DIY Kitty Crack: ultra-potent catnip extract
In this Instructable, talbotron22 shows how to make "Kitty Crack," an ultra-potent catnip extract containing nepetalactone, catnip's active ingredient. One pound of catnip yielded 143mg of nepetalactone.
A note about safety. Yes, it is safe to use this extract on cats. I have looked into it, and there are a number of studies (very interesting in their own right) using pure nepetalactone on cats in experiments trying to figure out why it causes them to go bonkers. The upshot is that it's pretty safe. In the last of the references below, the LD50 of nepetalactone was determined to be 1550 mg/kg (about the same as aspirin), meaning you would have to force feed your average 5 kg cat ~8 grams in order to cause it any harm. So as long as you are reasonable with the extract it should pose no harm.DIY Kitty Crack: ultra-potent catnip extract
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as an added benefit recent research indicates that catnip extract makes an exceptional flea repellant in addition to making your cat very very very happy for a bit.
Very Funny...Posted at 4:20pm.
Your toxicity math is misleading. Feeding 8g to a 5kg cat gives you >50% chance of killing it. Still that's the equivalent of 55 lbs of processed catnip. Just saying, LD50 isn't an assessment of "harm", it's an assessment of death. Harm may occur at lower doses.
A better reason to make this would be for use as mosquito repellent.
Hmmm, LD50 means that half of the cats died ("lethal dose for 50%"). Maybe the author should be more cautious about equating "any harm" with "death".
If my body responds like a rat's body to caffeine, my LD50 level for caffeine would be 21 g, meaning that I have a 50% chance of dying if I ingest that much caffeine. I don't think that means it would be sensible for me to consume a mere 10 g of caffeine (corresponding to something like 5 liters of espresso or 100 caffeine pills).
The comments section of the original Instructables article make me a bit apprehensive. I think this kind of home-made chemistry is a bit dangerous for people without a lot of expertise and experience.
The phrase "LD50 of nepetalactone was determined to be 1550 mg/kg (about the same as aspirin)" didn't fill me with confidence either...my understanding is that aspirin is very toxic to domestic cats and while I'm sure I didn't understand the technical pharmacological terms the mere fact that aspirin was used as comparison in terms of safety was unfortunate.
Please clarify -- LD50 is the dose that will kill 50% of the subjects. That's NOT the minimum dose that could "cause any harm." Big difference.
Related: Jaguars on DMT
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbFRGwaBk_0
also note the recipe uses toluene, which is nasty stuff in it's own right. When I read how you shouldn't leave it in the nalgene bottle too long because it will affect the plastic, I thought "Uh no thanks not with my cat"
Depending which Police State you live in, 1/10th of the parts needed in Step #1 will put you away for Life.
Beaker needs to cook up a batch and get high on the stuff... that would be best Muppet video ever.
Many essential oils will eat through plastics.
I agree about the toluene though.
My cat's brain already come close to exploding with the regular stuff. I don't want for her to claw her way up to the ceiling and find her up there still in the morning, thank you.
I wish I could take credit for being clever, but the 4:20 posting is pure coincidence!
I think they make some of this stuff on an upcoming episode of "Breaking Bad."
This is an incredibly stupid way to destroy your cat. Don't do this.
Reference? Kinda strong language.
Based on the LD50, it looks pretty safe. But I haven't looked at the literature.
The treat cats turn... er, ah, do! tricks for!
A question not answered: Way below LD50, some psychoactive drugs are addictive. Chewing coca leaves, or brewing coca leaf tea, is pretty harmless (last I checked, the tea was entirely legal in Europe); that doesn't mean the concentrate is equally safe. I'd hope those studies have looked at this question... though it isn't entirely clear how you can ask a cat whether it's feeling bad as it comes down; cats are too good at hiding illness.
It's an interesting concept, and a nice lab experiment/demonstration. I'd hesitate to try it on my cats, and I'd question the ethicality of trying it on someone else's cats. Your mileage will vary.
you can make a much better distillation apparatus with a piece of copper pipe, the type used in that instructable loses a lot of product through leaking out the very large loosely sealed edges of the device. i don't see why toluene should be used though. if you use a small separatory funnel you can isolate it clean enough without using any chemicals at all.
i couldn't be certain, as i don't know the boiling point of the actives in catnip, but so long as you give the final toluene extract enough time to evaporate 99.9% of it would be gone from the end product and as it is you only need a tiny amount to gather the essential oils in there. there's probably more toluene in an average fueltank full of petrol in an average 6 cylinder sedan.
