Opinions - Best way to make a Wild Lettuce extract?

[bubaloo]

does anyone know how to extract the potent part of wild lettuce with out having to smoke a key?

[allyourbase]

create apolar solvent extract, use water, drinking alcohol, isopropanol, or methanol.


ground the plant material.


maciate it in a closed jar for a couple of days with just enough water to cover the top


strain away the plant material.


save the liquid extraction in aseperate glass container


add a base, sodium bicarbonate or NaOH are easiest gotten ahold of


you should see freebase alkaloids seperating from the plant material at this point.


add some nonpolar solvent, ether, naptha, et cetera and allow it to sit overnight


then with a turkey baster, seperating funnel, or glass decanter remove the nonpolar layer.


place said nonpolar layer in a bowl and leave it in a well ventilated area.


after about a week check it, if it smells like the solvent let it sit longer, if it doesnt and its all nice dry crystally stuff then youre done.Edited by: allyourbase

[Sadman]

SWIM read lots of different techniques, but SWIM always hear people putting down other peoples techniques, so SWIM come to your guidance. What is the best way to make a Wild Lettuce extract? SWIM has a good amount on hand

[Sadman]

Have i got no reply because you think it's not worth working with?

[weedmylips]

A friend of swims made one up using this method -
Wild lettuce is to be used as tea: pour a cup of boiling water onto 1-2 teaspoons and let steep for 10-15 minutes. Drink three times daily.

Another method is to make an extract. Soak 100 grams of wild lettuce herb for 8 hours in warm but not boiling water. Then sift and press all the liquid out of the wild lettuce. Put the dark liquid in a pan and let it evaporate. Putting the pan in a bigger pan with boiling water will avoid burning the wild lettuce while drying. What is left is a kind of gum that can be used like opium: smoked or eaten. To smoke, make sure not to burn the gum directly but put it on aluminium foil and hold a lighter underneath while inhaling the smoke through a tube (use for instance the plastic tube of a pen).
Be careful with the dosage; tests have revealed that on small testing animals even small overdoses can be (very) poisonous.

It's not my cupa tea though.

Reputation Comments on this post:

	Useful information and harm reduction advice
	Good recipe

[Sadman]

Thank you very much! Worthwhile info!

[Sadman]

SWIM was unaware that wild lettuce was so poisonous, that kind of off putting. I thought it was supposed to be mild and safe, how hard is it to have an overdose of the wild lettuce? I wonder if you could overdose on eating lots of salad!

[RX420]

just buy it ha..jk...swim doesn't have a clue. swims seen some high extract wormwood a lot at vendors and even resin.

[Sushi]

As to toxicity of Wild Lettuce, this is what I found while researching it:

"Even normal doses can cause drowsiness whilst excess causes restlessness and overdoses can cause death through cardiac paralysis. Some physicians believe that any effects of this medicine are caused by the mind of the patient rather than by the medicine."

Can't recall the source ("the Web" it's been), although I find it symptomatic that so contradicting sentences could have been put together. Generally the recipes I read stated something like "1-2 teaspoon per cup of hot water up to 3 times a day" which I found amusing because Alf experimented with making a tea of 15-20g of dried plant material and felt nothing really more pronounced than a possible placebo effect.

As to known hazards, other Web source stated that:

"Cases of poisoning caused by this plant have only been recorded very rarely. It can cause drowsiness, or if taken in excess can cause restlessness. Side effects include distorted vision, loss of balance, and in lactating women an increase, substantial, in milk production (galactagogue)."

This can possibly shed some light on causes of varied effects from Wild Lettuce:

"About half the people who try it report feeling nothing while the other half report positive effects. People who only use drugs occasionally (or not at all) will benefit the most from this substance. In most cases, people who consume Marijuana or other drugs on a daily or almost daily basis, don't feel much."

Alf does drugs, did much stronger opiates and he is a pothead. This could explain his lack of response. Wild Lettuce can probably be a nice thing to start with, not to do instead of more potent substances.

This is something worth noting too:

„The liquid from the stem is the most potent part of the plant. Concentrations of lactucarium are low in young plants and most concentrated when the plant comes into flower.”

Anyway, Alf is going to utilise his remaining Wild Lettuce (60g or so) as a codeine potentiator and he's been pondering on using this recipe, found in „Herbal Materia Medica 5th edition” (by Michael Moore):

„LACTUCA (Wild Lettuce)
HERB. Standard Infusion as needed. LATEX (Lactucarium), Tincture [1:2,
95% alcohol], 1/2 to 1 teaspoon.”

The one above looks just about standard (1:2 ratio), but not very promising - just think how much alcohol is needed for 60g of dried plant... I also found (somewhere) the one below:

„Herbal Tincture
Extraction Ratio 1:3
Alcohol Vol. 45%”

But, after seeing the recipe posted by weedmylips, Alf decided that it’s superior and he is going to do it just like that. First, it’s cheaper and second, it would be easier to assess whether it’s working or not at all, because there will be no alcohol involved. (Nay, evaporating rectified spirit is not an option; Alf considers it wasteful, what a greedy drunkard.)

Reputation Comments on this post:

	thanks for hazard info
	Harm reduction = unanimously helpful
	Great harm reduction info, just what I was looking for. Thanks.