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Yeti101

Pineapple Sage?

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Does anyone know anything about Pineapple Sage? Is it even a Salvia? Some years back when I was living at home I found that sa well as being a tasty addition to my tea, it had a pronounced relaxing effect. The dried leaf, when smoked, produced a brief stoned effect. Maybe it was just wishful thinking ( I haven't tried it again for years, but I do have a plant now, albeit a small one).

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Pinapple Sage is botanically known as Salvia elegans syn. S.rutilans (scarlet pinapple).

My friends have smoked a fair bit of this and reported mild stoning effects simillar to low doses of Salvia divinorum.

I will probably doing some research with various extracts in the near future and hopefully confirm the active(s).

Keep in mind that smoking just about anything can give a noticable effect even if it just from reduced oxygen levels.

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I have an enormous bush of this growing, it was planted it to keep my Salvia company.

I have never tried smoking it (and I really dislike smoking anything), However it has a nice smell! and you can do things like make drinks out of it... why not stick to that rather than killing your lungs? smile.gif

I think I have seen a list of salvia's that had been assayed for alkaloid content (or at least smoked for subjective effects) and elegans was not listed... hmmmm... where did I see that - it may even have been a doc here.

I seriously doubt that it has any psychoactive properties though. it's a rather common plant and I am sure it would have been assayed for psychoactive properties already. I'd be very interested in hearing the results of the extraction.

[This message has been edited by eccles (edited 20 January 2002).]

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Possibly not active eh? Maybe my parent's plant was a freak. But I was smoking a number of things at that stage in my life that had effects on me so who knows how reliable my research at that time was. And just for the record, I do not smoke anything anymore, I value what is left of my lungs.

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Guest wira

Negative results in an alkaloid screening doesn't mean much in this case. The active constituents of Salvia divinorum are certainly not alkaloids, they are diterpenoids of a class very common in the mint family [Labiatae/Lamiaceae].

"I seriously doubt that it has any psychoactive properties though. it's a rather common plant and I am sure it would have been assayed for psychoactive properties already."

It has! Since at least several years ago, by more than one person... myself included! The fact of a plant being common and not generally known to be psychoactive does not prove anything. There is a lot we don't know and MOST plant species in existence are totally unknown to us, chemically and pharmacologically. There are certainly a lot of common plants with psychoactive properties, and no doubt many more to be 'discovered' wink.gif

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Guest wira

Also, just because a given specimen of a given species does nothing for someone who tries it via a logical route of ingestion, doesn't mean that other specimens, or the same one, may not be quite effective for someone else. Like plants and their great variation within 'species', people and their biochemistry are not all the same, and may differ at different times as well.

I have a friend who many years ago tried to take up smoking the good weed - it took him about 2 years of weekly smoking before he felt anything at all [i'm amazed he stuck at it]. Based on his initial bioassays alone, if this had happened thousands of years ago, people could have easily concluded that Cannabis was not psychoactive. Even now you get some people claiming that the pot high is just a placebo effect.

[This message has been edited by wira (edited 20 January 2002).]

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you are perfectly right of course, Wira - however I didn't really mean that it would have been assayed because it was a common plant, but because it is a common Salvia - and I *have* seen reports and docs in which people have or were going to try to test as many as possible - this is what I based my assumption on - because it would be one of the easier ones for the interested parties to get their hands on smile.gif

with regards to routes of administration - there aren't really *that* many... I mean ultimately you want a chemical in your bloodstream in appropriate quantities...

if something is active then it shouldn't be TOO hard to bioassay it (unless you need HEAPS of it, and in that case it only has trace quantities of any interesting substances and is thus of only marginal interest anyway). *shrugs*... I mean - you *are* right, but still - for something that common in a society where some people will smoke or eat anything they are told will get them high - and especially if it is botanically related to something that DOES - you'd think you'd have heard about it if it works...

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Guest wira

Well, especially not being within the same realms as S. divinorum, these things don't make the headlines! If you had been reading various discussion forums regularly over the past few years you would certainlt have come across a few people reporting on their bioassays with this species [both positive and negative].

There are a hell of a lot of Salvia species, too. A while back I started bioassaying almost any I could find [usually by smoking a 5x extract] but got sick of it pretty quickly when it appeared they all seemed to have broadly similar effects, varying mainly in potency. I've been told by others who have bioassayed a lot of different Salvias that again, all they have tried seem to have some psychoactivity. Even the common garden sage Salvia officinalis is psychoactive, though there are at least several chemotypes, as with many things.

By mentioning the route of ingestion, I'm referring mainly to the fact that drinking preparations of Salvia species is generally not the best way to perceive their effects, especially the milder ones. That's why I bioassayed with 5x smokeable extracts - it's a quicker and easier way of telling if there's anything going on wink.gif

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New research on this plant:

The hydroalcoholic extract of Salvia elegans induces anxiolytic- and antidepressant-like effects in rats.

Mora S, Millan R, Lungenstrass H, Diaz-Veliz G, Moran JA, Herrera-Ruiz M, Tortoriello J.

Laboratorio de Farmacologia del Comportamiento, Programa de Farmacologia Molecular y Clinica, Instituto de Ciencias Biomedicas, Facultad de Medicina, Universidad de Chile, Chile.

