Salvia divornorum also known as Shepherdess' Herb and Ska Pastora, is a psychoactive hallucinogen as potent as LSD. The plant, a relative of a common landscape flower, contains a substance called Salvinorin-A which is considered to be the most potent hallucinogen available when smoked. Salvia, in a liquid form, can be ingested or in powder form, smoked. It produces an almost immediate, short-term reaction. Depending on the dosage, a user's response can be just a subtle, off-kilter reaction to a full-blown psychedelic experience. Typically, the hallucinatory experience lasts several minutes but can last up to an hour. During this time, users are mentally and physically impaired and demonstrate poor judgment, slowed reflexes, and dissociation. [continues 142 words]
There is a drug out there so legal that your 6-year-old brother could order some ... if he really wanted to. Yet that same drug is so potent, so mind-altering, that researches are classifying it under the same category as LSD. I've tried some. I've tried some right on campus, in a friend's dorm. The effects of Salvia divinorum lasted about 10 minutes, but have left so much of an impact on me that I felt urged to write this article. [continues 679 words]
Lawmakers Fail to Recognize That Banning Salvia Does Not Mean Preventing Its Trade or Usage There is a danger growing around Madison. And no, it isn't the sexual assaults, kidnappings, bank robberies, murders or violence. According to state lawmakers (and probably Lou Dobbs), it is imports from Mexico that may be here illegally to destroy American culture and American youth. I'm talking, of course about Salvia Divinorum - a non habit-forming herb that has historically been used in the Mazatec region of the Sierra Madre Mountains in Oaxaca, Mexico as part of ritualistic healing and prophecy rituals. Since the early 1990s, it has increased in popularity in the United States (although, to call (although, to call it popular is somewhat misleading.) State Representatives Sheldon Wasserman and David Cullen authored a bill that would prohibit the sale and manufacturing of Salvia Divinorum. The Assembly Criminal Justice Committee held a public hearing on the measure last Wednesday. [continues 607 words]
At the Health Ministry's request, five dangerous substances sold in kiosks and 24-hour shops were added to the list of "dangerous drugs" by the Knesset Labor, Social Affairs and Health Committee on Monday. The addictive "mind-benders," which previously were illegal to sell but were not on the ministry's list of restricted imports, are called Halahit shel Ilanit (Ilanit's Hit); Halom Belavan (White Dream); Rakefet (Cyclamen); Aspirin Im Kritza (Aspirin With a Wink); and Hagigat Kayitz 2008 (Celebration of the Summer of 2008). [continues 197 words]
Derived From a West African Root, Ibogaine May Be a Pain-Free Drug Detox - but in the U.S. It's Highly Illegal. They've given you the pills and now they're checking your heart rate - it's skyrocketing - when you see it in the corner of your eye. It could be a caterpillar, a cat, your first bicycle. It's growing, and then there's another - a lion? A tiger? A bear? - and soon that's all you can see. It begins: a kind of "movie" of your life, things you didn't know you remembered, drawn out from your mind like barbed wire. A comedy, maybe; a tragedy, definitely; and yours alone. It will stay this way for a good, long while. [continues 636 words]
Lawmakers have set aside a proposed ban on the hallucinogenic herb salvia divinorum. Paul Ray, R-Clinton, who proposed listing the plant as a schedule 1 controlled substance, said federal regulators alerted him that they were close to reaching their own classification for salvia divinorum. The herb presently is unregulated under federal law. For at least five years, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency has said it is researching the herb's effects and addictiveness, media reports say. A spokeswoman on Wednesday said there is no clear schedule for when the DEA will conclude its examination and determine whether salvia divinorum should be regulated. [end]
NO wonder the Liberal Democrats are all over the place: one of the contenders for the party leadership once declared that opium could be "safely experimented with" and that LSD "holds no surprises". This weekend Chris Huhne is discovering, just as David Cameron before him, that his undergraduate days at Oxford can come back to haunt him. Last night Huhne, 53, was doing his best to disown an article he appears to have written in an Oxford student magazine about the benefits of illegal hard drugs. [continues 738 words]
A plant native to Oklahoma has hallucinogenic qualities like LSD but is not listed as an illegal substance. The plant is called moon bush or gypsum weed but many students call it "moon plant," said Brenna Gilchrist, a florist for the Oasis Garden and Gift Shop. "The plant grows to about 3 feet and is characterized by its night blooming flowers and porcupine like round pods," she said. It is not listed as an illegal substance in the state, but users could still go to jail because the drug is a hallucinogenic, said Lt. Mark Shearer, an OSU police officer. [continues 914 words]
