Salvia Divinorum
Little is known about the drug, salvia divinorum, or how it works on the
brain and what its longterm effects might be. But word of its existence is
spreading through e-mail chains and Web sites praising its potential, which has
caught the attention of the American Drug Enforcement Administration. The DEA
has now included it on its list of "Drugs and Chemicals of Concern" and is
considering whether to add the herb to its list of controlled substances
Some researchers who have studied it and other hallucinogens doubt the DEA
needs to worry much, and say they don't believe the herb will live up to the
hype seen on some of the Web sites.
Still, the Internet descriptions of the herb's effects, albeit more subdued,
would be familiar to anyone who remembers the 1960s, when Harvard University
professors Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert began proselytizing for LSD's power
to help people expand their consciousness.
Then, reports of "bad trips" and allegations that LSD use would lead to
chromosome damage and widespread birth defects, which were never borne out by
studies of users of the drug, helped to create a backlash against "acid" that
quickly led to it being outlawed.
Forty years later, the fate of salvia, is still in the doubt. And there are
many differences between it, LSD and the cultures that surround both. LSD was
manmade and new, while salvia, a perennial in the mint family that is native to
parts of Oaxaca, Mexico, has been used by Indians there for centuries as a
healing and divining tool.
And unlike the champions of LSD in the 1960s, those running the Web sites
offering salvia d are not portraying the herb as a wonder drug without any
potential problems for users.
Also, while Leary and Alpert spread their words far and wide, those offering
salvia divinorum for sale, and even some researching it, are reluctant to draw
widespread attention to the herb. They say on the one hand that publicity might
attract users looking for a new "recreational drug," which they emphasize salvia
divinorum is not, and on the other that it could prompt the DEA to take action
against it without a full review of the case.
One site posts an extensive list of academic articles discussing the herb's
use by Indians in Mexico and how it works chemically on the brain. Among the
articles is Salvinorin A: Notes of Caution by Daniel J. Siebert, the
ethnobotanist who runs the site.
"Salvinorin A (the major active principal of the plant Salvia d) is an
extremely powerful consciousness altering compound," the article begins. " In
fact, it is the most potent naturally occurring hallucinogen thus far isolated.
But before would-be experimenters get too worked-up about it, it should be made
clear that the effects are often extremely unnerving and there is a very real
potential for physical danger with its use."
What Does It Do?
Smoking or chewing the leaves of the plant sends the user on a trip that
according to accounts posted on various sites can be even more intense than the
LSD experience, but unlike an LSD trip, which can last six hours or more, the
Mexican herb's effects usually last less than an hour, with a peak of only 20
minutes or less.
One woman who has experimented with the herb told ABCNEWS that she lost touch
with her surroundings for only a few minutes, but during the experience it
seemed much longer, and she found it difficult to describe everything she saw,
heard and felt
"At first I was able to tell myself, 'This is the drug,'" she said. "Then it
didn't seem to matter so much what it was that was doing it, I just let it all
come. I think there were moments when I was scared to death, but something kept
comforting me."
The greatest danger, according to Siebert's article, comes when too much of
the active ingredient gets into the user's system too quickly.
Dr. John Halpern, a psychiatrist with McLean Hospital, a teaching hospital
affiliated with Harvard University, said there are other dangers with salvia d,
but they are dangers associated with other hallucinogens and with alcohol when
they are used by people in their late teens and early 20s, when the brain is
still maturing. These substances can aggravate tendencies towards schizophrenia,
said Halpern, who has received a career development award from the National
Institute on Drug Abuse.
The enthusiasm over LSD included hopes that the drug could be a valuable tool
for psychotherapy, and similar claims are made in some of the literature about
divinorum, but the caution and detailed recommendations regarding dosage and
preparing the proper atmosphere are a marked difference from the era of "acid
tests." "If you choose to pursue a relationship with this plant please treat it
with respect and care," Siebert's article says. "Perhaps if people can use the
plant safely and responsibly it will be able to grow and thrive freely into the
future."
Perhaps the biggest question about the drug is how it works.
"Nobody has a clue," said Purdue University professor of medicinal chemistry
and molecular pharmacology John Nichols, who has studied the effects of
hallucinogens on the brain for 20 years. Nichols is among the scientists who has
given information about the drug to the DEA. He said attempts to discover which
part of the brain the drug works on have thus far been unsuccessful. When tests
involving the most common brain receptors were performed, the active ingredient
in the herb, Salvinorum A, did not seem to bind to any of them. When asked about
potential dangers, he said thus far none have been identified, other than the
potential for an unpleasant experience with the herb, which he said has more of
a "disorienting" effect than other hallucinogens.
"We haven't really heard of any adverse reactions," he said. "Like LSD, when
the dose is so small, unless it's a toxin it really can't damage most of your
organ systems." Dr. Edward Boyer, an assistant professor of emergency medicine
and the director of the toxicology fellowship training program at the University
of Massachusetts, said that over the last three years he has seen no cases of
people suffering any toxic effect from salvia statewide in Massachusetts. He
warned, though, that there could be health concerns if it were taken along with
antidepressants — a combination he said could cause hypertension, high blood
pressure or strokes.
