| Gummies have arguably become the preferred drug delivery method for our current age of convenience. While the cavalier rebellion of snorting a white line will never go out of style, powders in plastic bags are cumbersome, trashy, and prone to messy accidents. Vapes can be equally embarrassing — the exhalation of giant vape clouds turning the private act of drug consumption into a public exhibition. Popping a gummy, on the other hand, exudes casual discretion: a quick flick of the wrist, and you barely even notice it happened. Put them on a silver platter, and these colorful squares of psychoactive gelatin even start to resemble hors d’oeuvres. |
| The cannabis gummy market valuation hit $8 billion in 2022 — and that’s just for weed. These days, you can also find shroom gummies, acid gummies, and even molly gummies floating through the underground. But when ayahuasca gummies hit my group chat recently, something about it seemed sacrilegious, like maybe the psychonauts have gone a little too far. |
| The ayahuasca gummies went viral on X via the psychedelic power user @FatherMcKenna, who explained that there were two steps involved: first, you take the red gummy, which contains an MAO Inhibitor. Then, you take the white gummy, which contains DMT, the active compound in ayahuasca. The MAO Inhibitor gummy allows the DMT to remain in your body without getting metabolized immediately, mimicking the chemical process that occurs after drinking the traditional Amazonian brew. But who was the crazy chemist who came up with this? |
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| I traced down the source post on Reddit’s /r/DMT, where the original poster claimed to have made these gummies and was busy fielding dozens of breathless questions from fellow DMT heads. I reached out for an interview, fully expecting that this underground chemist would shy away from speaking with a journalist. When they agreed to chat, I hopped on a Signal call, and got another surprise: The voice on the other line belonged to a woman. She told me her name was Krista, and that she is a former school teacher based in Canada who uses her science background to concoct all kinds of edibles. “I just took 400mg of THC,” she laughed. |
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| Then, she gave me the step-by-step process through which she made these ayahuasca gummies — also known as “pharmahuasca” among drug nerds, referring to pharmaceutical or lab-made versions of the brew’s compounds. Our conversation meandered into the ethical considerations around removing ayahuasca from its ceremonial context, as well as the unexpected trickle-down effects of Canada’s liberal drug laws. |
| I am still on the fence about whether I would recommend trying these gummies yourself, but I thought our chat was a fascinating look into how drug decriminalization is opening up space in the underground for some pretty wild kitchen experiments by mommy-chemists. Dive in below. |
| Where are you getting the DMT from? |
| I extracted it from mimosa hostilis root bark. That’s one of the most popular [plants to extract DMT from]. Its yield is very low, you can usually extract one to two-percent DMT, that’s why it’s really expensive. |
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| You are able to buy this online? |
| Oh yeah. The price fluctuates, from $1100-$1800 an ounce. But buying the materials and doing the whole process is a bit cheaper. The thing is, the solvents can be stinky. If you don’t have proper sealing devices, you have to freeze it to have it precipitate out. Your whole freezer’s food can be ruined, so it’s a big hassle. You also have to make sure that lye—another dangerous product that’s in it—is completely taken out. |
| I know you don’t want to give away the exact formula, but could you take me through step-by-step how you’re making the gummy? |
| I take 100 grams of the root bark and put it into a jar. I make a lye solution with water, and mix it into the bark. Then I pour naphtha, which is like basic camping lighter fluid, into it. That’s like oil and water: the naphtha is not going to mix into the lye base, but it’s gonna pull those DMT alkaloids out and float them to the top. I swirl the jar around five or six times, then I pipette the naphtha out of the jar, and I put it in a Pyrex casserole dish, throw it in the freezer and the crystals precipitate out the following day. Then you scrape those DMT crystals up, and wash it just to make sure all the lye is gone. |
| Now you have your DMT crystals, and have to make it into salt form to be orally ingested. So I mixed my freebase DMT into pure acetone. Then I get fumaric acid, and mix that into acetone. Once they both fully dissolve, I can pour one into the other, and the crystals just precipitate out right away. Now I have salt forms. You can take it nasally, which really burns—I don’t know why people do that. But yeah, you can eat it. |
| However, our bodies destroy DMT right away. So I need to take a MAO Inhibitor, what I can do from harmala seeds, or Syrian rue. They’re legal, you can buy them in natural food stores, and they’re actually psychedelic as well. But if you brew the Syrian rue teas, it can give you some nausea. There are other things in the seeds that can upset your tummy. So I make an acid bath and crush those seeds up, and I boil and bathe them in a vinegar water solution. I do about five baths, and after I remove the seeds, I add sodium carbonate water. Again, it just precipitates out, and you’re left with these little baggies of yellow mustard powder. That is the pure harmaline, which is much easier on your body. |
| There’s so much to talk about whether throwing up is integral to the ayahuasca experience… but by using the harmaline extract, you’re basically making it so that whatever makes you nauseous is not included? |
| Yeah, so you have the most efficient experience. It’s like how with psilocybin mushrooms, it’s the chitin within mushrooms that gives you the upset stomach. But there’s an amazing enzyme in bananas called chitinase that combats that. They say one banana per one gram of mushrooms. Nature is wonderful. |
