Salvia divinorum
by Gianluca Gilardoni

As an example of natural product we like SALVINORIN A. Salvinorin A is the most abundant active principle in the plant Salvia divinorum (see image below) and it's considered the most powerful natural allucinogen known. For this reason we could have tell of it in the page of psychotropic substances but we think this is a great example of natural compound. The sage in wich we can find the product has been discovered in 1962 by Gordon Wasson and Albert Hofmann (the discoverer of LSD)during an expedtion in Mexico to investigate the nature of the magic plant "Maria Pastora". This plant was used by masatec curanderos in medical and religious practices. By curandera Maria Sabina they participated to a cerimony in wich they could experience the effects of the plant. Hofmann tried also to obtaine an alcoolic solution of the active principle by extracting it from some leaves but he could not caracterize it because it was alterated before he returned to Swizerland. Salvinorin has been descovered in 1982 by Alfredo Ortega, wich did not investigated the psychotropic activity. In 1983 Leander Valdes confirmed the presence and the structure of salvinorin (that he named DIVINORIN) and discovered a related minoritary compound. For this reason he distinguished them as divinorin A and divinorin B, corrected by himself in salvinorin A and salvinorin B because he knew the first molecule had alredy been discovered by Ortega. Valdes ipotized by animal experimentation that Salvinorina is the active principle of Salvia divinorum. In 1993 Daniel Siebert experimented salvinorine A on humans. From the chemical viewpoint salvinorine is not an alcaloid but a diterpene, it is insoluble in water and it's degradated to inactive products by gastric acids; so it can't be assumed by injection neither by mouth but only absorbed by mucous or inhalating the vaporized cristals. In litterature we have not find articles about salvinorine synthesis, so we think it is not yet been synthetized.

Bibliography

# ALFRED ORTEGA et al.- J.Chem.Soc.Perk.Trans.I pag.2505(1982)
# LEANDER VALDES et al.- J.Org.Chem.49, 4716 (1984)
# DANIEL SIEBERT - Journal of Ethnopharmacology 43, 53 (1994)
# ALBERT HOFMANN - "LSD my problem child"

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