However you approach it, after the acidification and water extraction step, discard the xylene. Again, make sure to dispose of it in a safe manner.

Theoretically, this step could be skipped entirely, and you could just let the xylene evaporate. This would leave behind mescaline (and the other alkaloids) in free bas form, which is an oil. This is not recommended however, as mescaline oil is highly caustic and it would burn your skin to touch it. Since its an oil, it would also not be possible to put into capsules. Perhaps you could put the oil into some acidic fruit juice and safely drink it, but it is still preferable to go through this step to produce a salt form. Perhaps it may even be smokable, though I know of no reports of anyone trying to smoke (or vaporize, rather) free base cactus alkaloids. The boiling point for mescaline free base is around 180 degrees Celsius. One final concern is that free base mescaline oil may not have the shelf life of a salt.

Step 6: Evaporation ===================

Finally, pour the water into a large pyrex baking pan. Set it in a protected location to evaporate. Let it evaporate slowly at room temperature rather than using heat, as this will give you a better chance of producing nice crystals. After the water has fully evaporated, scrape up the crystals (or whatever solid mass you end up with) and put them in capsules or a vial for storage.

Keep in mind that when measuring doses, there are a few things to consider. First, your extract will contain all the alkaloids from the cactus, not just the mescaline. Second, depending on what acid you used in step 5, you will have different salts of the alkaloids. For example, if you used citric acid, you will have mescaline citrate (as well as citrate salts of the other alkaloids). If you used vinegar, you will have mescaline acetate. If you used muriatic acid you will have mescaline hydrochloride. The doses of each will be slightly different, due to the different molecular weights of the different acids. Because of these factors, you will need to figure out the potency of your material before you can weigh doses accurately.

Conclusion ==========

Do make sure that you follow all safety instructions religiously. Failure to excersize caution can easily lead to harm and even death. To stress this point even further, I will close with some comments from Trout:

"It seems like it does not matter how many times you tell some people things, lots of them decide what THEY think is really important and items like solvent exposure and not using plastics or solvents stored in plastics (or even the use of slow and careful heating) get forgotten whenever it is not convenient to follow the instructions.

Its very distressing how careless some people are. Worse, people like this often expose not just themselves but family, children and pets with no thought or concern.

You would not believe some of the letters I have gotten. Some of them I almost can't shred fast enough.

I'm sadly coming to believe that a simple citrate tea (lime not lemon) or else dried outer flesh consumed as powder are the only safe approaches the general public is capable of handling responsibly."

Source Materials ================

Fletch. Private e-mail. December 7, 2001.
Shulgin, Alexander. Private e-mail. November 24, 2001.
Trout, K. "Sacred Cacti." Second edition, 1999: Chapters 4, 6 and 10.
Trout, K. Private e-mail. December 1, 2001.