Auxin

I've been searching for those for a few years with no success (as have MANY MANY other people) If you find them, please tell us I'll probably be going to India around 2015 (yes 2015), maby I'll stop by Ethiopia on the way and buy some off a poor farmer. Torsten, if you could track these down you'd probably become a very rich man!

I've been searching for those for a few years with no success (as have MANY MANY other people) If you find them, please tell us I'll probably be going to India around 2015 (yes 2015), maby I'll stop by Ethiopia on the way and buy some off a poor farmer. Torsten, if you could track these down you'd probably become a very rich man!

"attempting a crude extract [acid..." I think you might be a bit mixed up, the active constituents here are not alkaloids- hence no acid or base should be required, in fact it would probably destroy the active principles. If you want to experiment with extractions I'd suggest starting your experiment series with a simple alcohol or methanol extraction of the dried plant material, followed by evaporation of the solvent, preferably without boiling. Of course you could use acetone, like Torsten did, to see if it works when you do it- after all one failure out of one attempt does not scientifically prove that it wont work. And remember to post your results.

My $0.02... "should a simple acid base [naoh base] extraction suffice" No, both gamma-hydroxybutyric acid and sodium gamma-hydroxybutyrate are water soluble.

"Why is Australia stricter than America with Melatonin? I thought USA was the worst for these things?" Simple, because the US always tells people that it is the 'land of the free' it is reluctant to be the first 'friendly' country to ban something, so the US puts pressure on countries like yours to ban things so it wont look foolish or unjust when they ban something. An example is salvia divinorum, the US wants your country and a few others to ban it first so it wont seem unusual when they ban it (still legal in the US you know, but not for long.)

Hey all, I was re-reading this thread and something caught my attention: "I still have the original plants (6 years old now) and many of their clones"- Torsten Ok, I was told that they dont survive freezing so do you bring them indoors for winter? If so what outside temp. is your signal to bring them inside? What are the max. and min. growing temps? For growing it as a perennial do you have to take any extra steps, like preventing seed formation? How big are those 6 year olds? The reason for all the questions is I grew these beauties this year, but never experimented with its pharmacological effects. Now that I quit smokin' pot I want something to keep me a little mellow while I re-equilibrate, but winter is about to start here so I want to find out the best way of growing them indoors. Thanks.

I'm still using fungicide because last time I tried growing 'em they were at this stage when half were killed off by fungus, and the other half were killed off by the supposedly 'harmless' dirt fly larvae. I have not been fertilizing them, maby that has something to do with the slow growth? (I'm always hesitant to fertilize 1 mm tall seedlings.) And I'm growing them in peat pellets, hence the need for fungicide (using 0.0124% sol'n of myclobutanil alpha-butyl-alpha-(4-chlorophenyl)-1H-1,2,4-triazole-1-propanenitrile) Anybody know what the best soil mix is for the seedling stage? Or how about when fertilizers should start being used? 1 mm? 1 cm? 5 cm? We should start gathering info for a FAQ on growing heimia from seed, that would be sweet Torsten, you could put it on your heimia info page and then it would help people by the hundreds! Thanks to everyone for your help

"Mescaline: the base has some water solubility, melts @ 36C, and boils @ 180C." Sorry john, but that boiling point of 180 C is at a greatly reduced pressure (12 mm Hg) normal atmospheric pressure is over 63 times that, therefore the normal boiling point would be much higher. Unfortunatly none of my books tell its boiling point at standard pressure, perhaps at standard pressure it decomposes before boiling

"what are the stages from tyrosine to mescaline."- reville See figure 5, almost half the way down the page: http://www.usm.maine.edu/~newton/Chy251_25.../alkaloids.html

Sofar I have had excellent results just using potting soil (without vermiculite or perlite). I firm it down with a brick to make it level, sprinkle the seeds on it, and water it with a little water sprayer until they are 1-2 cm, then water from the bottom. Its never failed me as long as I have a little fungicide on hand. When they are about 5 cm tall GENTLY transplant.

