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Not insects! Trees!

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user1634:
All this talk of insects, but what about plants instead!?  If we can make rice that produces vitamin A, why not make a sassafras tree that produces MDMA!  I'll eat bark over aphid shit any day!

No seriously, they made rice that converts a carotene to vitamin A by inserting DNA for the correct enzymes into rice seeds.  Why not let genetically modify the sassafras tree to convert safrole to mdma?
(I suggest using rice instead of the sassafras tree, but I don't know that rice has a safrole-like precursor)
I'm not saying this is easy, or even possible.  But worth a novel thought or two....
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The opinions of of user1634 are not necessarily those of his editors, keyboard, mouse or monitor.

Rhodium:
Rabbit liver already has a transaminase enzyme that will aminate allylbenzenes in the 2-position. This will produce MDA.

Then you just use a SAMe and a methylation enzyme... This is not that far-fetched, it will be in use in a decade or two.

http://rhodium.lycaeum.org

godshrink:
good thinking. Reason i brought up insects is simple. Number of species outnumbers everything else!
In fact, the number of beetle species alone outnumbers everything else. So its a vast area of possible new chemicals. Second reason is that they are small, and often easy to manipulate...meaning that they might well serve the clandestine chemists of the future. Genetic engineering is likelier to serve big industry
And indeed, perhaps the sassafras tree can be changed...but would it be easy to hide them in your yard?
I thought it would be easier (though still somewhat far-fetched and futuristic) to raise the bug that eats the sassy root that changes it to what we like. I see now that mentioning consuming insect waste product is a bit touchy for the average hivester. I like Mr. Smith's direction alot on this, but i still wonder if govt. controls will be easier when it comes down to genetic engineering. As some famous entymologist once said
"God has an inordinate fondness for beetles" There is so much to learn.
by the way, user 1634, I'm sure that you have already eaten aphid shit and found it to be quite delicious and nutritious, whereas you would find sassy rootbark to be indigestible and toxic. All of us have been eating insects all along. We just haven't noticed. Though truly, i wasn't thinking about consuming them directly. I was assuming some extraction and refinement. Even a pill at the end if you like. Definitely no eyeballs.

Unobtainium:
On a thread about ephedra extraction a while back, worlock went off on a tangent and said he found a mold on the plant that appeared to be meth. He wasn't sure if it was naturally occurring or if the ephedra was contaminated in his lab. But if a plant naturally contains ephedrine, it's not too much of a stretch to believe that it could also be naturally reduced in or on the same plant.

godshrink:
Consider the ergot fungus on rye! Its not so much that the initial plant has to have goodies we want.
People don't use rye for precursors. (oops. Unless Rye whiskey counts) Life forms in general are processing plants, turning compounds into other compounds thru little chem labs inside them. We know virtually nothing about this. But from what is slowly coming out, it won't be long. Think Different(ly)?
btw, Rhodium...Ethics wize, do we want to toss some catepillars into a blender, or do we want to disect rabbits to get high?

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