Citrus Growers Manufacture Huge Amounts of DMT

[CLICKHEREx]

http://the-nexian.me/home/knowledge/112-citrus-growers-manufacture-huge-amounts-of-dmt


By Morris Crowley

Friday, 13 June 2014,

It may surprise you to learn that common citrus trees like oranges and lemons are actually Schedule I substances, in the same legal category as heroin. I know it sounds absurd, but it is absolutely true. Recent analysis published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry (Servillo et al. 2013) found that several citrus plants, including lemons and oranges, contain N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT) and 5-hydroxy-N,N-dimethyltryptamine (bufotenine). Both of these compounds are powerful hallucinogens and are designated as Schedule I substances under the federal Controlled Substances Act in the United States. Under that same law, “any material” containing “any quantity” of a Schedule I drug is itself legally equivalent to that drug.

The upshot of this is that domestic citrus producers are in fact operating a massive drug manufacturing enterprise, legally speaking. And the scale of this manufacture is not trivial. Let's estimate 150 orange trees per acre, and conservatively suppose that each tree contains one kilogram of leaves. Then in the state of Florida alone, where approximately 550,000 acres are under cultivation, the crop would contain somewhere in the neighborhood of 80 kilograms of bufotenine -- roughly 5 million doses -- and 5 kilograms of DMT -- roughly 150,000 doses. But that's not all! Since the entire mass of any material containing these substances is legally equivalent to the pure substance, the entire biomass of the groves would be treated as pure DMT or pure bufotenine if the growers were charged with manufacturing a controlled substance.

You might wonder why I am characterizing an entire branch of agriculture as a massive drug manufacturing operation. That characterization, however, is not mine. Under federal law, they are a massive drug manufacturing operation. I am merely drawing attention to the issue.

Regardless of how you feel about the war on drugs, this issue should cause you serious concern. The Controlled Substances Act is written in a way that makes all sorts of mundane materials illegal. It’s not just orange trees; depending on where you live, there is a reasonable chance that the grass in your lawn contains Schedule I substances. In fact, so many materials contain detectable quantities of controlled substances that nearly everyone is breaking the law all the time.

Ironically, the best defense is to remain assiduously ignorant. The Controlled Substances Act defines crimes of intent. That means that as long as you are not aware that orange trees (or certain grasses, or many common pets) contain controlled substances, then you cannot be guilty of intending to possess, manufacture, or distribute those controlled substances. Once you take the effort to become informed about the ubiquity of controlled substances in the world around you, it becomes nearly impossible to avoid crossing the line into criminal behavior.


About the author

Morris Crowley is an independent writer who studies the history and chemistry of visionary plants and their interaction with humankind. You can follow him on Facebook and on Twitter@morris_crowley.


Reference

Servillo, L., et al. 2013. Citrus genus plants contain N‑methylated tryptamine derivatives and their 5‑hydroxylated forms. J. Agric. Food Chem. 61(21): 5156–5162. http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jf401448q

[bullit]

i love lemons

[quarterflesh]

 

[tarenna]

I love oranges, limes, grapefruit, pomeloes and tangelloes..

Woohooo

[tarenna]

Hit us up wiv a bit of cumquat bro....

[quarterflesh]

Try shelving a grapefruit. haha

[gtarman]

^ just tried it. would not recommend.

[∂an]

Let's estimate 150 orange trees per acre, and conservatively suppose that each tree contains one kilogram of leaves. Then in the state of Florida alone, where approximately 550,000 acres are under cultivation, the crop would contain somewhere in the neighborhood of 80 kilograms of bufotenine -- roughly 5 million doses -- and 5 kilograms of DMT -- roughly 150,000 doses.

Just in case anyone is thinking of raiding the local citrus farm... this equates to approximately 1 microgram of bufotenine per kilogram of leaf, and less that 0.1 microgram of DMT per kilogram of leaf. This is one hundred thousand times less concentrated than in mimosa hostilis.

I don't have access to read the full journal article, but I would be interested to know why they selected citrus trees and whether or not they are claiming that citrus trees have more tryptamine alkaloids than other plants. Also the hypothesis regarding biodefense against predation seems strange given the very low concentrations.

[zed240]

In case anyone wants to read it.

Citrus genus contain N-M Tryptamines + 5-H forms.pdf

Citrus genus contain N-M Tryptamines + 5-H forms.pdf

Citrus genus contain N-M Tryptamines + 5-H forms.pdf

Citrus genus contain N-M Tryptamines + 5-H forms.pdf

[gtarman]

Just in case anyone is thinking of raiding the local citrus farm... this equates to approximately 1 microgram of bufotenine per kilogram of leaf, and less that 0.1 microgram of DMT per kilogram of leaf. This is one hundred thousand times less concentrated than in mimosa hostilis.

....

I would be interested to know why they selected citrus trees and whether or not they are claiming that citrus trees have more tryptamine alkaloids than other plants.

I think it's just because citrus trees are a great way to illustrate the absurdity of these kinds of drug laws - the idea of turning something as benign and wholesome as a fruit orchard (by way of legislation) into the equivalent of an industrial-scale meth lab seems almost a perfect way of making the point.

[Auxin]

Would beer be a good example for the analogs laws?

Sprouted barley has traces of benzodiazapine chemical analogs.

The drug (beer) as a whole causes sedation, reduces inhibitions, induces euphoria, etc.

The law says anything containing a banned drug can be viewed as the banned drug in its pure form.

So its the chemical analog with analogous pharmacological effects and thus subject to the analogs clause.

And what, like 80 million liters of this designer pharmaceutical drug is sold to unsuspecting australians every year?

If a news reporter did the story I'm sure they would calculate a dose as 1 mg and a street value of $20 per dose.

Thats 1.6 trillion dollars worth of drugs!

[Lichen+]

Letter of the law vs Application of the law.

If everything becomes illegal, it's just a matter of law enforcement picking and choosing what they would like to bust you for.

[gtarman]

^ which is not how the rule of law is supposed to work. It is, however, how corrupt beaurocrats and private interests have made it work. More often than not laws these days serve only the people who write them...there are no higher guiding principles at work anymore. Just look at Queensland.