To my way of thinking this is a good thing and there are 2 major ways of exploiting it
1. Grow massive quantities of the species and extract the salvinorin.
2. Using gene modification insert the genes for salvinorin into other plants or back into salvia plants which are hardy.
#1 will work if extraction is not that hard and if large amounts of biomass can be grown quickly and easily. You don't want to wait years for a few milligrams of salvinorin. Possibly graft it onto hardy rootstock? Hydroponics maybe?
#2 is not that far out. There are many labs doing gene splicing work on plants and animals. It would cost something to do it and there is no guarantee the sal production will be high and remain high. It may fade out after time or with lots of cloning
Sometimes genes inserted into a cell remain robust and are found in the offspring when the cell divides. But as in the case of bacteria which produce morphine, insulin or other drugs, the trait is rapidly lost and the bacteria must be replaced constantly. Since saliva produces it naturally, it may be that this would carry over well into clones or even seeds.
Some day we will be able to buy gene splicing kits for perhaps $1000 or less and do it ourselves. Making all sorts of drugs, thc, cbd, etc and etc. Since gene splicing to create drugs is an industry now, the technology is there, its just a matter of tapping into it. Anyone know a mad scientist who might be interested?
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Topic: New psychoactive Salvia species with Salvinorin A & B discovered! (Read 42497 times)