A potent hallucinogenic herb – to ban it or not? 

The use of Salvia divinorum, a potent hallucinogenic herb, was once limited to revelation seekers in Mexico. Now, the drug is available legally across the U.S. With a friend videotaping, 27-year-old Christopher Lenzini of Dallas took a hit of Salvia divinorum, regarded as the world’s most potent hallucinogenic herb, and soon began to imagine, he said, that he was in a boat with little green men. Mr. Lenzini quickly collapsed to the floor and dissolved into convulsive laughter. When he posted the video on YouTube this summer, friends could not get enough. “It’s just funny to see a friend act like a total idiot,” he said, “so everybody loved it.” Some of the videos have been viewed half a million times.

 
Salvia divinorum

Yet these very images that have helped popularize salvia may also hasten its demise and undermine the promising research into its possible medical uses.This year, Florida made possession or sale a felony punishable by 15 years in prison. California took a gentler approach by making it a misdemeanor to sell or distribute to minors. When the federal government this year published its first estimates of salvia use, the data astonished many: some 1.8 million people had tried it in their lifetimes, including 750,000 in the previous year. Among males 18 to 25, where consumption is heaviest, nearly 3 percent reported using salvia in the previous year, making it twice as prevalent as LSD and nearly as popular as Ecstasy.

Brian D. Arthur is founder of Mazatec Garden, which sells salvia and other herbs online

Known on the street by nicknames like Sally D and Magic Mint, salvia can have vastly different effects depending on dose, potency and the mindset and tolerance of its users, according to researchers and experienced smokers (though bitter, it can also be chewed or consumed as a tincture). Dozens of online vendors sell mild extracts for as little as $5 a gram; the strongest, at up to 100 times the potency of the raw leaf, sell for more than $50. There have been rare claims of salvia-related deaths, but the links are speculative.

In 2002, Dr. Bryan L. Roth, now of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, discovered that Salvinorin A, perhaps uniquely, stimulates a single receptor in the brain, the kappa opioid receptor. LSD, by comparison, stimulates about 50 receptors. Dr. Roth said Salvinorin A was the strongest hallucinogen gram for gram found in nature. Though Salvinorin A, because of its debilitating effects, is unlikely to become a pharmaceutical agent itself, its chemistry may enable the discovery of valuable derivatives. “If we can find a drug that blocks salvia’s effects, there’s good evidence it could treat brain disorders including depression, schizophrenia, Alzheimer’s, maybe even H.I.V.,” Dr. Roth said.