Kanna #

Kanna contains many alkaloids including mesembrine, mesembrenone, mesembrenol, mesembranol, epimesembranol, and tortuosamine. Of these, mesembrine and mesembrenone are thought to be the main contributors to the psychoactive effects:

	mesembrine	mesembrenone
molecule
subjective effect	energy/focus	calming/relaxation

In 2012, the first commercial kanna extract, Zembrin, was made available in North America.¹ Zembrin is optimized for relaxation (i.e., less than 20% mesembrine) and is typically sold in 25mg tablets. Zembrin only contains 0.35–0.45% total alkaloids.² Other vendors sell much more potent extracts. You can find products with more than 5% total alkaloids (i.e., ≈10x more concentrated than Zembrin). I use an extract optimized for relaxation. As long as mesembrine is less than 50% of the total alkaloids, the subjective effect is going to be pretty relaxing.

More information here, including safety and drug interactions

Applications #

• After dinner, eases transition from work to rest
• Academic exams

Notes #