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Active ingredient in catnip..

B

blase deviant

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May 9, 2004
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...okay, people on erowid report smoking one or two bowls of catnip (so I assume like 1-2.5g) and feeling like the after effects of a good cannabis buzz.

Is catnip active orally or does it just taste putrid? I assume there's a reason people aren't eating like 10-20g (it's cheap) for a real (and cheap) buzz.

Does anyone know if the alkaloids are soluble in like butane? You could do the honey-oil/butane whatever extraction method people use to make pseudo-hash out of marijuana, and turn like 10g of catnip into .5-1g of smokable resin to vaporize?

This should probably be in OD, but the posts would consist of people either laughing at it, or not knowing/giving a fuck.
 
^Not to seem a wiseguy, but is there a threshhold over which a number of anecdotal reports means that it's not a placebo effect? Not that I'm aware of.
 
specialspack said:
^Not to seem a wiseguy, but is there a threshhold over which a number of anecdotal reports means that it's not a placebo effect? Not that I'm aware of.
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Good point. I don't care how many positive reports there are about catnip or wild dagga or lettuce opium or whatever, they are all placebo IMO. Smoking anything is likely to make you feel something, just because your brain is conditioned to expect some sort of high when you inhale smoke from a pipe.

I also think its funny that all the questionable herbal highs seem to produce the same effect when smoked, which is usually described as "kind of like cannabis but more lucid and alert" or something similar. That and the fact that nobody ever reports overdosing on these substances is further evidence that they are placebo.
 
I wonder how many of the pipes used to smoke such herbs, have been used for marijuana and have residue left in the bowl/pipe.
 
That and the fact that nobody ever reports overdosing on these substances is further evidence that they are placebo.
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That's monkey nuts. They are hardly used, are a pain to use, and you often have to smoke heaps to get an effected.. I think that's a better explanation. Think nutmeg, or parsley or fennel oil. Never heard overdoses of those (actually all nutmeg doses are overdoses).

I think you should actually try some catnip and get back to me.


(oh and I'm not saying that these things are actually fun, or worth trying, (especially lettuce opium)). I mean, nutmeg is active, parsley and fennel oil are all active as hell, but I wouldn't want to use any of them again either).
 
The role of anecdotes in science is an interesting one. On the one hand, anecdotes don't prove anything, and aren't evidence in the empirical, definitive sense. On the other hand, they can be a hell of an interesting place to go fishing for ideas of where to look. Before there was Viagra, there was some old guy trying an experimental heart medicine that said 'hmm, the little soldier has got his salute back...I wonder why?'

So, if a dozen people say smoking catnip can give you a buzz, I'm not convinced...but I wonder.
 
BilZ0r said:
That's monkey nuts. They are hardly used, are a pain to use, and you often have to smoke heaps to get an effected.. I think that's a better explanation. Think nutmeg, or parsley or fennel oil. Never heard overdoses of those (actually all nutmeg doses are overdoses).

I think you should actually try some catnip and get back to me.


(oh and I'm not saying that these things are actually fun, or worth trying, (especially lettuce opium)). I mean, nutmeg is active, parsley and fennel oil are all active as hell, but I wouldn't want to use any of them again either).
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Yeah, I was curious about whether it was active oral, so someone could eat a bunch, and we'd know if it was just weak, or placebo.

And if wasn't active oral, we'd know to do an extraction and try to get some resin to vaporize, and again know if it's placebo or not.
 
Delta9 said:
That and the fact that nobody ever reports overdosing on these substances is further evidence that they are placebo.
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BilZ0r said:
That's monkey nuts. They are hardly used, are a pain to use, and you often have to smoke heaps to get an effected.. I think that's a better explanation. Think nutmeg, or parsley or fennel oil. Never heard overdoses of those (actually all nutmeg doses are overdoses).

I think you should actually try some catnip and get back to me.


(oh and I'm not saying that these things are actually fun, or worth trying, (especially lettuce opium)). I mean, nutmeg is active, parsley and fennel oil are all active as hell, but I wouldn't want to use any of them again either).
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First of all, I have tried catnip. I smoked a shitload of it and got no effect, and also made a tea out of it which gave no effects either. My cat got high as hell off it though so I know it was good stuff. =D

Secondly, by "overdosing" I don't necessarily mean dying or going to the ER or anything, I just mean using an excessive amount of a substance that leads to severe negative side effects that don’t occur with normal psychoactive doses. There are plenty of nutmeg reports where people ingest 60+ grams at once or whatever and have really nasty side effects. I'd consider that to be an overdose. And with cannabis, we all know that it’s pretty much impossible to die from using too much, but I’ve heard of people who have eaten ridiculously potent hash brownies in Amsterdam and wound up becoming completely stoned out of their minds for 12+ hours along with intense paranoid delusions bordering on schizophrenia. I don’t know about you, but I would call that a cannabis overdose.

What I was getting at was that I’ve never read a catnip report where someone has said that they used “too much” and had negative side effects because of it. Same with all the other questionable herbal highs out there. Also consider the fact that a lot of people who report effects from these things say that they feel the effects after smoking a bowl or two, yet you could smoke 10 more bowls and not feel any more of a “high” than you felt after the first bowl. This just doesn’t seem to make sense.

