The method I use is a general one - I copied it from one used by some scientists to extract mescaline from peyote, but I have since seen close variations used on many plants. This procedure is followed whenever a plant is studied for its alkaloids. [This article was contributed by a member of the Entheogen community, but its original author remains unknown.]

A few ingredients and bits of equipment are necessary. I am a chemist, and have my own chemistry set. I have considered manufacture, but I find that there are enough interesting things to do just extracting natural compounds, which is much easier, indeed, possible in the home.

You will need:

• A few flasks, glass containers, etc. of suitable sizes, depending on how large a volume you are playing with.
• A separating funnel is almost essential - this could be tricky to get without a little effort. If you don't know, it is an inverted conical flask with a hole at the top to pour stuff in, and a tap at the bottom to let the stuff out accurately. It is used for separating immiscible layers.
• A vacuum filtration apparatus would be very useful; I did have a bodgy one rigged up myself, but it was always difficult to use. Some kind of still, though, is pretty important to have, although conceivably for a once off you could get by without it, if you don't mind breathing in a lot of solvent.

As far as a still goes it is to recover solvent, and leave goodness as a residue at the bottom. I use a bit of quickfit I nicked: a round bottom flask, short column, thermometer on top, and a small condenser... takes forever, but don't expect to follow this procedure in anything under a day.

Other bits and pieces:

A filtre of some sort is a necessity; preferably a good one, with a vacuum pump if you are filtring gluggy stuff (cactus is the worst, sticky goo, e.g., other things like seeds and bark are better). People have been known to use such devices as coffee filtres, t-shirts, tins with holes in the bottom (as a filtre press) and so on. Whatever you can scrounge. A lab buchner funnel, sidearm flask, and venturi pump are ideal. All this stuff is standard in any chemical lab, regardless of discipline.

Chemicals necessary:

• The paydirt (obviously)
• Some solvents: methanol (lots), and a non polar solvent. Some people use ether - this is dangerous and doesn't dissolve everything. Your best bet is probably something chlorinated - I use dichloromethane, although chloroform will do (don't breath too much - it is fun at first, but ends up making you feel ill). Drycleaning fluid... petrol... I don't know what you have access to. Dichloromethane is good because it is non-toxic, volatile, and a good solvent. It has a major drawback: separation is often very difficult once you have placed your gluggy plant muck in there. The shot is to use large quantities of everything, and be patient.
• You will also need an acid (Hydrogen chloride is good)
• and a base/alkali (Sodium hydroxide is good - that way, if you stuff up, you end up synthesizing salt instead of something nasty.)
• Also useful: acid/base indicator paper, boiling chips (porcelain grains) and activated charcoal - see local chemist.

The idea is this: Most fun compounds (the only exception is maybe THC, and alcohol if you count that) are basic - they contain nitrogen. So: in general, if you react them with hydrochloric acid, they form a water soluble chloride. If you react them with dilute base in the aqueous phase, they go back to being a base, which is insoluble in water, but soluble in organic non-polar solvents (like CH2Cl2). So, the theory is, that only a base will go from water to solvent and back to water etc. when changed from acidic to basic and back to acidic. This gives you a way of removing all the other crap which is not alkaloid from a sample. That is the theory. When I do this, if I can get down to some brown or green sludge that I can throw down or smoke, I am happy with a good days work. Ideally, you should end up with lovely white crystals, but I think that would require a lot of time and effort, and indeed a considerable loss of product in the process.