Psychedelic Research

A recent report by Michael Paulzen and Gerhard Gründer (“Toxic Psychosis After Intake of the Hallucinogen Salvinorin A” J Clin Psychiatry 69(9): 1501-1502, 2008) describes a sad case of an 18-year-old woman who developed psychosis within a week of unwittingly ingesting Salvia divinorum. Unsurprisingly (and rightfully so, I think), this case has received some media attention, such as in this SF Chronicle article.

One aspect that is unclear in the media reports is that, in the words of the authors, “[i]n this special case, several somatic consequences are reported, which are likely attributable to the medical treatment of a severe psychotic state rather than to the psychosis itself.”

I am not a physician and do not imagine I could draw reliable conclusions about what happened in this specific case. But no matter what did happen, I think this is a sobering reminder of the real risks of psychoactives and the ironclad ethical obligation to respect the rights of others. The clinical details of the case are:
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Today is the birthday of Richard Spruce (September 10, 1817 – December 28, 1893), the pioneering botanist who explored the Amazon and Andes in the mid 1800s, collecting tens of thousands of botanical specimens and recording the vocabularies of over twenty cultures previously unknown to western civilization. Among many other accomplishments, Spruce identified for western culture the botanical make-up of ayahuasca. His wikipedia entry is here.
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Jacob Hooker and colleagues have a new paper in which they labeled the active ingredient of Salvia divinorum with 11C and used PET to measure the drug’s pharmacokinetics in baboons after injection. Salvinorin A is a strange drug with a kappa-opioid receptor mechanism and is anecdotally said to produce more profound alterations in sense of self than most other hallucinogens.
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