This is Starwest's nitrogen-flushed double wall silverfoil pack.

Used as an infusion, decoction, extract, tincture and smoke.

Have you ever seen a cat on catnip? It's hilarious – they go bonkers.

The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA, vol. 207, pages 1349-1350, 1969) published a paper that described the psychoactive effects of catnip in people. People who smoked catnip were said to become happy and relaxed.

Catnip has always been used by people, for whom it is a mild, safe sedative.

Catnip tea was a regular beverage in England before the introduction of tea from China.

It is a traditional cold remedy. It also is traditonally used for upset stomach and children's ailments, such diarrhea, hysteria and nightmare.

The essential oil in catnip contains a monoterpene similar to the valepotriates found in valerian, an even more widely renowned sedative. Animal studies (except those involving cats) have found it to increase sleep. The monoterpenes also help with coughs.

Grieve's classic 'A Modern Herbal': 'Carminative, tonic, diaphoretic, refrigerant and slightly emmenagogue, specially antispasmodic, and mildly stimulating.'

'Producing free perspiration, it is very useful in colds. Catnep Tea is a valuable drink in every case of fever, because of its action in inducing sleep and producing perspiration without increasing the heat of the system.'

'It is good in restlessness, colic, insanity and nervousness, and is used as a mild nervine for children, one of its chief uses being, indeed, in the treatment of children's ailments.'

'The infusion of 1 oz. to a pint of boiling water may be taken by adults in doses of 2 tablespoonsful, by children in 2 or 3 teaspoonsful frequently, to relieve pain and flatulence. An injection of Catnep Tea is also used for colicky pains.'

'The herb should always be infused, boiling will spoil it. Its qualities are somewhat volatile, hence when made it should be covered up.'

'The tea may be drunk freely, but if taken in very large doses when warm, it frequently acts as an emetic.'

'It has proved efficacious in nervous headaches and as an emmenagogue, though for the latter purpose, it is preferable to use Catnep, not as a warm tea, but to express the juice of the green herb and take it in tablespoonful doses, three times a day.'

'An injection of the tea also relieves headache and hysteria, by its immediate action upon the sacral plexus. The young tops, made into a conserve, have been found serviceable for nightmare.'

'Catnep may be combined with other agents of a more decidedly diaphoretic nature. Equal parts of warm Catnep tea and Saffron are excellent in scarlet-fever and small-pox, as well as colds and hysterics. It will relieve painful swellings when applied in the form of a poultice or fomentation.'

'Old writers recommended a decoction of the herb, sweetened with honey for relieving a cough, and Culpepper tells us also that 'the juice drunk in wine is good for bruises,' and that 'the green leaves bruised and made into an ointment is effectual for piles,' and that 'the head washed with a decoction taketh away scabs, scurf, etc.'

King's 1898 Dispensatory: 'Catnip is diaphoretic and carminative in warm infusion; tonic when cold. It is also antispasmodic, emmenagogue, and diuretic.'

'In warm infusion it is used in febrile diseases as a diaphoretic, and to promote the action of other diaphoretics, as well as to allay spasmodic action and produce sleep; it is also given as a carminative and antispasmodic in the flatulent colic of children; and as an emmenagogue or uterine tonic, it has proved decidedly beneficial in amenorrhoea and dysmenorrhoea, and has likewise been successfully employed in nervous headache, hysteria, and nervous irritability.'

'The leaves are reputed beneficial in toothache, when masticated and applied to the decayed tooth. A warm infusion of saffron and catnip is a very popular and beneficial remedy in colds, febrile and exanthematous diseases to which infants and young children are subject.'

'The infusion is very defficient in allaying the irritability and nervousness of dyspeptics. A fluid extract of catnip, valerian, and scullcap forms an excellent agent for the cure of nervous headache, restlessness, and many other nervous symptoms.'

'The expressed juice of the herb, given in doses of a tablespoonful 2 or 3 times a day, is decidedly a superior remedy in amenorrhoea, often restoring the menstrual secretion after other means have failed.'

'The leaves are frequently used in fomentation as a local application to painful and inflammatory affections. Of the dried leaves in powder, 2 drachms may be given for a dose in some liquid, as cold or warm water; the infusion (1 ounce of the recently dried herb to 1 pint of boiling water) may be drunk warm as freely as the stomach will permit. Specific nepeta cataria, 2 to 60 drops.'

Eclectic Materia Medica, 1922 (Felter): 'A safe and valuable, though simple carminative, diaphoretic (in warm infusion), and tonic (cold infusion). A splendid quieting agent for fretful babies, and carminative and antispasmodic for abdominal pain with flatulence.'

'When marked nervous agitation precedes menstruation in feeble and excitable women and the function is tardy or imperfect, this simple medicine gives great relief. It is especially valuable for the nervous irritability of dyspeptics, nervous headache, atonic amenorrhoea and dysmenorrhea, and wards off nervous or hysterical attacks. The warm infusion is an admirable remedy to break up 'common colds' by diaphoresis, and to determine eruptions to the skin in the exanthemata.'

'If less ridiculed and more used, in place of far less safer remedies, 'catnep tea' would be found a very useful medicine for women and children. It should not be sweetened. Where the added effects of alcohol are needed, or when the freshly dried herb cannot be obtained, the specific medicine may be used in place of the infusion.'