Psilocybin Produced in Yeast • Hacker News Board

Re: Psilocybin Produced in Yeast

#131

Post by blaser-waffle » Mon, Apr 20, 2020, 1:05 PM UTC

34679 wrote: post #115

msla wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is that highly artificial process any better than making a pill? Plus, how do you know what other ingredients are in the mushrooms?

The cannabis industry has learned that "what other ingredients" are in the cannabis has a significant effect on the high produced by THC. This is known as the entourage effect. You simply do not get the full benefits with THC alone.

Amen. Legal in Canada so I've messed around with a few different types of edible solutions. The whole extract (i.e. using butter and then making brownies) hits way differently than isolated chemicals.

Re: Psilocybin Produced in Yeast

#132

Post by EamonnMR » Mon, Apr 20, 2020, 1:06 PM UTC

plurinshael wrote: post #37

asdff wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Growing it in yeast would be great if you are trying to get a consistent quantity of the drug. You could do vats at a time all genetically identical and producing the same yield batch over batch, and can scale up and down your operation for as much as you have vats and yeast food. This is something you want if you are going to press this into pills at a certain dose and give to people for psychiatric disorders, not f…

People with psychiatric disorders need spiritual journeys. Spiritual journeys heal and cleanse the mind, heal and cleanse the soul. Do not try to strip that away. The commodification of medicine troubles me--I prefer the perspective of sacred medicine. It goes roughly definitionally / tautologically: if something heals you, is it not sacred? And likewise, if something is sacred, it heals you. By definition. The idea…

I wonder if this type of thinking is a side effect of dmt et al. Perhaps they aren't as safe as is believed.

Re: Psilocybin Produced in Yeast

#133

Post by mrob » Mon, Apr 20, 2020, 1:08 PM UTC

KarlKemp wrote: post #54

samatman wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does say that. It's wrong, what it says, but it definitely says it.

Is there any pure psilocybin being sold? My (entirely pop-culture based) impression is that "white powder" and similar processed substances of high purity are the dominant form for almost all drugs. Cocaine isn't sold as leaves, nor can you buy dried poppies. Marijuana is an exception because it easier to smoke in its more natural state and, let's face it, because its users are hippies beholden to the naturalistic fa…

I don't think we can exclude market preference. Dried mushrooms are harder to fake than white powders, so it increases buyer's confidence that they're getting the real thing.

Re: Psilocybin Produced in Yeast

#134

Post by IgorPartola » Mon, Apr 20, 2020, 1:10 PM UTC

mistermann wrote: post #126

IgorPartola wrote: post #123

I think a lot of this discussion is missing the forest for the trees. Here we have people arguing whether it’s better to make powder out of these psychoactive mushrooms and use that as a drug vs extract pure psilocybin and use that as a drug. I know little of pharmacology but I can see one use of pure compounds: further research. Analyzing how psilocybin affects serotonin receptors could potentially help design other…

> Of course it’s better to have the latter All other things being equal .

Has OpenStreetMaps made Google Maps disappear?

Re: Psilocybin Produced in Yeast

#135

Post by mistermann » Mon, Apr 20, 2020, 1:14 PM UTC

EamonnMR wrote: post #132

plurinshael wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People with psychiatric disorders need spiritual journeys. Spiritual journeys heal and cleanse the mind, heal and cleanse the soul. Do not try to strip that away. The commodification of medicine troubles me--I prefer the perspective of sacred medicine. It goes roughly definitionally / tautologically: if something heals you, is it not sacred? And likewise, if something is sacred, it heals you. By definition. The idea…

I wonder if this type of thinking is a side effect of dmt et al. Perhaps they aren't as safe as is believed.

> I wonder if this type of thinking is a side effect of dmt et al.

Based on extensive reading in the community, I would say overwhelmingly yes. To what degree this derives directly from the substance, versus an "unlocking" of thinking modalities that already exist but are dormant (or not normally consciously perrceivable) is interesting and worth study, but disciplined, logical thinking is not something you'll find much of in the scene. And that's ok, but only to a degree.

> Perhaps they aren't as safe as is believed.

What most anyone believes about safety or any other attributes seems almost certainly to be quite far off the mark.

Re: Psilocybin Produced in Yeast

#136

Post by IgorPartola » Mon, Apr 20, 2020, 1:17 PM UTC

nugga wrote: post #127

IgorPartola wrote: post #123

I think a lot of this discussion is missing the forest for the trees. Here we have people arguing whether it’s better to make powder out of these psychoactive mushrooms and use that as a drug vs extract pure psilocybin and use that as a drug. I know little of pharmacology but I can see one use of pure compounds: further research. Analyzing how psilocybin affects serotonin receptors could potentially help design other…

When "researching cannabis", using just pure thc may not be optimal because cbd, cbn, and other chemicals produce a different kind of high and, if I recall correctly, especially cbd counters some of the most negative effects of thc, etc. Similarily, people might be worrying about oversimplifying mushrooms to just psilocybin because mushrooms have more than one chemical in them and they might work in a synergistic way…

I think you are agreeing with my point: if you can synthesize pure THC you can compare its effects to the cocktail of substances that is cannabis and identify CBD as another active part of the equation. Once you synthesize both you can look for a third, and so on. You can then much more quickly study interactions and combinations. Waiting to genetically create a different combination of all these substances is going to be much slower. Also it allows you to combine them with other substances to study those interactions. Imagine a study of a combination of CBD, a beta blocker, and psilocybin. That would be a difficult thing to do if you start with just the plant material, but easier with pure substances.

