The Salvia divinorum Research and Information Center - Shroomery

Daniel Siebert Speaks…
How was the experiment set up and what were the results?
Daniel: The first published description of what we now refer
to as salvinorin A appeared in a 1982 paper by the Mexican
phytochemist, Alfredo Ortega. At that time it was simply
called salvinorin. In his paper, Ortega points out that
salvinorin is structurally similar to compounds that had
previously been isolated from the common ornamental
bedding plant, Salvia splendens. This caught my eye early on
in the days of my work with Salvia divinorum, and I was
curious to see if Salvia splendens might produce any
interesting effects similar to that of Salvia divinorum. So I
purchased several Salvia splendens plants from a local
nursery and tried smoking the dried leaves. After smoking a
huge amount, I did not notice any effects other than a slight
headache. I then made an extract of the leaves using the same
procedure that I had been using to extract salvinorin A from
Salvia divinorum. I experimented with this extract several
times, using ever-increasing amounts, but was still unable to
detect any effects. At this point I was convinced that Salvia
splendens was inactive. Then a year or two latter, I received email
from someone who claimed that he and a friend of his
had tried Salvia splendens and found it to be active in very
low doses. He sounded quite excited about his discovery and
started posting messages on the Internet about it. He claimed
that the leaves produced a sort of relaxing, anxiolytic,
emotional-blunting effect. Obviously, these effects are not at
all like Salvia divinorum. The effects he associated with
Salvia splendens are rather like those of Valium®; it was not
said to be a visionary herb by any stretch of the imagination.
While I realize that such effects have their place, I personally
do not find them very interesting. Nevertheless, this report
intrigued me enough that I decided to try Salvia splendens
again. Interestingly enough, when I did, I experienced exactly
the kind of effects that he had described. However, for some
reason, I was unable to experience these effects again on
subsequent attempts, even though I tried using larger amounts
of leaf. As this information was being posted in various
places on the Internet, quite a few other people started
experimenting with it. People's reports were mixed. Many
people were reporting that they were experiencing sedative or
anxiolytic effect, but others didn't seem to feel anything.
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