Talk:Salvia divinorum

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This article is part of the WikiProject on Psychedelics, Dissociatives and Deliriants, set up to organize and expand entries on Psychedelics, dissociatives and deliriants as well as related subjects according to chemical type, effects, organic carriers, and cultural/historical uses. Please feel free to participate by editing this article and visiting the project page.

archive 1 (older discussions)

Contents

[edit] Forums

Some of those forums are quite small! Should we really bother putting them there? For example, the BeSaged forum only has 21 members, why not just list those forums that actually have a significantly-sized population? 134.114.231.38 05:24, 3 September 2006 (UTC)


The the Site link for the Forum listed at the bottom "The Entheogen Forum: http://www.entheology.org " needs to be placed in the Resources Column as "Entheology.org". (The Forums new name is "WorldEyes Sanctuary"). Leave it Alone - It doesn't at this time affect the factual contents of the page. "A Rose by any other name would smell as sweet." Carl McCall 00:16, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Images

an image of the plant leaves would ba appropriate. perhaps a trip to erowid would yield some success. Lockeownzj00 22:29, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Use caution. Virtually all of erowid.org content including images are copyrighted and wouldn't be compatible with the GFDL, making their use here a clear copyvio. --Bk0 22:40, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)

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I Will be Glad to release to GFDL Plant Images from my Extensive Gallery of Salvia Divinorum Photographs. They MAY be of Use to you. For a Small Sample of the Photographs Offered look at the Gallery at http://members.cox.net/thegarden/ Perhaps such as on http://members.cox.net/thegarden/picturefiles/30.html ? --Carl McCall 13:46, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Hi carl. just go to special:upload, and you can upload the pics. then we can put them in the article. cheers --heah 03:55, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Any particular Photographs you'd like? I've got some Photos up on a new site: the site bears no copyright on it. http://members.cox.net/sageseeds/ I've got a NICE New Camera and Sally's about to bloom - I'd be glad to Stage some shots JUST for public Use. (Do you mean you'd like ALL 66 of those Photos?!? I don't mind - but those aren't the highest quality photos) ..... I'll be Glad to snap shots in my Garden of what you'd Like on this page. Carl McCall 13:37, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

See this? http://members.cox.net/sageseeds/flowerparts.jpg there is no Copyright on this: I AM the Author. If this picture is desired you have my permission to upload it for me and put it in the article. Or wait 2 1/2 months & I'll have a larger sharper newer clearer one for you - made to order ....  ;-) Carl McCall 13:49, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

OK: I've chosen an Image from my THOUSANDS of Salvia Divinorum Photographs and Uploaded it to here: Image:Salvia Divinorum Leaves & Flowers some with Seeds Capture Bags.jpg I hope it's what you had in Mind. The More Specifically you specify what's in your Minds eye the More likely I can come up with what you desire. How do you embed a Picture like that in the Article? Carl McCall 05:09, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the picture Carl. I’ve included it in main article in the Botany section. --SallyScot 21:29, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
Hi Sally Scot! I have an Olympus 6 Megapixel camera this year and, here in San Diego, CA (USA) flowering season is now beginning again. I Should be able to get the same "Poses" I had last year, but with much clearer results. (Plants are easy to pose.) Is there any particular Shot you'd like? Also, the picture that's there October 29th is better than Mine: that's OK! But I might be one of the few people that can get Sharp Pictures of Seeds Ripening up inside their Calices for you - If you WANT that sort of Thing, that is!  ;-) Carl McCall 19:07, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Header levels

I recently took down the header levels in this article because they were using level 1 headers (=Header=), and it is common practice around here to use level 2 headers (==Header==) at the top of the hierarchy. My edit was quickly reverted, though. Why is that? (If I had to guess, I'd say one User:SallyScot has some issues regarding ownership.) --Burstroc 09:54, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

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No real need to second-guess others motivation or presuppose their ‘issues’. The previous edit of 14:21, 18 September 2006 brought level 1 headers down while leaving some subsections untouched. This lost the logical grouping of some subsections and resulted in some previously level 1 sections looking like they now had no content. Apologies for not including a discussion point with my initial revert, but on the basis I’ve described, that first attempt did look rather like an edit of the ‘my two cents worth’ type.

The second edit (07:05, 20 September 2006) seems to have now brought the subsections down properly, so it looks better than the first attempt.

I understand that level 1 headers make section names the same size font as the article heading, which seems to be the argument against using them. At the end of the day I’m happy enough to go with the consensus on something which is largely a matter of style. But there are some counterpoints maybe worth mentioning. Level 1 headers do allow all respective subsections to exist one level higher than they otherwise would. IMO, the use of level 1 headers can add to the overall article clarity, particularly in making better distinction and identification of the sections, subsections and their relationships.

