Pharmacology - Is Safrol psychoactive?

[Euthanatos93420]

I have noticed that under certain conditions a certain Liquorice tea I love (Stash, also contains anise) produced a mildly stimulating and slightly dissociative effect. Mind you this would be an extremely minute dose of safrol and I've only experienced it after several cups of tea (caffiene, about 200-250mg). It's a lot like what I experience when I've had too much caffiene (1000-1200mgs) but without the jitters or excessive stimulation. Less stimulating more dissociate. mind you I'm not speaking about a high per se but rather a very subtle alteration of the mind.

I made a a post about this some time ago and I haven't thought about it much but I was just reading TotalSynthesisII by Strike and it occured to me when he mentioned Liquorice and Anise as being sources of safrol that it got me to thinking...could this be the psychoactive chemical in Absinthe? Both liquorice and anise are present in it and I imagine that the alcohol probably pulls a lot more of the safrol from the herbs than my hot water brew (tea).

Any thoughts?

[fnord]

Grandma has consumed 1-3 tablespoons of pure sassy oil a few times in the past,while she cant remember what it felt like, (and cant seem to track it down in her journals) she remembers that it was psychoactive.

[Greenport]

SwiM's rock has never heard anything about safrole itself being psychoactive. Of course it can be made psychoactive via well documented chemical reactions, but that's already been discussed in super fine detail many times over

The rock knows of those who care to ingest nutmeg and trip for three days - the active component to blame there is supposedly high doses of myristicin, which happens to be very similar to safrole, differing only by a methoxy group. However the reasons for its psychoactivity are unrelated to that of the phenethylamines, and it requires a high dose.

Safrole has been used for decades in root beer and teas, as well as a flavorant and was long-believed to be healthy. It in fact, probably is - in moderation. It has been known to aid ailments and generally improve health. Also the rock seems to remember that safe consumption of certain essential oils (along with certain inscents and a few other things) can improve one's mental well-being ever so slightly. Whether this is a 'psychoactive' effect or not, well the rock just don't know that.

However, in rats there was a study done where they found increased rates of liver cancer when they were exposed to regular, fairly high doses of safrole (of which the metabolite was detected in their urine) and almost immediately pulled it out of everything. The rock has heard that a carcinogenic metabolite found in the rats' urine is not found in human urine after the consumption of safrole - however because now people are getting happy off of a nitrated version of it, it's probably going to be a long time before we can find out for sure since it is now a strictly controlled precursor and the keys are in the hands of the govt.

The idea that anise may be responsible for the hallucinogenic effects of absinthe needs more research. Rock doesn't know the answer to that but for some reason doesn't think there would be enough essential oils in absinthe to cause hallucinations.

[Euthanatos93420]

That's enough for swim to investigate this personally. A s far as carcinogenics...

they were exposed to regular, fairly high doses of safrole

Swim rather thinks of this as bad science. Too much of anything will cause bad things and these days just about everything causes cancer because of such 'studies'.

I'm not describing 'hallucinations'. I'm simply referring to psychoactivity. By dissociative I don't mean I experienced a slight 'tilt' people described from dissociative. Is it a controlled precursor or just watched? I thought it was only watched.

[Greenport]

Safrole? Well it's listed as a list I precursor - which means one cannot likely buy it or a notable carrier of it without alerting the wrong people, and possession of any prepared safrole solution can get one in quite a lot of trouble.

That doesn't stop those who live in areas where sassafras grows from making tea from it though.

There are a few sites stating that it is psychoactive in high doses kind of like nutmeg is, however most say it's generally not and consumption of large amounts is probably hepatoxic or otherwise a dangerous practice.

[Synesthesiac]

Swim has a litre of sassafras oil from a previous aquaintance that had to get rid of it quick for various reasons, and he's never asked him for it back. Swim doesn't know what to do with it, the obvious thing is a bit to complex for swim to embark on. Swim says he may have a go at putting some in some tea now he's read this thread, as he never knew it can be used in tea. Though it doesn't look like its something anyone would want to make a habit out of drinking due to possible carcinogenic effects.

Thanks for pointing this out! Swim will be pleased when I tell him.

[Euthanatos93420]

Yeah, no you can order sassafrass essential oil online from many different suppliers. As long as you are using it to make soap, incense, candles, etc.

I do all of those things ;-)

To make a tea out of it you should sprinkle the desired strength (Sprinkle; for even distribution, not quantity indicative) over tea leaves then shake the tea leaves up in a glass jar to try to more evenly distribute it. Shake, sprinkle more, Shake etc. Then just brew. 'Soaking' would probably give you a more than desired strength though you could probably soak a small amuont and then blend with regular tea leaves...although the essential oil would get contaminated with stuff from the tea leaves this way. I once did this with bergamot making my own Earl Gray.

[Greenport]

Really? Please do elaborate. It was always swiM's rock's understanding that in the usa sassafras root bark couldn't be sold unless it was free of safrole...?

What's the catch? Does one have to prove they're using it for something legitimate or something? The rock did some searching and found a site offering the bark, and right in the description mentioned that safrole is a precursor to mdma. That sounds like a trap in itself. Can they legally do that??

...

The original true flavor of root beer comes from sassafras root. Because sassafras root contains safrole, it cannot be sold in the US for human consumption. Sassafras root bark may be sold, although it too contains safrole, but it is not very good at providing flavor to the beverage. Sassafras grows wild in much of the Eastern US.

Safrole is an MDMA precursor and is itself psychoactive. Sassafras generates an extremely sweet-spicy smoke, useful in smoking meats. American Indians used an infusion of sassafras root to bring down a fever. They also smoked, in a pipe, the root bark, which is highly aromatic and inebriating.

It would certainly seem like they know who they're marketing to, at least...

(ohh hey 500th post )