You did say it would make you hallucinate, which is false. It also has nothing to do with the sugar, sugar was simply added to balance the bitterness of the herbs.
http://www.thujone.info/absinthe_FAQ2.html
The chemical name for the principle active ingredient in wormwood is thujone. Thujone is a terpene and is related to menthol, which of
course is known for its healing and restorative qualities. In its chemically pure form, it is a colourless liquid with a menthol-like aroma. Oil
of Artemesia absinthium is typically approximately 60% thujone. Thujone – pronounced "thoo-jone" with a soft 'J' – is a naturally occurring
substance, also found in the bark of the thuja, or white cedar, tree, and in other herbs besides wormwood - including tansy and the
comon sage used in cooking. Aside from absinthe, other popular liquors, including vermouth, Chartreuse, and Benedictine, also contain
small amounts of thujone. In fact, vermouth, which was originally made using the flower heads from the wormwood plant, takes its name
from the German "wermut" ("wormwood").
Extremely high doses of thujone are however dangerous, and have been shown to cause convulsions in laboratory animals, but the
concentration of thujone actually found in absinthe is many thousands of times lower than this. Thujone's mechanism of action on the
brain is not fully understood although certain structural similarities between thujone and tetrahydrocannabinol (the active component in
marijuana) led to some speculation in the 1970's that both substances have the same site of action in the brain. More recent scientific
research however has completely discredited this idea.
Some researchers have now hypothesised that the reputed "secondary effects" of absinthe have nothing directly to do with thujone at all
- if they in fact exist at all, they may be caused by the interaction of some of the other constituent herbs ( fenchone in fennel,
pinocamphonethe in hyssop, and the anethole in anise, have all been shown to cause epileptiform convulsions in laboratory animals
when administered in very large doses).
The effect of well-made absinthe varies from person to person, but is typically no more marked than the mild “buzz” one gets from
drinking tequila. Generally, it can best be described as a kind of heightened clarity of mind and vision, warmed by the effect of the alcohol.
This seems to wear off after 20 or 30 minutes. Some users report unusually vivid dreams. Since absinthe is 55% -72% alcohol, the
alcohol's effects will in any event limit the amount of thujone you can ingest. Most modern “legal” absinthes, in keeping with EU
regulations, contains less than 10mg of thujone per litre, and recent research has shown that pre-ban Pernod Fils, contrary to ill-informed
speculation by several authors, including Strang and Arnold in a widely quoted 1999 British Medical Journal article, also had relatively
low thujone levels.
Increasingly it seems clear in fact that well-made absinthes following authentic traditional recipes seldom have thujone levels much in
excess of 35mg/l, the EU standard for thujone in bitters (a category that can, in practice, include absinthe), and many quite naturally fall
under the 10mg/l level. It seems that irrespective of the quantity of wormwood used, relatively little thujone makes it through the distilling
process into the final distillate. So the entire historical demonization of absinthe based on its allegedly high thujone content now appears
to have been based on a wholly false premise.
