Chemistry
The natives Mazatec shamans have been using this herb for thousands of years as a form of entheogen. It is a Mexican plant which contains salvinorin A which is an active molecule having psychotropic effect. Salvinorin A has dissociating effect as it is a hallucinogenic compound. Its structure is completely different from other natural and synthetic hallucinogens. The natural hallucinogens are mescaline, psilocybin and dimethyltryptamine and the synthetic ones are ketamine and LSD.
It has been reported that smoking of salvinorin A has proved to be the most potent natural drug which has psychoactive effect if it is taken in high dose by human beings. The high dose that is smoked by human beings to get psychoactive effect should be between two hundred to thousand milligrams this way the potency of salvinorin A can be compared to LSD but the other side effects are totally dissimilar. The time of the psychoactive experience which is derived with the ingestion of salvinorin A may vary according to the method of ingestion of the smoke.
The chemical formula of salvinorin A is C23H2808 which makes it a trans-neoclerodane diterpenoid. Salvinorin A is not an alkaloid as it does not have the basic nitrogen atom which can be found in other known ligands which are opioid- receptor. The actions of salvinorin A is not like mescaline or LSD as it does not have any actions at the serotonin receptor which is the main molecular target of the other psychedelics like LSD and mescaline.
Salvinorin is a diterpenoid and salvinorin A is found with other structurally related salvinorins. Its action is mainly as an agonist of the kappa opioid receptor and it is the first non alkaloid compound which has the agonist effect on the receptor. Salvinorin A was first isolated from the whole salvinorin structure of the plant in 1982 in Mexico by Ortega Alfredo and the pharmaceutical mechanism was explained in the laboratory which was owned by L. Roth. Bryan.