I've only experienced mescaline twice, once was one of these "virtually mescaline free" experiences where it was really just the tetrahydroisoquinolines (I'll be further referring to them as THIQs). My first time involved extracting and purifying the acetate salt, but the second time I was working with 26 buttons that were going to rot before they would root properly out of a batch of ~80-90 that I was rooting. This was when I was much worse at Lophophora cultivation. Once dried and powderized, it was 12 grams of material, started as I think 128 grams wet?
I took the peyote in 26 gel caps, walked a couple friends (one is now my fiancee) home from a movie they saw late at night (date in the polycule), the neighborhood we lived in was dangerous so they wanted an armed and violent AMAB person there to handle situations that might arise. I was designated as the chaperone, so I took the peyote, did my nails, worked out, walked the homies back to the apartment, and went to sleep for about 2-4 hours. Upon waking up due to a need to piss, I was literally jumpscared by visuals I'd never experienced up until that point, where everything I could see was composed of rhinestone/gemstone like blobs whose shape, size, color, texture and crystal makeup were all in states of constant flux, reflecting layers of life in my inanimate environment as if it had been there all along, yet I'd simply never been able to see it. The trip was as empathogenic as 300+mg of MDMA or MDA, just like my mescaline acetate experience was.
I'm currently sitting on about an ounce and a half of dried samples of mixed L. williamsii, fricii and diffusa, trying to build up two doses to introduce the fiancee to the wonderfully weird world of peyote. Now that I live somewhere I can run greenhouses and grow Lophophora and Trichocereus outdoors, I intend on mescaline and THIQs becoming something that I work with much more frequently in the next few years. Synthesizing THIQs isn't that tricky it seems but there are very few reports of clandestine attempts in the first place. I suspect that the most ideal phenethylamine experiences that lie in the 3,4,5-trisubtituted realm probably involve essential amphetamines like MMDA and DMMDA-2, mescalogs like allylescaline, THIQs, and possibly other things such as ondansetron all working together like instruments in an experiential orchestra, if that makes sense. I'd really like to pursue optimal mixes for therapeutic applications. Given the known activity of 2,4,5, 3,4,5, and 2,4,6 trisubstitution patterns as well as the stranger empathogens like benzofurans and 4-FA, there's quite a lot to work with here as far as possibilities. Finding "optimal empathogen cocktails", "optimal psychedelic cocktails", etc. has become quite a fascinating pastime and as I become a better chemist and cultivator, it'll probably become even more interesting.
Many NBXX compounds are also yet to be explored but man, the insane tolerance they build and toxicity that they exhibit give me similar apprehensions to working with synthetic cannabinoids, even the safest ones are still noticeably toxic you know? Compared to mescaline, LSD, etc. they just play second fiddle from a harm reduction standpoint, plain and simple. Exploring Trachsel's 4-substituted 2,4,5-trisubstituted phenethylamines, as well as the 4-Alkyloxy variants as 2C-X-[NBMD/NBOH/NBOMe] would be fascinating.
Back to the topic of this thread though, I'm hoping that stabilizing some genes on and growing large batches of Lophophora diffusa, fricii, and possibly others such as alberto-vojtechii or decipiens may lead to some experiential modulators that we can all find value in, in the future. Figuring out how to grow a monthly couple's dose of peyote is already challenging enough, adding all of these experiments on is going to necesitate another greenhouse I think!