| I’ve never heard of that tip before! OK, so what’s the last step of the process? |
| The Syrian Rue harmaline extract and the DMT salt form are both water soluble. I literally just pour a teaspoon of water in, and then I continue with my gummy recipe, which is my trade secret. People could also just pour it into tea, but I like to do things that are more fun and just different. That’s why I created the gummy. |
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| What is your relationship to ayahuasca? |
| I’ve never gone and had a shaman experience. But I’ve done my own stuff. I’ve had mental illness in the past, so psychedelics at microdose levels work better for me. Each DMT gummy has 50 milligrams, which is equivalent to three to five grams of mushrooms. So people say, oh that’s light, but if you’re not used to psychedelics, 50mg can be overwhelming. Which it kind of was, for me. |
| What was your trip like? |
| It’s just more like a mushroom trip. I knew where I was. I wasn’t on another planet. Psychedelics have done wonders for my mental stability. They’ve really helped me come out of my shell. I probably wouldn’t have responded to your message [without them]. I would have been too anxious. So yeah, it’s really remapped my brain. I don’t have the same habitual paths about doomsday thinking. You live in the moment more, I think. |
| A lot of people put sacred mysticism qualities onto psychedelics, especially ayahuasca. What’s interesting about the gummies is that you’re taking it out of that ceremonial context. |
| It’s funny you say that because I was told that I couldn’t make it. Because I’m not a shaman. And I’m a woman. But I have a science background, and I’m reading about it like, I can do that. My grade 10 students can do this shit. So I was just like, I’m taking it out of that realm. It’s an intense drug, and I don’t know if people say those kinds of things to gate-keep it, and keep it special. Because the breakthroughs are insane. You need to be committed to an eight to 12-hour trip, and you need a trip sitter. Do LSD and mushrooms first before you try this. |
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| “It’s funny you say that because I was told that I couldn’t make it. Because I’m not a shaman. And I’m a woman.” |
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| Was it part of your intention to make ayahuasca more accessible to people? |
| Yeah. I have friends who travel out of the country, and they come back with these wonderful experiences that have helped them greatly in their lives. I have a local doctor who is working with ibogaine in Vancouver, and he’s like, psychedelics really need to be brought into small communities, brought up everywhere. But they’re so highly illegal. |
| What would you say to people who are going to inevitably respond, saying that what you’re doing is irresponsible, because you’re allowing people to fuck around with ayahuasca at home, where they might not have a guide? |
| I guess I’d say like, that’s kind of the risk with anything that you’re taking. I’m from BC, where you can legally have any drug up to 2.5 grams. They don’t give a shit, because they’re looking for the kingpins and the dealers. So you can have any drug here that you want. Why can’t you have ayahuasca or pharmahusca? That’s just the world we live in up here. |
| How have BC’s decriminalization laws affected underground drug culture? I saw that the government is backtracking on it. |
| Well, it hasn’t really worked. I really don’t know how I feel about it, because it takes heat off shit that I do right? But what you’ve seen up here is that people are going to get their safe supply, which is what they call the program to give out opioids. So people get their drugs and they go sell it to the Hell’s Angels. So it’s not like it’s helped overdoses, because they’re just flipping the drugs. But I can see how it’s working for families. It did save my son. Kinda. Because there are Narcan vending machines on the corner. I do believe in being like Portugal. We’re adults. |
| But the drug decriminalization laws make you feel protected? Because you’re pretty open about what you’re doing on social media. |
| A little bit. I think my gender also helps me. I have a First Nations black background, but my skin color is mainly white. If I was a dude with brown skin, I probably would have been busted. |
| Back to your business: Are you screening your customers? How many ayahuasca gummies have you sold so far? |
| Yeah, I tell customers about all the good and bad things that can happen to them, and how to use them safely. It’s up to them to choose. The gummies are pretty new, so I’ve had 50 buyers last month. I’m still wary of sending things over the border. |
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| “The gummies are pretty new, so I’ve had 50 buyers last month. I’m still wary of sending things over the border.” |
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| How are you shipping these? |
| I always send Canadian-branded snacks in the box, because I claim them with customs as maple syrup, or things people would probably be buying from Canada. It just helps if the box is intercepted, that yep–there is maple syrup in there. And they’d have to confiscate the gummies and test them to know they have DMT. |
| Do you feel like the gummy as a drug medium is a lot more stealth for both the seller and the consumer? |
| Yeah, yeah. And it’s a CAD $100 package, which is about four doses. That’s a great experience for that amount of money. |
| And it’s so much more affordable than flying to Peru and sitting in a ceremony for thousands of dollars. |
| Exactly. |
| Well, this feels like some kind of bleeding edge of drug culture to me. It’s the future, whether people like it or not. |
| It’s very Millennial or Gen Z. I’m Gen X, and people my age are like, no, we do not want to sample that. But the young kids that are on ketamine… it’s like, why are you on that? Come try this instead. |
