Talk:Salvia divinorum/Archive 2

message: How about burn the stuff haha
Some of those forums are quite small! Should we really bother putting them there? For example, the BeSaged forum only has 21 members, why not just list those forums that actually have a significantly-sized population? 134.114.231.38 05:24, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Forums 

message: an image of the plant leaves would ba appropriate. perhaps a trip to erowid would yield some success. Lockeownzj00 22:29, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Use caution. Virtually all of erowid.org content including images are copyrighted and wouldn't be compatible with the GFDL, making their use here a clear copyvio. --Bk0 22:40, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)

text: Hi carl.  just go to special:upload, and you can upload the pics.  then we can put them in the article.  cheers --heah 03:55, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

text: Thanks for the picture Carl. I’ve included it in main article in the Botany section. --SallyScot 21:29, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

text: Hi Sally Scot!   I have an Olympus 6 Megapixel camera this year and, here in San Diego, CA (USA) flowering season is now beginning again. I Should be able to get the same "Poses" I had last year, but with much clearer results. (Plants are easy to pose.)  Is there any particular Shot you'd like?  Also, the picture that's there October 29th is better than Mine: that's OK!  But I might be one of the few people that can get Sharp Pictures of Seeds Ripening up inside their Calices  for you - If you WANT that sort of Thing, that is!  ;-)  Carl McCall 19:07, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Images 

message: I recently took down the header levels in this article because they were using level 1 headers (=Header=), and it is common practice around here to use level 2 headers (==Header==) at the top of the hierarchy. My edit was quickly reverted, though. Why is that? (If I had to guess, I'd say one User:SallyScot has some issues regarding ownership.) --Burstroc 09:54, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Header levels 

message: Thinking how better to organise discussion subjects I’ve broadly split in two main sections so that points raised regarding older edits of the main article, and hopefully now resolved, can be seen separately from ongoing discussions. 
Also, I suggest that if a discussion topic relates to a particular section / subsection of the main article then its title should reflect that. 
If I’ve moved a subject into Older / Resolved category and you think it should be ongoing and/or want to open it up again then feel free to move it up. --SallyScot 22:20, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm putting it back.  this makes things sorta confusing.  it's just standard to always start new talk page topics at the bottom, so page flows in the proper direction, and since that's how everything else is . . .  as is remarked earlier, we generally don't use those single headers either.  oh, and every now and then we can archive the page to get rid of old stuff.  cheers --heah 03:55, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

text: well, i think if you're editing here you quickly get used to the running order.  newer things simply get added at the bottom . . . i think we should avoid level one headers as we just don't really use them here.  i didn't even know they existed. old sections, ones with no comments for a while, can be archived; if we don't simply put the page in normal order and move stuff around, that makes archiving the page more difficult.  i'm going to go ahead and archive some of the page now.  --heah 06:37, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Discussion section running order

message: There are concerns with the side-effects of some acne medications and their possible links to depression and suicide. The most notorious of these is isotretinoin, commonly marketed under the trade names Accutane or Roaccutane.  
Initial news stories about Brett Chidester’s suicide did not mention his acne medication.  
Senator Karen Peterson, who introduced 'Brett's Law' making Salvia divinorum illegal (Schedule-I classification) in the state of Delaware, said, on 14th April 2006 (the day after the bill was signed into law and nearly three months after Brett's death) - "there has never been any mention of Brett Chidester taking acne medication -- and I have spent a lot of time talking with his parents about these issues".
Despite this, it did later emerge that Brett was taking treatment for acne. On the Brett Chidester discussion page a user claiming to represent the family has said - "his parents spent countless dollars and hours seeing to it that he wouldn't suffer from acne".  
His parents have admitted the fact that Brett was receiving treatment, claiming however that the medication was not Accutane but minocycline.  Minocycline has not been so particularly linked to depression or increased incidences of suicide.
The Salvia article thus should not reasonably suggest acne medication as a contributory factor. It is more reasonable to suggest acne alone, since, regardless of medication, acne itself does have a general association with depression and thoughts of suicide.   
--SallyScot 10:56, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Very well said, my friend.  Speaking of not knocking something until one tries it, I would like to try Salvia while I'm still allowed to. (I am completely against using any illegal substance or partaking in any activity my highly qualified, well-informed senators deem scientifically harmful.) As Salvia is still perfectly legal in 44 (I think?) states, I'd like to see what all the fuss is about; so that I can then proceed to bash it or praise it with full confidence that my views have not been biased by either side's propaganda mills.  Is it completely idealistic to ask the Big Wigs of this article to provide better information about how to find, purchase and use Salvia legally in the United States?  Or should curious teenagers look for less reliable info in more dangerous arenas?  M. Frederick 21:02, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Brett Chidester]] and acne