Generally I think it would depend on the article size and its level of subsections. In this case, it doesn’t look too bad either way. As I say, the real issue I had was with the first edit not also properly bringing all the associated subsections down to an appropriate level.

--SallyScot 12:21, 20 September 2006 (UTC)


Thank you for clarifying. I don't see how my first edit went wrong, as I did the same find/replace method as the second edit, but I guess it's the end result that matters. Cheers. --Burstroc 20:38, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Discussion section running order

Thinking how better to organise discussion subjects I’ve broadly split in two main sections so that points raised regarding older edits of the main article, and hopefully now resolved, can be seen separately from ongoing discussions.

Also, I suggest that if a discussion topic relates to a particular section / subsection of the main article then its title should reflect that.

If I’ve moved a subject into Older / Resolved category and you think it should be ongoing and/or want to open it up again then feel free to move it up. --SallyScot 22:20, 18 July 2006 (UTC)


I'm putting it back. this makes things sorta confusing. it's just standard to always start new talk page topics at the bottom, so page flows in the proper direction, and since that's how everything else is . . . as is remarked earlier, we generally don't use those single headers either. oh, and every now and then we can archive the page to get rid of old stuff. cheers --heah 03:55, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

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Okay, essentially no problem with reverting to Wikipedia’s ‘standard’ discussion approach. Starting with the latest points at the top was largely an experiment done under the auspices of Wikpedia’s edit advice: “be bold”. Of course, many other websites, such as those news related or with postings on forums, will tend to headline with the latest news and views at the top. So I have to say that I find not doing likewise to be a general weakness with Wikipedia’s ordinary discussion page approach.

I think that there is simply a natural tendency to read from the top, and when this entails wading through many now redundant points, referring to old edits and issues which are no longer outstanding, I personally find it can all be rather confusing.

I do appreciate that it may be difficult get contributors to follow different conventions though. Perhaps we could experimentally reinstate the idea of two broad (level 1) sections for a while, and see what kind of feedback there is. But this time starting with ‘Older edits / Resolved discussion’ points and following with ‘Recent edits / Ongoing discussion’ points. So new topics of discussion can still be added straightforwardly to the bottom of the page (as per the Wikipedia ‘standard’), but the reader can also quickly see a distinction being made between current ‘live’ topics and those older ones which (we would hope) have since been resolved.

It would be a straightforward housekeeping matter to occasionally move resolved (or reopened) topics from one broad section to the other.

Any objections to trying this for a while and seeing how it works in practice?

--SallyScot 13:40, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

well, i think if you're editing here you quickly get used to the running order. newer things simply get added at the bottom . . . i think we should avoid level one headers as we just don't really use them here. i didn't even know they existed. old sections, ones with no comments for a while, can be archived; if we don't simply put the page in normal order and move stuff around, that makes archiving the page more difficult. i'm going to go ahead and archive some of the page now. --heah 06:37, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

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My point about the discussion section running order wasn’t just to do with those more used to editing here, but also those simply reading.

But anyway, it’s now slightly moot. With a smaller number of sections it will no longer be as easy to show the proposed idea in practice.

Generally though, I would like to hear better arguments against than what effectively just amounts to the truism, “we don’t use level one headings because we don’t use level one headings”.

Actually, I think the freedom to move sections could (still) make archiving easier, not more difficult. A topic may still be ongoing despite being originally introduced a while ago. If it can be kept nearer the bottom of the page to reflect its lively status, then it’s less likely to be archived simply on the basis of its (immovable) position in the overall list.

Having said that, I think for the most part that the archiving that’s been done does at least make the discussion section look neater than before. A reservation is that, in maybe being a little overzealous, some of the points that have been dealt with could simply get raised again, thus leading to needless repetition.

--SallyScot 20:12, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Brett Chidester and acne

There are concerns with the side-effects of some acne medications and their possible links to depression and suicide. The most notorious of these is isotretinoin, commonly marketed under the trade names Accutane or Roaccutane.

Initial news stories about Brett Chidester’s suicide did not mention his acne medication.

Senator Karen Peterson, who introduced 'Brett's Law' making Salvia divinorum illegal (Schedule-I classification) in the state of Delaware, said, on 14th April 2006 (the day after the bill was signed into law and nearly three months after Brett's death) - "there has never been any mention of Brett Chidester taking acne medication -- and I have spent a lot of time talking with his parents about these issues".

