Native to Southern Africa, Sceletium tortuosum (commonly called "Kanna") has been chewed in small quantities for centuries as a natural mood-enhancer. "Spirits would rise, eyes brighten and faces take on a jovial air, and they would commence to dance."

Kanna elevates mood and decreases anxiety, stress and tension, and it has also been used as an appetite suppressant by shepherds walking long distances in arid areas. In intoxicating doses it can cause euphoria, initially with stimulation and later with sedation. Long-term use in the local context followed by abstinence has not been reported to result in a withdrawal state. The plant is not hallucinogenic, and no severe adverse effects have ever been documented.

Mesembrine is an alkaloid which is derived from the Sceletium Tortuosum plant and is now being acknowledged as a key active component in the ability of the plant to produce beneficial effects (closely related to it are the alkaloids mesembrenone, mesembrenol and tortuosamine, which are also present and produce very similar effects to mesembrine).

This product is powdered Kanna, unlike the finely shredded Kanna that you find at many other venders.

 

Twenty species from nine genera of the Mesembryanthemaceae (Aptenia, Bergeranthus, Delosperma, Drosanthemum, Glottiphyllum, Lampranthus, Oscularia, Ruschia, and Sceletium) as well as the reportedly psychoactive preparation `kougoed', prepared from `fermenting' Sceletium tortuosum, were screened for the presence of the mesembrine alkaloids. Using gas chromatography (GC) with a nitrogen-phosphorous detector (NPD) three putative alkaloids were detected in Sceletium tortuosum whose mass spectra corresponded to those of 4'-O-demethylmesembrenol, mesembrine and mesembrenone. All the Mesembryanthemaceae plants investigated were shown to have Dragendorff-positive compounds on thin layer chromatograms (TLC); those containing mesembrine alkloids, as shown by later GC MS analysis, exhibited similar Rf values to the Sceletium alkaloids. However, Aptenia was, by far, the plant containing a noticably higher mesembrine content than any other plant investigated.

 

When a `modern' technique for the preparation of a fermented Sceletium product, `kougoed', was carried out it was found that levels, as well as the ratios, of the three alkaloids changed markedly. Substantial increases in total alkaloid levels were observed when the Sceletium material was crushed and bruised prior to drying for alkaloid extraction whereas no such changes occured when intact plants were oven dried at 80°C prior to alkaloid extraction. It is speculated that of the many potentially usable Mesembryanthemaceae plants available to the indigenous peoples, Sceletium was selected because it is the only genus with alkaloid levels high enough to! eli cit a psychoactive response. The traditional preparation technique also appears to have evolved as a method of producing a dry, stable, and relatively palatable preparation of increased pharmacological activity.

 

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WARNING! Kanna is believed to act as a Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor (SSRI). Never use in combination with common psychiatric medications including other SSRIs (such as Prozac) and MAO Inhibitors.