message: Note that the main article's Legal status section has been migrated to new Legal_status_of_Salvia_divinorum article. Current Legal status discussion has been migrated accordingly. --SallyScot 22:25, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Legal status: Utah - Rep. Paul Ray quote

message: I don't agree with the statement that salvia extraction should only be attempted by chemist who own an analytic scale.   Many non-qualified users extract Salvinorin A and partially clean the resulting wax/crystal mix only to return it to a smaller amount of leaf or a substrate.  They choose the amount of leaf or substrate to deposit the salvinorin onto and so control the dosage by ratio of substrate to the original leaf mass. 
—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 81.178.116.1 (talk • contribs).
I take your point. I've reworded the Chemistry section.
--SallyScot 00:16, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: See what Wikipedia is not (WP:NOT).  Wikipedia is not a how-to guide, so the content would be as inappropriate as a guide explaining how to extract a tooth. Reswobslc 07:50, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

text: There are rules as to what's allowed and what's not allowed in Wikipedia.  While I applaud your efforts to improve the article, the rule WP:OR (no original research) is non-negotiable.  Please read it carefully.  It says that the only things allowed in Wikipedia are things that quote reliable third-party sources, and is not a place for you to publish the results of your own experimentation.  My reworking of the content is to make it conform to this rule, whether my suggestion that Mr. Hazlett was editing here is true or not.  Bottom line, the standard for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability based on third-party published sources, not truth.  So even if the sky is verifiably blue and the sun rises in the east, Wikipedia cannot report on that until someone else does first, and then Wikipedia reports on that report.  Please read the policy and you'll better know where I am coming from. Reswobslc 14:39, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

text: I've included a reference to the citation --SallyScot 19:42, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Chemistry

message: I am curious why the article read and was changed back to read that expert chemists go for crystals and amateurs don't bother with crystals and instead settle for some sort of wax/crystal paste.
The first time I ever extracted Salvinorin, I botched the instructions so bad you'd never have expected me to get crystals and yet I still did.  They had a small amount of green stuff on them, but they were undeniably crystals.  I'm as much an amateur chemist as anybody, yet if I attempted the extraction over again on new leaves, I'm sure I'd have crystals yet again, and probably much cleaner ones.
Further, the way I consume them is by vaporizing them, using acetone as a solvent to measure the dose.  I avoid all the smoke that way (100% odorless), and keeps my house from stinking.  I believe Siebert's "you need a super expensive scale to safely vaporize" is a little biased given his high-profit Salvia business, when there is a safe and effective way for anyone to measure minute quantities of Salvinorin.  (Though I agree with him in his efforts to discourage amateur experimentation with vaporization, as he's right that you can inhale a lot of Salvinorin and not know it until you come back from planet Zulu.)
Even a high school student could figure out that a known quantity of Salvinorin can be dissolved in a solvent, then a proportional quantity of the solvent measured out (with eyedroppers, syringes, etc) and the solvent evaporated, and the resulting residue of Salvinorin would be a spot-on accurate quantity of total salvinorin multiplied by solvent evaporated divided by total solvent used.  The fact that a given solvent can only hold a specific quantity of Salvinorin per milliliter or drop before it precipitates out acts a safety net/sanity check.
My Salvia is kept in the form of a 1-ounce eyedropper acetone-and-Salvinorin bottle.  See photo in article of Salvinorin stain on aluminum foil - this is mine.  If I want to do some Salvia I drip six to eight drops on some aluminum , foil, wait for the acetone to evaporate, and grab the lighter.  I estimate my solution to contain 0.1 to 0.2 mg Salvinorin per drop, and the desired level is easily controlled by the number of drops.  (warning to anyone else: your solution could be much stronger, as acetone is reported to hold 20+ mg/ml, which would be several times stronger than mine, and one or two drops would be more than enough to knock you over.  Experiment with one drop of any new solution first before advancing dose.)
Both of these challenge the assumptions in the article in several ways:
* I believe Siebert's warning is biased and while there is some merit to it, it reaches too far
* There is more than one way to measure small quantities
* Amateurs can and do extract crystals (which, if not vaporized, are incidentally pretty safe to handle as well).
Reswobslc 19:16, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Concentrate vs crystals 

