[Mushrooms Subthread] Potentiation by Citrus Juice

[BilZ0r]

I'm assuming you mean salt formation? Well that'll happen in the stomach anyway as the oxyntic cells secrete 0.1M hydrochloric acid, and that's much better at forming salts with amines than most organic acids like citric acid.

Citric acid also will not catalyse or otherwise any conversion of psilocin to any other drug, active or not. Now citric acid has no effect on receptor binding w.r.t. any serotonogic drug, so that can't be the mechanism either.

The only viable explanation I can think of (which I'll consider a bit later) is that there's something else present in the juice that inhibits the breakdown of psilocin (like the way a flavanoid in grapfruit inhibits the cyp3A4 enzyme that's responsible for the metabolism of quite a few drugs). Now that would be fine and dandy if psilocin was metabolized by one opf the cytochrome P450 enzymes, but the main metabolic enzyme is monoamine oxidase (MAO) and if lemons contained a substance that inhibited MAO (an MAOI), we'd def have heard about it by now, as that'd mean amphetamine + lemons = a visit to hospital.

So, I'd have to say that it's almost definitely placebo in action

Exactly, almost word for word, what I was going to say.

People seem to be mixing up extraction from absorption. If we're talking about extracting a drug from a plant source outside the body (i.e. tea) then acids can certainly help. But if we're talking about extracting drugs out of your gut, into your blood, then it would be increadibly rare.

You're ephedra example Black Octagon, are you saying if you put lemon juice in the tea while the ephedra is still in the pot, it makes it stronger, of it you put the lemon juice in after you've brewed it?

 

[Drkstr]

i just did my own little experiment. im at +7 hours right now. took 2 grams, grinded them up in a coffee grinder and mixed the powder with 3oz of fresh squeezed lime juice. other than quicker onset, felt like a 2 gram trip. no insane 6g visuals. i bought a large amount awhile ago....so i've been trippin on the same batch for awhile. trips varying from 1.5g's to 7g's and the trip was nowhere near a 4-5 gram trip off this batch.

now im not saying it doesnt 'work.' but i was def. one of the belivers and nothing special or out the ordinary happened. its a good way to take your shrooms though, hardly tasted em.

 

[~*geNeRaTiOn E*~]

intensifying the high or not, it wouldn't harm you if you did drink/eat some. hell, it might even make the shrooms go down a little easier (you can mix lemon juice with powdered sugar and make a sort of icing to put on the shrooms LOL)

but i do agree that it's more than likely placebo

 

[Pimp Lazy]

Citric acid helps extract the psilocin so it cuts down on digestive time. It could actually bring the peak around faster. I don't understand how the dose curve works: it could be a more intense trip, but I do not know. My speculation is that it cuts down on the come-up time and increases the peak slightly. Higher levels in the body at the same time seems like it should do that. Peace.

People keep talking about potentiation. I think the only logical way that lemon juice could make a mushroom dose more potent is changing the way/speed the body digests the organic matter. The quicker the cell walls are broken down the higher the immediate concentration of psilocin in the body. Maybe this was discussed later on but to be honest I only read the first page. The universe only has one rule… causality.

Peace,
PL

 

[Larr_E]

I'm gonna take 1/4 tonight with the juice of two lemons and a lime. I'll report back in the morning...

 

[FlameMan]

Theres a lot of crap posted at the shroomery, I've been a member there for a few years. When I first saw it, I laughed. I believe I even posted about an orange juice myth. But when Wiccan_Seeker puts his faith behind one of these myth-seeming posts, it's usually worth looking at a bit more seriously.

How about we call it speculation, try it, and then cry right or wrong? After all, if it is placebo, the skeptics will have nothing to worry about, confident that they'll be right Perhaps they'll even dumb down their trips a bit If then, the skeptics get huge trips off small amounts, the conversation could be continued some more...

I've also been posting at the shroomery quite a while, in fact I am one of the first people to respond to that thread, lol! I really don't know what to think about this discovery. For one, you take only a small amound of lemon jiuce, the equivalent of a shot glass or two.

I know that grapefruit fucks with medications, a lot of different kinds too. That is not the case with lemons or oranges. It is not that far fetched that this could work for tryptamines.

The main issue here is placebo effect and the way that you have to blend up your shrooms very well into the lemon juice.

Don't knock it till you try it. I haven't yet but I'm planning on it.

 

[CatfishRivers]

I heard if you drink deer piss it works hella good...

 

[Toltec]

Cheers

 

[Larr_E]

I'm gonna take 1/4 tonight with the juice of two lemons and a lime. I'll report back in the morning...

shit. ............................................................................

 

[jasoncrest]

For me, there has always been only one way to do Shrooms:
put them in the shaker with orange juice, and then drink.
-> the trip is a bit stronger
-> I don't have nausea/belly ache (I always feel nauseous for 30min if I take the shrooms another way)

 

[Black Octagon]

You're ephedra example Black Octagon, are you saying if you put lemon juice in the tea while the ephedra is still in the pot, it makes it stronger, of it you put the lemon juice in after you've brewed it?

Sorry it took me so long to reply. I haven't visited these forums for a couple of weeks.

You use lemon juice as part of the brewing process. E.g.

1) Preheat a mug/pot with piping hot water. Drain
2) Put desired amount of ephedra extract in mug/pot (one teaspoon per mug does me nicely).
3) Refill mug/pot with piping hot water.
4) Add citric acid. Wait a good 10-15 minutes.
5) Drink tea 'as is.'

