What is Kanna?

Kanna is Sceletium tortuosum, a low-growing succulent from the dry interior of South Africa. The Khoisan chewed and fermented it long before it had a Latin name, and that fermentation step is still part of how the good material is made today. South Africa's national biodiversity institute keeps a botanical record for the plant if you want the range maps and the history.

What makes it interesting chemically is a small family of alkaloids, mainly mesembrine, mesembrenone and delta-7-mesembrenone. The ratio between those three is what separates one batch from another, and it is why two products both labelled "kanna extract" can feel like completely different things. A 2021 review in the Journal of Ethnopharmacology is the most complete summary of the research so far, and the US Department of Defense published a plain-language writeup aimed at people deciding whether to take it.

The forms you will run into

Traditionally it was fermented plant material, chewed or brewed. That still exists as loose leaf, and it is the mildest way in. Everything else is a concentration step on top of that: tinctures, resins, and standardized lab extracts sold under codes like MT55, MZO, XK6 and VU3. Those codes are not marketing names, they refer to specific alkaloid profiles, which is why we publish the percentages on every extract we carry.

If you are trying to work out which one you actually want, we broke all of them down side by side in the difference between kanna extracts. And if you care where the raw material comes from before it gets concentrated, that is covered in our kanna sourcing.

One practical note. Kanna acts on the serotonin system, so it is worth a conversation with a doctor first if you take anything psychiatric, particularly an SSRI or an MAOI. Not a warning to skim past.

These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.