The Big & Dandy Natural vs. Chemical / Synthetic Psychedelics Thread

[Morninggloryseed]

I agree with that to, anything natural is more pleasing to the brain.

How do you figure? Ever hear of scopolamime? What about bufotenine. Hell, what about strychnine? Can you tell me how those substances are 'pleasing' to the brain?

Beyond that, I choose iprocin (a synthetic) over psilocin any day.

Your argument has fallen apart.

 

[fastandbulbous]

I agree with you that that implication would be wrong. But can you please quote someone making that exact implication?

Folias, a while ago and all the discussion about DMT (about plant origin DMT being imbued with the plant spirits etc ans being better than synthetic MT - his fairly pure 'natural DMT' being from one of the acacias that only produce DMT, no methoxylated compounds etc). Obviously the mixture of alkaloids from a simple extraction of say san pedro or peyote is going to be different from pure mescaline (be it natural or synthetic)

 

[Carsick]

Sure, but eating your synthetic mescaline and then staring at your laboratory equipment while smelling the stench of the toxic by products of synthesis is not going to be the same set and setting as eating your cactus and then staring at your cactus garden and smelling the San Pedro flowers

That's my point.

 

[Trogdor]

My personal take on this subject is that in my experience the natural substances I've tried (including mescaline, my favorite) have had less unpleasant side effects/trip aspects than most of the synthetic ones (although I will admit I've not tried many tryptamines). The synthetic chemical I've tried that had the least unpleasant side effects was psilacetin, which is very close to the all-natural psilocin.

I would also like to point out that LSD, which is many people's favorite psychedelic, is both natural and synthetic - the synthetic product would not be available without the natural source. It's also both tryptamine and phenethylamine, making it truly the most balanced psychedelic I know of.

Or, if synthetic THC were available, do you think it would necessarily become more popular than the various strains of weed, which provide a varying blends of cannabinoids and thus varying highs from one strain to the next?

Synthetic THC is available (by prescription), it's called Marinol, but the effects can be unpleasant to even some seasoned cannabis smokers.

 

[egor]

I actually prefer the designer anaolgues from a reputable and trusted supplier as it is much easier to tell the potency of the substance at hand. I find there to be GREAT differences in potency in all natural substances and prefer the exact measure down to the miligram to know what I am dosing.

 

[Morninggloryseed]

I would also like to point out that LSD, which is many people's favorite psychedelic, is both natural and synthetic - the synthetic product would not be available without the natural source. It's also both tryptamine and phenethylamine, making it truly the most balanced psychedelic I know of.

Not really. In the 50, Lilly developed a fully synthetic route that completely bypassed ergot. Interesting idea, but not very relevent. It can be made from 'natural' precursors, but it (although far harder) is not required. Also, by that logic if one wanted to start with one of the many essential amphetamines (as Shulgin called them) to get a 2C...then it too would be 'semisynthetic.'

 

[Splatt]

The natural idea implies that there'd be a difference between pure mescaline extracted from a cactus source and pure mescaline from a lab - utter hogwash! It's down to set and setting, plain & simple

How hard is it to extract mescaline only from a cactus without getting some sort of other analogues or compounds in the mix

 

[Carsick]

^ Not that hard if you put the effort in.

 

[Jabberwocky]

Most of the basic extractions do not discriminate between alkaloids (i.e. they extract all alkaloids present in the plant matter).

You'd need to know more about the solubility of each alkaloid and cross compare which solvent will extract what, etc.

 

[Morninggloryseed]

Ask F&B, or do a search under his name (alone with San Pedro) in the Advanced Drugs forum. Most of the other alkaloids in Pedro are dopamine analogues in that they feature open oxygen atoms at the 3 and 4 (like dopamine) instead of closed oxygens like with mescaline (the oxygens are covered with carbon atoms in mescaline.) This allows for separation under very alkyline conditions. With that in mind, it is possible to obtain very pure mescaline with only trace amounts of other alkaloids. And let me know when you find it, I really need to collect that information into a PDF for future details for myself.

