data and every little bit helps.

Another anecdote while I edit; some of the more slimy forms are less bitter from what seems to be the muscilage slime somehow affecting the flavor. The pot-o-snot issues have long complicated alkaloid recovery from these plants. Some peruvianoids are quite active and less bitter. The RS macrogonus selections are a good example of this.

It has been my experience that all bridgesiis are strongly active. I'm trying to remember how many different bridgesii clones I've tried. There are 8 different ones that I can remember right now. Maybe there are a couple more I cant remember. Some of the clones I've done multiple times. They've all been strong, every single one. I havent come across a tricho of a different species that is as strong as bridgesii. It always hits the hardest.

Maybe thats just because of mescaline. Maybe thats because of other alkaloids. I dont know.

A similar phenomenom occurs with peyote. When a harvester comes across some L williamsii in the wild they dont ask, "Is this the right type of williamsii?" Because they know that all williamsii is good and its understood that the biggest, oldest ones are the strongest. I think something very similar is going on with bridgesii.

As far as the different effect from different species goes, I liken it to the difference between cannabis species. Indica is different from Sativa. Sure there are many different strains of Indica, and they each have their own vibe. But overall, Indica has a feel to it. And Sativa has a feel to it too. What mostly hits you is the THC. But the other minor active chemicals shade the experience. With Trichos I think its similar, with mescaline being the main active chemical, but with the differing minor chemicals coloring the experience too.

I agree it is likely a complex issue. But still I believe it should make sense once recognized.

I already experienced one weird thing. The top piece (3cm) of the most bitter peruvianus was grafted onto another stock and let to grow to about 7cm. Then it was cut at the 2cm mark, leaving attached star for pupping, the rest was intended for grafting onto different stocks. Bottom thin picece of the cut section was taste-tested and found to be tasteless. Without even sign of bitterness.

I can imagine the plant can synthesize the mescaline after some time. I can imagine the time can be variable. But I don't think it is likely the plant with high levels of mescaline is tasteless or plant is loosing already synthetized mescaline. How? Through roots? Or through chemical decomposition? Why would it do it?

First of all let me reiterate I was talking about the difference between Trichocereus pachanoi, peruvianus and bridgesii. Regarding peyote, I'd have to research more what has been found in analysis so far to give an informed opinion. My own experience with peyote taking it only 2 times is that it was equivalent to mescaline or the other classic mesc-containing cact, but it wasn't a controlled comparison with standardized dose nor anything.

The only way to really tell unequivocally if peyote is different than pure mescaline (or other cactus) is with a blind test comparing the two. So far nobody has done it, even though it would be relatively easy to do

My question to you, though, is... Does it really matter much in this case? I mean, we do know people have excellent life-transforming experiences with peyote, trichocereus cac,t as well as pure mescaline. I guess if you have the option and desire to consume any of them, then just enjoy it and dont overthink it, right?




Can you please quote a source for the claim this compound is a sedative? In pihkal nor in the one paper it was found in peyote it says anything about it being a sedative. Shulgin says it is psychedelic like mescaline, giving no nausea.

Also, in that paper, it says it is 3-5 % the amount compared to mescaline in peyote, but the dosage needed for psychoactive effects is similar to mescaline. So even in the case it is found in peyote, for a cact dosage containing 300mg of mescaline, you'd only be consuming 9-15mg of this substance, a very small amount, specially considering you need 10-20x this for an active dose according to Shulgin



In that paper it says it has been found in pachanoi 0.23-0.31% of mescaline content, so for a 300mg dose, you get 1mg of it, even more insignificant amount I think. And this was only found in pachanoi, not in peruvianus, but lets suppose its similar.. You really think that can affect the experience?

I have consumed pure mescaline and in some moments of some experiences, have felt sedated. I think this is more likely simply due to the great variety of effects that such a mind-altering substance like mescaline can give, rather than this mathematically/pharmacologically unlikely (imo) claim of 'sedative alkaloids'






Thanks for the link! All of those publications and other newer ones are collected here


One consideration perhaps worthy of entertaining is that generalizations fail... generally speaking.



The lack of accuracy is imo in the wording. "The same" in what aspect? They are different species, after all, so they are different at least in some biological aspects. But the discussion at hand is: Is there a significant enough chemical variability and are the potential non-mescaline alkaloids active enough at the dosage found that they can significantly color the experience beyond the natural variability in the normal mescaline experience and beyond self-suggestion?