message: The scientific literature assumes that 'standard' extraction techniques are used which involve using 'common' non-polar solvents, analytic scales and chromotography and so these are not usually fully described fully in the literature.  A brief summary of the standard scientific method is:  
* Use a non-polar solvent such as acetone, hexane, methanol, or isopropyl alcohols to extract the Salvinorin from the leaf, acetone being the most effective for Salvinorin A.  Since Salvinorin A is very soluble in acetone, the extraction time can be quite short with cooling being used to reduce the extraction of unwanted substances.
* Separate the resulting mix of Salvinorin A-F, lipids and other unwanted chemicals using chromatography, typically through activated carbon or a silica gel column.  
* If extraction of larger quantities is required then the common method is to use multiple washes of the waxy extract in a non-polar solvent that can dissolve lipids but not the chemical of interest, a typical choice of solvent] being Naptha.
The scientific method is designed to separate the Salvinorin A from all of the other chemicals present in the plant, where as an amateur has no need to completely isolate all of the chemicals.  As such, the typical technique used by an amateur does not involve chromatography.  Various public domain on-line articles describe an inefficient extraction method and some even fail to include vital points, such as how Salvinorum A is sensitive to light and heat when dissolved in a solvent.  Amateur users most commonly return the extract to a small quantity of leaf, and less often onto to some other substrate such as paper, starch (wafer), or redissolve into a solvent such as pure ethanol or acetone.
I can provide several references if the extraction process is decided to be a suitable addition to the article.  
Most Salvinorin users do not vaporise the pure crystal because it is harder to come by and more effort to produce than buying over the counter enhanced leaf.  Further, there is more information in the public domain regarding the use of x-factor enhanced leaf than pure extract. It is technically involved to judge the dosage of pure Salvinorin, e.g. using the known solubility of Salvinorin A in acetone or by using analytical scales.  Perhaps most importantly, there are numerous safety issues regarding the solvents used in the extraction process.
Would it be useful to include the solubility of Salvinorin A in various solvents in the article.  This is of great interest to the amateur chemists out there and is good as general reference for researchers. Perhaps again is this straying away from what is suitable? 81.178.116.1 16:54, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: See what Wikipedia is not (WP:NOT).  Wikipedia is not a how-to guide, so the content would be as inappropriate as a guide explaining how to extract a tooth. Reswobslc 07:50, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

text: There are rules as to what's allowed and what's not allowed in Wikipedia.  While I applaud your efforts to improve the article, the rule WP:OR (no original research) is non-negotiable.  Please read it carefully.  It says that the only things allowed in Wikipedia are things that quote reliable third-party sources, and is not a place for you to publish the results of your own experimentation.  My reworking of the content is to make it conform to this rule, whether my suggestion that Mr. Hazlett was editing here is true or not.  Bottom line, the standard for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability based on third-party published sources, not truth.  So even if the sky is verifiably blue and the sun rises in the east, Wikipedia cannot report on that until someone else does first, and then Wikipedia reports on that report.  Please read the policy and you'll better know where I am coming from. Reswobslc 14:39, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Extraction of Salvinorin A

message: I've just changed the headings relating to the extraction of salvinorin so that it's now a (single) subsection of the Chemistry section. However, subject to further discussion, I also suggest that detail be migrated to the pre-existing Salvinorin A article.
--SallyScot 13:31, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I've included a reference to the citation --SallyScot 19:42, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Move to [[Salvinorin A]] article

