Phalaris Q&A

[mescalito]

Just a few Q's to fill in my(many)gaps in ethno facts

1)I've read that P.Aquatica contains a mix of mainly 5meo and dmt-how much would the meo affect the experience if prepared as a tea with maoi or an a/b extraction?

2)There are reports of crude resinous extractions being used ie.acidic water or alcohol strained and evaporated to a smokable resinous extract.Any comments on this?

3)Why do sheep get the staggers and not humans?

Cheers :D

[Stroodes]

1) To begin, the MeO would effect the experience a fair bit, as it is estimated there is *rougly* 1/3-1/5 as much Me0 as DMT. MeO is also about twice as potent as DMT, so in the end you are looking at about 1/2 a dose of Meo ontop of the DMT (this is off the top of my head tho, can someone verify this please?). Oh and ofcourse there are reportedly small amounts of bufotenine (5-OH-DMT), which would have little impact.

2) A crude extraction would most definately yield the desired DMT, but i guess it would just be harsher on your lungs, plus it may be hard to physicaly smoke enough before the trip sets in. I hear that some people who grow large amounts and do not mind the inneficiency use wheat-grass juicers and evaporate for a resin. Defatting an alcohol solution with naptha or similar might be an easy option.

3) Well, you must bear in mind that sheep would be eating LARGE quantities of grass, and the DMT may become oraly active due to rumoured MAOI's present as well. However, i think i remember reading there is another chemical present which is in fact responsible for the toxic effect, not sure. Im assuming (if it is present) its chemical properties would stop it from being extracted into the final product in an acid/base extraction, or it would be in such low quantities as to not concern us. Lastly, DMT would obivously have a far different effect on sheep than humans, hell, aparently the lower portions of phalaris poisoned sheep's brains were tinted blue :confused: .

[Jack]

I think phalaris also contains gramine, which would be the one to watch out for.

[planthelper]

if you a/b extract the phalaris you might avoid most of the gramine, because it's less soluble in naphta than the dmt actives.

check out the m index.

gramine and bufo are quite soluble in alcohol, so don't try this aproach.

just a hunch, i got...

gramine is insoluble in pet ether, pet ether is close to our lighter fluid, get it!

http://forum.thenook.org/index.php?showtopic=22719

http://forum.thenook.org/index.php?showtopic=28940

[ 07. January 2005, 11:08: Message edited by: planthelper ]

[Stroodes]

yah thats the one i remember hearin bout - gramine. Glad to hear it most likely wont make it to the final product in a/b extraction as i hoped. Also, whats the bp? - seing how the bp of DMT is extremely low compared to most alkaloids, perhaps gramine would only partly vaporise if smoked in a DMT/crack pipe.

[ 07. January 2005, 13:09: Message edited by: Stroodes ]

[Torsten]

Originally posted by Stroodes:

seing how the bp of DMT is extremely low compared to most alkaloids,

The bp listed in the Merck index is wrong. The bp of DMT is quite in line with other alkaloids. I can't remember the details, but posted them previously so you can do a search. Or check the comment in TIHKAL about it.

[mescalito]

That's very interesting!

Now I've read conflicting reports as to the best time to harvest.Some claiming the younger tufts to have a higher yield of DMT, others say late summer with drought/heat stressed plants producing more alkaloids??

[apothecary]

hey mescalito, I'm also very interested in Phalaris spp. and it's DMT uses. Have you read the Lycaeum article on extracting smokable DMT from it?

If you haven't, the link is here:

http://leda.lycaeum.org/?ID=8478

The extraction process is quite involved and requires a separatory funnel (although I have a hunch you can just use a normal container and a syringe sans needle to carefully extract the top layer) which bothers me.

Is it possible to do a polar/nonpolar extraction similar to the common extraction used for LSA? I'm quite lazy, and not really in the position to obtain lab tools and chemicals anyway, so an easier method of extraction would be nice.

As far as your question goes about crude extractions, I have one comment, something I read on erowid a while ago.

This is a recount of some Aussie guy who attempted extraction of DMT from Acacia maidenii.

"Smoking the bark directly gave a mild hallucinogenic effect, on the limits of the detectable.

...

That evening, I shredded the bark by hand. This was difficult and incomplete; mechanical milling would be far preferable. I placed the shreds about 3.5 litres of analytical grade methanol from Monday night until Friday afternoon. The methanol quickly took up colour from the bark and turned a deep red colour.

As much as possible of the methanol was removed by filtering. I evaporated off the methanol using a fractionating column, a condenser, and a saucepan of boiling water as heating, for some hours, and recovered much of the methanol. I placed this methanol back with the bark and reextracted for some hours while evaporating the rest, then filtered the bark again and combined the extracts, and stripped as much as possible of the methanol, to leave a thick resinous brown liquid. A portion of the extract was evaporated using a hair-drier to give a thick brown resin. Attempts at smoking this using pipe and hot knife proved unpleasant and gave minimal effect. "

The article goes on to say how he performed a proper a/b extraction to obtain proper, smokable DMT.

Kind of disheartening, as I have resources to grow lots and lots of Phalaris spp. but not resources to process it with anything more than a simple polar/nonpolar extraction.

Keep the replies coming folks, mescalito isn't the only one interested!

[ 17. January 2005, 11:30: Message edited by: apothecary ]

[mescalito]

Thanks yeah I've read those before.

A simple acid/base/defatting process would yield a good amount of actives and hopefully exclude some nasties.If you were to loan your gnome some equipment then a glass turkey baster would be cheaper than a sep funnel .The first link deals with Reed canary grass-this has a slightly different profile to P.aquatica for chems....from memory??

So does anyone know when the alkaloids would peak?

[nabraxas]

from what i've read it's the defatting process that tends to cause trouble. apparently there's rather alot ov fats etc, that cause a very thick emulsion to form & trying to separate that into layers that can be further separated sounds like a real chore.

maybe the parrafin wax trick is the way to go for this one?

[Auxin]

mescalito:

3)Why do sheep get the staggers and not humans?

Back when I read all the info I could find on Phalaris no one could answer that... most recent info I remember reading was that after they went to all the trouble to make a low tryptamine Phalaris strain they did more serious research and found that it wasnt the tryptamines, gramine, or carbolines that caused staggers and in fact they realized they dont have a clue what causes it (proteins and micro-organisms were suggested, easy scape goats ) has anyone found research more recent that sheds light on sheep staggers?