Psychoactive plants hallucinogenic

Such plants—now classified as psychoactive or hallucinogenic—became a centerpiece for sacred rituals, a means to explain the unexplainable, and a mainstay of medicine bags. How a primitive people or another culture might use a drug as part of their worship rituals differs greatly from its use as a recreational or street drug where very often it is misused and abused. 

Psychoactive plants have been used by humans for recreational, spiritual, and therapeutic purposes for millennia (6). It is evident from the African plants that have received the most attention, such as T. iboga and Catha edulis that research has been focused on those plants most commonly used for spiritual or recreational purposes. This is understandable as these plants are often more obvious because of their cultural importance and consequently more noticeable, in particular hallucinogens. The more subtle, often more therapeutically important plants, such as mild stimulants, sedatives, those used to treat convulsions and epilepsy have been sadly overlooked. The CNS-related mode of action of many plants may not immediately be obvious, for example nausea and vomiting are associated with the gastrointestinal system but is often treated via the CNS with scopolamine. The hunger-suppressant (anorectic) activities of South African succulent plants of the species Hoodia (7) are another example. 

In most aboriginal cultures, the extraction process for psychedelic plants is quite simple as often as not, the shaman just boils down the raw materials in a pot and then drinks the concentrated brew. We come from a different tradition with different beliefs and expectations. For one thing, our civilized" tastes have been refined to the point where we have difficulty in ingesting anything we perceive as bitter or repulsive- this,unfortunately, applies to most psychoactive botanicals. I know of no plant hallucinogen that actually tastes good, which I would want to eat even if it weren t a psychedelic. Westerners generally prefer pure compounds in the form of pills or capsules that can be easily swallowed, an efficiency which makes up in acceleration what it loses in verisimilitude. 

FIGURE 1.5 An example of a protoalkaloid. Mescaline is the alkaloid derived from i-tyrosine and extracted from the Peyote cactus (Lophophora williamsii) belonging to the Cactus family (Cactaceae). Mesacaline has strong psychoactive and hallucinogenic properties. Peyote cactus grows in the desert areas of northern Mexico and the southwestern parts of the United States. This plant was used in Pre-Columbian America in the shamanic practice of local tribes. 

In addition to plant sources of hallucinogenic chemicals, several species of toads produce venom that has psychoactive properties. Members of the genus Bufo, particularly Bufo marinus and Bufo alvarius, contain bufotenine and 5-MeO-DMT. Typically toads are either licked or milked for their venom, which is then smoked or ingested. Alternatively, their dried skin may be smoked. 

The psychotropic effects of Salvia divinorum have generated interest among psychopharmacologists and other scientists. Chemical analysis of the plant has succeeded in identifying the active substance, which is now known as salvinorin A. Research on animals and human volunteers indicates that the psychoactive effects of salvinorin A are comparable to those of mescaline. As little as 200-500 meg of salvinorin A will reliably produce hallucinations in people, when the crystallized substance is vaporized over a flame and inhaled. On the basis of effective dose, salvinorin A is the most potent natural hallucinogen known. The leaves have been determined to contain 1—4 mg of salvinorin A per gram of dry weight. 

The family Solanaceae, made up of more than 2,400 species, is especially noteworthy. Many of its members contain the alkaloids atropine (dl-hyoscyamine) and scopolamine (hyosdne). Atropine shows up in mandrake root, henbane and thorn apple it constitutes just over 4.5 percent of the asthmatic preparation called Asthmador. Schultes and Hofmann claim that there are no reports on the effects of atropine alone "which could explain the addition of belladonna as an ingredient of magic brews in medieval Europe. But Hoffer and Osmond recall several historical incidents that attest to its psychoactivity. One story involved a family of five who in 1963 ate tomato plants that had been grafted onto jimson weed, producing 6.36 mg. of atropine per tomato "All five developed deliroid reactions of varying intensity and some had to be treated in the hospital several days. This seems to be the first known instance of hallucinogenic tomatoes. ... 

Psychoactive substances (including plants) are those that alter some aspect of the mind including behavior, mood, anxiety, cognition, and well-being [61]. They may be classified in three types a) depressors of Central Nervous System (CNS) activity, such as neuroleptics, anxiolytics, and hypnotics b) CNS stimulants - antidepressives and amphetamines, mainly and, finally, c) disturbers of the CNS - hallucinogens [62]. 

Wasson has reported that his Mazatecan informants told him that Coleus, the common house-plant and a cousin to S. divinorum, was also used by curers for hallucinogenic purposes. This has been repeated several times in the literature. Some correspondents tell me that Coleus is not psychoactive others tell me that it is. Since I ve not tried it, I can t say one way or the other. (After a while one loses one s enthusiasm for experimenting with large amounts of bitter, emetic leaves, especially when less ambiguous psychotropic... 

Elferink, J.G.R. 198S. Some litde-known hallucinogenic plants of the Aztecs /o f-nal of Psychoactive Drugs 20(4) 427-435. 

P. viridis grows naturally in Amazonian tropical forests in Central and South America, and the leaves are used as one of the main components in the preparation of the hallucinogenic drink ayahuasca. This plant is a rich source of the psychedelic indole-alkaloid DMT [94] in the mixture that also contains jS-carboline alkaloids provided by Banisteriopsis caapi (Malpighiaceae), mainly harmine, harmaline, and tetrahydroharmine, that besides psychoactive properties, act as reversible MAOIs. MAO acts as a detoxifying enzyme [105], and when inhibited by MAOIs, DMT inactivation is prevented in the gut [106] enabling it to reach the CNS site of action, affording significant psychotropic effect. DMT biosynthesis is relatively simple and is summarized in Scheme 5.2. 

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