Dose by %-Mescaline or total weight? - San Pedro Extract Dose

[arcarsenal]

Hi all. My apologies, I am SURE this has been answered somewhere, but it is so buried I haven't been able to find it.

My question is simple but (quasi) important:

After performing a San Pedro extraction, how should one measure the dose?

If the extract is performed (A/B, basically crystalline results), should an individual dose by the total weight (say, 500mg if chasing a 500mg trip), or by the percent of mescaline presumed to be in the sample (say, 1000mg if chasing a 500mg trip, if mescaline is presumed to be 50% of total alkaloids)?

In addition, if that first pass extraction is washed with ice-cold anhydrous acetone or IPA and recrystallized, would mescaline be the only remaining alkaloid (for practical purposes, of course, not chem lab purity)?

Thanks! And sorry if this is easily found and was overlooked!

 

[sekio]

Based upon my limited experience with San Pedro extracts (dichloromethane), the product from straight-to-base extraction (make cactus tea, filter, basify pH ~11, add dichloromethane and extract 3x) is ~80% mescaline and the remainder is ~10% dimethoxyPEA and the balance other assorted PEAs and isoquinolines. I would expect similar purities for other acid/base extractions as well, if not even higher. Mescaline is the predominant cactus alkaloid and makes up the bulk of an extract.

You don't need an isopropanol wash but you can do so if you wish. I don't think it will make the mescaline much purer: all the alkaloids will have similar solubility in IPA I would expect. In fact it might wash your alkaloids away... you probably want to just consume the first pass extracted stuff for a more "holistic" cactus experience.

Certainly cactus extract should be much higher than 50% mescaline. It probably works fine treating it as pure mescaline, in terms of dosage. The other phenethylamine alkaloids don't hurt

 

[Bagseed]

^thanks for the information, I will probably attempt an extraction soon