Miscellaneous Is Elemicin Psycho-Active?

[Pfafffed]

My concern is that I keep seeing threads like this crop up around the internet when people stumble upon the old forum posts, but the discussion in those old forums about their potential toxicity gets lost. I think the idea of using alkylbenzenes as drugs and not just precursors is fascinating, but I think a discussion of the risks needs to be had right alongside, much like arylcyclohexylamines

 

[Kaleida]

That's fair, I just also don't think the risk yet seems necessarily that huge, or even yet fully supported in humans - though, in rodents there's a good amount of evidence, and some with human cell in vitro tests, though those only go so far. It's been a long time since I've looked into it, but I do recall that the toxicity of allylbenzenes in humans compared to rodents has generally been considered controversial and they do have different mechanisms of clearance regarding the pathway that leads to the hepatoxic metabolites. People have been using nutmeg recreationally on a regular basis for a long time and I haven't really been able to find any medical records of significant health complications associated with it other than the occasional overdose, and even if other actives are relevant they do use the presence of allylbenzenes to detect the use of nutmeg in studies. The essential oils would however be more concentrated than using the whole nuts, and the others don't have the same history of use behind them.

 

[unodelacosa]

You don't actually (necessarily) have to use enzyme inhibitors or anything to get effects from nutmeg essential oil or elemi essential oil

From what I’ve read on this topic, this isn’t true for everyone. Efficacy of these oils as psychoactive agents tends to exhibit a good deal of interpersonal variance from subject to subject, and it has to do with each of us having our own enzyme- and neurotransmitter-profiles. Some people heavily exhibit cytochrome P450 for example, and since grapefruit inhibits CYP450, grapefruit will dramatically affect these people when it comes to taking medication/drugs, but not others with different profiles.

A similar concept occurs with Tramadol’s inconsistent effects among different people owing to CYP450.

Also, I am reminded of the practice of using “oilhuasca”. People who do this activate essential oils by first pre-dosing with something to suppress certain key enzymes in a manner similar to taking a mild, reversible MAOI prior to ingesting DMT so as to activate the DMT for oral consumption.

 

[SmilexGwG]

I posted a bunch about the likely toxicity of elemicin and other alkylbenzenes here on Bluelight

There's a short abstract indicating that elemicin specifically is likely to be hepatoxic in rats here.

There are lots of legalish psychedelics out there that are reliable and aren't suspected to be toxic. They don't require that you deactivate liver enzymes or overwhelm essential organs with brute force. I decided that I would stick to the ones like that. I can't think of much reason to risk hurting my liver to maybe trip when I don't have to.

FWIW IIRC, Sasha Shulgin had bottles of elemi, nutmeg, and parsley oil sitting on a shelf in his lab, presumably for use as precursors, but who knows. They were sitting right next to some weird, sentimental-looking decorations. I tried to find the picture, but I think I lost it when I was trying to make backups.

I had a successful experience last night on Elemicin without any inhibitors used

 

[Kaleida]

From what I’ve read on this topic, this isn’t true for everyone. Efficacy of these oils as psychoactive agents tends to exhibit a good deal of interpersonal variance from subject to subject, and it has to do with each of us having our own enzyme- and neurotransmitter-profiles. Some people heavily exhibit cytochrome P450 for example, and since grapefruit inhibits CYP450, grapefruit will dramatically affect these people when it comes to taking medication/drugs, but not others with different profiles.

A similar concept occurs with Tramadol’s inconsistent effects among different people owing to CYP450.

Also, I am reminded of the practice of using “oilhuasca”. People who do this activate essential oils by first pre-dosing with something to suppress certain key enzymes in a manner similar to taking a mild, reversible MAOI prior to ingesting DMT so as to activate the DMT for oral consumption.

That's why I said (necessarily). I don't really recommend trying it at all if you can't get effects without enzyme inhibitors, but a lot of people using various ones claimed to get psychedelic effects out of some of them depending on the person without needing inhibitors. I didn't need any for nutmeg essential oil.

