mt. ash (eucalyptus) tree mescaline tek

[CrypticArc]

Came across this on erowid, if anyone is interested

From: anonymous
Subject: Mescaline from Gum Trees
----
Hi folks,

Whilst browsing chem abstracts yesterday I came across an intriguing
reference, especially for ozlanders. The Australian Dept of Defence
developed a technique for producing mescaline from eucalypt sawdust in
fairly high yield back in '64.
Here it is:

CA 61,8515
The preparation of mescaline from eucalypt lignin.
D. Amos, Dept. Supply, Defence Std Lab, Melbourne.
Australasian J. Pharm., 45, 529 (1964)

Dried Eucalyptus Regnans sawdust oxidised with nitrobenzene and alkali @
150C yielded 4% of syringaldehyde. Methylation @ 0-5C for 1hr with Me2SO4,
then heated at 70C for 1 hr gave 56% 3,4,5, trimethoxybenzaldehyde.
Converted to the cyanohydrin (ie +KCN+weak acid - jm) then reduced with
Pd black to mescaline. Overall yield 1% from dried sawdust. E. obliqua and
E. diversicolour both gave 0.7% yields.


So there you have it. Our army, or maybe ASIO, wanted a way to make vast
quantities of mescaline (we have lots and lots of E. regnans, and 1 kg
sawdust ~20 doses), very cheaply (all the ingredients are chemicals of
commerce, except Pd black, which is a recyclable catalyst), from local
precursors. Which is funny, since there would have been no difficulty
importing precursors or mescaline itself in experimental quantities. Maybe
they didn't want to be reliant on foreign suppliers, or maybe they didn't
want another country to be aware they were importing mescaline by the kilo.
It sounds like we might have had our very own MK-Ultra project running at
the height of the Cold War. It would be very interesting to follow this up.
Anyone out there know if we had some monkey business going on?

 

[serotonin2A]

Synthesis discussion isn't allowed so the mods will probably close this thread pretty quickly.

 

[CrypticArc]

Synthesis discussion isn't allowed so the mods will probably close this thread pretty quickly.

This has been around since '64, it's more of a historical/novelty post than a synth discussion thread imo. anyway, another bluelighter PM'd me and said that this would not be a very efficient way of making mescaline if you tried it. that being said, I would understand if the thread were closed.

 

[sekio]

Dried Eucalyptus Regnans sawdust oxidised with nitrobenzene and alkali @
150C yielded 4% of syringaldehyde. Methylation @ 0-5C for 1hr with Me2SO4,
then heated at 70C for 1 hr gave 56% 3,4,5, trimethoxybenzaldehyde.
Converted to the cyanohydrin (ie +KCN+weak acid - jm) then reduced with
Pd black to mescaline. Overall yield 1% from dried sawdust. E. obliqua and
E. diversicolour both gave 0.7% yields.

there are so many things wrong with this, I count 3 lethally toxic reagents and 2 obvious opportunities for shit to go seriously wrong, one of which involves gassing yourself with cyanide.
All that for a 1% yield. Um, no.