The Salvia divinorum Research and Information Center - Shroomery

Salvia splendens. A psychoactive sage?
Salvia splendens is one of the most commonly grown ornamental Salvia
species. It is cultivated as a bedding plant in many countries. Most
nurseries carry dwarf varieties in various colors including scarlet,
purple, orange, lavender and yellow.
There are many compounds in nature that are similar to the salvinorins
in structure. In Alfredo Ortega's 1982 paper: Salvinorin, A New trans-
Neoclerodane Diterpene from Salvia divinorum (Labiatae), he mentions
that "Except for differences in the substituents and stereochemistry at C-
8 and C-12, salvinorin is structurally similar to salviarin and splendidin,
compounds which were recently isolated from S. splendens ...".
Having read Ortega's paper during the course of my research on Salvia
divinorum, in 1993 I tried smoking some leaves of Salvia splendens to
see if perhaps this species had any psychoactive properties similar to S.
divinorum. I did not notice any significant effect. Then in 1997 two
members of the now defunct Salvia email list, Kevin Brunelle and
Claude Rifat, posted reports to the list stating that their self-experiments
with S. splendens showed that this herb produces psychoactive effects
when the leaves are smoked or chewed to allow for sublingual
absorption. They described it as producing pronounced relaxation and a
sense of detachment and claimed that the effects could be obtained using
just a few leaves. Upon hearing their reports, I decided it was worth
another look. My next attempt at smoking the leaves did in fact produce
a very noticeable and unambiguous sense of relaxation. I subsequently
made several additional attempts to obtain effects from this herb, using
both smoked leaves and an extract, but have not since been able to
obtain any discernable effects.
I have now heard from many people who have tried S. splendens, and
their reports vary. About half of the people claim that they feel
noticeably relaxed after ingesting it, and half report no effects. It is
possible that the "active" compound(s) in the herb are variable or that
people's sensitivity varies. It is also possible that the herb is
pharmacologically inert and all of the positive reports, including my
own, are due to placebo effect. In order to determine whether or not S.
splendens is truly psychoactive, I conducted a double-blind experiment.
The study is complete and the results are reported in an interview that I
gave for the Entheogen Review. See: Daniel Siebert Speaks… The
Entheogen Review. 1999 V. 8, No. 3. Interviewed by Will Beifuss.
http://www.sagewisdom.org/splendens.html (2 of 3) [04.09.01 10:23:12]