Interesting idea mesq. Only problem is I have these moral rules that prevent me from telling people how to synthesise potentially dangerous substances. I only tell people the dangers of what they suggest, as to prevent human suffering. I'm sure this would end up driving some people NUTS when they just want a quick and easy 'recepie' for this or that. Im probably lucky those moral rules are there, if I started telling everyone the safest, most effective way to synthesise drugs the gov. would label me a 'drug guru and co-conspirator' or something and I would be in jail for a long, long time.

Of course that procedure is very dangerous and anyone who is not an experienced organic chemist could really hurt themselves, bad. The cheif culprits being dimethyl sulfate (powerful irritant, causes tumors) and nitrobenzene (toxic by all routes)(and the resulting aniline (an allergen thats toxic by all routes)). Another danger is the occurance of toxic byproducts (like 3,3',4,4',5,5' hexamethoxybenzil (highly toxic) or hydrogen cyanide (violently poisonous gas) via bad synthesis procedures, inadequate protective measures, or a lack of adequate purification.

"It's multi-million-dollar- business"- gomaos Correction its a multi-multi-billion-dollar a year business. With the profits from one year of alcohol sales you could buy a country. Now thats a drug with power!

When they did that in my country there was war in the streets, crime bosses took over all major cities, and MANY people died from poisonous moonshine. Alcohol is too deeply rooted, too addictive, too easy to make, and too profitable for a prohibition to succeed. Good luck.

At the top of the forum screen switch the option 'show topics from last day' to 'show all topics'. Anything not shown there has moved to the archives.

"cyanogenic glucosides" Yup, that sounds like the culprit. Good thing I didn't eat 'em, thanks for the info. ... Damn, no numbing spice

Something interesting just happened. [This is one data point only so don't preach it as gospel, it could be a coincidence for all I know] Ok... I grow maypop (Passiflora incarnata) for its pretty flowers and the promise of fruit in the future. Last night I read that some people eat the flowers too. Tonight the wind busted off a 3 foot section covered with flower buds just a day or three away from blooming. I wanted to get an indication of what the flowers tasted like, so I took the biggest flower bud, peeled the covering off, and chewed lightly on it, making sure not to swallow because for all I know the immature flowers could be toxic. The taste wasnt bad, kind of a neutral taste- something a hippie might eat. But then the strange thing happened, when I spat the stuff out my lips went part the way numb and stayed that way for a while, kind of like getting hot pepper on my lips minus the burning. Tongue and gums uneffected. I might try it again tomorrow to see if its reproducable in me. Anyone have any clue as to what happened? Any maypop growers out there want to do their own test and provide additional data points? If the effect is reproduceable and the material is proven somewhere to be non-toxic it could provide a interesting spice of sorts... and people say I have strange taste in food! I like food you can FEEL, not just taste

Moral of the story: Shamans- When you learn drug recepies in your dreams find a tourist to test it on first just in case its dangerous (but watch out for a tourist with a stick!) Tourists- Bring your own dope so you don't become a shamans guinea pig! When going through customs stick your blotter in a bible and pray, pray, pray

"the government wants to stop people drinking tax-free, not to kill them!" I guess thats the diffrence between your government and mine. Over here the war on drugs really is a war, and truth be told its actually a war on untaxed drugs. Of course people only really notice the injustice when a police hit squad goes to execute pot growers in their sleep and accidentally executes the innocent retired couple next door instead (I'm not lying, that has happened over here). If you don't beleive me just wait a few years, your gov. seems to be headed down that road too.

