Which one?

[BluntArtist]

What's your guys views on psychadelics? Do you think that natural ones (eg. Psilocybin, Mescaline) are safer than synthetic ones (MDMA, LSD) physically? Also, I've read some experiences from people who've been on all of the above and Peyote/Mescaline seems like it's a lot more spiritual and far less of a recreational drug. LSD seems to me like it would hit a lot harder and faster than mushrooms. What's your opinon¿

BluntArtist Reviewed by BluntArtist on 12-02-2005. Which one? What's your guys views on psychadelics? Do you think that natural ones (eg. Psilocybin, Mescaline) are safer than synthetic ones (MDMA, LSD) physically? Also, I've read some experiences from people who've been on all of the above and Peyote/Mescaline seems like it's a lot more spiritual and far less of a recreational drug. LSD seems to me like it would hit a lot harder and faster than mushrooms. What's your opinon¿ Rating: 5

[Nullific]

No I do not. I was searching for information about the slight chemical differences between natural and synthetic tryptamines so as to form an argument when I landed on a commentary from Alexander Shulgin's TiHKAL and of course he puts it best:

Some fascinating studies have been done in Germany where the metabolically active mycelium of some Psilocybe species have been administered diethyltryptamine as a potential diet component. Normally, this mushroom species dutifully converts N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT) to psilocin, by introducing a 4-hydroxyl group into the molecule by something that is probably called an indole 4-hydroxylase by the biochemists. You put DMT in, and you get 4-hydroxy-DMT out, and this is psilocin. Maybe if you put Mickey Mouse in, you would get 4-hydroxy-Mickey Mouse out. It is as if the mushroom psyche didn't really care what it was working with, it was simply compelled to do its sacred duty to 4-hydroxylate any tryptamine it came across. It was observed that if you put N,N-diethyltryptamine (DET, not a material found in nature) into the growing process, the dutiful and ignorant enzymes would hydroxylate it to 4-hydroxy-N,N-diethyltryptamine (4-HO-DET) a potent drug also not known in nature. This is the title drug of this commentary. What a beautiful burr to thrust into the natural versus synthetic controversy. If a plant (a mushroom mycelium in this case) is given a man-made chemical, and this plant converts it, using its natural capabilities, into a product that had never before been known in nature, is that product natural? What is natural? This is the stuff of many long and pointless essays.