 

[cognosis]

The natural idea implies that there'd be a difference between pure mescaline extracted from a cactus source and pure mescaline from a lab - utter hogwash! It's down to set and setting, plain & simple

I'd have to say though that a peyote/san pedro experience versus pure mescaline extracted or synthed would definately be qualitatively different. There are other PEAs in the cactus, like Tyramine a sympathomimetic, that would change the feel of the trip.

 

[Psychubus]

natural and synthetic chems are both just chems really. In the end, we all come from the earth, thus in that sense its all "natural." these drugs are neither good nor bad, they are merely benign until applied relative to an individuals body.

 

[feelgoodhit]

natural vs. synthetic?

a close member of my family has very strong views on the topic - she believes anything that has been tampered with significantly by humans should not be used, but it's source can be. basically, the idea that nature is completely perfect & we are completely flawed.

personally, i have no ethical gualms with using both types of material. not to mention, synthetics we believe to be man made can possibly be found in nature as well. look at the recent discovery of methamphetamine occurring naturally in an acacia species.

my views are not very refined. at this point, for lack of better phrasing, i don't really care. i think that all of the psychedelics are unique tools for exploring conciousness, & that's the only justification i really need.

i am very curious as to the community's views on the issue...

 

[Ptah]

Those preconceptions can and will have an effect on her trip.
Possibly in a positive way if the drug is "natural", and certainly in a negative way if the drug happens to be "synthetic".
I used to subconsciously harbor a similar belief and happily got rid of it when I found out about it.

 

[delta_9]

I don't really care either, although I prefer natural only because it can be easier to properly identify a natural substance than a synthetic substance. For example, I prefer using opium over ANY sythetic opiate/opioid.
However that dosen't mean I wouldn't take a synthetic substance given a choice between the 2, it all depends on the substance, dosage, my personal feelings at the time, ect.

 

[fastandbulbous]

Totally arbitrary classification. Whether it's of natural origin or from a lab means bugger all if you're dealing with the pure compound. Where natural sources start being a bit funny is because they are generally a mixture of similar alkaloids/biosynthetic precursors.

How about this case - using isolated enzymes to create a compound via the same biosynthetic pathway as the natural compound, but without it ever coming anywhere near a living cell. Is that natural or synthetic (& can you see now why it's an arbitrary classification?)

As for the 'natural is safer', that's total and utter bollocks. There are natural compounds like aconitine, an alkaloid from monkshood, that is so toxic that skin contact with the plant can be enough for a toxic dose to get into the body (and that's without going anywhere near the modified protein toxins like ricin and the aflotoxins etc that are hideously potent as lethal poisons)

 

[Xorkoth]

Merged in the relevant posts from a new "natural vs. synthetic" thread.

 

[BodhiSvaha33]

Ugh... Romanticism, the perennial poisoner of liberal political thought. Rousseau was an idiot, savages aren't noble, the murder rates in pre-state societies were far higher than in the most violent modern ghetto, and "natural" is a (barely) descriptive term that carries no connotations of morality, desirability, or safety.

That having been said, there is a little something to the idea that compounds in use for thousands of years have been road-tested and may be safer than something we just made last week. However, plenty of mind-altering substances -- nicotine and ethanol being the prime examples, and yes, both of them have been very widely used in ritual contexts -- are highly toxic. And it's not like our ancestors had the statistical tools to figure out who died a few years earlier than average, or developed senile dementia earlier, etc. So I personally wouldn't feel very much safer if I restricted my intake to the "old standbys". Using any drug on a regular basis is, ultimately, a gamble. New research could come out tomorrow showing that caffeine causes some horrible condition, or that 2C-I regenerates brain cells. Who knows? It's all a spin of the wheel, folks, and you're fooling yourself if you think you can shade the odds more than a little bit.

 

[swilow]

Re-reading this I see I almost totally don't feel anything I was saying before.

 

[squerll]

Ugh... Romanticism, the perennial poisoner of liberal political thought. Rousseau was an idiot, savages aren't noble, the murder rates in pre-state societies were far higher than in the most violent modern ghetto, and "natural" is a (barely) descriptive term that carries no connotations of morality, desirability, or safety.

^Nice!

I believed natural stuff was better for a long time not sure why?
But if you study a lot of these plants and the chemicals in them it’s not.