Daniel Siebertin järjestämä sokkotesti ei osoittanut muuta kuin plaseboa:
- Daniel Siebert Speaks…
Interviewed by Will Beifuss
The Entheogen Review. 1999 V. 8, No. 3.
http://www.sagewisdom.org/interview.html
-----------------------------Will: You recently conducted an experiment to test the putative psychoactivity of another Salvia-Salvia splendens. 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 e-mail 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.
Because the reports were so inconsistent, I began to wonder if the "placebo effect" might be responsible for many of the effects people were experiencing, including my own. To investigate this, I decided to conduct an informal double-blind experiment using volunteers from the Salvia divinorum E-mailing List. This is an e-mail discussion forum I founded a couple of years ago, which is dedicated to Salvia divinorum and other psychoactive Labiatae. I located a source for a large amount of Salvia splendens leaf. In order to determine if this material would be suitable for use in the experiment, I sent samples of the doses I intended to use for the study to three people who had already tried Salvia splendens several times and claimed to be able to distinguish its effects. Unanimously they concluded that this material was indeed active and thus should be quite suitable for the experiment. I then selected a placebo herb. I chose Viola odorata leaf, because it was the most similar herb in appearance and texture that I could come up with that did not have effects that were likely to be confused with those that were being associated with Salvia splendens. I then sent out coded packets containing pre-measured doses of Salvia splendens and the placebo herb to 61 volunteers. They were instructed to ingest the samples and then to report any effects experienced on a questionnaire that had been provided to them. People were allowed to choose between smoking the herb samples or ingesting them sublingually. Some people chose to do both. So I collected two sets of data based on method of ingestion.
The purpose of the experiment was to determine if people would be able to distinguish Salvia splendens from the inactive placebo herb. If Salvia splendens does produce a significant effect, this should show up in the data obtained from the questionnaires. Unfortunately, only 31 of the volunteers completed the experiment and returned the questionnaires, so the amount of information I had available to work with was relatively small. Nevertheless, I think that the results are meaningful. The results of the experiment showed that most people reported no effects from either herb. Of those that did report "Salvia splendens-type effects" (about 35%), the numbers were essentially equal for Salvia splendens and the placebo. This suggests that Salvia splendens is no more effective than the placebo in producing "Salvia splendens-type effects." This is definitely the case for the specific materials and doses used in this particular study.
After sharing the results of this study publicly, I received quite a few surprisingly emotional reactions from people who insisted that Salvia splendens was indeed quite active and that my study must be flawed. I got the feeling that people felt I was attacking their integrity by suggesting that they were victims of the placebo effect. It is clear that this herb produces effects in many people when they know that they are taking it. The fact that many people are convinced of its effects is compelling. The problem is that the activity seems to disappear when people don't know what it is they are taking. The information available suggests that the effects people have been reporting are probably due to psychosomatic factors rather than a true pharmacological action of the herb; however, I don't mean to suggest that this small study in any way closes the book on the pharmacology of Salvia splendens. Further research may very well identify some sort of activity that was not observed in this particular experiment.
Muuta:
http://www.sagewisdom.org/splendens.html
http://www.lycaeum.org/drugs.old/plants ... ndens.html
http://www.shaman-australis.com/~claude/salvia3.html
Da-Peng Hu, Kazuyoshi Kawazoe and Yoshihisa Takaishi
Diterpenoids from Salvia splendens
Phytochemistry, Volume 46, Issue 4, October 1997, Pages 781-784
ScienceDirect
Abstract
The methanol extract of aerial parts of previous Salvia splendens afforded three new diterpenes named splenolide A, B and C. Their structures were established on the basis of spectroscopic studies.
Graphical Abstract
The methanol extract of aerial parts of previous Salvia splendens afforded three new diterpenes: 15,16-epoxy-1β-hydroxy-trans-cleroda-2,13(16), 14-trieno-12,17; 19,18-diolide: 15,16-epoxy-11β-acetoxy-trans- cleroda- 2,13(16),14-trieno-12,17: 19,18-diolide and 1β,11β-diacetoxy- 15-hydroxy-trans-cleroda-2,13-dieno-12, 17; 15,16; 19,18-triolide named splenolide A, B and C. Their structures were established on the basis of spectroscopic studies.