I am still trying to find a paper or someone to show some evidence of a significant amount of other alkaloids that are active, or a blind test, or anything... All we got are subjective claims that seem to contradict all the 100+ published analysis, and that can be explained by other factors as described in my previous post.



Yes, this is all published, there is evidence to show that these cactus can have practically none, some, or a lot of mescaline. But where is the evidence that "other alkaloids" appear in significant amounts, and that those that do are psychoactive?



It is said by who? A quick google search didn't help me.. If this is true, I'd love to read about it, see what other alkaloid, amounts, activity, etc.




I've seen no fault with the methodology, you can check it out here . They did use the green flesh only and it was a sample that was 1 year in the dark, I think these are the main factors for that high yield.




Its not just speculation, you are right, there is already data as linked above, showing all sorts of these compounds in cactus, thats for sure.. They are just in very small amounts from all the tests done so far.




Would be cool if someone could get a bitter PC and do an extraction on it or send it to me to have a basis of comparison.. Do you think its possible that the bitter PC are high in mescaline but the people that extracted PC with low yield actually had a non-bitter PC?




Why would DMPEA be involved in this, what is the reasoning behind that speculation?





This is an interesting possibility regarding the bitterness. In Trout's books it says that mucilage = Arabinose, galactose, galacturonic acid, rhamnose, xylose. Aren't these all sweet, though? Is there anything else find in mucilage that isn't in Trout's list?



Ive thought about that a lot, and it is an interesting analogy indeed, though im not sure it fits with the given case. Im not going to get into the indica vs sativa thing because thats another can of worms, but talking about variety of cannabinoids in different cannabis plants, we indeed know some other cannabinoids are also psychoactive, some appear in significant amount in different varieties, and we know that CBD isn't psychoactive but modulates the effect of THC. That being said, this is also dose-dependant.

Would a user perceive a psychoactive difference between a 15% THC and 0% CBD, versus a 15% THC and 10% CBD plant? Likely. Would a user perceive a difference between 15% THC and 0% CBD versus 15% THC and 0.00003% CBD? IMO probably unlikely. At least so far according to the peruvianus/bridgesii/pachanoi analysis done, we are closer to that second example, not the first.



I agree with you, a plant with a lot of mescaline will undoubtedly be bitter, can't see a way around that... The opposite, bitter=high mescaline, might be not true though, as some of you are saying.

I'd have imagined generally, the bitter cact will have more mescaline, because other alkaloids are in such small amounts, but you guys are interestingly questioning this saying there are cases where bitter cactus are not high yielding.

My question is about how this conclusion was arrived to. For example O_o said that some PC are bitter and generally not high yielding.. But "generally" makes me think that this was data collected from different specimens, for example, one day someone tastes a bitter PC, the other day with another cutting someone extracts PC and is low yielding. But did anyone did controlled experiments of the same cutting ? Otherwise the data is not really valid.

If indeed there are bitter but low-yielding cact, would be interesting to see what else is in there, if indeed it can be mucilage compounds, or if any other of the trace alkaloids have some extreme bitterness like Denatonium, or what..

Conclusion? More tests are needed.

I've read many times, that someone had a bitter cactus and it was inactive. I've read many times, it is a case of PC too.
My conclusion was it likely contains other alkaloids, which are bitter too, but inactive. But there is a possibility it is not alkaloids, it is something else. My tests should clear this, because I do STB with salting, which should leave mostly all else than alkaloids behind.

endlessness, just to make it clear, there are trichocereus cactuses, that don't contain mescaline but rather other alkaloids in significant amounts, righ? Can't it be the case even for some forms of pachanoi, peruvianus or bridgesii? Or maybe if someone has any of these, they are bitter but incactive, they could be just misidentified?

Moreover, do you want to tell me, that people don't know what is causing the bitterness of PC? Wasn't there anyone curious what it really contains? I am under an impression that this is the main tricho variety in US.

Indeed, we'd get a good idea with your tests, and then the results can be sent to the lab to finish checking whether its mescaline and/or other alkaloids



There certainly are..



In theory yeah, nature can do whatever it wants hehe, but in the published data ive found they were always in trace or minor amounts. Even if it was the case that in some new test they appear in bigger amounts, it is still something to wonder, why so many subjective reports have people claiming 'other alkaloids' while only a tiny percentage of the tests show such evidence.



That is an interesting possibility, I am not good with identification of these Trichocereus myself, so Im not sure how much it can happen.. Would be good to add good pictures of the cact we do the tests with, so that others in the future can check the method and eliminate such possibilities like misidentification and so on.