Despite this, it did later emerge that Brett was taking treatment for acne. On the Brett Chidester discussion page a user claiming to represent the family has said - "his parents spent countless dollars and hours seeing to it that he wouldn't suffer from acne".

His parents have admitted the fact that Brett was receiving treatment, claiming however that the medication was not Accutane but minocycline. Minocycline has not been so particularly linked to depression or increased incidences of suicide.

The Salvia article thus should not reasonably suggest acne medication as a contributory factor. It is more reasonable to suggest acne alone, since, regardless of medication, acne itself does have a general association with depression and thoughts of suicide. [1] [2] [3]

--SallyScot 10:56, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

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Associating Acne with suicide is like Associating Hawaiian shirts with fat people. Acne is common in teens who are commonly depressed, Hawaiian shirts are common in obese people, Hawaiian shirts don't make you fat. Acne although inconvenient, does not cause depression. Bad Hair days and being fat aren't the source either. It's how you view those things that classifies you as depressed.

It's just a psychedelic hallucinogenic drug. It runs the risks of any other of those drugs, someone could freak out from a bad trip if they had thoughts of suicide before and might go for it in their intoxicated and emboldened state.

Studies need to be made about long term affects, carcinogens, and the usual burnout brain damage that is common in similar drugs and not just whatever else the moron was shooting up at the time.

I find this article almost grossly biased in encouraging the drug without any talk of the possible damage or obvious drawbacks it, and drugs similar to it cause. Calling a hallucination a "vision" and a literally half baked idea an "insight" really colors the words to make it seem much more positive. It's the opposite of poisoning the well to not call these things for their scientific terms and to use the common High Times vernacular.

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 66.112.72.148 (talk • contribs) 02:15, 7 November 2006 (UTC).

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"Acne [...] does not cause depression" - But there does seems to be enough scientific evidence supporting a link between acne and depression to suggest it's reasonable to include this for consideration as a possible contributory factor.

"...someone could freak out from a bad trip if they had thoughts of suicide before and might go for it in their intoxicated and emboldened state." - In Brett Chidester's case it seems unlikely he was under the influence of Salvia at the time of his death, as this would put together a premeditated, slow and deliberate method of suicide (carbon-monoxide poisoning - not to mention the writing of his suicide note) with Salvia's relatively short-acting effects.

"Studies need to be made about long term affects, carcinogens, and the usual burnout brain damage that is common in similar drugs" - Salvia isn't really a ‘similar drug’.

Generally, the notion of various and quite distinct substances all being similar drugs is a sign of intellectual laziness - or bias.

Generally, studies about the long-term effects of psychedelics are not easy to undertake, but there has been some research into the use of naturally occurring and plant-based psychoactives. Some of the results are contrary to what you might expect. For example, a study of members of the Native American Church, who are permitted by US law to consume peyote, found no cognitive impairment compared with abstainers. And another, looking at ayahuasca users, found that they were on average physiologically and psychologically healthier than a control group. [4]

"I find this article almost grossly biased..." - Many respectable sources have argued that labelling a substance simply a "hallucinogen" and, by extension, an experience simply a "hallucination" is really quite pejorative. Wikipedia should not reflect that cultural bias if it can help it. All that many of us are looking for is just terms which are clearer, more accurate and not so prejudicial.

--SallyScot 21:47, 8 November 2006 (UTC)


I'm not impressed with people that are always looking to blame someone or something for a person's actions. There is rarely a single factor involved in suicide. If the blame is not placed on a drug, it's a video game, or a trench coat. What about the hundreds of other factors involved? What about the thousands of other people who have tried salvia without thoughts of suicide? I would say that if 0.0001% of salvia users commit suicide it has nothing to do with the drug in question, look elsewhere. Personally I would put more weight on the school system, and its lack of care for certain students. These kids are Forced to go to a place where they don't fit in, and have a general bad experience. This is the largest contributing factor to suicide; more than any drug. Period.

Another thing that gets my goat are people who like to shoot down a drug, say it is evil, etc. when they have no factual experience or scientific data to back up their opinion. Comparing salvia to LSD, Mescaline, et al., is a very bad idea. The former acting only on a single receptor in the brain (as far as we know). The latter drugs effect a huge area of receptors, and have effects nothing like salvia. I won't say salvia isn't a powerful drug, but it's effects are very specific; more like a pharmaceutical drug that a recreational drug. Salvia is not a party drug, it is not "fun." I would hate to see this herb get banned before any real scientific studies have been done. There could be some real medicinal benefit. At least, don't knock it if you haven't tried it. You have no idea what you are talking about when you do, and just sound stupid.

