DOSE:

1.5 g

buccal

Silene capensis

(roots)

BODY WEIGHT:

70 kg

I bought 5 grams of raw Silene capensis root a few years ago. I tried to swallow some under powdered form in small amounts ( in the 0.5g range) with no effects.

Recently, I gave some to a friend and kept something like 1 / 1.5g for myself. On the end of a San Pedro trip, I had the idea to chew the root to see if it would make the trip longer or produce dreams. I chewed the root for an hour. The taste was slightly pepperish, but not in strong way. After having chewed it, I placed the quid between my cheek and gum. In the end, my gum was burnt, but more like it had been scratched with a pin. The next day, my gum was very painful and the lining had peeled off. My tongue and my gums / cheeks linings were ok, except at the place where the root material did touch them. It wasn't swollen, the lining was totally gone. It remained very painful for two days and took around a week to completely heal. The flesh wasn't burnt under the lining, it was just the lining cells which had died and almost melted. As the rest of my mouth was ok, it is possible that the toxic compound isn't very water soluble and the toxicity happens only during direct contact.

I've never had ill effects from swallowing the powdered root, so it is possible that the stomach acid break the corrosive compound. The traditional water extract could be safer than chewing the raw root.

It was very unexpected. I told the friend who I had given the remaining root about the problem and he decided to throw it to garbage, which I found sensible.

I didnt have dreams that I remembered with Silene capensis, this time or after my previous trials.
I'll never touch it again.

I think it is useful to warn users about this local toxicity.

Exp Year: 2011	ExpID: 96636
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: 46
Published: Mar 11, 2016	Views: 5,329
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Silene capensis (386) : Health Problems (27), Alone (16)