Wild Lettuce (L. virosa extract)
Having read a bit about Lactuca Virosa, I ordered a couple ounces and tried some simple extraction experiments. The following is the most productive method I used.
I began by filling a large plexiglass dish with water, then added about a half-ounce of lactuca. I covered the dish with saran wrap and let it sit for about a day (22 hours to be extact). I then strained out the leaf, threw it away, and was left with brown water. This was simmered in a non-stick wok for about 2 hours until all of the water boiled off. At the end there remained a large deposit of brownish-black gunk, which was scraped up and collected with an exacto knife (the coating on my poor wok was badly damaged, the stuff is very hard to remove). When all was done, there was about 12 grams of this extremely sticky material.
To smoke, I found it best to take a small glob, cover it with lactuca leaves to prevent sticking (or better yet damiana, which seemed to have a nice synergetic effect), and burn in a pipe (the glob will greatly expand when burnt, so leave room). The effects are definitely noticeable, which mostly involve a very nice sedation. It usually lasts around 5-10 mins, and would work very well to calm onself down if stressed out.
Extracting the lactucin is definitely worth it. It doesn't require all that much effort (or money) to create a great amount of extract (12 grams is a huge amount as it takes very litttle to achieve the effects). There are probably better methods like just plain water extraction to get a more potent sample of lactucin, but the above process worked just fine (if only I had paid attention in high school chemistry class).
