Citrus Growers Manufacture Huge Amounts of DMT
It may surprise you to learn that common citrus trees like oranges and lemons are actually Schedule I substances, in the same legal category as heroin. I know it sounds absurd, but it is absolutely true. Recent analysis published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry (Servillo et al. 2013) found that several citrus plants, including lemons and oranges, contain N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT) and 5-hydroxy-N,N-dimethyltryptamine (bufotenine). Both of these compounds are powerful hallucinogens and are designated as Schedule I substances under the federal Controlled Substances Act in the United States. Under that same law, “any material” containing “any quantity” of a Schedule I drug is itself legally equivalent to that drug.
The upshot of this is that domestic citrus producers are in fact operating a massive drug manufacturing enterprise, legally speaking. And the scale of this manufacture is not trivial. Let's estimate 150 orange trees per acre, and conservatively suppose that each tree contains one kilogram of leaves. Then in the state of Florida alone, where approximately 550,000 acres are under cultivation, the crop would contain somewhere in the neighborhood of 80 kilograms of bufotenine -- roughly 5 million doses -- and 5 kilograms of DMT -- roughly 150,000 doses. But that's not all! Since the entire mass of any material containing these substances is legally equivalent to the pure substance, the entire biomass of the groves would be treated as pure DMT or pure bufotenine if the growers were charged with manufacturing a controlled substance.
But these compounds do not only occur in the leaves... they occur in the fruit as well. Though the data have not been formally published, the same team of researchers reported that the juice from oranges and lemons contain DMT in a concentration of approximately 0.03–0.05 mg/kg (Servillo et al. 2012). This has huge implications: Every orange in your local grocery store is a Schedule I substance. Every person who buys them is a potential criminal. Every company that imports either the fruit or its juice is engaged in the international trafficking of a Schedule I substance.
You might wonder why I am characterizing an entire branch of agriculture as a massive drug manufacturing operation. That characterization, however, is not mine. Under federal law, they are a massive drug manufacturing operation. I am merely drawing attention to the issue.
Regardless of how you feel about the war on drugs, this issue should cause you serious concern. The Controlled Substances Act is written in a way that makes all manner of mundane materials illegal. It’s not just oranges. Depending on where you live, there is a reasonable chance that the grass in your lawn contains Schedule I substances. In fact, so many materials contain detectable quantities of controlled substances that nearly everyone is breaking the law all the time.
Ironically, the best defense is to remain assiduously ignorant. The Controlled Substances Act defines crimes of intent; the criminality of the act depends on whether one “knowingly or intentionally” possesses the scheduled material. That means that as long as you are not aware that oranges (or certain grasses, or many common pets) contain controlled substances, then you cannot be guilty of the possession, manufacture, or distribution of those controlled substances. Once you take the effort to become informed about the ubiquity of controlled substances in the world around you, it becomes nearly impossible to avoid crossing the line into criminal behavior.
About the author
Morris Crowley is an independent writer who studies the history and chemistry of visionary plants and their interaction with humankind. You can follow him on Facebook and on Twitter @morris_crowley.
Reference
Servillo, L., Giovane, A., Balestrieri, M. L., Cautela, D., and Castaldo, D. 2012. N‑Methylated tryptamine derivatives in Citrus genus plants: Identification of N,N,N‑trimethyltryptamine in bergamot. Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry 60(37): 9512–9518. Epub 7 Sep 2012. http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jf302767e
Servillo, L., Giovane, A., Balestrieri, M. L., Casale, R., Cautela, D., and Castaldo, D. 2013. Citrus genus plants contain N‑methylated tryptamine derivatives and their 5‑hydroxylated forms. Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry 61(21): 5156–5162. Epub 17 May 2013. http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jf401448q
Title image from Wikimedia Commons under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. Photo by Ellen Levy Finch.
Comments
"When life gives ya lemons...... make dmt."
I think that's how it goes
Its also in ur liver or kidneys, maybe both. And your blood.
Don't forget to let us know how it went.
...So maybe for now they would just bust it for possession, not production
(By the way, "Jot", I accidentally deleted your comment. Apologies! He noted that there was no evidence DMT was produced in the brain, and this was my response).
In fact DMT has been reported to be present in the fruits as well. That means that (in the US) every single orange and lemon at your local grocery store is in fact a Schedule I substance! The article has been revised to reflect that fact.
Reference: Servillo, L. et al. 2012. N‑Methylated tryptamine derivatives in Citrus genus plants: Identification of N,N,N‑trimethyl tryptamine in bergamot. J. Ag. Food Chem. 60(37): 9512–9518. http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jf302767e
150 trees per acre x 550 000 acres = 82 500 000 trees or kg (since 1 tree = 1kg leaves in the estimation above)
5kg (5,000,000mg) DMT / 82 500 000kg = ~0.061mg/kg
80kg (80,000,000mg) 5-HO-DMT / 82 500 000 trees = ~0.97mg/kg
Thats the leaves alone, not factoring in the alkaloid concentration in the juice
Equating the total mass of the material to the total quantity of the drug must be one of the more vicious and evil aspects of US drug law.
"An update on DMT in citrus fruits: In the article, I discussed the presence of DMT and bufotenine in the leaves of lemon and orange trees.
In fact DMT has been reported to be present in the fruits as well. That means that (in the US) every single orange and lemon at your local grocery store is in fact a Schedule I substance! The article has been revised to reflect that fact.
Reference: Servillo, L. et al. 2012. N‑Methylated tryptamine derivatives in Citrus genus plants: Identification of N,N,N‑trimethyl tryptamine in bergamot. J. Ag. Food Chem. 60(37): 9512–9518. http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jf302767e
I'm honestly confused by your response. The point of this article obviously seems to be circled around how completely insane our drug laws are, and this new evidence of citrus containing DMT perfectly (and comically) exemplifies that fact in a very tangible way, which even to a non-psychedelic user should be obvious and laughable. It is suspected by many that DMT may be in many or even all living things (or at least plants) in trace amounts, but we have only looked in a limited number of places and so this evidence that it is in oranges etc. is nice food for thought.
If you think this article implied that we should be using these plants to source DMT, then you completely have missed the point my friend.
I like this article - even if the maths is off it does sum up the futility and riduculousness of 'drug' scheduling and laws.
On the other hand though last week some total tosspot in California gassed his neighbors trying to extract spice. That is bad and is a pretty good counterpoint to this article. You'd need a lot of solvents to extract spice from a lemon grove.
That accident in cali would probably never have happened if we would have just ended the war [on some people who use certain] drugs...
I like this article for pointing out the absurdity and even danger of the drug laws.
If the government wanted to (which they do), they could easily arrest every single one of us for possession of DMT.
But not that I really give a f*ck.
My main concern is: if I take an mao inhibitor with orange essential oil, couldn't this initiate a DMT trip?
Thoughts?
Seriously, you won't get anything out of it - the amounts of alkaloid are tiny
As far as pointing out the absurdity of the law, I think the presence of DMT in the human nervous system makes the point as well or better......
And with the acceptance of ayahuasca as long as it is used ceremonially, maybe one should say "Sure - smoke all the orange peel you want as long as it is for religious use only ;^p