The "Psychedelic" Saguaro Cactus

[RhythmSpring]

Has anyone here actually tried this plant? I'd imagine the effects would compare to San Pedro, but upon closer inspection it looks like it doesn't contain mescaline. It contains a lot of other things though (see below) that I am sure would be at least psychoactive in some individuals. I'm rather sensitive to anything remotely psychoactive, so I'm probably a good candidate for trying this out... Anyone else have any experience?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_-kNjwVO2g

"The fact is that some species of cacti are hallucinogenic and some are not. What is the cause of this psychoactive ability in these species? Simply the presence of alkaloids in the plant does not necessarily mean that it is hallucinogenic. Granted, there are some types of alkaloids that provide psychoactive effects. In the cacti this might be mescaline, which is found in Lophophora williamsii, Opuntia cylindrical (Prickly Pear), and the San Pedro Cactus (Trichocereus pachoni) (Ghansah 1993). Yet, very few of the other hallucinogenic cacti actually contain mescaline. Instead, they contain other compounds, including hordenine and N-methyltyramine. Often, while each individual alkaloid when isolated, may not produce an effect on the individual, the effect of all alkaloids in any cacti together, produce a synergistic effect (Anderson 1996). The cacti and their alkaloids will reveal that there is a great diversity of species in not only the phenotypic physical appearance of the cacti, but also in their alkaloids, and the physiological response when consumed."

"Carnegiea is a genus that has been split off of the large Cereus genus and contains only one cactus species, Carnegiea gigantea, the saguaro (sa-war-o) (Benson 1982). The saguaro or giant cactus is one of the characteristic plants of Arizona and Sonora. It is used by animals for shelter while humans may also use it for building corals and novelty furniture. Even the Indians used this plant for food by gathering the fruit to make conserves and making drinks from the seeds (Benson 1950). While the cactus has been reported to treat rheumatism, it is not known to be used hallucinogenically. Yet, it does contain many psychoactive alkaloids such as: 3-methoxytyramine, 3,4-dimethoxyphenethylamine, 3,4 dimethoxy-5-hydroxyphenethylamine, 3,5 dimethoxy-4-hydroxyphenethylamine, Arizonine, Dopamine, Heliamine, Heliamine, dehydro Mescaline, Tyramine, Carnegine, Gigantine (5-hydroxycarnegine), Salsolidine Norcarnegine), Salsolidine, dehydro (Ott 1993)."

(Source: http://www.thewildclassroom.com/biodiversity/floweringplants/extras/cactaceae hallucinogenics.htm)

 

[Xorkoth]

Prickly pear contains mescaline??

 

[spacejunk]

I'd never heard that before.
I sorta hope not, cause those things are really hard to handle.
Think there are many types of opuntia though. I've eaten some tasty fruit from them, but wouldn't want to prepare it myself (they sure are prickly...)

 

[Xorkoth]

Prickly pear is also eaten as food in some regions... I've had prickly pear cocktails a few times. If they contain mescaline it must be in trace amounts, but it seems unlikely considering there is absolutely no regulation or freaking out by the government.

 

[RhythmSpring]

Well, to be fair, the government hasn't freaked out about or regulated San Pedro, Peruvian Torch, and what looks like to be dozens of other psychoactive cacti.

Also, I'm getting the sense that no one on this forum has taken Saguaro. It seems to be pretty obscure. Perhaps it's better that way.

 

[Xorkoth]

Good point... duh. Still, san pedro and peruvian torch aren't consumed as food. At least not like prickly pear is. They have prickly pear farms.

 

[perpetualdawn]

I've heard rumours of Saguaro containing psychedelics. Not sure if there's a practical concentration. I hope not, Saguaros take forever to grow (like 70+ years), it would be a real pity if hippies started chopping them down to get high.

I've also heard that there are a lot of cacti that are psychedelic in one way or another, that aren't well known. This is all rumours though. I wouldn't want to go around munching random cacti to find out, seems pretty sketchy as there's surely toxins you wouldn't want to be subjecting yourself to in many of them.

 

[spacejunk]

^ worth keeping in mind that there are many types of Opuntia cacti. Perhaps Opuntia cylindica does contain mescaline?
It's not the kind of prickly pear I associate with having edible fleshy leaves, having looked at some pictures.

And sorry OP, I don't know much about Saguaro cactus.

 

[Mudshark]

San Pedro was originally misidentified as Opuntia Cylindica ...

Nevertheless , an Opuntia species was once cited to contain minute quantity of mescaline . [ sorry about lack of references ]

 

[atara]

Salsolidine, one of those alkaloids, is a monoamine oxidase inhibitor. By structural similarity, I'm guessing carnegine, gigantine, and heliamine are as well. This might seriously potentiate the others -- normally the phenols of phenethylamines are inactive, but with a MAOI around who knows? 3,4-dimethoxyphenethylamine almost certainly gets a boost from salsolidine.

Needless to say, it would probably be really dumb to combine saguaro with, well, just about anything. Tetrahydroisoquinolines are not to be fucked with. And honestly, I'm not sure I would want to eat that...

 

[Sprout]

Salsolidine, one of those alkaloids, is a monoamine oxidase inhibitor. By structural similarity, I'm guessing carnegine, gigantine, and heliamine are as well. This might seriously potentiate the others -- normally the phenols of phenethylamines are inactive, but with a MAOI around who knows? 3,4-dimethoxyphenethylamine almost certainly gets a boost from salsolidine.

