CrypticArc
Bluelighter
- Joined
- Jun 18, 2013
- Messages
- 925
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?
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?