hi,
	here's a testable speculation that can be either
verified by a health-food freak, or disproved up-front
by a real phyto-chemist:

speculation: a modern vegetable juicer provides sufficient
extraction for San Pedro.

i found a sample of fresh San Pedro had a pH of 4.5 (... i
think... i used an old soil-test kit for this since i had
no pH paper handy.)  this is more acidic than i expected,
and i wonder if the alkaloids are even present as free-base
in such an environment, or if they are present as soluable
salts instead (phyto-chemists?)

could someone please run a pound or so of sandy, gritty, fresh
San Pedro, skin, spines and all through their $270 Champion
Vegetable Juicer and report back on whether the entheogenic
virtues thereafter reside in the juice or the remaining residue?
if you don't find it in the juice you can always run your
favorite extraction on the residue, so you've lost nothing
by performing this experiment (which should be even easier
for you now: the plant is 90+% water, so you've effectively
"removed waste water" by the juicing.)

if verified, this would be the easiest preparation
known.  high-powered kitchen appliances are extremely
recent developments, compared to the span of San Pedro
usage... if you hurry to your kitchen *now* you could
be the one to make health-food history!  centuries of
traditionalist curanderos will blink in astonishment
from their perches in the astral plane!!

and, oh, yeah, afterwards check the internals of your
$270 juicer when you clean it out and let me know:  this
didn't scratch things up any worse than a batch of organic
carrots... did it?

			-steve