Waukegan police went to an apartment building in the 1000 block of Lakehurst Drive at 11:00 a.m. Tuesday for an eviction and found various chemicals in the apartment, according to Waukegan police Cmdr. Joe Florip said. The gang unit took two people into custody and is working with the Lake County State’s Attorney’s Office on charges, according to Florip.
The Gang Intelligence Unit and Illinois State Police were called in to investigate, and soon described finding a ‘drug laboratory” that was not a meth lab. State investigators told Waukegan police the lab and chemicals discovered are commonly used to manufacture DMT or dimethyltryptamine, which is classified as a controlled substance (Schedule I).
The state investigators recommended evacuation of the apartment building as a precaution. The evacuation and cleanup lasted 12 hours.
The drug, dimethyltryptamine, is a hallucinogenic, that is easily synthesized from the amino acid L-tryptophan. It is also found in some species of “magic mushrooms” or psilocybin mushrooms. DMT is also possibly produced in the human body, as inconclusive research has found low levels in the human body. Psilocybin, a naturally occurring psychedelic compound produced by more than 200 species of mushrooms, is also found in “magic mushrooms.” Hence the mushrooms are collectively known as psilocybin mushrooms.
The chemical structures of DMT, psilocybin, tryptophan, and serotonin are similar. Serotonin (5-hydroxytryptamine) is a monoamine neurotransmitter found in blood platelets, the Central Nervous System (CNS), and the Gastrointestinal (GI) tract. However, serotonin directly under the skin — as happens when the venom component is injected into a person stung by a hornet or bitten by a venomous snake, causes intense pain. Serotonin in the CNS regulates arousal, behavior, sleep, and mood. Serotonin is considered a chemical that hits receptors in the CNS and causes the feeling of a good mood. High levels of tryptophan are contained in turkey, which is blamed for sleepiness. It is really the combination of high carbohydrate foods and high tryptophan which causes tryptophan availability to the brain to increase. Tryptophan gets converted to serotonin, and serotonin gets converted melatonin (N-acetyl-5-methoxy tryptamine), which increases sleepiness.
Researchers believe serotonin 5-HT(2A) receptors in the Central Nervous System play a pivotal role in the activity of hallucinogenic/psychedelic compounds and drug trips. DMT and psilocybin hit the receptors that can cause hallucinations and mind-altering experiences.
DMT has been associated with Hallucinogen Persisting Perception Disorder (HPPD) which is a disorder that includes continual presence of sensory disturbances, often visual disturbances that replay the hallucinations that occurred during the drug trip. These continual visual disturbances include halos or auras surrounding objects, a false sensation that something is moving in the peripheral field of vision, trails following objects in motion (trailing phenomena), static objects that appear to be moving, objects that appear to be larger or smaller than normal (macropsia and micropsia), difficulty distinguishing between colors, shifts in the hue of a given object, color flashes when lighting is low, and air appearing with a grainy or textured quality such as visual snow or old-fashioned TV static on off channels. There are also reports of terrifying drug trips with DMT.
DMT and psilocybin have been related to Shamanism, which is a practice of reaching altered states of consciousness to “interact with a spirit world” and enter a trance state. One of the hallucinations of DMT is described as a Machine Elf, also described as fractal elves, self-transforming elves, and non-human gonomes
DMT (dimethyltryptamine) is not to be confused with Desoxymethyltestosterone, which is sometimes referred to as “DMT” or Madol and Pheraplex — an anabolic steroid with an entirely different chemical structure, but also a controlled substance (but Schedule III).
See also …
Jacob MS1, Presti DE.Med Hypotheses. Endogenous psychoactive tryptamines reconsidered: an anxiolytic role for dimethyltryptamine. 2005;64(5):930-7.
Discover Magazine Magazine Serotonin, Hallucinations & Psychosis
Patient.info Hallucinogen Persisting Perception Disorder
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