 

[SmilexGwG]

My concern is that I keep seeing threads like this crop up around the internet when people stumble upon the old forum posts, but the discussion in those old forums about their potential toxicity gets lost. I think the idea of using alkylbenzenes as drugs and not just precursors is fascinating, but I think a discussion of the risks needs to be had right alongside, much like arylcyclohexylamines

Well the first compound to be tested for carcinogenic effects was safrole. It turned out that after a week or so of forcing mice to injest 100% pure safrole in huge amounts several times daily, some liver damage occured. These results havent been replicated in humans, and alcohol is several times more hepatoxic

If someone can use alcohol 3 times a week for their life and not develop liver damage, i feel these allylbezenes wont either with proper breaks

 

[Pfafffed]

Well the first compound to be tested for carcinogenic effects was safrole. It turned out that after a week or so of forcing mice to injest 100% pure safrole in huge amounts several times daily, some liver damage occured. These results havent been replicated in humans, and alcohol is several times more hepatoxic

If someone can use alcohol 3 times a week for their life and not develop liver damage, i feel these allylbezenes wont either with proper breaks

Oh yeah, I agree that the saffrole ban looked like a comically transparent abuse of the FDA's regulatory authority to make it harder to get a common MDMA/MDA precursor. I don't think there was ever any health risk from drinking root beer either.

I think your test case is a head scratcher, though. I don't think those results have ever been replicated in humans, because I don't think there have been any studies that have tried. I can't imagine how you'd get funding or get past a review board with a human trial trying to see if something that gives lab rats liver damage does the same when you give it to people. By ingesting large amounts of a mostly pure chemical, you're replicating the rat study on yourself except for the duration. That's a big one, but last time around I linked to a study showing liver damage after a single large dose in another thread on the topic. You'll probably be fine, but the risk:benefit proposition doesn't look appealing to me.

Kaleida: you're right about the translatability of rat hepatotoxicity to human hepatotoxicity being unsettled because of differences in enzymatic pathways. It'd be great if we could actually get some solid science here, but I'm not holding my breath. It's pretty niche and there's not a lot of financial incentives. Maybe if more people start using essential oils orally in irresponsible ways, like giving them to their kids to treat the flu for instance, then there might be a public health incentive.

 

[Kaleida]

Kaleida: you're right about the translatability of rat hepatotoxicity to human hepatotoxicity being unsettled because of differences in enzymatic pathways. It'd be great if we could actually get some solid science here, but I'm not holding my breath. It's pretty niche and there's not a lot of financial incentives. Maybe if more people start using essential oils orally in irresponsible ways, like giving them to their kids to treat the flu for instance, then there might be a public health incentive.

Well I've got some good news on that front, it's definitely only a matter of time lol. I read a lot anti-MLM (Multi-Level Marketing/modern pyramid schemes) stories and the essential oil ones are hugely popular and the people who are in them will ingest any oil, in any way, for any reason, none of which are valid. It's horrifying and frankly disgusting the way they'll show off pictures of their pizza made with basil essential oil instead of basil, or brag about not needing modern medicine because they're giving their newborn baby all the oils they need, followed by a made-up story about how they told their doctor this straight to their face and stormed out while everyone clapped. Don't worry, we'll get there... very soon.

I actually once read about a guy who was thrown out of an essential oil MLM convention for acting hyper and erratic and claiming to have discovered that lime essential oil was "like cocaine." I wonder how many of them listened and tried it themselves.

 

[Pfafffed]

Oof, I don't know whether to laugh or to cry, but I know that you're right. I worked in the field of alternative medicine for a long time, and it was spectacular for training my bullshit filter.

 

[nethanpaul86]

Elemicin is a type of terpene which is found in a number of different essential oils. The oil is being researched for its potential hallucinogenic and psychoactive effects, as well as for other general health benefits, especially in aromatherapies.

 

[Neuroborean]

very interesting "old" thread..
for the record I'll be trying this stuff the next weeks coming, I got some elemi oil, and I've been reading about the tricks to "activate" it,
seems that the best way is using 70% dmso, extract, and then mixx that with more water and milk,
Who knows maybe it's bullshit but it doesn't seems so, so I'll try,
I also have calamus essential oil, I'll try to wash that with acetone and use the washed material, then probably will be low in beta asarone and high in whatever stuff is potent and psychedelic (I did and posted the experiment of washed calamus and it REALLY worked well).

 

[SmilexGwG]

very interesting "old" thread..
for the record I'll be trying this stuff the next weeks coming, I got some elemi oil, and I've been reading about the tricks to "activate" it,
seems that the best way is using 70% dmso, extract, and then mixx that with more water and milk,
Who knows maybe it's bullshit but it doesn't seems so, so I'll try,
I also have calamus essential oil, I'll try to wash that with acetone and use the washed material, then probably will be low in beta asarone and high in whatever stuff is potent and psychedelic (I did and posted the experiment of washed calamus and it REALLY worked well).

