TROUBL

A federal study recently revealed that Salvia divinorum, a legal intoxicant being studied for its medicinal purposes, is the most potent hallucinogenic herb known to man. Not only powerful, the New York Times reported, it’s also much more popular than researchers had realized. Around 1.8 million Americans polled reported having tried Salvia, making it almost as popular as Ecstasy and far more prevalent than LSD, to which it has often been compared.

This news comes on the tail of a recent trend on the part of state governments, banning the sale and use of the herb. Over the past several years, 13 states have criminalized the possession and use of Salvia, and now that The New York times has printed a story revealing its potency and popularity, it seems likely that the issue may be on its way to the national spotlight.

Researchers are wary of additional attention being paid to Salvia, fearing that if a Federal ban were to come to pass (one was proposed in 2002, and eventually defeated, but the issue is far from dead at the Federal level), their research could be slowed or even halted. Scientists studying Salvia hope to isolate certain chemicals that could be used in brain medications to help depression, schizophrenia, and even HIV. If Salvia were to become an illegal substance it would likely be classified as a Schedule I controlled substance, just like marijuana and LSD. If a ban goes forward, studying its medicinal uses would becomes more expensive, harder to get clearance for, and generally slower than it is currently.

Although Salvia has no known negative effects on a person’s health, it has been the subject of a rather intense witch-hunt. In 2006, Brett Chidester, a 17-year old high school student in Delaware, committed suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning. He had used Salvia in recent months, and had come to the conclusion that “existence in general is pointless.” His parents decided that Salvia must have been responsible for his turn for the worse, and convinced the medical examiner to change his death certificate a month after his death to reflect their idea. The media took up their cause, although there was no actual medical evidence linking Salvia to Chidester’s suicide.

Shortly thereafter, Delaware criminalized Salvia with a bill known as Brett’s Law. Melodrama aside, however, there has been no solid evidence, ever, that actually links Salvia with depression or suicide, much less any actual physical side effects. And yet, it cannot be ignored that it does really mess people up.

Salvia, which is usually smoked by its users, can cause intense hallucinations that vary from calming and meditative to terrifying. The effects are so overwhelming that users often lose their sense of self-awareness, time, and sometimes even the ability to control their bodies, during their hallucinations. Reports claim users regain control of themselves within a few minutes, so that the herb’s total effects last for only 5 to 15 minutes. The disorientation of the short-lived “trip,” however, has been widely recorded and posted YouTube.com. These videos, generally presented by their makers as humorous, have nonetheless been taken seriously and used as evidence against the herb’s legality in states’ deliberations.

The effects shown on YouTube reflect users’ reports of uncontrollable laughter, sensations of being twisted or moved around physically, time travel or intensely reliving past experiences, visions, the sensation of becoming different objects, and overlapping realities (http://www.wikipedia.org). These effects, when shown on video, can probably be upsetting to those who have never experimented with hallucinogens, but one must argue the point that there are far more, and worse, videos of people intoxicated by alcohol on YouTube. Whereas videos of people on Salvia usually feature incoherent babbling and confused looks, videos of drunken escapades often show people vomiting, fighting, and causing themselves serious, lasting harm. And consider that, while there are a surprising 5,570 videos on YouTube that come up when “Salvia” is searched, a good 192,000 come up for “drunk.”

I suppose any push from the Federal government to criminalize Salvia might come from an effort to be consistent in the War On Drugs. Although chemically and practically very different from LSD, Salvia is nonetheless a hallucinogen, and LSD possession currently carries one of the heaviest penalties of any drug charge. And, given that Salvia is specifically advertised as not being a “party” or “street” drug by its legal purveyors, not much money stands to be made by taxing its sale, as in the case of alcohol, which is legal nationwide. And yet, given the fact that alcohol use can lead to morning-after hangovers, long periods of memory loss, liver cirrhosis, and thousands upon thousands of drunk-driving deaths every year, one must question the current push toward criminalization of Salvia, as opposed to a drug that is far more dangerous.

Perhaps regulating its sale, like that of alcohol, to people of adult age, and including warnings on official packaging, might be a way to curb accidents caused by its use, but to criminalize such a relatively innocuous drug seems over the top. Not that “over the top” has ever stopped the Feds from criminalizing some other harmless agents, like marijuana.

One can only hope that the Times’ coverage of the push toward criminalization will not lead to a media panic and eventual criminalization. According to researchers, Salvia could lead to many more positive effects medically than its short-lived and usually enjoyable 10-minute hallucinations could cause harm, and therein lies the issue. While the government routinely seeks to control what we can and cannot put into our bodies, I hope that they will leave Salvia, a harmless and hopefully beneficial herbal intoxicant, well enough alone.