65.188.131.198 03:49, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] S A L V I A rating scale

appears to be copied directly from an external website, http://www.sagewisdom.org/usersguide.html and I am therefore removing it, as the website expressly forbids copying of its content.

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Ich (talk • contribs) 03:51, 30 October 2006 (UTC).

[edit] Legal status

Why is there a main heading for 'International' and another for 'US law'? Mild case of bias, here; US opinion isn't any more important than any other country's. 81.151.208.35 19:30, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

True; that part should be put with the rest.--cloviz 16:39, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Neutrality

I removed the comparison of Missouri law equating drug use and distribution with child molestation. It's a simple instance of bias, as no written encyclopedia would bother to make such a shock-value comparison (but might instead compare it to other drug crimes). UMassCowboy 13:34, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

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it's quite clearly pro-salvia and has MANY unsourced claims and irrelevant statements --Lordkazan 19:39, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

As requested with regard to previous accusations of bias...can you point out the parts, in particular, you are concerned about? If there is a bias, it should be worked out. --SallyScot 20:32, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
Agreed - Salvia Divinorum is not a controversial subject like abortion or gay marriage. This is an article about Salvia Divinorum. The content is relatively undisputed. The content is highly appropriate and relevant. If you want pro-drug or anti-drug rhetoric, go to articles about those topics. Reswobslc 07:40, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

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This article seems to get comically biased in parts. If you look at the Experience section, some the listed common effects include "life changing experiences, contact with beings or entities" and "visiting parallel universes".

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Fuzzyblob (talk • contribs) 22:24, 20 November 2006 (UTC).

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I've changed the intro to the list of ‘high dose’ effects (not quite listed as 'common effects' as you suggest) to add the term 'reports of'. In other words the preamble now reads "At high doses the effects become more powerful and may additionally include reports of etc, etc, etc". Hopefully this clarifies that the experiences are of course subjective.
--SallyScot 00:17, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Latin translation of Salvia divinorum

I'm copying the following back in to current Discussion, originally posted by Rcharman 19:38, 12 November 2005 (UTC) in Discussion since Archived

I cite Lewis and Short: "dīvīnus , i, m., a soothsayer, prophet = vates, Cic. Div. 1, 58; 2, 3; id. Fat. 8; Liv. 1, 36; Hor. S. 1, 6, 114; Vulg. Deut. 18, 11 al."

On that basis I've reverted the edit which switched the literal translation of Salvia divinorum from "sage of the seers" to "Sage of the gods". It now says "Sage of the seers" again. I'm not claiming to be an expert on Latin myself, I'm merely requesting some exposition if "gods" is in fact felt to be more accurate than "seers".

--SallyScot 16:47, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Chemistry

I don't agree with the statement that salvia extraction should only be attempted by chemist who own an analytic scale. Many non-qualified users extract Salvinorin A and partially clean the resulting wax/crystal mix only to return it to a smaller amount of leaf or a substrate. They choose the amount of leaf or substrate to deposit the salvinorin onto and so control the dosage by ratio of substrate to the original leaf mass.

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 81.178.116.1 (talk • contribs) 17:59, 10 December 2006 (UTC).

I take your point. I've reworded the Chemistry section.

--SallyScot 00:16, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Concentrate vs crystals

I am curious why the article read and was changed back to read that expert chemists go for crystals and amateurs don't bother with crystals and instead settle for some sort of wax/crystal paste.

The first time I ever extracted Salvinorin, I botched the instructions so bad you'd never have expected me to get crystals and yet I still did. They had a small amount of green stuff on them, but they were undeniably crystals. I'm as much an amateur chemist as anybody, yet if I attempted the extraction over again on new leaves, I'm sure I'd have crystals yet again, and probably much cleaner ones.

Further, the way I consume them is by vaporizing them, using acetone as a solvent to measure the dose. I avoid all the smoke that way (100% odorless), and keeps my house from stinking. I believe Siebert's "you need a super expensive scale to safely vaporize" is a little biased given his high-profit Salvia business, when there is a safe and effective way for anyone to measure minute quantities of Salvinorin. (Though I agree with him in his efforts to discourage amateur experimentation with vaporization, as he's right that you can inhale a lot of Salvinorin and not know it until you come back from planet Zulu.)

Even a high school student could figure out that a known quantity of Salvinorin can be dissolved in a solvent, then a proportional quantity of the solvent measured out (with eyedroppers, syringes, etc) and the solvent evaporated, and the resulting residue of Salvinorin would be a spot-on accurate quantity of total salvinorin multiplied by solvent evaporated divided by total solvent used. The fact that a given solvent can only hold a specific quantity of Salvinorin per milliliter or drop before it precipitates out acts a safety net/sanity check.

