Statements dubious

I found the recent article about salvia (“Maine bill seeks regulation of legal hallucinogenic drug,” Dec. 29) both interesting and timely. However, I found the statements that the compound Salvinorin A is “similar to LSD” and “the most potent naturally occurring psychoactive drug known to date” to be dubious.

I was also alarmed to see Wikipedia cited as the source of this information. Wikipedia is, by its own description, “the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit.” Because literally anyone can edit Wikipedia entries, it is not a reliable source of information and frequently contains factual errors.

The Wikipedia entry on “Salvinorin A” footnotes the quotation above, referencing a journal article by Bryan L. Roth and colleagues (Roth BL, etal, Salvinorin A: A potent naturally occurring nonnitrogenous kappa opioid selective agonist, Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, 3 Sept. 2002, 99:11934-11939).

However, consulting this scholarly paper reveals that Salvinorin A is not chemically similar to LSD, nor does it have the same mechanism of action. In other words, it is not at all “similar to LSD.” Furthermore, the paper by Roth and colleagues does not support the assertion that Salvinorin A is “the most potent naturally occurring psychoactive drug.”

Anthony Miller, M.D.

Bangor