San Pedro - Second Time, whats too much?

[EatingTheCactus]

Last Friday, I took ~~45 g of some dried sp cactus powder that I dried in a food dehydrator. I ground it up and put it in orange juice and drank it. To say the least it was very disgusting and do not plan on ingesting the cactus in the same way in the future. My experience was a little bit less than what I had hoped for, as I mostly felt just a body high with some slight mental changes. It being my first time trying mescaline I wasn’t disappointed, and it gave me some insight into the drug and a baseline for how much I should consume in the future. However, I did have one concern. The method I used previously was just eating dried cactus (after removing spines, skin, and core) which would have allowed me to consume all of the mescaline inside the cactus (minus any small percentage that was in the core, right?). I want to do it again, using the water extraction method, where I boil the cactus with some water until most of the water has evaporated and use a filter to take the water out. However, I also want to have a stronger experience. I’m not sure how much to take, but I know I will take more than last time. My previous dosage came from a 11” 2.5”-3” diameter piece. If I had 3 more pieces similar to the one I took before, does anyone have any recommendation with how much more I should take to make my experience more pronounced? I was thinkining 1.5 to 2 times more would be good, would 3 be to extreme? I understand that it is hard to guage based on the very variable % of mescaline each cactus contains.

I plan to try an actual extraction (the one with d-limonene) at some point, but this being my second time I am mainly just experimenting with different ways to take it and don’t want to do anything time consuming until I know that I really want to.

 

[St3ve]

My first time I took about 23g dried san pedro and had a similar sort of underwhelming experience as you described. It wasn't much more than a body high and altered consciousness, no visuals so to speak of (other than brightening of everything due to dilated pupils). The second time I took 27g and got a little more than I had anticipated! Visuals were quite pronounced that time, the wood on my ceiling turned into a sort of river and my door kept shrinking and returning to normal. The faces on my posters were also moving and changing their expressions from happy/silly to angry and terrifying. I'd taken it in a bad mindstate (as a way to get more fucked than I would from weed) and the cactus definitely kicked my ass for that...

I don't know if the cacti I got were just of very different potency or whether a few grams is all it takes to make the difference... I'd guess that taking 1.5-2 times the amount is a safe bet (I'd stick closer to 1.5 times), I'd not risk tripling your dose unless you are prepared for an intense trip.

 

[EatingTheCactus]

Wow, looks like the cactus I had had much less mescaline content than either of the cacti you used. Did you dry & powder the cactus on your own? Did you use only the green area right underneath the skin? I ate all the cactus minus the outermost skin, core, and spines. I dried everything again, so I'm not sure if I will try and find some new method to eat the powder, or boil it. It doesn't seem very logical to me to remove all the moisture from the plant, just to add it back to a bucket of water. I guess it could reduce the amount of time to "simmer" out the mescaline? My main point of thought was that it would make it easier to extract any mescaline content from the cactus as this is what you do with other substances when you want to extract their content. You grind them up into a powder and extract.

Does anyone have any experience with eating the powder vs. using a crude water extraction? I don't want to waste any cactus in the process, so I'm thinking my safest bet for the sake of time would be to just eat the powder, that way I can be pretty sure I get most if not all the mescaline content from the cactus. Maybe it would be better to not powderize it at all?

 

[Ismene]

You removed the outermost skin? I thought that was where all the mescaline was.

 

[EatingTheCactus]

You removed the outermost skin? I thought that was where all the mescaline was.

What, no I didn't mean to imply that. I meant I removed the outermost waxy skin. I was told the layer immediately beneath that one is the one that contains the mescaline. The very green part.