Making Synthetic Psilocybin – Microdosing Psilocybin Mushrooms & Spore Prints
There’s a certain crowd of people who probably wouldn’t mind being identified as mushroom “purists” that do not like synthetic psilocybin. These are the folks who laud the many health benefits of medicinal mushrooms by eating two mushrooms a day who would prefer to consume them normally to gain those benefits – eating them, that is – perhaps with the most modification being a powdered form in a vitamin-like gel tablet.
➢ Learn about what is psilocin and about what are the psilocin effects and what about safety?
➢ There are also those that prefer the psilocybe cubensis spore print for research and benefits purposes.
Psilocybin Microdosing
Then, of course, there’s the other crowd: the scientists, chemists, and biomedicine engineers who believe in the cold efficiency of isolating and synthesizing the most beneficial compounds from the fungi, and believe in microdosing creativity offering multiple choices for the best mushroom strain for microdosing psilocybe cubensis mushrooms.
Synthetic Psilocybin
Synthetic psilocybin is undeniably pure, capable of being accurately dosed, and effectuates scalability. This is how much of the psilocybin used in clinical trials is sourced.
The question is this: is there a therapeutic difference between consuming synthesized psilocybin and so-called “full-spectrum” psilocybin (i.e., the whole fruiting body)? Full-spectrum psilocybe cubensis is worth looking in to for authenticity value!
Many researchers insist that yes, there is a difference, and that the therapeutic benefits of whole-fungi psilocybin is superior to that of synthetic psilocybin. We’ll go into this in more detail later in the post.
Psilocybin Spore Kits and The “Shroom Boom” in the USA
While this author doesn’t consider himself a member of either party, any research into the beneficial properties of fungi is always going to be a good thing; frankly it’s just nice to see it being done after the psilocybin dark ages. The topic of synthetic psilocybin has been making the rounds lately as the psychedelics industry, loosening legal regulation, and in researching psilocybin spore kits, and overall “shroom boom” in the psilocybin industry continues to expand.
Let’s discuss why psilocybin is synthesized in the first place, how it’s done, and why there’s a big difference between the effects of synthesized psilocybin and whole-fungi psilocybin.
Why Synthesize Psilocybin in the First Place?
Let’s take a quick moment to understand the term synthetic. When used conversationally, people usually take the word to mean “fake” or “an unnatural copy”. This, by definition, is not actually what the word means. Chemical synthesis refers to the process by which chemical compounds are created by combining (or stripping away) other, simpler compounds. The resulting synthesized compound is “real” in the sense that it really is the desired chemical structure, but artificial in the sense that it was created in a laboratory.
Psilocybin Synthesis
Psilocybin synthesis is still in the early stages, relatively speaking. While isolating the psilocybin compound has been possible since the late 1950s, synthetic or naturally isolated psilocybin has really never been done on a large scale—until now, since demand for psilocybin is skyrocketing around the world as a result of the growing awareness of the efficacy of psilocybin-assisted therapies.
This has resulted in many health and science companies like Mydecine and many others scrambling to find ways to produce synthetic psilocybin in a cost effective manner to distribute to researchers and, perhaps in the very near future, patients.
Why Synthesize Psilocybin?
So, why synthesize psilocybin? It’s easier and cheaper than cultivating mushrooms themselves, and—as we’ll learn in the next section—may offer certain benefits to patients of psilocybin therapy.
I think that chemical synthesis is a very efficient way to make these molecules because they’re structurally very simple molecules to make. They’re not like cannabinoids or antibiotics that have a lot of complications in the molecular structure. They’re pretty easy to synthesize.
Andrew Chadeayne, CEO CaaMTech
The Purported Benefits of Synthesized Psilocybin – Full-Spectrum Psilocybe Cubensis & Dose
Traditional production methods to obtain psilocybin—i.e., growing mushrooms—is too expensive to be conducted at a mass scale, let alone a global one. The primary argument in favor of synthetic psilocybin isn’t necessarily that it’s better or worse than full spectrum psilocybin or full spectrum psilocybe cubensis; it’s more a matter of creating a feasible supply chain. This makes synthetic psilocybin very attractive from the perspective of the psychedelics industry.
From the perspective of a patient, one of the most immediate benefits of synthesized psilocybin has to do with dosing. There’s an old joke in certain circles that says, “the mushroom chooses the dosage”, and anyone who has legally partaken in the whole-fungi psilocybin experience will usually nod their head and chuckle knowingly. In other words, consuming a psilocybin mushroom can yield unpredictable results.
However, it’s possible to get an incredibly accurate dose of psilocybin when consumed in a synthesized form—perhaps even reaching best psilocybin dose and “sweet spot” that Johns Hopkins researchers attempted to discover. This can help medical professionals provide their patients with reliable, well-reasoned dosages. Accuracy is also very helpful in psilocybin-based clinical trials, since without being able to accurately measure the amount being administered, results could be seriously skewed.
But what about all the other compounds found in a psilocybin-containing mushroom? What happens when you strip those away and leave only the psilocybin itself? These are the questions being asked by full spectrum psilocybin advocates.
The Difference Between “Full Spectrum” Psilocybin & Lab-Created Chemically Synthesized Psilocybin
“Full spectrum” psilocybin refers to psilocybin in its natural state: within fungi. Some researchers believe that whole-fungi psilocybin is superior to synthetic psilocybin, and we think you’ll agree that they make a very compelling argument.
Synthesized psilocybin is generally a 100% pure individual psilocybin molecule. That is to say, it’s just psilocybin, and nothing else. Whole fungi psilocybin sourced from a so-called “magic mushroom” contains many other compounds. Why does this matter? We’ll quote Andrew Chadeayne again:
The biggest advantage to naturally-occurring magic mushrooms is that [they] make sort of a cocktail of active ingredients, in that it’s not just psilocybin.
Andrew Chadeayne, CEO CaaMTech
In other words, these additional active ingredients available only in the natural fungi contribute to the overall psychedelic experience. For example, Psilocybe cubensis mushrooms contain a whole series of other compounds, some of which interact with the serotonin receptors in the brain and act as natural MAOIs.
Synthetic psilocybin cannot offer the exact same experience as whole fungi psilocybin. Perhaps it really is better after all, in a regulated therapeutic setting, to allow the mushroom to choose the dose.