Subject: Re: Wormwood/Artemisia/Thujone

From: [email-masked] (Paul Iannone)
Date: 21 Jul 1995 16:59:51 GMT

In message ID <[email-masked]> on 7/20/95, Timothy J
Keenan wrote:

: Paul Iannone tells people not to make tea out of sagebrush
: (Artemisia sp)  because it is toxic (contains thujone and other
: terpenoids), but tells  people who rant about Absinthe (containing
: Wormwood, another Artemisia  sp. containing thujone and other
: terpenoids) that you can't say that  something is toxic because its
: individual ingredients are toxic. 

Maybe you're right. The concentration of thujone is certainly the issue,
however, as is the frequency of use of the herb containing it, and the
concentration of that plant in a beverage. That was the content of my prior
comments, to the best of my recollection. I am not an expert on western
herbs, so maybe sagebrush can be consumed as tea without undue toxic effects.
My comment was based on what I was told in a field botany class--not on a
reference, so perhaps I spoke too soon.

I note in passing that there are about 250 species in this genus, and many do
not contain thujone.

--Paul  ||  [email-masked]
--