Cactouasca

[lucasdr]

‘Brand new’ psychedelic discovered
01-11-2005


Hit of the Sacred Elixir Conference (San Jose, California on October 22 - 24) was Earl Crockett's presentation on "a new elixir" in which Earl described his adventures in Baja California discovering a pictoglyph-covered cave and an alleged cactus that was ingested by the inhabitants (who predated the Indians--Earl speculates by thousands of years). He shared the stage with Alexander Shulgin who told of how he analyzes new chemical compounds and how Earl's cactus - Pachycereus pringlei - was indeed a brand new kind of psychedelic.

Cactouasca

Sasha outlined the four basic types of one-compound psychedelics and then described ayahuasca which is a two-compound psychedelic--1) a DMT analogue plus 2) an MAO inhibitor to prevent the first from being destroyed. There are many varieties of ayahuasca that differ in the plant substances that provide these two components--that is, many different plants that carry DMT and many plants that carry MAO inhibitors. There is even something called "pharmauasca" which is not derived from plants at all but which is simply synthetic DMT (in a capsule) and synthetic MAO-inhibitor in another capsule.

Earl's cactus was different from all of these--it contained a lot of MAO inhibitor but no DMT. (DMT, says, Shulgin is found everywhere in nature but never in cactuses). Instead in Earl's cactuses there were mescaline-like substances that have no psychoactive effects on humans--by themselves. Shulgin's guess is that the presence of the MAO-inhibitor in the cactus protects the mescaline-like molecule from degredation and hence permits it to act on the brain in a mescalin-like way. So Earl's cactus is indeed a "brand new elixir"--a heretofore unexplored two-compound psychedelic for which Shulgin coined the term "cactouasca". CACTOUASCA--You heard it here first.

Blue lotus flower

Another interesting elixir presented at the conference is "essence of water lily" or blue lotus which one expert presented as the prime psychoactive substance of the Egyptian dynasties. It was a nice pleasant scent with no noticeable psychoactive effects. One lady in the audience reported adding dried water lily powder to wine and achieving the greatest orgasm of her life. (There was a very brisk sale of dried lily powder after her testimonial). Water lily looks like it may have great potential as an accessible mind-altering substance not likely to be banned (it's major active ingredient seems to be some sort of opiate.)



Yehhh, new psychedelic. I'm looking forward to try it
I was wondering if this cactus contains a mescalinelike substance that isn't active without a MAOI and DMT also isn't, than there have to be more of those substances in other plants :grin:

 

[themoles]

cactus, heard it all before, have you heard about the dream-fish? now that's some crazy drug carrier :grin:

 

[Guest]

I haven't..so tell us about it oo:

 

[themoles]

some yet unknown hallucinogen fish in the amazonias, you put it on a pan, pour some salt over it, eat it and you'll go to wonderland. i read it could be bufotenin or DMT but im not sure, though.

 

[Silence_Inc]

it's not JUST a cactus - this cactus contains dmt and it's own maoi prohibitors ... so it generates it's own ayahuadca-recipe...

 

[themoles]

well, if i got it right it contains a mescalin-like compound that would not be active in the human brain without the maoi. the result is a combination that has the same effect as mescaline. on a chemical point of view 'cactouasca' is interesting and special indeed.

 

[skoeip]

I just thought a bout this subject, there are a lot of cactus plant that have phenethylamines in them that are not active, perhaps some are distroid by the mao, so if we would take such a cactus with maoi, we would have a kind of cactushuasca? this way we could find a lot of new psychedelics and they are probably mostly leagal. this is a interesting subject to do some research.

 

[lucasdr]

Yeh, that's what I meant, but I kind of screwed up making a normal sentence. English grammar
The question is, how will we find those plants?
If it was known that some plants contain these phenetylamines, would it not be known by most of us?

I can imagine that it is a bitter tasting plant. Most alkaloids have the same strange bitter taste

 

[skoeip]

in Tihkal Shulgin lists a lot of cactii that contain alkloids, and a lot of them are (mostly) inactive, so maybe we can find out witch are inactive because they are metabolised before coming to activity? are there any general rules with MAOi? anyone who knows were we can find more info on this subject?

 

[lucasdr]

There are significant dangers in using MAO inhibitors. Most MAOIs potentiate the cardiovascular effects of tyramine and other monoamines found in foods. Ingestion of aged cheese, beer, wine, pickled herring, chicken liver, yeast, large amounts of coffee, citrus fruits, canned figs, broad beans, chocolate or cream while MAO is inhibited can cause a hypertensive crisis including a dangerous rise in blood pressure.

MAOIs interact with other psychoactive substances in addition to tryptamines; effects of amphetamines, general anaesthetics, sedatives, anti-histamines, alcohol, potent analgesics and anticholinergic and antidepressant agents are prolonged and intensified.
Overdosage of MAOIs by themselves is also possible with effects including hyperreflexia and convulsions.
It should be noted, however, that these strict warnings apply best in the case of irreversible MAOIs, and many users of reversible MAOIs to activate or potentiate tryptamines are not quite as careful with no apparent ill effects.
Source: Azarius.net

Keep track of the monoamines...

 

[skoeip]

wel i know there are dangers, but there must be a number of cactusses that are probably are (largely) with out effect normaly and with effect with a MAOi, such as some of the mammilara genus or the ariocarpus genus? perhaps one could study what chemicals are dangerous wth the MAOi and search for a cactus that dous not contain such chemicals.

does anybody knows how tetrahydroisquinoline react on MAOi's?