 

[B9]

I did read some information somewhere that appears to prove that a citric acid extraction is much more effective than a water extraction. The experimenters measured the amount of psilocybin/psilocin.baeocy-whatever after ten minutes in warm water . i t took three attempts to extract all the available psilocybin/psilocin etc. When a 2-1 water to lemon juice was used they found that they extracted all the available psilocybin etc in the first extraction also it was noted that the amount of baeocystin(sp?) was markedly less than from a water extraction. I would conclude that these people who claim that it increases the potency of the mushrooms have been making tea with water and when they've brewed the tea with the added lemon juice their trip has been much stronger simply because they've extracted the full amount instead of leaving half(or more) in the mushrooms.
Please don't demand "sources" coz i can't recall where exactly i read it but it seems to be the only logical explanation.
zophen.

 

[BilZ0r]

1) Preheat a mug/pot with piping hot water. Drain
2) Put desired amount of ephedra extract in mug/pot (one teaspoon per mug does me nicely).
3) Refill mug/pot with piping hot water.
4) Add citric acid. Wait a good 10-15 minutes.
5) Drink tea 'as is.'

What is this ephedra extract? Is it like plant material, or does it a relatively pure powder which dissolve completely?

 

[Larr_E]

I'm gonna take 1/4 tonight with the juice of two lemons and a lime. I'll report back in the morning...

Holy christ. If you can handle it then I highly recommend it. My friend took them straight and I did the juice w/ shrooms a little water and sugar in a blender. It hit me and hit me hard in no more than 20 minutes. This is my method from now on... My other friends said I was more tore up than the one who took it straight and it took longer for it to hit him...

 

[Black Octagon]

What is this ephedra extract? Is it like plant material, or does it a relatively pure powder which dissolve completely?

You 'can' get powders but they are a lot stronger. No, I was just referring to a regular plant material. It looks very much like real tea.

N.B. 'Extract' is just what my current brand chooses to label its bottles with. The most common form is regular, dried plant material which contains the drug ephedrine...just like how most people over at the Shroomery use a dried and crushed fungal material which contains psilocyn/psilobcybin.

The 'tea' looks just like this, but broken up into smalled pieces:

 

[fastandbulbous]

I would conclude that these people who claim that it increases the potency of the mushrooms have been making tea with water and when they've brewed the tea with the added lemon juice their trip has been much stronger simply because they've extracted the full amount instead of leaving half(or more) in the mushrooms.

Precisely. It doesn't increase the potency of the magic mushrooms (that implies that the strength of the drug has been increased), it simply extracts more of the active drug from the fungi. If you were to liquidize the same amount of fungi and drink the (vile) slurry produced, it would be just as effective as the extract using citric acid.

Had the thread been titled 'improves extraction of psilocybin from magic mushrooms', no-one would have been tempted to say that it was weak-minded bollocks

 

[bickoma]

I can assure you, it is purely mental. If you believe something makes shrooming 5x more crazy, it WILL. Think The Matrix.

 

[Black Octagon]

Precisely. It doesn't increase the potency of the magic mushrooms (that implies that the strength of the drug has been increased), it simply extracts more of the active drug from the fungi. If you were to liquidize the same amount of fungi and drink the (vile) slurry produced, it would be just as effective as the extract using citric acid.

Had the thread been titled 'improves extraction of psilocybin from magic mushrooms', no-one would have been tempted to say that it was weak-minded bollocks

Yeah that's all very well and good F&B, and I agree the title of the thread is perhaps a bit off. Nonetheless, a major reason why this thread became so heated was because several Bluelighters instantly dismissed it as a placebo (rather than, say, asking for 'strong-minded' defence of the original hypothesis that eventually congealed over at the Shroomery).

 

[Black Octagon]

Also, note that while the original poster entitled this thread "lemon juice increases the strength of magic mushrooms up to 5 fold," the body of his/her original post actually says, "After many confirmed experiments it seems that lemon and lime juice increases the strength of magic mushrooms TRIP by 3-5 fold."

So, while it was cetainly a bit lazy of some of us here (along with the Shroomery folks) to lazily use the word 'potentiate' instead of the phrase 'increases the strength of the mushroom trip,' I still think that the earlier off-hand dismissals from some people on this board were very closed-minded and premature.

 

[fastandbulbous]

^ Not if they were taking the word 'potentiate' for its correct meaning. It took a while before the comparison was made between the strength of aqueous extract from an identical weight of mushrooms. Up until that point, some were claiming that you made mushroom tea, drank it then drank some lemon juice and obtained a stronger trip.

That's why the people who thought the whole concept bullshit, became so vocal (I was pretty much in their camp at that point).

So, while it was cetainly a bit lazy of some of us here (along with the Shroomery folks) to lazily use the word 'potentiate' instead of the phrase 'increases the strength of the mushroom trip,

Even that's ambiguous, it could imply that taking 10mg of psilocybin with some citric acid will produce a stronger experience than 10mg psilocybin on its own. The only non-ambiguous description is that it facilitates extraction of a greater percentage of the psilocybin contained in magic mushrooms, when extracted into aqueous soln.

As I've tried to stress, when described correctly ther's nowt mysterious about it - plain, boring theory behind alkaloid extraction - a lot of people though, were actually argueing for the citric acid potentiating the psilocybin (which is obviously not going to happen), rather than a simple increase in extraction yield


The problem with psychedelics is that because of their effects, there's a lot of quasi-mystical gobbledegook attached to them, their activity and their purpose (well natural ones) in plants. They are nothing special in terms of evolution - they only become special once you start looking at conciousness/psychopharmacology of states of awareness