Hallucinogens Psilocybin

Lassen, J.F., Ravn, H.B. and Lassen, S.F. (1990). Hallucinogenic psilocybin containing mushrooms. Toxins contained in Danish wild mushrooms, Ugeskr Laeger., 152, 314-317. 

There are many species of mushroom which contain the hallucinogen psilocybin — almost all of them from the genus Psilocybe. It is now common practice to refer to these species generically as "psilocybians."... 

A number of mushrooms, liberty cap (psilocybe), psilocybin, fly agaric, Amantia muscaria and the peyote cactus contain hallucinogenic agents. They are usually eaten raw but can be dried out and stored or cooked into food or made into a tea and drunk. The effects are highly variable and whereas 20-30 liberty caps would be required to give a full dose, just one fly agaric mushroom would produce similar actions. Some recent local surveys in the UK have found between 12% and 15% of 16-year-olds claiming to have used these at least once. 

DMT is perhaps the most powerful hallucinogen known to man. It is related to LSD and psilocybin. There are no drug tests that would show DMT usage. None of the basic NIDA-5 drug tests or any extended drug test will show a result for DMT. DMT is naturally formed in the body and has been found in abnormal levels in the body fluids of persons suffering from schizophrenia. DMT is almost never sold through dealers, rarely synthesized, and seldom used. It is, however, easily extracted from common plant materials and has been used in various forms for hundreds of years (timeline.) DMT is not a... 

Psilocybin An indolylamine hallucinogen found in a number of mushrooms of the... 

The natural prototype for the phenylalkylamines is mescaline (Structure 1), isolated from the peyote cactus (Lophophora williamsii) by Heffter in 1896 (100) and subsequently obtained synthetically by Spath in 1919 (218). Used for many centuries in the form of peyote by Indians in Mexico and the American Southwest (3), it is often referred to as one of the classic hallucinogens, along with psilocybin, psilocin, and LSD. Little structure-activity work was directed toward mescaline or its congeners until 1955, when Peretz et al. (174) reported that a-methyl mescaline (TMA) (8), which represented a hybrid of the structure... 

Baker, R. W., Chothia, C., Pauling, P., and Weber, FI. P. (1973) Molecular structures of hallucinogenic substances Lysergic acid diethylamide, psilocybin, and 2,4,5-trimethoxyam-phetamine. Mol. Pharmacol., 9 23-32. 

Koemer, J., and Appel, J. B. (1982) Psilocybin as a discriminative stimulus Lack of specificity in an animal behavior model for hallucinogens. Psychopharmacology, 76 130-135. 

Mg/kg LSD is given at 3 hourly intervals with the animals being tested only after the last injection (32). Cross tolerance has been observed to other indole and phenylalkylamine hallucinogens (11). Similar effects were also reported for other hallucinogens (10) with an order of potency that paralleled that seen in humans (2) that is, the (hallucinogenic) -isomer of LSD was about 10 times as potent as psilocybin and 100 times as potent as mescaline (10). 

Clear similarities exist between the effects of LSD and those of other hallucinogens on catecholaminergic systems. Anden et al. (5) noted that psilocybin and DMT accelerate NE turnover in the rat brain. Hallucinogens of other chemical series, notably methoxyamphetamines (e.g., DOM) (68) and THC (13), also increase the rate of synthesis and utilization of NE in brain. The increase due to THC probably involves a direct action of the drug, since an enhanced conversion of 3H-tyrosine into 3H-NE was found in synaptosomes incubated in the presence of 3 to 10 fiM THC (13). 

Schedule I—The drug or other substance has (1) a high potential for abuse, (2) no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States, and (3) a lack of accepted safety for use of the drug or other substance under medical supervision. Examples Ecstasy, heroin, marijuana, and the hallucinogens peyote, mescaline, psilocybin, and LSD. 

The two principal hallucinogenic constituents of psilocybe mushrooms (and related genera) are psilocybin and psilocin (Schultes and Hofman 1980,1992) (figure 9.4). They are very similar, having a dimethyltryptamine structure and differing only by a phosphoric acid molecule. Psilocybin may be called 4-phosphoryl-DMT and psilocin may be called 4-hydroxy DMT. They are both approximately 1/200 as potent as LSD. Absorption is adequate through the oral route, making this a common form of consumption. 

Psilocybe and related species. Reprinted with permission from Schultes RE, Hofman A. (1980). The Botany and Chemistry of Hallucinogens, 2nd ed. Springfield, III. Charles C. Thomas Publishers, fruting. Psilocybin levels vary by a factor of four in controlled cultures, and by a factor of seven in wild samples (Beug and Bigwood 1982). 

Psilocybin and psilocin are believed to work through mechanisms similar to LSD and other indole hallucinogens. Similar to LSD, chronic psilocybin in take also down-regulates 5-HT2 receptors, which parallels the development of behavioral tolerance (Buckholtz et al. 1990). 

During the early 1960s, Timothy Leary conducted the Concord Prison Experiment to study the psychotherapeutic use of hallucinogenic drugs in prison inmates. Treatment involved administration of psilocybin and group psychotherapy in 32 prisoners. A follow-up study of recidivism in these prisonsers concluded that there was no long-term treatment effect and emphasized the value of postrelease social support (Doblin 1998). 

This may be a good place to correct some common misconceptions about the effects of BZ and related belladonnoids. Those unfamiliar with the delirious state have often referred to BZ as hallucinogenic or psychotomimetic. It is undeniably hallucinogenic, but the term is hopelessly contaminated by its inexact use in reference to drugs like LSD and psilocybin. Such drugs produce striking illusions, but subjects generally know they are unreal. 

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