Smoking catnip produces, at most, a very mild high along with a good chance of feeling unwell. The dried leaves of the catnip plant have been smoked for centuries, but the effects in humans are subtle and often overshadowed by unpleasant side effects like headaches, nausea, and vomiting.
What Smoking Catnip Actually Feels Like
People who smoke catnip report a short-lived, mild sense of relaxation or light euphoria. Some describe it as faintly similar to a very weak cannabis experience, but far less pronounced. WebMD notes that smoking dry catnip leaves has been linked with a high that “might cause impaired judgement,” but the emphasis here is on “might.” Many people who try it report feeling little to nothing at all.
The effects, when they do occur, appear to come on within minutes of inhalation and fade relatively quickly. There is no well-documented timeline in clinical literature, but anecdotal reports consistently describe the experience as brief, lasting roughly 15 to 30 minutes at most. For many people, the dominant experience is not a high but the side effects: headaches, vomiting, and a general feeling of being sick.
Why It Doesn’t Affect You Like a Cat
Cats go wild around catnip because a compound in the plant called nepetalactone triggers a specific response in their scent-processing system. It essentially mimics feel-good chemicals in the feline brain, producing that characteristic rolling, rubbing, and zoning-out behavior. Human brains don’t have this same wiring. Nepetalactone doesn’t bind to your receptors the same way, which is why the effects are so dramatically different between species. You’re not going to roll around on the floor in ecstasy.
There is some evidence that catnip can depress the central nervous system in humans when consumed in large amounts. A case report published in a medical journal documented a toddler who showed significant drowsiness after eating a large quantity of catnip, suggesting that the plant does have some sedative potential. But eating and smoking deliver compounds differently, and the amounts most people smoke are far smaller than what would be needed to produce strong sedation.
Side Effects and Safety Concerns
The most commonly reported side effects of smoking catnip are headaches, nausea, and vomiting. These can hit even with small amounts, and for some people, they’re the only noticeable effect. The experience of feeling generally ill is common enough that WebMD classifies inhaled catnip as “possibly unsafe.”
From a toxicity standpoint, catnip oil itself has a relatively low acute danger. Safety testing conducted on catnip oil for use as an insect repellent found that the acute inhalation toxicity threshold was extremely high, well above anything you’d encounter from smoking a bowl or rolling a joint’s worth of dried leaves. You’re unlikely to poison yourself. But “not acutely toxic” is not the same as “safe to smoke.” Burning any plant material and inhaling the smoke introduces tar, carbon monoxide, and other combustion byproducts into your lungs, which carry their own health risks regardless of what plant you’re smoking.
If you take any medications that cause drowsiness, such as sleep aids or anti-anxiety drugs, catnip’s mild sedative properties could stack on top of those effects in unpredictable ways.
The History Behind Smoking Catnip
This isn’t a new idea. Catnip has been used in herbal medicine since at least the 1700s, when it appeared in the General Irish Herbal as an ingredient in teas. In Appalachian folk medicine, catnip tea was a go-to remedy for stomach problems, anxiety, hives, and colds. The dried leaves were also smoked historically to treat respiratory ailments, which is somewhat ironic given that inhaling smoke generally makes respiratory problems worse.
Smoking catnip for recreational purposes peaked during the 1960s, when it was reportedly used for its euphoric effects alongside the broader counterculture interest in herbal psychoactives. It never gained lasting popularity, largely because the effects were too mild and inconsistent to compete with other substances available at the time. That pattern has repeated itself online, where curiosity drives people to try it and most walk away underwhelmed.
What You’re Likely to Experience
If you smoke a small amount of dried catnip, the most likely outcome is one of three scenarios: you feel almost nothing, you feel a faint pleasant relaxation for a few minutes, or you get a headache and feel nauseated. The “high” that some people chase is real but extremely mild, inconsistent from person to person, and generally not worth the discomfort that often comes with it. It’s not addictive, it won’t cause hallucinations, and it won’t produce anything close to the intensity of cannabis or other recreational substances it sometimes gets compared to.