Needless to say, it would probably be really dumb to combine saguaro with, well, just about anything. Tetrahydroisoquinolines are not to be fucked with. And honestly, I'm not sure I would want to eat that...

If there is MAOi activity, the presence of Tyramine, as the OP states, would render this species something not to be fucked with...

I can't imagine it being simple to isolate the tyramine, leaving all the other alkaloids together, without some serious Chemistry. I can't help but think a lab equipped to do so would be equipped to synthesise many other, more profitable/interesting, substances so I doubt we'll get an answer any time soon.
I certainly wouldn't want to be the first to sample it, finding out that the tyramine wasn't fully removed by slipping into Serotonin Syndrome is not how I plan to go!

 

[RhythmSpring]

Needless to say, it would probably be really dumb to combine saguaro with, well, just about anything. Tetrahydroisoquinolines are not to be fucked with. And honestly, I'm not sure I would want to eat that...

Honestly this is starting to remind me of Iboga more and more. I say that because it seems that both Iboga and Saguaro both have kind of an all-over-the-place pharmacological effect and would be dangerous to combine with anything else. Also, I read an experience report written by the same guy in the video in the OP, and he described as a vivid life-review, complete with intense retching and a body load so heavy he (and others who had taken it) had to lie down. He also mentions the strobe-light effect and enhanced hearing acuity, both things I have experienced on Iboga. I'm beginning to think Saguaro is like the Iboga of the Western hemisphere.

Below (NSFWed cuz it's long) is taken from his report.

NSFW:

My experience with a full — or what Terrance McKenna used to call “heroic” — dose of Saguaro was unlike any path I’d tread through the winding landscape of the subconscious before – or since for that matter. Certainly many plants, fungi, and even animals have lead me on circuitous journeys through the nether regions of my (and the universal) mind, though this path, strangely, took me not from the place I began to some new place I haven’t been, but rather, from the place I imbibed back to the place I began. It was a trip through my memory banks, to view, review, and re-experience the timeline of my life in a way I have never attempted to do before.

We drank the frothy, mucilaginous beverage, in all its wicked bitterness, while sitting in a circle in the morning shade of a mesquite grove. There were four of us, two couples, I being the only one who had experienced this plant before. To be honest there was a fifth, though he simply took an offered glass and made haste to some other place whereupon he was, in his own words “glued to the floor” for the next five hours. The four of us, settled, comfortable, and clear in our prayer and intentions, let slide down our throats a beverage that makes the head shake spontaneously at the taste of its exceptionally bitter and concentrated alkaloids. It is a taste that my body knows well, and signals the strange and indescribable moments that are soon to come.

Myself and my lover Alexandra strode off to relax in hot spring just 50 yards from our camp, while the others laid down near the altar we had constructed as the anchor point for the cerebral journeys that lay ahead. We sat soaking for what must have been thirty minutes before things started to take on a flickering, almost strobing visual effect. There is a look to things when your eyes are dramatically dilated, a kind of increased sense of detail and pattern recognition, and this was no different. My hearing too was more acute, and I could clearly distinguish the rumblings in the belly of this wild woman beside me. She made her way out of the spring and into the bush whereupon she began to dry-heave with a retching sound that echoed through her body like one shouting obscenities in a cave. This, of course, was attracting the attention of others, and so we — without speaking — decided to join our friends who now lay comatose where the green drink was first consumed.

We each chose a plot of ground that gave us sufficient space for the ride that was surely at hand, closed our eyes, and drifted into the surreal realm of the dreamings of this tall and stalwart cactus. I began to watch — view might be more accurate, this was a passive process — visions playing out behind my eyelids. They began with the drink itself, and the moments surrounding it. Then came the drive here, the events leading up to that. That harvest of the cactus, the trip to the desert, back and back, like watching my life, through my own eyes, but in rewind. Further and further back it went, unceasingly revealing what appeared to be every memory stored in my psyche. This was punctuated by breaks which consisted of me opening my eyes to a murky, muted, flickering light, and with limited proprioception and balance, making my way to my feet. The urge to vomit or to void my bowels was urgent at times, and I would stumble off to some remote location to do so, though with, I must admit, some difficulty. Upon returning I would lay back down, only to begin where I had so recently left off, as if retaking my seat in a theater after a brief but needed intermission.

This retrograde voyage through the stored memories of my life continued on until I reached those first and formative memories of the earliest age of explicit remembrance. Strange memories that differ from those I store now. Missing images, a sense of not understanding what adults are talking about. Inference and interpretation based on tone and inflection.

While doubtless this sounds interesting it is the experience of the sacred that contained and surrounded me, that infused and enraptured me, that was the most compelling of all. It was not just the witnessing of these memories, it was the understanding and empathy for myself that was so powerful and transformational. This is a medicine plant that seeks out a difficult living, in a place of both biological and hydrological scarcity. I awoke with a keen sense of what it is to be a survivor in a harsh land. While this plant is that to the desert, it showed me that I am that to the world of domestication, and that despite the constant dialogue of my inner critic, I have done well despite the wounds and traumas that have accumulated in me over the course of my years here.

Saguaro is easily as strong and transformational as Ayahuasca or Peyote. It is as strange as mushrooms, LSD, Salvia Divanorum. There it stands, watching out over the desert with an energy that felt like a tough but wise grandfather, aged yet vital, and looking back on a long life well lived. While I don’t think this experience is for everyone, certainly there are those who will feel called to it. To them I say Bon Voyage, may it bring you the healing and revelation that it brought to me.

 

[Xorkoth]

Wow, that's amazing, thanks for posting that story.