Tea-Plus
Published on 05/04/2007
Last night I watched "A Clockwork Orange" and, perhaps because it was the first time as student of industrial pharmacy, the scene at the Korova milkbar made me particularly think.
Why milk-plus? Why not tea-plus? Because tea would make much more sense.
Let me explain: this is a lovely picture of Myristica Fragrans, or nutmeg, a tree indigenous to Indonesian islands.
The most interesting part of this evergreen plant is the brown nut, which is pretty tough and has a rough tegument.
Nutmeg contains different substances, but mostly myristicin, which is well-known for its eupeptic properties: the dried kernel of the seeds is grated on food, where, not only does it add a spicy flavour, but it also eases digestion.
Nevertheless, if you actually look at the chemical structure of myristicin, you'll realise it's not that different from a catecholamine.
What's more: myristicin has central activity too. In this case, the effects dramatically remind of those produced by mescaline.
Mescaline is a potent hallucinogen extracted from the peyote cactus. In particular, at the top of the plant there's a button, which is remarkably rich in this sympathomimetic.
Briefly, what mescaline does is to increase blood pressure and body temperature, probably inducing a massive release of norepinephrine; moreover, it causes anxiety, terribly realistic hallucinations, odd as it may sound, and illusions. This means the drug can deform the perception of reality.
This "magic-button" was largely used by the priests of central American religions to establish a deeper connection with divinities.
Let's go back to nutmeg. Junkies undoubtedly like it when they can't afford to buy heroin any more. In fact, whereas two nuts kill a normal person, SIX result in hallucinations in an addict.
Certainly, such a huge amount of nutmeg can't be sniffed: spicy as it is, this would have rather comic results.
Besides, myristicin reaches its highest effectiveness when orally administered. Once again, how could you swallow so much powder without, say, vomiting?
So, ingenious junkies have deviced a way to introduce myristic by oral route: they usually grate nutmeg in tea and, then, drink what, in my opinion, is one of the most disgusting cocktails one could possibly prepare.
Still, when you reach a certain level of addiction, I imagine this is a price you are ready to pay to feel slightly better.
Maybe milk could be used for this very purpose, so, "vellocet or synthemesc or drencrom" could be replaced by myristicin.
Ewww, I can't imagine how horrible a nutmeg tea must taste like. I prefer having a slight breeze in my chicken soup or potato gratin.
"655321"!
Hmm....so I admittedly know little about how mescaline works, but I do believe that it is a 5-HT2A agonist like psilocin and LSD. In fact, its subjective effects are VERY similar to those drugs, and it has a very high therapeutic index. Like psilocin and LSD, one develops an almost complete tolerance to its effects for several days after only one use. It is NOT considered addictive.
Nutmeg, on the other hand, causes confusion, deep sleep, nausea (similar to mescaline), loss of color in the skin, and occasionally "hallucinations." (I have a problem with that word because an hallucination is a sensory disturbance that cannot be distinguished from reality...but i digreess). Also, a heroin addict wouldn't really get much comfort from nutmeg, since it has no intrinsic opioid activity.
Interestingly, the effeects of whole nutmeg have not been reproducible by the myristicin fraction alone. There are other allyl benzene derivatives in there too, and there is speculation that perhaps the body might do a bit of its own reductive amination, producing amphetamine derivatives in vivo. Note that the amphetaming analogue of myristicin has been studied, and there are even some fascinating reports about its effects (psychedelic in nature).