Some friends of mine wired up a batch of sasafrass tea one time, and WHOOO! It rocked my world! Of course, I did drink quite a bit, so I got a large dose, but one of my more chemicaly minded fellow psychonauts kept rambling on about something in the sasafrass that acted as a kind of LSD helper...anybody know what that might be? Or was he just trippin'?
sassafrass roots (& bark & leaves) contain safrole or isosafrole (that root-beer smell...) safrole can be used as a precursor for laboratory production of mda (& mdma & related chems)... tissue homogenates of rabbit liver in test tubes have been shown to aminate the free safole they were exposed to into mda; there is no proof that human intact livers can do this, but also no proof that they cannot... so... it is possible that(at least some) humans can metabolize safrole into mda or something like it... BUT test animals exposed to large quantities of safrole eventually developed fatty depositis on their livers --- indicative of possible cirrhosis & also an indicator of possible cancer-causing ability of safrole... and large quantities of safrole (or many other "essential oils") can cause serious medical problems --- anything from sweats & shakes to convulsion to coma to death... so, a bit of sassy tea once in a while ("spring tonic") can be quite ummmmm energizing, but way too much all at once or a bit too much too dam' often is prolly bad for you... OK?
I knew safrole was toxic, though I had heard it was carcenogenic, but thanks for the biochemistry lesson.
