Identification of legal highs--ergot alkaloid patterns in two Argyreia nervosa products

Nowadays psychoactive plants marketed as "legal highs" or "herbal highs" increase in popularity. One popular "legal high" are the seeds of the Hawaiian baby woodrose Argyreia nervosa (Synonym: Argyreia speciosa, Convolvolus speciosus). At present there exists no study on A. nervosa seeds or products, which are used by consumers. The quality of commercial available A. nervosa seeds or products is completely unknown. In the present study, a commercial available seed collection (five seeds labeled "flash of inspiration", FOI) was analyzed for ergot alkaloids together with an A. nervosa product (two preparations in capsule form, "druids fantasy", DF). For this purpose high performance liquid chromatography high resolution tandem mass spectrometry (HPLC-HRMS/MS) technique was employed. Besides the major ingredients such as lysergic acid amide (LSA) and ergometrine the well known A. nervosa compounds lysergol/elymoclavine/setoclavine, chanoclavine and the respective stereoisomers were detected in DF, while only LSA and ergometrine could be found in FOI. In addition, in DF lysergic acid was found, which has not been reported yet as ingredient of A. nervosa. In both products, DF as well as in FOI, LSA/LSA-isomers were dominant with 83-84% followed by ergometrine/ergometrinine with 10-17%. Therefore, LSA, followed by ergometrine/ergometrinine, could be confirmed to be the main ergot alkaloids present in A. nervosa seeds/products whereas the other ergot alkaloids seemed to be of minor importance (less than 6.1% in DF). The total ergot alkaloid amounts varied considerably between DF and FOI by a factor of 8.6 as well as the LSA concentration ranging from 3 μg (lowest amount in one FOI seed) to approximately 34 μg (highest amount in one DF capsule). Among the FOI seeds, the LSA concentration varied from approximately 3-15 μg per seed. Thus, the quality/potency of seeds/preparations depends on the amount of ergot alkaloids and the intensity of an expected trip is totally unpredictable.