And with parsley, fennel oil, and any other herbals that are widely considered to actually work, you can extract the psychoactive compounds and easily overdose and have some serious side effects. Until you can do that with catnip, I’m calling placebo. Not saying that it won’t ever happen, but I’d bet against it. Blase deviant's idea of making some sort of catnip resin could shed some light on this.

Sorry about the rambling post, but I kind of have a vendetta against these types of herbals because I’ve wasted hundreds of dollars on things like “15X wild dagga extract” and “blue lotus tincture” after reading all the positive reports on Erowid. People seriously need to realize that placebo effect is real and powerful and make sure to completely rule it out before claiming that something is psychoactive. This will save myself and others a lot of money. Not that I don't fully support people experimenting and trying new things. As TheDEA.org pointed out, anecdotal reports definitely have their place.
 
You know your lifes over when your jammin techno full blast drinkin catnip tea and smokin a catnip philly doin the moonwalk. whats next? smoking carrots?
 
Delta9 said:
die from using too much, but I’ve heard of people who have eaten ridiculously potent hash brownies in Amsterdam and wound up becoming completely stoned out of their minds for 12+ hours along with intense paranoid delusions bordering on schizophrenia. I don’t know about you, but I would call that a cannabis overdose. .
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word. brownies will do it. Try 6 hours of vomiting with weight of the Universe putting your careless ass in check every time you tilt your head. I'm sure there are loads of people in the Cnbs. forum that can attest to that. A humbling trip....
 
Does anyone perhaps have the structure of nepetalactone? I would be interested to see it, I remember trying smoking catnip in boarding school, after I had exhausted the quarter oz of sputnik that had to last me the entire term, got fuck all from it, but I wouldn't be above doing a little more investigation to see if there is some sort of potential to be harvested from catnip, as I have masses more than my cat can ever get trashed on growing in my garden.
 
Maybe different strains/cultivars/whatevers of catnip have different levels of whatever, because I will attest to the one time I tried some, to it having some activity. I'm not going to be stupid and say "I can tell it wasn't a placebo" I was young, and it was subtle, but I felt different, calmed, light, and temperature wise, cool.
 
Limpet_Chicken said:
Does anyone perhaps have the structure of nepetalactone? I would be interested to see it, I remember trying smoking catnip in boarding school, after I had exhausted the quarter oz of sputnik that had to last me the entire term, got fuck all from it, but I wouldn't be above doing a little more investigation to see if there is some sort of potential to be harvested from catnip, as I have masses more than my cat can ever get trashed on growing in my garden.
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Here it is, brought to you by Google:

nepeta.gif


The website (http://chemistry.about.com/library/weekly/aa103001a.htm) that the image is from says that it causes CNS sedation in humans comparable to valerian. If this is true, then I guess it is psychoactive, but then again valerian doesn't really induce much of a "high" in the general sense.

So I was probably wrong by saying that you can't extract a psychoactive compound from catnip and overdose on it. My bad. :\ But yeah if that website is correct then you might as well just buy some valerian capsules. I'll try and see if there are any actual studies available on nepetalactone's effects on humans.

EDIT: sorry Gary Gnu, just now realized that you posted that link already. My bad, again :\
 
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^ Not to attack a statement which supports my stance, but I can't find any record of nepetalactone being given to human, and sedation being measure (though I can find it being given to humans for another reason[1]). I can however find a record of it causing sedation in rodents (potentiating barbitrate induced sleep) [2]
 
Yeah there doesn't seem to be many studies about nepetalactone in humans on PubMed.

Here is another study, maybe you came across it. I'm assuming the study was performed on rats or mice. Don't really know what to make of it:
Nepetalactone: a new opioid analgesic from Nepeta caesarea Boiss.

Aydin S, Beis R, Ozturk Y, Baser KH.

Department of Pharmacology, Faculty of Pharmacy and Medicinal and Aromatic Plant and Drug Research Centre (TBAM), Anadolu University, Eskisehir, Turkey.

The essential oils of Nepeta species including Nepeta phyllochlamys P. H. Davis, N. nuda L. ssp. nuda, and N. caesarea Boiss. have been screened by use of the tail-flick and tail immersion (52.5 degrees C) methods. Of the species studied, only N. caesarea showed significant analgesic activity, besides marked sedation, which was also blocked by naloxone, indicating involvement of opioid receptors. Moreover, it was only active on mechanical, not thermal, algesic response which suggests specificity for specific opioid receptor subtypes, excluding mu-opioid receptors. Because 4a alpha,7alpha,7a alpha-nepetalactone is the main component of the essential oil of N. caesarea, and is present at very high levels (92-95% ), it is concluded that 4a alpha,7alpha,7a alpha-nepetalactone is the active principle and has a specific opioid receptor subtype agonistic activity.

PMID: 9720633 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
J Pharm Pharmacol 1998 Oct;50(10):1204. Baser C [corrected to Baser KH].


http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=9720633&dopt=Abstract
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It seems odd that only the Nepeta caesarea strain produced significant analgesia, and I wonder why they chose not to test Nepeta cataria. It's also strange that there haven't been more studies conducted about nepetalactone induced analgesia after the results of this study. I'd really like to have access to the full text of this article, that abstract is pretty weak.
 
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