There are a lot of ways to get high. The world is filled with too many drugs to count. Both legal and illegal, daily existence offers us uppers, downers, pain relievers, and mind expanders at every turn. Everything from energy drinks to coffee, to cigarettes, to aspirin, to prescription antidepressants, to crack cocaine is available if we so desire.

Salvia divinorum fits in there somewhere. In a world full of drugs of every kind, Salvia divinorum (usually just referred to as Salvia or Sally D) is like few others. Legal in Washington and 42 other states, the leafy drug from the inconspicuous mint family packs a hallucinogenic punch that rivals any on the illegal market — from LSD to mushrooms. It can be found in varying strengths at a number of local head shops and is readily available for sale on the Internet.

I first heard about Salvia five years ago from a friend in a now defunct Tacoma band. The drug’s legal status made me dismiss it. Any drug that’s legal can’t be very powerful I figured. I didn’t give Salvia much thought.

A few years later I heard about Salvia again, this time on one of those pathetic, fear mongering “news” shows like Dateline. It warned of the dangerous effects of Salvia, portrayed the herb as the next marijuana (God forbid), and urged parents and lawmakers to protect the children from the Salvia scourge. It even suggested Salvia should be blamed for the 2006 suicide of a 17-year-old from Delaware whose parents say their son smoked the drug four months before killing himself. Their arguments helped make Delaware one of the seven states in which Salvia is illegal. Once again, I didn’t give Salvia much thought, mainly because I don’t give anything I see on shows like Dateline much thought.

About a month ago, though, Salvia finally got my attention. I had always assumed the legal drug had limited exposure and existed only on the fringes of culture — not making its way into the minds or lives of mainstream America. I assumed only drug aficionados knew of Salvia, and that it just wasn’t a very big deal. If it was a big deal, after all, it would be illegal.

That changed when my very mainstream buddies started talking about Salvia. One of them had found the herb in a smoke shop in Puyallup and bought a plastic vial of the sage on a whim. He’d heard about Salvia somewhere, he thought, and had 20 bucks to blow on it. The man behind the counter warned my friend as he took his money not to smoke it while driving.

My mainstream friend returned home, filled a pipe with the black flecks of leaf he’d just invested in, took one hit, and within 30 seconds went headfirst into one of the most powerful drug experiences of his life. Suddenly, he later recounted to me, he was rowing a boat, and it felt as though a huge rotating saw blade had entered his body and sliced him diagonally from head to foot. It wasn’t painful like you’d expect, he said, but his body was filled with momentum and the feeling of rotation. Uncontrollable nonsense began to pour from his mouth. He sat in this state for two to five minutes. Then it was over.

This is Salvia, I was told.

Like any good child of the Internet, my friend quickly Googled the substance he’d smoked. What he found was a growing collection of YouTube videos documenting Salvia trips from suburbs all across the country. Eyes roll back in heads. Limbs flail. Stares become blank and giggles permeate. The proof that Salvia has reached the mainstream is available for all to see through the magic of YouTube.

Now, finally, Salvia had caught my attention. If friends of mine from Puyallup — with mainstream lives and mainstream existences — were smoking this stuff, Salvia had to have reached popular culture. If 16-year-old kids from across the country were drooling and flailing for all to see on YouTube because of Salvia, it had to be more than a novelty high. I vowed to find out for myself what the deal was with this increasingly popular (albeit strange) legal hallucinogen.

What it is and where it comes from

Like most drugs of the nature, there’s a long history of using Salvia to reach higher states of awareness and induce visionary experiences. Salvia divinorum is native to Mexico, usually associated with the city of Oaxaca. It’s said that shamans have long used the sage in spiritual healing rituals. The leaves of the Salvia divinorum plant can be chewed, made into teas or smoked to achieve your desired level of state of mind.

This much information can be easily found online. A search of Salvia divinorum leads you in the right direction and also toward a boatload of Web sites where the drug is for sale.

Answering exactly what Salvia is, on a chemical level, and exactly what it does inside your brain is far more difficult. The Internet is full of two types of resources on this front. There are the long-haired, spacey-eyed amateur botanists — epitomized by the Internet king of Salvia, Daniel Siebert — who rave about the mind-opening and the spiritual healing and also probably sell the stuff for $125/ounce on their Web site (in Siebert’s case, see www.sagewisdom.org); then there are the real scientists doing real research. The scientists are typically studying Salvia for medical purposes and, as it turns out, aren’t all that interested in talking to alternative press newspapers about smoking the stuff to get high. The scientists usually just point toward research they’ve published and expect that to do the talking.

The exact component that makes Salvia divinorum psychoactive is known as Salvinorin A. While research on the drug is still in infantile stages, especially compared to well-known hallucinogens, it was discovered in 2002 that Salvinorin A is a kappa opioid receptor agonist — or in layman’s terms a substance that binds and tickles k-opioid receptors in your brain, causing hallucinations, intense body highs and all the other crazy shit you can find on YouTube. Most studies of Salvia and Salvinorin A center on the agent’s potential for medicinal use — specifically for pain relief and treatment-resistant depression.

“With respect to its effects, the available evidence suggests it is nonaddictive and nontoxic,” says Karl R. Hanes, a Ph.D. from Australia who has studied Salvia and supports the drug.

“This is also the experience of Native American peoples who have used (Salvia divinorum) for over a hundred years.”

However, even supporters such as Hanes admit research on Salvia is in its very early stages.
Brain imaging studies on anesthetized primates by researchers such as Jacob Hooker of the Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York have shown that Salvinorin A floods the brain within 40 seconds of administration, a rate 10 times faster than cocaine, and is essentially gone within 15 minutes. It’s picture proof of the rapid, intense, hallucinogenic and short-lived high that those who have used the drug recreationally report.