the chemical scare woo that people go on with about this stuff just proves how ignorant they are. if there was too much toluene remaining in the solution at the end i'm sure kitty would be totally uninterested anyway, they have senses of smell 14x stronger than ours. and i'm sure none of these chemical scare people think twice about using glues containing toluene as a solvent (one we have here is called tarzan's grip) near infant children. it's not dangerous in very small very infrequent exposure amounts. only people who get health problems from toluene use are people who work with it 8 or more hours a day.
i do agree however the writer of the instructable has not educated themselves properly about what they are doing. someone who knows better should correct these errors. like where are the scary fire hazard warnings about toluene, for example? and like others above have said LD50 means 50% of a given population of a certain species of animal dies when the chemical is taken into their bodies at that given amount. the danger aspect cannot be properly gauged without an ED/LD ratio. if it takes 50lb of catnip leaf to make enough for an LD50 dose, and as far as i know, a few good whiffs of freshly crushed catnip leaf can make some cats very happy, i'd guess this means the ED50 rate is probably like 5000x or less and bear in mind vitamin A has an ED/LD ratio of around 8000.
seems to me there's no good reason why you can't buy a ready made tincture you can use for cat training purposes or cat amusement purposes so you can put it on toys or objects you want them to like. it's probable that some cats actually don't like catnip at all tho. despite the hype cocaine isn't enjoyed by everyone either. some people just get hypertension and are glad it doesn't last very long.
Indeed, some cats have no "reaction" to catnip. Hold out a catnip toy to them, and they'll sniff it and back away. Other cats, you'd better have gloves on...
circa 2007
No uncommon in humans, too. I get the physiological effects of alcohol up to vomiting and hangover, but not the mood-changing effects.
Kinda different; mood swings when consuming drugs are dependant on the individual; not the drug.
That would only be a good comparison if alcohol had NO effect on you.
Seems like it would be easier to distill the catnip spray. I don't think I have the energy to haul 55lbs. of grass up four flights of steps.
Any competent undergraduate chemistry major can synthesize nepetelactone. Louis F. Fieser gives the procedure in one of his chemistry lab textbooks. I forget which one, but any university chemistry library should have them all. Sidelight: Fieser invented napalm.
IIRC, the effect of catnip plateaus at some limit. Giving more won't make your cat higher. The effect also drops over time, even with constant exposure. Kitty develops a short term tolerance and has to wait about an hour before doin' the 'nip again.
1 in 10 cats is unaffected by catnip (genetic). We used it as a repellent to keep one cat off the sofa.
"seems to me there's no good reason why you can't buy a ready made tincture you can use for cat training purposes or cat amusement purposes so you can put it on toys or objects you want them to like."
Not sure if you were clear on this, but you can buy catnip extract - the writer compares his product to commercial catnip oil.
Also, I agree with you on the chemical woo front - the writer analyzes his product, and finds it's > 99% pure nepetalactone, meaning all the impurities in it are
I was also wondering about the need for toluene though - it would be nice to be able to do this without handling any dangerous chemicals. I wonder if something like a florentine receiver might have worked...
A combination mosquito repellent and cat attractant - everyone wins!
Arg, < ate my comment.
Also, I agree with you on the chemical woo front - the writer analyzes his product, and finds it's > 99% pure nepetalactone, meaning all the impurities in it are < 1% of the total. He also found no other spikes on the chromatograph, so any residual toluene would be only a small fraction of the < 1% of impurities. When you're administering the stuff by letting the cat smell it, I wouldn't worry much...
more like Kitty Hash
I wish someone will come up with ultra high potent DIY mannip instead.
My cat would eat a pound of catnip in one sitting.
Toluene will eventually kill both YOU and the cat. This is crazy.
Someone on this site says it causes “anemia.” No, it causes “aplastic anemia.” In aplastic anemia you are missing one or more types of blood cells. In the case of toluene exposure the most spectacular damage is to the platelets—the cells that cause blood to clot. After toluene exposure your capillaries start rupturing until you look like a piece of raw meat. Bad enough, but that is happening to your organs, too. Next you start bleeding from all orifices. Kind of like Ebola, only worse. Once you reach this point (which is almost impossible to stop with enough exposure) death is usually imminent.
The way you avoid exposure to toluene during extraction is that you do not extract with toluene in the first place. In a good chemical laboratory you can safely extract things with toluene, but not for food usage. You must use a food-grade solvent to extract or you will ALWAYS have some residual solvent in the distillate. Full removal cannot happen—that is “simple” (to us scientific types) chemistry. That is why decaffeinated coffee always has a little caffeine in it and why no consumable alcohol can reach 100% (200 proof) alcohol. Food-grade extraction is done with water and heat, and water isn’t a good enough solvent to extract all the caffeine in the first case, and you can’t get all the water out in the second.
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