Question on chewing cactus

[Flickering]

Hey Bluelight. I've scoured the site and the rest of the net for info on this and it seems my problem is unique.

I have a whole lot of san pedro branches, and by good fortune, they haven't cost me a cent. I may be tripping on cactus this weekend (if not, it will be on shrooms or 2C-B) and definitely in three weeks' time. Yesterday, a friend and I cut off one of the branches, about three feet long. Now, the species is almost definitely san pedro, but we encountered a problem even as we started cutting. The core is almost impregnable. Harder than wood. Took about six minutes to cut through. It also occupies most of the cacti's inner body, meaning there's not that much of the softer part between the skin and the core, which contains most of the mescaline.

However, since we cut from the base of the branch, perhaps the core is simply thickest at that point, and it thins out further up? I could find out by cutting it open, but I'm afraid it will rot in the three or so weeks we're storing it (so the mescaline can potentiate).

We ate a tiny bit of the potent part (as in, micrograms worth of mescaline) just to see what it would taste like. It was almost tasteless. But then, that's coming from someone who finds mushrooms and calea zacatechichi mildly pleasant to ingest. Anyway, my main question is, does anyone have similar experiences with cactus cuttings? Would I be better off choosing another, softer branch and eating from that one instead? Does this happen often, or is my whole cactus just fucked?

 

[sekio]

Yup, cactus can get really hard, that's why people boil it into a goop. (or dry it out and grind it up)

 

[Swerlz]

I can tell you right now that it taste terrible once water gets involved aka your mouth.

25g of cactus was so bitter and had the texture of a loogie...


either extract it or boil down some cactii brew.. oh and have a chaser handy

 

[LogicSoDeveloped]

I was able to get maybe 4-5 oz. of fresh cactus "meat" down before every small bite had me about to throw up, like on the brink of throwing up. The stuff is so disgusting.

Swerlz is so damn right about the chaser also, my experience above was with a large amount of soda and water available. I thought mushrooms were bad, cactus makes it worse. It felt like I was swallowing bitter, wet, rocks. During the experience, I felt like I had stones in my stomach, weighing it down.

 

[Ismene]

It's the most disgusting thing I've ever tasted. It makes shit strained through a homeless guys y-fronts taste like top restaurant food.

 

[Flickering]

I love your many descriptions of it, Ismene.

The mescaline-heavy part really didn't taste that bad, from the sample I took. But I guess it gets worse as you go on. Perhaps I would be better off brewing it into liquid the night before, though I'd rather avoid the hassle. I also heard that if cuttings are left to dry for a few weeks, not only are they stronger, they also don't taste quite so intolerable.

I'm relieved to know my cactus is normal. The core's proportion still makes me think I should maybe pick another branch anyway, though. I don't like to mutilate the cactus, but from the pictures I've seen online, the core usually comprises maybe 30% of the branch; this one is about 65%. But I guess that's a good thing, in a way, because I was looking to dose lightly the first time, at around 200mg worth of mescaline, whatever the equivalent in cactus grams is - I'm having a hard time finding a clear answer on that, especially as the potency varies a lot between specimens.

EDIT: Just cut an eleven-inch section off the top. The core was easily penetrated and the fleshy content, ample and presumably awful to taste. All is right in the world.