My Salvia is kept in the form of a 1-ounce eyedropper acetone-and-Salvinorin bottle. See photo in article of Salvinorin stain on aluminum foil - this is mine. If I want to do some Salvia I drip six to eight drops on some aluminum , foil, wait for the acetone to evaporate, and grab the lighter. I estimate my solution to contain 0.1 to 0.2 mg Salvinorin per drop, and the desired level is easily controlled by the number of drops. (warning to anyone else: your solution could be much stronger, as acetone is reported to hold 20+ mg/ml, which would be several times stronger than mine, and one or two drops would be more than enough to knock you over. Experiment with one drop of any new solution first before advancing dose.)

Both of these challenge the assumptions in the article in several ways:

  • I believe Siebert's warning is biased and while there is some merit to it, it reaches too far
  • There is more than one way to measure small quantities
  • Amateurs can and do extract crystals (which, if not vaporized, are incidentally pretty safe to handle as well).

Reswobslc 19:16, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

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Interesting. My rewording was attempting to bring in 81.178.116.1's point, which did seem less concerned with the attainment of pure salvinorin crystals. - A point which I think is still valid for most procedures carried out in order simply to fortify dried leaf for smoking. What you're describing (100% odourless vaporisation) sounds a little more esoteric than that, but even so, perhaps a form of wording could be evolved to also incorporate your challenges to certain assumptions.

--SallyScot 20:27, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

I have a number of points regarding "Concentrate vs crystals". The main problem facing amateur extraction with Salvia is the poor quality of information and incorrect methods described online. This should not become a feature of the wiki-pedia article!

To what extent should an encyclopedic article on Salvia Divinorum describe the extraction process? Would it be a good thing for there to be an accurate article on Salvinorum extraction detailing the dangers involved. There are certainly enough points to fill an entire article on the topic of the extraction of Salvinorum A, be it for the amateur or research scientist. What is wiki's stance on the distribution of such methods, the use of which are illegal in a small number of countries and states?


[edit] Extraction of Salvinorum A

The scientific literature assumes that 'standard' extraction techniques are used which involve using 'common' non-polar solvents, analytic scales and chromotography and so these are not usually fully described fully in the literature. A brief summary of the standard scientific method is:

  • Use a non-polar solvent such as acetone, hexane, methanol, or isopropyl alcohols to extract the Salvinorin from the leaf, acetone being the most effective for Salvinorin A. Since Salvinorin A is very soluble in acetone, the extraction time can be quite short with cooling being used to reduce the extraction of unwanted substances.
  • Separate the resulting mix of Salvinorin A-F, lipids and other unwanted chemicals using chromatography, typically through activated carbon or a silica gel column.
  • If extraction of larger quantities is required then the common method is to use multiple washes of the waxy extract in a non-polar solvent that can dissolve lipids but not the chemical of interest, a typical choice of solvent] being Naptha.

The scientific method is designed to separate the Salvinorin A from all of the other chemicals present in the plant, where as an amateur has no need to completely isolate all of the chemicals. As such, the typical technique used by an amateur does not involve chromatography. Various public domain on-line articles describe an inefficient extraction method and some even fail to include vital points, such as how Salvinorum A is sensitive to light and heat when dissolved in a solvent. Amateur users most commonly return the extract to a small quantity of leaf, and less often onto to some other substrate such as paper, starch (wafer), or redissolve into a solvent such as pure ethanol or acetone.

I can provide several references if the extraction process is decided to be a suitable addition to the article.

Most Salvinorin users do not vaporise the pure crystal because it is harder to come by and more effort to produce than buying over the counter enhanced leaf. Further, there is more information in the public domain regarding the use of x-factor enhanced leaf than pure extract. It is technically involved to judge the dosage of pure Salvinorin, e.g. using the known solubility of Salvinorin A in acetone or by using analytical scales. Perhaps most importantly, there are numerous safety issues regarding the solvents used in the extraction process.

Would it be useful to include the solubility of Salvinorin A in various solvents in the article. This is of great interest to the amateur chemists out there and is good as general reference for researchers. Perhaps again is this straying away from what is suitable? 81.178.116.1 16:54, 13 December 2006 (UTC) aka 81.178.116.1

See what Wikipedia is not (WP:NOT). Wikipedia is not a how-to guide, so the content would be as inappropriate as a guide explaining how to extract a tooth. Reswobslc 07:50, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
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