Misinformation, MAOIs and Mescaline

[RoyBatty]

The internet has many pros and cons; one of its cons, which is relevant here, is misinformation: I’ve read through and posted to many forums on various topics for a while now. It’s amazing how people jump to conclusions about things they don’t have the slightest clue about! From what I have witnessed, this often happens because people lookup/“research” something on the internet, accept the information without question and apply it incorrectly or jump to conclusions based on little/incorrect knowledge. There are millions of websites out there that pose unsubstantiated information, as well as multitudes of people sharing their misguided opinions, no matter how sincere. Obviously some topics are subjective, but when this isn’t the case, claims should be backed up with well documented, peer reviewed research. Even then, scepticism is healthy. Especially if the subject is arcane.

An appropriate example is chocolate: Chocolate contains monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs), right. If you search through the internet for keywords like “chocolate” and “MAO”, it seems obvious that chocolate contains MAOIs; that many websites can’t be wrong, surely. On closer inspection, you’ll find that the myriad of websites offering this information, actually have the same couple of sentences/paragraphs in them, just copied and pasted from other websites. None of them actually provide references to research indicating their claims to be true. Even if chocolate does contain MAOIs, it may be in negligible quantities or with minimal effects, but this doesn’t stop them from applying this unfounded knowledge to make other inaccurate claims.

It turns out that chocolate does contain trace amounts of tetrahydro-beta-carbolines (THBCs), which exhibit MAOI activity. Up to a massive 7 micrograms per gram (sorry about the sarcasm). If you add “tetrahydro-beta-carbolines” to your keyword list, you’ll get more useful results. But how would you have known that in the first place? If only all of those other websites were referenced properly!

THBCs as MAOIs in chocolate are in such small amounts as to be negligible: Other foods, such as salami and fruits, contain THBCs in more significant quantities than chocolate, with no apparent effects. THBCs may play an extremely small part in synergy with other components of chocolate to give it its perceived effects, but this has yet to be established. To say that chocolate contains MAOIs is technically correct, but very misleading. This is how inaccuracies get spread and become internet urban legends.

NB. Research has shown that the smoke from one cigarette does show significant MAOI activity.

I like Wikipedia and I use it often, but it does contain gross inaccuracies. How often do you read through a page and accept it as the truth? I once looked up a biochemistry page in my particular area of interest, to find the wiki completely wrong. Instead of correcting the information, which anyone can do, I left it to see how long it would take for others to discover. After a couple of months, it was still the same. I did an internet search using the main incorrect paragraph, and found it quoted on forums and question/answer websites. Obviously people we’re blindly accepting it as the truth. I’ve since mentioned this to Wikipedia moderators and the page has been corrected. How many other pages are like this?

As for mescaline, MAOIs and misinformation: There’s plenty written on websites about mixing mescaline and MAOIs, a lot of which is misguided ... Before I go any further, I would like to make it clear that I am in no way suggesting or endorsing said mixing of these drugs. That would be irresponsible. These things are best left to experts like Shulgin, where there is more control ... Studies on mescaline metabolised after ingestion show that about 60% is left unchanged and 30% is deaminated. It’s reasonable to speculate that MAOs are responsible for this main deaminated metabolite. However, research seems to suggest that it is diamine oxidases (DAOs) that do the work, not MAOs. An experiment using mescaline and an MAOI found that the fraction of unchanged mescaline considerably increased, potentiating the effects of mescaline. How is this possible, when mescaline is deaminated by DAOs? MAOIs can be DAOIs as well! This is a plausable explanation as to why using things like Banisteriopsis caapi/ayahuasca, which contain a potent MAOI and DAOI, harmine, enhances mescaline experiences.

NB. Drugs trigger a cascade of events to endogenous systems. The mechanisms of which are extremely complicated. I won’t even pretend to understand what’s going on exactly. Taking MAOIs on top of these cascade events is going to have consequences, unsurprisingly.

There are plenty of warnings about using MAOIs with mescaline. Although they seem overstated, it would likely be safer to use a specific DAOI, such as Aminoguanidine, for results comparable with mixed inhibitors like harmine.

While I’m on the subject of MAOIs and misinformation: I’ve read on this forum somewhere that reversible and irreversible inhibitors are the same as competitive and non-competitive inhibitors. This is not so, look it up on Wikipedia, hopefully it’s accurate.

Another thing that seems to be talked about a lot, regarding mescaline potentiation, is melatonin. By some happy coincidence, melatonin is something that I’ve studied in the past. I won’t go into it now, or at all if no one cares, but it definitely shows promise.

Apologies if I have posted this in the wrong place, if nobody cares or if I seem like I’m preaching. I was just trying to help and got carried away with my thoughts.

Roy

Reputation Comments on this post:

	Great contribution and obective critical stance
	Awesome post mate
	Great thought!
	Good

[Expat98]

Originally Posted by RoyBatty

The internet has many pros and cons; one of its cons, which is relevant here, is misinformation: I’ve read through and posted to many forums on various topics for a while now. It’s amazing how people jump to conclusions about things they don’t have the slightest clue about!

Yep, there is sometimes misinformation posted here, and it can sometimes go for a long time and be repeated several times before anyone corrects it. For example, just a couple of days ago I saw a thread with a news article that someone had posted about the use of transgenic technology to introduce a gene coding for a particular protein into chickens. People took this idea and ran with it, speculating that soon we would have chickens laying eggs with ecstasy and LSD in them. All these posts had been posted on the forum for a year and 4 months before I finally saw it and pointed out that there are no genes that code for MDMA and LSD (and most other recreational drugs) because those are not proteins.

What can I say...it is the nature of the Internet for misinformation to be posted and repeated over and over. But Drugs Forum is better than most sites in this regard. Not everything posted here is correct, not everything is authoritative, there are a lot of very knowledgeable members here, and they do the best they can to monitor the voluminous amounts of information and correct mistakes. Any help that you can provide in this respect is appreciated!

BTW, I personally would find the subject of how melatonin potentiates mescaline to be very interesting if you would care to post about it.

Reputation Comments on this post:

Helpful

[RoyBatty]

Hey Expat98, sorry for the late response.

It is a good point you make about drugs and genes. To realise this, you only need to understand a bit about where drugs come from or how they are made, nothing too complicated really. They can be natural, semi-synthesised or completely synthesised. All natural drugs, like mescaline or THC for example, could potentially be made by transgenic chickens, because the genes to produce them already exist. Although semi or completely synthesised chemicals like MDMA and LSD don't have corresponding genes in nature, in the foreseeable future they could be engineered. The possibilities for bioengineering are mind boggling.

I can see that there are plenty of thoughtful people around here. More than some other forums I’ve seen.

I might get round to writing about melatonin one day.

Roy

Reputation Comments on this post:

good reply re: naturals/synthetics

[Metomni]

You should, your words seem very thoughtful and educated. More posts would be welcomed, sir.