Re: Psilocybin Produced in Yeast

#137

Post by phkahler » Mon, Apr 20, 2020, 1:27 PM UTC

colechristensen wrote: post #49

mikeg8 wrote: post #5

> "It's unfeasible and way too expensive to extract psilocybin from magic mushrooms and the best chemical synthesis methods require expensive and difficult to source starting substrates...” This is one of those situations where I feel like we (humans) are approaching it all wrong. Why over complicate it by trying to “extract” the psilocybin instead of treating it like marijuana and growing the mushrooms in highly con…

There are negative side effects from consuming the mushrooms which you don't get from purified psilocybin. Dosage is important. There isn't a way to test for potency which would ensure a reliable dose. Argument fallacies: * your anecdotal positive experiences * suggesting superiority because something is "from nature" * referring to "mistakes from the past" without naming any * suggesting superiority that "has been (…

The singular of data is not anecdote. This is a common common tactic used to reject people's personal experience.

Re: Psilocybin Produced in Yeast

#138

Post by svara » Mon, Apr 20, 2020, 1:35 PM UTC

throwaway_pdp09 wrote: post #125

svara wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry that I seem to have offended you with what I wrote, but I honestly don't understand why. St. John's wort can be better in terms of side effects than synthetic antidepressants, with similar antidepressant effects, for some people. That's all I'm saying and that's an evidence based statement. I started looking into St. John's wort more closely because I saw the positive experiences that people close to me had…

Your heart's in the right place but that's not enough. Do this for me: suppose someone's taking prozac for depression. Given that St. John's Wort is also an antidepressant, how well would it work to have someone take both at the same time? How much will they complement each other? Please answer that WITHOUT LOOKING IT UP, just based on common sense and logic. I'll explain why.

Since they're both presumably SSRIs (in the case of St. John's wort this is not 100% clear, since it seems to have some dopaminergic and noradrenergic activity as well), the activity on serotonergic signaling would be enhanced, possibly up to the point where that becomes toxic (i.e., causes a serotonin syndrome) - that would depend on dosage. Additionally at least St. John's wort has IIRC some activity on CYP enzymes in the liver that could lead to interactions, but that one I would need to look up. Either way you probably shouldn't do it, but why would you?

Re: Psilocybin Produced in Yeast

#139

Post by mrfox321 » Mon, Apr 20, 2020, 1:55 PM UTC

rv-de wrote: post #119

andai wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. I think LSD works on Serotonin too? But it has much less body load in my experience (at least, the unpleasant kind I associate with psilocybin).

Yes, absolutely. LSD shows mostly a higher binding affinity to the various 5HT-receptors. https://psychedelicreview.com/the-serotonin-receptors-compar...

Dude thanks for sharing, I was always wondering why there is stomach discomfort.

Re: Psilocybin Produced in Yeast

#140

Post by pharke » Mon, Apr 20, 2020, 1:56 PM UTC

ralusek wrote: post #129

pharke wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is more or less obviously wrong. Imagine a primitive society inventing the microscope and then making it illegal, perhaps going so far as to make all types of lenses illegal even those used for eyeglasses. Now you might have small numbers of people willing to experiment with lenses and microscopy in secret but if the society wages a war on glass and actively persecutes and imprisons anyone involved in th…

The microscope was a tool for observing a new layer of objective, real, reproducible phenomenon within a previously inaccessible layer of our universe. Now, considering the conversation we're having, feel free to take "objective and real" with a grain of salt, but what I mean is that they are internally consistent, verifiable, reproducible, etc. Psychedelics have so far proven to be capable of temporarily rewiring ou…

My point was not about the validity of psychedelic experiences.

It was about the fact that we have outright banned all avenues of research into these alterations in consciousness so we can't even find out if there are reproducible effects across individuals. If you did care about scientific inquiry and reproducibility then you would also be against these absurd restrictions.

Because of this self-imposed ignorance we're just now beginning to see that psychedelics and other psychoactives can be used to treat a variety of psychological afflictions. I don't think you grasp how important it is to have access to compounds that can produce fundamental alterations to our conscious perception that take effect immediately, have few to no side effects and are completely reversible. Only TDCS and TMS have come anywhere close to that and their effects are nowhere near as powerful or significant.

This isn't about taking a break from reality, doing some yoga, and instagramming your latest shower thought. It's being able to pry open the black box of your own consciousness and poking around inside to see what happens without the necessity of brain surgery and risk of permanent physical or mental disability.

By the way "subjective consciousness computers" sounds about as accurate as "4 dimensional tetrahedron rotating through time". Both are little better than word salad with only tenuous connection to the things they're attempting to describe.