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| Drug Suppliers Use Loophole To Sell 'Magic Mint' |
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Posted by FoM on July 15, 2001 at 13:52:18 PT By Adam Nathan Source: Sunday Times 
An obscure hallucinogenic herb from Mexico has become the latest fashion in the world of recreational drug-taking. Suppliers are using a loophole in the law to sell the powerful drug - known as Lady Salvia or the magic Mexican mint - to young people. Users have reported sensations of travelling through time and space, assuming the identities of other people and merging with inanimate objects. Experts say they are risking their minds, and perhaps their lives, by taking the drug. Salvia divinorum, a type of sage used for thousands of years in Mexican Indian rituals, is legal in Britain and America and is available on the internet. Originally found in only one square mile of the Oaxaca region of Mexico, it is either chewed or smoked and causes a short but intense high. In New York's Greenwich Village, it has triggered a mini-renaissance of 1960s psychedelic culture; there is even a rock band called Salvia. In Amsterdam, where large-scale indoor marijuana growing is now outlawed, cannabis growers have switched to salvia, flooding the European market. In Britain there are about a dozen suppliers of dried salvia leaves. Most do not advertise it as a drug but as incense, mainly through fears that they will be sued if people are damaged by their experience of taking it. Experts say the leaves of the plant are often super-impregnated with the active hallucinatory ingredient salvinorin A to make it up to 20 times stronger. This enhanced leaf sells for up to £80 a gram. The drug's increasing popularity, coupled with scientific acknowledgment of its mind-bending powers, has prompted the Home Office to review its legal status. But it could take years to ban it. Dr Tim Kendall, an expert based at the University of Sheffield, said: "When you take salvia you are playing with fire. People can be very damaged in terms of their personal functioning. They frequently have flashbacks that intrude into their life, which can be almost like a post-traumatic stress problem after very bad experiences." In 1994 Daniel Seibert, a Californian ethnobotanist, first isolated the psychotropic part of the herb and tested it on a human - himself - with an accidental overdose of 2mg of pure salvinorin A. "One minute I was sitting on my couch expecting nothing to happen and the next I was in a deep out-of-body experience," he said. "I was panicking because I felt I must have died. "After a little while I regained sensory awareness and opened my eyes and looked around me and realised that I was in my grandparents' home from when I was a child. I had come back into the wrong place in my life history. It was extraordinary. The certainty and the detail made it so real." Source: Sunday Times (UK) Salvia Divinorum Vault CannabisNews Articles - UK Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help |
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| Comment #15 posted by FoM on July 15, 2001 at 23:07:07 PT |
| Just a profound revelation. We could do an antidrug commercial! Wonder if they'd pay us? No. Not likely! PS: I posted this on the wrong thrad. Duh! [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #14 posted by dddd on July 15, 2001 at 22:59:20 PT |
| ....for most people,,,the salvia experience will be a nightmare from hell type of odyssey... ....it could be compared,,,, the mental equivalent of a blind and deaf person,,, ...it's not a game......it can get very ugly.... dddd [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #13 posted by FoM on July 15, 2001 at 22:58:37 PT |
| Sounds like good advice not to try Salvia. I have a fragile mind and don't need it anymore bent then it is already. LOL! I think I'll pass. I can still remember the body aches I got after doing LSD back in the 70s. They weren't comfortable at all. [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #12 posted by CongressmanSuet on July 15, 2001 at 22:24:09 PT |
| Take these words of caution[ Im sure dddd can back me up on this one]Salvia is not easily managable the way it is marketed today, and you never really know what to expect as far as concentrations are concerned. A full blown salvia trip can be great, and it can also be unnerving. But it will never reach the statis of "-Recreational Drug". Its not for the squeamish, or the un-educated.... [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #11 posted by dddd on July 15, 2001 at 22:11:54 PT |
| yup FoM,,,it wont be long until kava kava is prohibited,,along with alot of other herbal remedies......You are wise to pass on the salvia. it's nothing at all like Marijuana,and unless one is well seasoned,and very well acquainted with themselves,,,,,it can easily be a very bad experience.....................................it is not a "recreational" type of thing, ,,it can be a "not fun" experience for most people......dddd [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #10 posted by jorma nash on July 15, 2001 at 21:58:29 PT |
| "Sometimes I think they think we aren't intelligent enough to take care of ourselves." Altered States of conciousness are Evil, and they sleep very well at night, [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #9 posted by Darb on July 15, 2001 at 21:26:37 PT |
| Corvallis, I'm a 19 year old from up in PA, and I can honestly say I have yet to run into any "youngsters" experimenting with the drug. 99% of people my age aren't aware that such a legal drug exists. I myself only learned about it 4 months or so ago up at college while doing research on the internet. By publicizing it like this, they're bound to create public interest of the drug, then once enough people have learned about it and tried it, they'll believe they have adequite reason to ban it due to it's "explosive" growth in usage. That's about the normal course for almost every drug that's been outlawed so far I believe, and that's probably the same direction this is heading. Pot prohibition is losing favor the world-over, if they don't create some new boogie-men, how in the world can the DEA save their jobs? I hardly believe there are people in Amsterdamn switching from growing herb to growing salvia, from the price estimated I've seen salvia costs about the same as any other herb, so it'd be like setting up a massive grow operation to produce ginger or sage. That is, until it's illegal and the price escalates 1000% or so. -Peace [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #8 posted by FoM on July 15, 2001 at 21:23:48 PT |
