87 lines
4.3 KiB
Plaintext
87 lines
4.3 KiB
Plaintext
> Does anyone have information or experiences regarding Passionflower
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> in high doses? About the harmines and harmalines in general?
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Yes, in fact. A few years ago, several friends and I boiled down about five
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pounds of _Passiflora incarnata_ vines and leaves (removing only the ripe
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and unripened fruit) in three changes of water (i.e., we boiled it down
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very low, added a second potful, then repeated this process, then did this
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once more). About five people ingested the boiled mixture, with some dilution,
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sugar, and lemon (yep! Passionflower makes a _great_ and tasty ice tea! :>).
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Within about 20 minutes, we all began to experience some profound
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behavioral shifts, all of us acting in a more "primal" manner. We were also
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quite energized and "up", with some slight distortion of colors. This very
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fun state lasted about three hours or so, followed by a very deep sleep in
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which all involved experienced quite profound dream states.
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Passionflower is, therefore, pretty interesting stuff. If you're
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lucky enough to be in a part of the country where it grows wild (these
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experiences I'm relating happened in Tennessee), get familiar with what the
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plant looks like and pick yourself a bunch. Please, though, wait until the
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end of the growing season and leave _lots_ of ripe fruit behind; don't spoil
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the bounty for the next folks (or for yourself next year!).
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========================================================================
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I recommend some caution with any Passiflora species because of the
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cyanide content. In the plant, this isn't present as free cyanide --
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it's in one or more compounds called cyanogenic glycosides. If you
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crush a leaf, enzymes present in the leaf will break down the cyanogenic
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glycosides to release free hydrogen cyanide (you know, the stuff they
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use in the gas chamber).
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The question with this recipe is: how much cyanide would you get? This
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depends on --
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(1) How much of the cyanogenic glycoside is present in this species? I
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know there's some -- I tested it myself, some years back -- but I don't
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have good quantitative data, and the amount is likely to vary depending
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on what part of the plant you test, what conditions it was grown under,
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etc. My gut feeling is that 1 pound of Passiflora incarnata per person
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would be a big risk IF you actually ingested all the cyanide it could
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generate. Which brings us to...
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(2) How much of the cyanogenic glycoside is broken down into cyanide
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during the processing? This depends on lots of things, like whether you
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crush the leaves before boiling.
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(3) How much hydrogen cyanide remains in the brew after boiling it down?
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If the pH is acid enough, it might all get boiled off. Maybe. (But
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leave a window open!)
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(4) If any of the original cyanogenic glycoside remains in the final
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product, can it be broken down by enzymes in the body or by bacteria in
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the gut?
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I'm not sure what to suggest; answering all of the above questions would
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be a substantial project. Perhaps the recipe could be modified to
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ensure that 100% of the hydrogen cyanide (and the cyanogenic glycoside)
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is destroyed or driven off during processing. But I don't know of a
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do-it-in-your-kitchen quantitative cyanide assay one could use to test
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the outcome.
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By the way, all of the above also applies to large doses of Damiana
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(alias Turnera aphrodisiaca, if I remember right).
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=============================================================================
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Newsgroups: alt.drugs
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>In my experience, Passionflower is too weak a source of beta-carbolines
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>of the right type to be of much use; hundreds of grams of the stuff
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>is not as useful as 3g of P.harmala. The best results of my
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>experiments involved eating about 70 passionflower 4:1 concentrate
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>pills (which was no mean feat) and then having a change in
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>the intensity and the quality of smoked DMT. Oral DMT was still
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>apparently inactive.
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>
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This is also my personal experience. I once made a tea out of
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100 g of passionflower and experienced nothing (did not take any DMT
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at the same time, though). I then tried to extract the beta-carbolines
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with the procedure described in R.E. Manske "The Alkaloids" (I posted
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the recipe a while ago) which works fine with P Harmala seeds. I
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started with 500 g of passionflower and ended up with no detectable
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amouns of alkaloids. Does someone on the net have exact references to
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the presence of beta carbolines in passionflower?
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