jamie wrote:entropy salvia is not throught be entirley inactive in the gut. The mazatecs do press the juices from the leaves into a liquid sort of tea and drink it. I have done this a few times and it is active but nothing compared to quidding. Drinking or eating it(other than swallowing after quidding) is pointless for entheogenic effects really in my experience. It is so mild and you need much more leaf to get any effect.
Considering how mild the effects are, why do you attribute this to salvinorin A entering the bloodstream through the gut? Isn't it entirely plausible that these mild effects are from the small portion of salvinorin A that enters the bloodstream through the mucous membranes of the mouth and throat?
But I didn't say that it's entirely inactive in the gut, I said that's the conventional wisdom. Siebert claimed that in the gastrointestinal system, "salvinorin A is inactivated before entering the bloodstream" in his 1994 paper that sparked popular interest in
S. divinorum. This has led many to believe his premature conclusion as fact.
Personally I suspect that the problems with orally administered salvinorin A don't have much to do with it being metabolized too quickly, as Siebert suggests. That could be a factor, but I don't think it's the largest one. I believe the issue has more to do with the very low solubility of salvinorin A in gastric fluid and the fact that, even when dissolved, it may not permeate the stomach lining easily. These factors could lead to a staggeringly low bioavailability that could only be overcome with very large doses. A clever pharmaceutical preparation might get around this barrier, but I doubt anyone with the resources will tackle that problem until they find an analogue that they want to develop into a marketable pharmaceutical.
obliguhl wrote:Quote:For whatever reason, quidding extracts doesn't work. There must be something essential lost in the extraction process.
This is not true. There are people putting extracts in chewing gum.
Extract-laced hard candy has also enjoyed quite some popularity, especially among german speaking salvia divinorum friends.
I'd have to agree. Plenty of people have found quidding extracts to be effective. Plenty of people have complained of failing to achieve any effects this way, but there are a couple possible explanations for that.
First, you never know how reputable an extract is. In 2006, a team analyzed four different samples of salvia extracts (two from the internet, two from a local headshop) and found that the salvinorin A content of all of the extracts was within the range typically found in plain leaves. It's not clear whether the vendors were dishonestly labeling plain leaf as 5x/10x/20x extracts, or if the extracts were prepared by an incompetent "chemist" whose process did not work. What is clear is that a gram of the 20x extract contained only 0.46 mg salvinorin A. If you try to quid that extract and take only 1/20th the dose that you would need with plain leaves, of course it's going to fail.
The other possible contributing factor is technique. Just sticking a pinch of extract in your bottom lip is not likely to work well, nor is extracting salvinorin A onto cigarette paper and dosing it like it's blotter acid. Salvinorin A really requires an emulsion to absorb effectively. And that typically involves chewing thoroughly. (This may not be the case with the salvia hard candies though; it may dissolve already emulsified and not need to be vigorously swished and chewed around the mouth)