And there is always the danger of "merging," when a person using the drug
feels the need to merge with another object. "You may try to merge with an open
window and fall out," he said.
Legal Issues
A DEA spokeswoman said the administration does not comment on the specifics of
its consideration of substances while they are under review. At the Food and
Drug Administration, which also must review a substance before it is put on the
controlled substances list, two spokeswomen said they had no record of any study
being under way. The DEA Diversion Control Program has included divinorum on its
list of Drugs and Chemicals of Concern, and in a statement about the herb
compares the active ingredient it contains to that in absinthe and to THC, which
is found in marijuana. "There has been a growing interest among young adults and
adolescents to re-discover ethnobotanical plants that can induce changes in
perception, hallucinations or other psychologically-inducing changes," the
statement said. "Since Salvia is not specifically listed in the Controlled
Substances Act, many on-line botanical companies and drug promotional sites have
advertised Salvia as a legal alternative to other plant hallucinogens like
mescaline.
Chemical Questions
There are still more questions than answers about salvia. According to
researchers, divinorum acts on the brain in a way that has not been seen before,
and for that reason it deserves more study. Like the peyote cactus, which
contains mescaline, and psyllocibin mushrooms, salvia has long been used by
American Indians as a tool for divine visions as part of religious practices.
But it is different because the hallucinations it creates are not dependent on
the physical environment around the person using the drug.
Whereas a person on an LSD trip or eating peyote might see patterns or
ripples appear in the walls around them — their perception is altered — someone
who has used divinorum truly hallucinates — he sees and hears things that are
not there. Work done so far has determined that salvia operates on a receptor
system in the brain that was previously unknown, and the study of the aspects of
consciousness controlled by that area could lead to advances in both medicine
and psychology, Russo said, pointing to the gains made through the studies of
how opiates and cannabis affect the brain.
A Religious History
Ethnobiologists and anthropologists have been aware of salvia since at least the
early 1960s, when R. Gordon Wasson wrote an article published by Harvard
University's Botanical Museum, entitled, A New Mexican Psychotropic Drug from
the Mint Family. Though there are accounts of the use of psychotropic plants by
the Indians of Central America dating back to the time of the Spanish conquest
in the 16th century, and as early as the 1930s anthropologists recorded that the
Mazatecs were using leaves to produce a tea for divination, it was not until
Wasson's expeditions in 1950s and early 1960s that salvia was identified.
The article recounted Wasson's exploration of the remote mountainous regions
of Oaxaca, where the Mazatec Indians live. He said the Mazatec used divinorum in
their religious practices "as a less desirable substitute" when the psychotropic
mushrooms they prefer were not available. According to Wasson, the Mazatec often
used the herb, which they called hojas de la Pastora or hojas de Maria Pastora,
as a curing or divining tool — to determine what illness a person might be
suffering from or to learn the facts of a crime that might have been committed
against him. In those ceremonies, though, it was usually the shaman alone who
took the herb, not the patient.
An article by Leander J. Valdes III, Jose Luis Diaz and Ara G. Paul published
in 1982 in The Journal of Ethnopharmacology, "Ethnopharmacology of ska Maria
Pastora" provided more detail, recounting several ceremonies in which the herb
was used. According Halpern, the herb's potential is also being explored by a
group of religious people in the United States who are "finding it is useful in
their practice." He said he preferred no to identify the group other than to say
they are "middle-class, responsible people."
Controlling Consciousness
While accounts of experiences on the drug range from blissful, to mystically
illuminating to terrifying, the issue that concerns the DEA should be public
health issues, not people's experiments with their consciousness, supporters of
the drug's legal status say.
"We see this as the government confusing its own rules with respect to
drugs," Boire said. "Yes, they have a responsibility with respect to public
health, but they're confusing that with a responsibility to prevent people from
altering their consciousness." The question, he said, is deeper than the right
to free speech — it is the right to control your own consciousness. The small
number of people experimenting with salvia , and the even smaller number who
want to repeat the experience, together with the lack of evidence indicating
health risks make it clear that the herb is not a public health problem, he
said.
"There needs to be a lot of thinking about whether doing something like this
really does any good," he said. "If salvia d is made illegal, to some people
it's going to become more attractive. We worry about the knee-jerk reaction when
we hear about people altering their consciousness and we think, 'What can we do
about it?'" An Oregon man who tried divinorum said when he was younger he tried
other hallucinogens such as peyote and psylocybin several times but didn't
expect to repeat the Mexican herb.
"Nothing I had done prepared me for it — I mean I thought I knew what these
things did to you," he said. "I found it valuable, I felt like it re-opened some
things that maybe had started to close up in me, but I don't think I want to go
back." "I can't preclude there's something special about salvia because of the
shaman connection," Halpern said. "It's a tool that's remained in the shaman's
bag and that's probably where it should stay."
Original article by Dean Schabner of ABC News
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