| I am a firm believer in using Psychotropic Herbs. They keep me in a good frame of mind and make life just a little nicer. I haven't had any side effects from herbs either. Sometimes I think they think we aren't intelligent enough to take care of ourselves. I'n waiting for them to try to make Kava illegal. Handbook of Psychotropic Herbs by Dr. Russo PS: I've never tried Salvia either. I'm too old to do any tripping! Just too old! LOL! [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #7 posted by jorma nash on July 15, 2001 at 21:15:05 PT |
>Users have reported sensations of travelling through time and space, >assuming the identities of other people and merging with inanimate objects. of course, we can just Assume a priori these must be hallucinations. i off wonder what kinds of spirtitual slavery we live in >Experts say they are risking their minds, or you could ask the people who have been doing "After a little while I regained sensory awareness and opened my eyes and looked around me and realised that I was in my grandparents' home from when I was a child. I had come back into the wrong place in my life history. It was extraordinary. The certainty and the detail made it so real." well, just think what kind of world it might be if just anyone was [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #6 posted by CorvallisEric on July 15, 2001 at 21:12:58 PT |
| Yes, Corvallis, Oregon - paradise for sturdy backroads bicyclists (poison oak everywhere, though) - otherwise, bring your own entertainment. On the subject of creating a drug menace, a classic study: The Consumers Union Report on Licit and Illicit Drugs (1972). This link has the whole book chapter-by-chapter: On this link, you can download the whole book as a ZIP file, books are in date order: Link below for the chapter on inhalants. -------------- Couple more points on Salvia: [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #5 posted by dddd on July 15, 2001 at 20:21:06 PT |
| ..I've been hep to this radical herb for some years,,and I knew,,when I saw the material on the internet,that it wouldnt be long before some bigmouth pointed it out,and within a year or so,it will be schedule 1... ..just watch......A few more articles like this,and there will be a bunch of people experimenting with it....Once again,,the dea/ondcp,,is going to advertise,and popularize it,publicize it,,,,making a new drug craze to assure their funding,,,,,and then use it to expand their cold straglehold and grip on our freedoms,and privacy. ...bummer
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| Comment #4 posted by swagman on July 15, 2001 at 19:43:32 PT |
| I don't think something like this will become the new drug craze, I just don't think that a strong psychedelic will ever be really popular again. [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #3 posted by Doug on July 15, 2001 at 18:56:25 PT |
| Is this Corvallis, Oregon by the way? Here we are seeing right before our eyes the creation of a new drug "menace". I've already had a friend recommend this drug, and soon it will be illegal, which will make it more popular. I've got another friend who has tried to grow it, without any luck, but it is suppose to be posible, and I'm sure that there will soon be grow manuals. All the publicity in the papers is just advertising for this drug, but it is being given away free. Is this a great country, or what? I can't wait for the 60 Minutes special, 48 Hours on Salvia Street. And can this be detected by a urine test? If I were going to buy stock now, I'd invest in Salvia Futures. [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #2 posted by CorvallisEric on July 15, 2001 at 16:02:19 PT |
| Salvia divinorum definitely has an internet presence, but you have to either know what you're looking for or be attuned to the psychedelic underground - in my perhaps outdated experience. Questions: 1 - Is it really "the latest fashion in the world of recreational drug-taking"? 2 - Does anyone know anything more about the following? Is it true (the part about switching to Salvia and flooding the market)? To what extent? With mass media attention like this, you can have a whole new drug "problem". Then it will go Schedule 1 (or A in the UK), generating even more interest, more use and accidents by naive teenagers, more media attention, moral panic to help elect prohibitionists, etc, etc. [ Post Comment ] |
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Comment #1 posted by Jose Melendez on July 15, 2001 at 14:33:26 PT:
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| Dictionary Information: Definition Sage Thesaurus: Sagacity Description and Meaning: Sagacity Sage (Sage) (?), n. [OE. sauge, F. sauge, L. salvia, from salvus saved, in allusion to its reputed healing virtues. See Safe.] (Bot.) (a) A suffriticose labiate plant (Salvia officinalis) with grayish green foliage, much used in flavoring meats, etc. The name is often extended to the whole genus, of which many species are cultivated for ornament, as the scarlet sage, and Mexican red and blue sage. (b) The sagebrush. -- Meadow sage (Bot.), a blue-flowered species of salvia (S. pratensis) growing in meadows in Europe. 1. Having nice discernment and powers of judging; prudent; grave; sagacious. "All you sage counselors, hence!" Shak. Synonyms -- Wise; sagacious; sapient; grave; prudent; judicious. A wise man; a man of gravity and wisdom; especially, a man venerable for years, and of sound judgment and prudence; a grave philosopher. "At his birth a star, Unseen before in heaven, proclaims him come, And guides the Eastern sages." Milton. from: [ Post Comment ] |
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