Abstract
Recently many people have shown great interest in traditional indigenous practices and popular medicine, involving the ingestion of natural psychotropic drugs. We received a request to analyze and determine the nature of a dark green liquid with a dark brown plant sediment, which the police had seized at an airport and inside the home of a person belonging
to the ‘Santo Daime’ religious movement. Gas chromatography/mass spectrometry analysis of the extract identified N,Ndimethyltryptamine,
a potent hallucinogen, and the β-carboline alkaloids harmine and harmaline, revealing monoamine oxidase
A-inhibiting properties. These substances are typical components of Ayahuasca, a South American psychotropic beverage obtained by boiling the bark of the liana Banisteriopsis caapi together with the leaves of various admixture plants, principally Psychotria viridis.
Lingua originale | English |
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pagine (da-a) | 1056-1059 |
Numero di pagine | 4 |
Rivista | Biomedical Chromatography |
Stato di pubblicazione | Pubblicato - 2008 |
Keywords
- Ayahuasca
- N,N-dimethyltryptamine
- harmaline
- harmine
- psychotropic drugs