That is another good question, we in this thread certainly seem curious, its weird that people havent gone further into this, but then again, the psychedelic realm is so huge, there is soooo much to research and due to legality reasons a lot of this research has been hard to do, so it's understandable we still have a lot of unanswered questions.

The transoformations are more important, than knowing what is their exact cause. I think its more about connections, and consuming the plant in a tea or powder form can add to the experience, and i dont see bitterness as a bad thing, its more like a barrier; to consume more, i have to be more serious. I dont know about people, who like to eat bitter things for fun

Alkaloids interest me, because im curious, and i try to find where those effects come what i dont like. Maybe its from mescaline, or other alkaloids, or the plant material. These effects are hand, finger shaking, stomach pain, discomfort, my eyesight changes, cant see as far as usually, etc, but not all of those effects happen always or the same time, so something must cause it, and i try to find its cause. Thats why i started extracting mescaline, and i hope i will find something.
A blind test would be easy to make, when i will have time for it, i will do it.

And another thing is, that im growing peyote, from different seed sources, and dont want to find out later, that they are unusable because they contain other alkaloids, that can alter the experience too much in a negative way. With nursery seeds, there could be some cross pollination with diffusa, etc.

Anyone tried yet, to dissolve mescaline in water, to the rate, which will be a good cactus, and try how bitter is it? I think a 1% plant equivalent will be 650mg/1 liter water. Its bitterness should be the minimal threshold when tasting cacti. Or tasting inactive cacti and inactive+mescaline mix, they taste will be different?

But as i see, pete666 is doing this taste test as a first layer of selection, and he dont want to find the final cactus this way. So maybe there is too much speculation about alkaloids, we can found out at the end of the test which traits that cactus have, which is imporant to look after.

I have separated cactus mucilage from tea few times and it is not bitter, but almost tasteless, just very slighly sweet. Similar to non flavoured chewing gum.

I have just tried it with mescaline HCl. 1g/1L. I would estimate it 2 - 2.5 on my scale.

Oh....i googled lophophine again, because i was sure that i'd read something about it being a sedative, but found nothing. My mistake.

I must have cunfused it with some other compounds that are said to be sedatives, because when i looked a little further i found that some tetrahyddoisoquinolines that are present in peyote do have a sedating effect (according to an e-book "psychopharmacological agents" by maxwell gordon) and one of them is named lophophorine.

Another compound that is said to be a sedative, is pellotine. This is probably the substance i confused it with, because there is quite a lot of information on it on the webz.

So my suspicion is now, that one or more of these substances is also present in at least one type of torch. And that they can play a role in the effects of cacti.

Anyway....lophophine could actually be an interesting psychedelic substance. What i could find on it says it is simmilar to mescaline, but less nauseating.

I will get to other aspects later in response.

However as for very bitter PC giving little to no recovery, i have observed it repeatedly.

My theory about the slime is that it reduces contact of the taste buds with the alkaloid.
Kind of like a Jello shot.

As for DMPEA, I wonder if it is precursor in the plant.

Bear in mind those monosaccharide units you mention will all be linked together into moderately long chains so that the flavour will be essentially neutral (as a best guess).

This could be the case, or perhaps the saccharides or some subset of them, or some other molecule entirely, could (allosterically?) modify the activity of the taste receptors so that the response to the bitter taste is diminished. This type of activity is known with "miracle berries" and artichokes, for example.

DMPEA:

Here. (Access to the whole paper would be rather splendid, I couldn't get this via the usual route. Anyone?)

A friend was able to get me the Health Canada report on the peruvianoid chips.

Thanks for sharing this.

I'm not familiar with reading these kind of reports. The other "alk"s and "pea"s are alkaloids other than mescaline? Is there anymore info on what they are exactly?

Unfortunately I am not aware of them having been identified yet.

Of note is that it is reported that there have been questions about the methods as that mescaline recoveries have apparently exceeded those in the report.

If I am not mistaken the material was wildcrafted or grown commercially in Peru and I recall a range of yields around 1% +/- 0.5%, a crude estimation range however.

This report showed that in this case mescaline was not the major alkaloid in the plant Trichocereus peruvianus though Keeper Trout mentioned that the mescaline content was high enough for this report to be a factor in legislation against Trichocereus in some way or another despite peyote being legal in Canada.

The cacti sum result list in the first post has been updated

Thanks for the update Pete. I hope that you and your plants are doing well.

Some alkaloids other than mescaline have been identified in various trichocereus. A lot have been identified in lophs. I wanna say around 60? One of my books has them in their as well as their chemical structure. Quite impressive little cacti