I'm excited to hear about how it goes when you try it, it seems theres just not enough experience reports of elemi oil/elemicin to decide whether it is capable of being psychoactive.

I had tried it a few other times but with no luck even at higher doses, I haven't ever tried the Oilhuasca method of activating elemicin but I've looked into it and its just sketchy, especially when you factor in the fact that the creator of that theory; 69Ron, was also selling the oils/materials needed to replicate his method on his own website years ago.

That doesn't mean the entire thing isn't true, it just makes the theory hard to believe when paired with the fact the theory is based on just pseudo-science unfortunately.

 

[someguyontheinternet]

Somewhere around 2008ish (iirc) I read about some ease trial oils being active. Elemi oil and clove oil, so I tried them both. I felt that elemi oil did have a small amount of activity but that could have been placebo as well because my dose wasn't as high as mentioned in the initial post of this thread. Clove oil was a different story though, taking around 30 drops of clove oil orally I did get a drunk like feeling out of it but the clove essence was so intense that I could hear what the cloves smelled and tasted like, I wouldn't repeat just due to the intense taste. I hope someone explores isolating the actives from elemi oil, it might be doable with chromatography

 

[SmilexGwG]

Somewhere around 2008ish (iirc) I read about some ease trial oils being active. Elemi oil and clove oil, so I tried them both. I felt that elemi oil did have a small amount of activity but that could have been placebo as well because my dose wasn't as high as mentioned in the initial post of this thread. Clove oil was a different story though, taking around 30 drops of clove oil orally I did get a drunk like feeling out of it but the clove essence was so intense that I could hear what the cloves smelled and tasted like, I wouldn't repeat just due to the intense taste. I hope someone explores isolating the actives from elemi oil, it might be doable with chromatography

In the past I have tried clove oil, and raw cloves, in high amounts the raw cloves and oil produced a strong sedative effect, similar to alcohol actually and more heady than xanax.

I am sure that cloves are psychoactive, they even have a erowid experience vault.

I hope eventually we have more information about elemicin and if it really is psychoactive, but for now it seems like its only been used as a mild stimulant historically (applied topically as elemi oil) and besides that its just speculation and a few very old experience reports.

 

[ErgotFiend]

When i was a teenager, i tried to get high off of mace oil and elemi oil (which I boofed ) Neither worked. I tried massive quantities of both. Just thought I would throw that out there. Not sure if that means it isn't psychoactive. Maybe you need an ezyme inhibitor.

 

[ErgotFiend]

very interesting "old" thread..
for the record I'll be trying this stuff the next weeks coming, I got some elemi oil, and I've been reading about the tricks to "activate" it,
seems that the best way is using 70% dmso, extract, and then mixx that with more water and milk,
Who knows maybe it's bullshit but it doesn't seems so, so I'll try,
I also have calamus essential oil, I'll try to wash that with acetone and use the washed material, then probably will be low in beta asarone and high in whatever stuff is potent and psychedelic (I did and posted the experiment of washed calamus and it REALLY worked well).

Also I tried boofing it after mixing it with dmso and that didn't work. Made me taste garlic though .

 

[Dr Mamba]

yes, myristicin, safrol, elimicin all have similar structure and are metabolized the same way ( i guess a toxic epoxy bond forms by the oxydation of the terminal double carbon bond).
I've just test nutmerg, washed by acetone, and the filtrat evaporate to form a sort of very smelly wax.
the trip was rather long and not pleasant at all, more like a délirium, so I never done it again, like you dont often do datura twice :D

 

[Neuroborean]

Also I tried boofing it after mixing it with dmso and that didn't work. Made me taste garlic though .

perhaps you metabolize elemicin in a way that makes it difficult for your body to get psychoactive effects...
or perhaps your elemi oil didn't have a proper amount of elemicin, seems that it can vary a lot, the best ones smell more like nutmeg and the lemony ones are usually worse (low on elemicin)
it would be good to find another source of elemicin, elemi oil has not the most of it among what nature brings.

 

[Neuroborean]

d

yes, myristicin, safrol, elimicin all have similar structure and are metabolized the same way ( i guess a toxic epoxy bond forms by the oxydation of the terminal double carbon bond).
I've just test nutmerg, washed by acetone, and the filtrat evaporate to form a sort of very smelly wax.
the trip was rather long and not pleasant at all, more like a délirium, so I never done it again, like you dont often do datura twice :D

did you try nutmeg or nutmeg essential oil?
I've read that there's some tricks to completely change to the better the nutmeg trip, not having delirium like qualities, and more like a extra psychedelic stoner trip.