message: Hi Dusenostachys123, and welcome to Wikipedia. Thank you for your contributions to the Salvia divinorum article so far, but just a quick word about use of the 'Save page' button when editing. While it's ordinarily good practice to save regularly when working on a word processing type task, it's worth noting that in Wikipedia's editor 'Save page' actually means publish page. In other words, it posts the changes you've made so far to the article, and (importantly) it also creates an entry in the revision history log. So, if we look for example at the revision history for the Salvia divinorum article  around the 26th - 29th December 2006, we see you've created nearly 200 entries, one for each time you saved. This rather clutters the revision history. It would be helpful if you could instead consider working out some of your longer edits beforehand, e.g. in your own word processing application, then copy paste the text into Wikipedia's editor and publish them after your work is complete. Remember also that the 'Show preview' button can be used to test out how the edit is going to look - e.g. to check that links and references look and work as intended. - Hope that helps. Thanks. 
--SallyScot 16:36, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Sally, you keep putting these statements in the MY TALK for me but I don't even know how to talk back to you via this board and have no idea what you are talking about with all of the references to hundreds of edits, where in the hell is that kept? Also, my buddy appears to have taken down the chemistry section when trying to put my own stuff back up that someone had completely deleted today. You might want to go put it back, I do not have a copy to do so or I would. Duesnostachys...
---
Hi Duesnostachys. You can reply to points I've made on your Talk page by putting an entry on your Talk page. You can also put copies or new topics of conversation between us on my Talk page. 
If the topic is specifically about edits to a Wikipedia article then use the Talk page for the article (e.g. Talk:Salvia divinorum - this page, or Talk: Salvinorin A).
If you click the History tab on the Salvia divinorum article you should see what I mean about hundreds of edits. E.g. check this link, and, go 'back' on that link to see earlier edits. 
Also, that someone who deleted the Chemistry detail on the Salvia divinorum article - that was me. 
Actually I haven't deleted it. I've moved the extraction / isolation detail to Salvinorin A article. 
The way I see it, technical detail about the extraction / isolation of salvinorin is most suited in the Salvinorin article
If you want to move it back - please discuss above.
--SallyScot 02:11, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Use of the 'Save page' button when editing

message: When I accessed this page on 18 January 2007, there was a whole list of links to a company where you can buy all manner of drugs. This list of links was not put in at the bottom of the article either, but in the section on Salvia divinorum's history.
I tried to edit the page, but on the edit page, these links did not appear, so I couldn't remove them.
As far as I know, Wiki articles are not supposed to be forums for posting spam?
—Preceding unsigned comment added by 196.207.47.60 (talk • contribs) 
:Well although there was an incident today where someone spammed the page, it was reverted within 2 minutes.  Perhaps you viewed the page while it was spammed, and it was reverted between the time you saw it and pressed Edit.  I am unsure of the timeframe of your message, as you indicate you saw the spam on Jan 18th, but your message was written on the 17th so I am guessing the actual time. Reswobslc 06:09, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Spam 

message: I know this won't go over well with those who reside in the "Drugs are Bad, period" camp; but as Salvia is still perfectly legal in roughly 90% of the United States, I would like to experiment with it--to see what all the fuss is about.  That way, I can proceed to bash it or praise it with full confidence that my views have not been biased by either side's propaganda mills. Is it completely unrealistic to ask the Big Wigs of this article to provide better information about how one might find, purchase and use Salvia legally in the United States? Or should curious minds (many of whom are teenagers) search for info in less reliable, more dangerous arenas? M. Frederick 01:13, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well with it being legal and all, it's not like you need to go to a dark alley in Compton, California at 2AM to get it.  If there weren't 100+ Salvia divinorum auctions up on eBay right now, and if "buy salvia divinorum" didn't turn up half a dozen Salvia shops on Google, someone might have felt it deserved an explanation.  Usually we remove "buy salvia" links out of the article because they're almost always spam. Reswobslc 05:12, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

text: Because you didn't ask "Dude, where can I get some Salvia", to which the correct answer would be "Currently, Salvia may be purchased on eBay".  Rather, you made a vague inquiry, which can be read to mean anything between "Will you please add this information to the article", to "Where should teenagers like me go to get our Salvia"?  Asking something online when it's clear you couldn't bother to Google it yourself is inviting contempt, and many of us believe that Salvia divinorum is not for teenagers.  In any case, if you want a direct answer, ask a direct question! Reswobslc 08:35, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

text: OK, Mr. Frederick, did you find what you were looking for then?  It's clear you're frustrated with what you're being told, but it is not clear what more you're looking for.  Either I'm short a clue, or you are just trolling for a reaction.  I recommend you go buy your Salvia and smoke smoke smoke.  The original research rule refers to article content, not discussion pages, so your opinion is just as welcome as mine here. Reswobslc 03:15, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Request for Better Info on How to Acquire (Legally) and Use (Legally) Salvia