Hey John_Barleycorn, maby the drying agent your looking for is plaster of paris (CaSO4.1/2H2O), you can find it in powdered form in many hardware stores. If you want to give it that extra little boost you can bake it above 165 C to make it into anhydrous CaSO4, thats also how you regenerate it after use (let any flammable solvents evaporate first). The cool thing about it is thats its insoluble in organic solvents, only slightly soluble in water (to the extent of about 0.25%), and it hardly reacts with anything- except water of course I personally try to avoid using the powder form, so I make a smooth paste with water, spread it out thin, let it dry, then crunch it up and bake it at 200 C for 4 hrs+. It'll absorb about 20% its weight in water, maximum. Also it leaves less residual water than most others. ALSO- After absorbing its fill in water it becomes gypsum (CaSO4.2H2O). Sometimes you can get pure gypsum granules or pebbles in the soil amendments isle in the hardware store. Just bake off the water ( around 200 C for 4 to 8 hrs) and you'll have the same thing with less trouble. Gypsum might be a little less pure, so you might want to soak it in water first to extract any chemical dust that might have found its way in.

"wash out all the excess NaOH"- bloodbob You dont need it to start with. Caffeine is a very weak base, a little bit of baking soda put in the coffee would be enough to ensure a freebase and actually you probably wouldn't have to add a base at all, just extracting coffee repeatedly with methylene chloride will give you freebase caffeine. And dont forget that the freebase IS moderatly soluble in water. Contrary to common net chatter there is no solubility rule for alkaloids in general. Some are very soluble in water, some are virtually insoluble in water, most are somewhere in between.

"I did an acetone extract and it did nothing."- Torsten Acetone is probably not quite polar enough, and it is one of the more reactive solvents. Try methanol or 95% ethanol, heck I might try it for you if I ever get around to it (plant diagnostic reagents and biostimulants takes up most of my time, so it could take a while.) If you have the equiptment you could also try making a vodka extract and distiling the vodka off under HARD vaccum. Under a HARD vaccum the boilin' point of water is low enough that the product probably would not decompose (your on your own for this one, I dont have a vaccum pump.)

"Dry some 100% ethanol by adding some Epsom salts (MgSO4)... baked... oven"- John_Barleycorn BAD MOVE. Anhydrous magnesium sulfate is moderatly soluble in ethanol. Sure it would dry out the ethanol most the way, but after evaporating the ethanol the majority of your product would be magnesium sulfate! Very counterproductive. Also MgSO4 signifies the anhydrous magnesium sulfate (ie. after baking). Epsom salts is MgSO4.7H2O. When baking this stuff watch out for boiling (start it at 300 F and crank it up to 450 F after an hour or so [to minimize splattering.]) "alcohol is used... to reduce the extraction of green chlorophyll and other water-solubles."- John_Barleycorn Actually chlorophyll is soluble in alcohol and nearly insoluble in water, so you will be extracting FAR FAR more chlorophyll than if water were used. "If the solution tastes tangy, it's acidic" That rule only really applies to weak organic acids, not HCl. And even when weak organic acids are neutralized they can still taste quite tangy, so yeah- use pH indicator. Red cabbage juice is a great pH indicator that doesn't arouse suspicion, make little ice cubes out of it and it'll stay good for a long time. Your idea needs a little work, but when you get the bugs worked out it could prove to be a useful procedure.

For those who dont know, hyoscine hydrobromide is the exact same thing as scopolamine hydrobromide. Just thought that might help.

"sublime it @ about 200 degrees."- bloodbob Yup, that'll work if you use a controled oil bath to heat the sample to be sublimed. You dont want to over-heat. Caffeine sublimes at 180 C Theobromine sublimes at 290 C I dont have numbers on theophylline sublimation, but my crude estimate based on melting points and structure seems to indicate that it would be closer to caffeine than theobromine: Caffeine mp 236.8 Theophylline mp 272-4 C Theobromine mp 351 C So I would do sublimation (preferably in a vaccum sublimation aparatus) at 180-200 C. Of course one must ask oneself if its worth it. Has anyone done a comparitive bioassay between the crude alkaloid mix and pure caffeine to see if it makes much of a diffrence? After all theobromine is said to act as a smooth muscle relaxant (as well as being a stimulant) so maby the mixture would be more pleasant. Stimulant-muscle relaxant sounds better than a straight stimulant to me.