Scientists Create Plant That Produces Ayahuasca, Shrooms, and Toad Psychedelics All At Once

[erronis]

https://www.404media.co/scientists-create-plant-that-produces-ayahuasca-shrooms-and-toad-psychedelics-all-at-once/
Becky Ferreira

I bet it has irked big pharmaceutical and medical companies that they couldn't make lotsa bucks off of psychedelics and other natural drugs. Now they have a chance to patent it!

Scientists have engineered tobacco plants to produce five psychedelic compounds that are normally found in a wide range of natural sources, including psilocybin mushrooms, ayahuasca, and toads, according to a study published on Wednesday in Science Advances.

The breakthrough could lead to more sustainable and scalable production of these compounds by using model plants to biosynthesize common psychedelic "tryptamines," such as psilocybin from hallucinogenic mushrooms, N,N-Dimethyltryptamine (DMT) from plants, and psychoactive compounds secreted by the Sonoran Desert toad.

Eventually, this research could pave the way toward--as one example--tomato plants that contain microdoses of psychedelic cocktails in each fruit. However, the study's authors emphasized that these modified plants would need to be limited to medical use in clinical settings, and should not be accessible to consumers for recreation.

"We are interested in this, not because of the recreational effects, but because of the medicinal potential," said Paula Berman, a postdoctoral researcher at the Weizmann Institute of Science who co-led the study, in a call with 404 Media.

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