Behavioral effects of a hydroalcoholic (60% ethanol) extract from the leaves of Salvia elegans Vahl (Lamiaceae) were studied in male Sprague-Dawley rats. The extract was administered intraperitoneally and its effects on spontaneous motor activity (total motility, locomotion, rearing and grooming behavior) were monitored. Putative anxiolytic and antidepressant properties of Salvia elegans were studied in the elevated plus-maze test (EPM) and in the forced swimming test (FST), respectively. Deleterious effects of Salvia elegans on learning and memory were also studied by using active and passive avoidance paradigms. The results revealed that all doses (3.12, 12.5, 25 and 50mg/kg) of the extract caused a significant decrease in total motility, locomotion, rearing and grooming behavior. Only the dose of 12.5mg/kg increased the exploration of the EPM open arms in a similar way to that of diazepam (1mg/kg). In the FST, all doses of the extract induced a reduction of immobility, in a similar way to that of fluoxetine (10mg/kg) and imipramine (12.5mg/kg), along with a significant increase in the time spent in swimming behavior. Acquisition of active avoidance responses was disrupted by pre-treatment with the extract, but retention of a passive avoidance response was not significantly modified. These results suggest that some of the components of the hydroalcoholic extract of Salvia elegans have psychotropic properties, which deserve further investigation.

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Thanks Ashoka, found this similar paper:

Antidepressant and anxiolytic effects of hydroalcoholic extract from Salvia elegans by Herrera-Ruiz M, García-Beltrán Y, Mora S, Díaz-Véliz G, Viana GS, Tortoriello J, Ramírez G.

Abstract

Salvia elegans Vahl (Lamiaceae), popularly known as “mirto”, is a shrub that has been widely used in Mexican traditional medicine for the treatment of different central nervous system (CNS) diseases, principally, anxiety. Nevertheless, the available scientific information about this species is scarce and there are no reports related to its possible effect on the CNS. In this work, the antidepressant and anxiolytic like effects of hydroalcoholic (60%) extract of Salvia elegans (leaves and flowers) were evaluated in mice. The extract, administered orally, was able to increase the percentage of time spent and the percentage of arm entries in the open arms of the elevated plus-maze, as well as to increase the time spent by mice in the illuminated side of the light–dark test, and to decrease the immobility time of mice subjected to the forced swimming test. The same extract was not able to modify the spontaneous locomotor activity measured in the open field test. These results provide support for the potential antidepressant and anxiolytic activity of Salvia elegans.

And this older one as well:

CNS acetylcholine receptor activity in European medicinal plants traditionally used to improve failing memory by Wake G, Court J, Pickering A, Lewis R, Wilkins R, Perry E. This one mentions elegans as well as S. involucrata and a few others

Might try an ethanol extraction. I'm also thinking there might be a synergy with S.splendens. Will give it a go this weekend.

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A friend used to plant this with his cannabis, giving the buds a 'pineappley' scent/flavour..

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i think they smell like pineapple sherbert. was wondering what qualities otherthan its culinary ones.leaves havea very strong smell. cool plant!

maybee nice leaves crushed in a glass of ice cold water on a hot day for sure. salvias sureare cool plants.

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I'm also thinking there might be a synergy with S.splendens. Will give it a go this weekend.

Hey, Yeti. Did you end up getting a chance to try this out?

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Hey, Yeti. Did you end up getting a chance to try this out?

Well yes I did. I found the mix of the two (50/50) was both stronger and longer lasting than the Pineapple Sage (S. elegans) by itself, and much stronger than S. splendens by itself. I was very chilled-out, which is not surprising 'cause they are both anxiolytic and the very mild stone from the S. elegans tied it together well. On the other hand one of my friends who smokes harder stuff felt nothing - but then he was at a stage where he wouldn't feel much anyway :bong:

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I do believe this plant has been discussed as being active in the past, Although perhaps not on this forum.

If I am not mistaken, (again) I believe it to be one of the 24 species of Salvia containing neo-clerodane diterpinoids from the chapter of an organic chemistry book entitled "Neo-clerodane diterpenoids in North American Salvia species" mentioned in my paper 'The Other Psychoactive Salvias" (by friendly)

which may or may not be archived on this site.

It can be found by doing a google as it is on many sites worldwide.

Edited by friendly

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And just for the record, I do not smoke anything anymore, I value what is left of my lungs.

I fully respect your position, however I have a different view. Smoking is my retirement plan.

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Thanks guys. I don't think S. elegans is mentioned specifically in Friendly's paper, but I do think it is mentioned in "Phytochemistry of Medicinal Plants". I'm getting a copy sent up from another library to check. Work is going off the hook at the moment, so the extract will have to wait for a few weeks til thing calm down.

As for my lungs, well 6 years is long time, and while I don't smoke much any more, I can't say I've given up that method entirely :innocent_n: But I must be doing OK overall 'cause I can run a half-marathon in around 2 hours.

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Damn, I've got to stop getting so old. At least the rest of me still works. (mumble mumble).

Fortunately, (?) I've been playing with modified Tesla coils lately. At least they make me FEEL young again. They make me feel like I'm 30 again. Alas, they apparently do not improve memory.

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