Golden mean would do it - 4% sodium or potassium carbonate, 3% salt and 26% water. But I will definitely try it pure first, finely millled.
5 Likes
@Johano, I have milled N. glauca leaves you sent me and took a couple boxcars of pure, non-alkalized powder yesterday.
My coffee grinder cannot cope with small amounts of matter and I ended with about 0.2 g fine powder only. I’ll have to grind the remaining coarse siftings manually when I get hold of a proper mortar and pestle. Really looking forward to trying alkalized N. glauca snuff!
In terms of burn and effect, pure N. glauca powder feels very much like pure N. rustica. The smell is very faint, not grassy at all. Drip is slightly salty, not bitter. I found it very pleasant, but mind you, so far I have only had a couple of boxcars. Actually, it was more enjoyable than a pure powder of my non-topped rustica middle leaves.
P. S. Plot twist - I will alkalize it dry with wood ash, following Moroccan nefha 4:1 ratio (by volume). More to follow!
6 Likes
Having no ash at hand, just alkalized the rest of @Johano’s supplied Moroccan N. glauca sample with 4% calcium hydroxide (slaked lime). I. e., bone-dry mixture of 0.96 g N. glauca (medium-to-coarse grind) and 0.04 g calcium hydroxide, mixed using mortar and pestle.
I’ll share my findings on the effects later.
Cheers!
5 Likes
Almost forgot about it. Still got some crushed leaves to give it a try. Curious, how was it? Ive seen some Glauca plants on Lanzarote islands lately. Specifically, on a volcanic grounds they seem to like very much. Even harvested some seeds there that I loosely sprinkled on the ground in our family house garden. Might see some random sprouts next year, since its already too late for it this year I believe.
3 Likes
Oddly enough, the alkalized mixture I didn’t find any stronger than pure glauca powder and this left me wondering if freebasing anabasine is even a thing. The sting was on a par to that of rustica mixed with same amount of calcium hydroxide - not caustic, by any means. So, safe to go in these terms.
I went through all that mixture in just a couple of hours or so, taking it as a regular N. tabacum or rustica snuff (i. e. a full boxcar load per nostril) every 15-30 minutes. No adverse effects noticed whatsoever. The drip wasn’t acrid or bitter and tasted agreeable.
Although the amount was too scarce for arriving at any firm conclusions, I would like to note that it didn’t quite scratch an itch for nicotine to me. I didn’t feel any nicotine-like stimulating effect, yet it mitigated the cravings.
I will continue experimenting next year, hopefully (or later this year, if I manage to source another N. glauca sample; curious to try it out as a moist snuff).
2 Likes
This Russian entry about anabasine (main alkaloid of N. glauca species, close to nicotine, citizine and lobeline in pharmacological properties) on Wikipedia mentions indication of anabasine hydrochloride in single doses from 1.5 to 3 mg in form of pills, dental films and chewing gum, for treating nicotine addiction (in 1980s, the USSR) - Анабазин — Википедия.
Gamibasinum / Гамибазин - chewing gum with anabasine (smoking cessation drug): https://youtu.be/2Qa06RUwngU?si=e-p1uC8-G1hdDOoK
Gamibasinum label: https://ne-kurim.ru/upload/information_system_5/2/5/6/item_2564/gamibazin.jpg
Anabasine toxicity - 11-16(+/-1) mg/kg (a mouse bioassay) (WebCite query result)
2 Likes
This surveillance https://repository.up.ac.za/bitstream/handle/2263/17086/stanfill_global(2011).pdf?sequence=1 suggests (judging by FT/IR spectral pattern unlike either N. tabacum or N. rustica) that some African nasal snuffs, for instance, Nigerian tombak, might be made of other tobacco species, such as Nicotiana glauca.
1 Like