By Phil Williams

Escape reality with the Green Fairy, the potent drink that promises such clarity you’ll see things that aren’t even real. Absinth is famous the world over as more than a drink, for causing fits, hallucinations and the dreaded absinthism addiction. Associated with warping the minds of a wide range of 19th Century artists, from Oscar Wilde to Vincent van Gogh, from its origins in France to its settling in the heart of Bohemia (where its final 'e' is dropped), just how dangerous is this typically bohemian tipple?

Absinth takes its name from the wormwood plant it is distilled from, Artemisia absinthium, and its secondary effects have been commonly attributed to this herb. Its medical use has been known since Ancient Egypt, 1500 BC, but the drink really became popular in Europe during the 19th Century as a treatment for malaria. By 1915, absinth was banned across most of Europe, plagued by horror stories of its effects, but since the 1990s EU regulations have allowed its gradual return.

Thujone is the chemical from wormwood that is popularly blamed for the demonised power of absinth. In the 1970s it was linked to THC, the hallucinogenic in marijuana, which was later disputed. In fact, numerous studies have shown thujone is not a hallucinogenic at all, but a GABA: the most extreme effects it can cause, and only through massive doses, are muscle spasms and anxiety disorders.

Such doses of thujone are never seen in commercial absinth: alcohol poisoning will claim you long before the thujone. Similarly, research has never proved absinthism, the addiction to absinth, as anything more dramatic than common alcoholism. What absinth will provide is lucid drunkenness, however; an apparent clarity of mind, commonly accounted for by its combination of both stimulant and sedative qualities.

Despite a lack of empirical evidence for their existence, the mysterious dangers of absinth are still commonly used to sell the drink. Popular legend allows the belief in its drug-like qualities to persist; in all likelihood, though, the tulips Oscar Wilde perceived on his legs and the fit that led to the loss of van Gogh’s ear were not caused by any poisons you’ll find in absinth today.

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