“It’s quite unique,” says Hooker of Salvinorin A. “We’re just now beginning to understand it. We didn’t even know what it targeted in the brain until 2002.

“It acts really quickly, especially when smoked,” Hooker continues. “Hallucinations usually onset within 30 to 40 seconds. Within 5 to 10 minutes, largely, the effects are gone. It enters and exits the brain that quickly.”

While Hooker wouldn’t comment about whether he thought the drug was “safe” or not, he did elaborate on where inside the brain Salvinorin A does its magic. Studies have shown the drug targets the cerebellum, resulting in motor function and control impairment, and also the visual cortex of the brain, resulting in the wild hallucinations. Hooker was quick to note that much more research is needed in order to truly understand Salvia.

“It’s too early to weigh for sure exactly what it does to the brain,” says Hooker. “We’re just scratching the surface.”

Finding Salvia

Salvinorin A is not your mother’s garden plant found at Lowe’s or local garden shops. Salvia is illegal in seven states and several countries, but in Washington the hallucinogen is still as legal as Granny Smith apples. While this could change in coming years as the list of states that have banned the drug is bound to increase as sensational, fear-based journalism and alarming videos on YouTube become more prevalent, for now the hallucinogenic sage seems safe in our state. As part of this story, I contacted a number of local lawmakers and public officials to gauge their knowledge of Salvia and find out whether there’s been talk of restricting or outlawing the drug. No one I contacted had heard of the drug.

“If there’s any activity going on about this drug, I don’t know about it,” says Representative Steve Kirby of Washington’s 29th Legislative District.

“If we wanted to criminalize its use, it would probably go through the Public Safety Committee. I’m on that committee.”

The list of public officials and lawmakers who hadn’t heard of Salvia also included several other members of the Washington State House of Representatives and members of the drug and vice unit for the Pierce County prosecuting attorney.

But I had heard of Salvia. My next move was finding the drug.

It took me a couple of hours. I toured Tacoma head shops on a Sunday afternoon in pursuit. Not completely sure what I was looking for, my eyes darted between bongs and glass pipes in search of the legal hallucinogen. After a few stops, I found what I was looking for at a smoke shop at 47th and Oakes.

Next to some electronic scales and detox potions, a small assortment sat in the corner of a glass display case — four or five different varieties all from the same company, Special Salvia LTD.

Playing dumb, I asked the man behind the counter what it was.

“It’s incense,” he said, showing on his face that he knew it was more.

“I thought you could smoke it,” I said.

“Some people … ” the man trailed off.

I examined one of the packages, marked “Salvia 20x Organic Extract,” and read the back aloud: “Part of spiritual ceremonies and traditional healing; it has become a powerful tool for soul searching and exploration of consciousness.”

“That doesn’t sound like incense,” I said. “I think people smoke this stuff to get high.”
“Some people,” the man said. “I just sell it as incense.”

I laid down nearly 30 dollars after tax and walked out with a gram of Salvia extract, purportedly 20 times the strength of regular Salvia leaves. In a Pavlovian moment, I thought about places to hide the little plastic vial on the ride home. Then I came to my senses. There was nothing illegal about what I was doing.

Smoking Salvia

The stuff smells like ass. If it’s incense, it’s not very pleasing. While there are several varieties to choose from, the Salvia I bought came in the form of tiny black flakes. After struggling to get the lid off of the vial without spilling the contents, I carefully poured a dime-sized portion into a pipe, put a flame to the black pile of hallucinogenic crumbs, and inhaled — admittedly timid from what I’d seen on YouTube.

I remember exhaling and looking at my watch to time how long it took for the drug to take hold. Fifteen seconds in I was distracted by the pulsing feeling growing inside my body — heaviest in my thighs but quickly spreading. As the pulsing intensified, the gravitational pull of the earth seemed to be shifting, eventually pulling every molecule in my body down and to the right — a sort of Salvia slant. Objects blurred, and only light and dark seemed distinct. I tried to form a thought but couldn’t. I tried to form a sentence but only laughed. Warmth washed over me, and I felt all alone, outside my body, with only the stare of my dog to remind me of reality.

This intense and legal high lasted two minutes. Within three minutes I could talk again, and by five minutes I was making sense. Ten minutes after smoking Salvia I felt exactly the way I did going in — not even hung over. I’ve done my fair share of hallucinogenic drugs — and even saw Phish once — and Salvia was as powerful as anything I’ve ingested. That’s not said for the sake of the story or to blow things out of proportion; I say it because it’s true. If it weren’t for the briefness of the high, Salvia would no doubt be in the same class as LSD and mushrooms. Salvia gets you fucked up. There’s no doubt about it. While, personally, I didn’t find the high enjoyable and my mind doesn’t feel expanded, different users may experience different outcomes.

Should you try Salvia?

Probably not. Unless you’re a shaman schooled in the ways of ancient sage wisdom or searching for spiritual healing — and believe mind-bending drugs are a way to reach such goals — the hype surrounding Salvia is probably just smoke.

If you’re intrigued by a two-minute trip down Really-Fucked-Up Lane, then perhaps you could give Salvia a whirl. While more research is needed to determine whether the drug is safe (and, of course, most intelligent people would argue ingesting anything that makes your eyes roll back in your head and stupid shit spew from your mouth is inherently not safe), Salvia is legal and available for sale in Washington.

At least now the next time you hear someone talking about the crazy-ass legal hallucinogen known as Salvia you’ll know what they’re talking about.