it WAS the real stuff......total placebo.....like i said..modern science supports this...thats why its not illegal anymore in most places...
bench
Actually bench is spot on with this.
Effects
Absinthe has been frequently and incorrectly described in modern times as being hallucinogenic. In the 1970s, a scientific paper mistakenly reported thujone was related to THC, the active chemical in cannabis.[60] Ten years after his 19th century experiments with wormwood oil, Valentin Magnan studied 250 cases of alcoholism and claimed that those who drank absinthe were worse off than those drinking ordinary alcohol, and that they experienced rapid-onset hallucinations.[61] Such accounts by absinthe opponents were embraced by its most famous users, many of whom were bohemian artists or writers.[62]
Two famous painters who helped popularize the notion that absinthe had powerful psychoactive properties were Toulouse Lautrec and Vincent van Gogh. In one of the best known accounts of absinthe drinking, Oscar Wilde described the feeling of having tulips on his legs after leaving a bar.[63] Today it is known that absinthe does not cause hallucinations.[64] Thujone, the active chemical in absinthe, is a GABA antagonist; and while it can produce muscle spasms in large doses, there is not enough evidence that it causes hallucinations.[64] It has been speculated that reports of hallucinogenic effects of absinthe may have been due to poisonous chemicals being added to cheaper versions of the drink in the 19th century, to give it a more vivid colour.[65]
However, the debate over whether absinthe produces effects on the human mind additional to those of alcohol has not been conclusively resolved. The effects of absinthe have been described by some as mind opening.[64] The most commonly reported experience is a "clear-headed" feeling of inebriation—a form of "lucid drunkenness". Chemist, historian and absinthe distiller Ted Breaux has claimed that the alleged secondary effects of absinthe may be caused by the fact that some of the herbal compounds in the drink act as stimulants, while others act as sedatives, creating an overall lucid effect of awakening.[66] Long term effects of low absinthe consumption in humans remain unknown, although the herbs in absinthe have both painkilling[67] and antiparasitic[68] properties.
[edit]Controversy
It was once thought that excessive absinthe drinking had worse effects than those associated with overindulgence in other alcoholic drinks, a belief that led to diagnoses of the disease of "absinthism". One of the first vilifications of absinthe was an 1864 experiment in which a certain Dr. Magnan exposed a guinea pig to large doses of pure wormwood vapour and another to alcohol vapours. The guinea pig exposed to wormwood experienced convulsive seizures, while the animal exposed to alcohol did not. Magnan would later blame the chemical thujone, contained in wormwood, for these effects.[69]
Past reports estimated thujone levels in absinthe as being high—up to 260 mg/kg of absinthe.[70] More recently, published scientific analyses of samples of various original absinthes have disproven earlier estimates, showing that very little of the thujone present in wormwood actually makes it into a properly distilled absinthe when using historical recipes and methods. Most proper absinthes, both vintage and modern, are within the current EU limits.[71][72][73][74]
Tests on mice showed an LD50 of about 45 mg thujone per kg of body weight,[75] which is much more than could be consumed in absinthe. The high percentage of alcohol in absinthe would kill a person before the thujone would become life-threatening.[75] In documented cases of acute thujone poisoning as a result of oral ingestion,[76] the source of thujone was not commercial absinthe, but rather non-controversial sources such as common essential oils, which can contain as much as 50% thujone.[77]
A study in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol[78] concluded that high doses (0.28 mg/kg) of thujone in alcohol had negative effects on attention performance. It slowed down reaction time, and caused subjects to concentrate their attention in the central field of vision. Low doses (0.028 mg/kg)did not produce an effect noticeably different from plain alcohol. While the effects of this high dose were statistically significant in a double blind test, the test subjects themselves were unable to reliably identify which samples were the ones containing thujone. For the average 65 kg man, the high dose in the study would be 18.2 mg of thujone. The EU limit of 10 mg/L of thujone in absinthe means that about 1.8 liters of the highest legal thujone content absinthe would have to be drunk to reach the measured effects, a feat likely to cause alcohol poisoning.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absinthe