AMSTERDAM -- The Netherlands will ban the sale of hallucinogenic mushrooms, the government announced Friday, tightening the country's famed liberal drug policies after the suicide of an intoxicated teenager. Mushrooms "will be outlawed the same way as other drugs," Justice Minister Ernst Hirsch Ballin said. "The way we will enforce the ban is through targeting sellers." Psilocybin, the main active chemical in the mushrooms, has been illegal under international law since 1971. But fresh, unprocessed mushrooms continued to be sold legally in the Netherlands along with herbal medicines in "smartshops," on the theory that it was impossible to determine how much psilocybin any given mushroom contains. [continues 340 words]
To most I would be considered naive, at least when it comes to living on the edge, so to speak. I have very little experience with drugs and high-risk activities and I don't claim to be well-versed when it comes to these topics. So it was really no surprise that I was outside of the loop on the latest craze. Salvia divinorum, referred to simply as Salvia, is a legal hallucinogenic drug that appeared for the first time in western literature in 1939. It has recently gained more popularity and at the same time raised quite a few eyebrows. [continues 671 words]
A powerful unregulated hallucinogen is being sold in shops and convenience stores across Hamilton. And there's nothing illegal about it. The herbal hallucinogen salvia divinorum falls into the same class as magic mushrooms and LSD. Some who have used it report intense hallucinations: A tree growing out of the floor or thinking they're a crayon. But neither the plant nor its active ingredient, salvinorin A, falls under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, so it can be legally imported and sold in Canada. [continues 638 words]
Series Of Films Playing At Pacific Cinematheque Takes A Trippy Step Back In Time When most people think about the 1960s, the cool places that come to mind are neighbourhoods such as California's Berkeley and San Francisco's Haight Ashbury and Kitsilano's West Fourth. But there was a place a long, long way from the mainstream of everything that played a key role in paving the psychedelic path followed by the youth culture of the ' 60s. The place was Saskatchewan Hospital in Weyburn. [continues 642 words]
The small, barefoot man in black T-shirt and blue jeans barely rates a second glance from the other Starbucks patrons in downtown San Rafael, although he is one of the men who virtually made the '60s. Because Augustus Owsley Stanley III has spent his life avoiding photographs, few people would know what he looks like. The name Owsley became a noun that appears in the Oxford dictionary as English street slang for good acid. It is the most famous brand name in LSD history. Probably the first private individual to manufacture the psychedelic, "Owsley" is a folk hero of the counterculture, celebrated in songs by the Grateful Dead and Steely Dan. [continues 1604 words]
Letter-writer Leroy Casterline is right about LSD not being addictive (NOW, July 5-11). For a mature person with an inquisitive mind who wishes to get an adventurous new perspective, LSD can provide life-changing insights. Native people had no qualms about finding higher planes of enlightenment with different substances. Only our modern religions are fearful of competing experiences. Vancouver [end]
Letter writer brad holland claims that "it is irresponsible to put a positive spin on drugs like LSD. Spiritual strength comes from a fruitful life, not self-indulgent, brain-damaging habits" (NOW, June 21-27). I disagree. Spiritual strength comes from many sources, and entheogens like peyote and LSD have for thousands of years been a catalyst for spiritual exploration and growth. Used responsibly, LSD is not dangerous. It's not addictive, not physically harmful and is nearly impossible to overdose on (one would have to take tens of thousands of doses). [continues 65 words]
Salvia Divinorum Produces Short, Dreamlike Experience Salvia divinorum is a bright, leafy green plant from Mexico that when chewed or smoked causes intense hallucinations comparable to LSD or "magic mushrooms." And it's legal in California. The drug is available all over the Bay Area, mostly in smoke shops and herbal stores. It's also sold over the Internet. For $15 to $50 a hit, users get a high that sends them into a dream-like state for anywhere from a few minutes to an hour or two. [continues 1321 words]
Council Wants Salvia Divinorum On Illegal List EDMONTON - Leduc's city council is pushing Ottawa to remove a powerful hallucinogenic drug called salvia divinorum from the shelves of head shops and add it to the list of illegal substances. "This is definitely a preventative measure and I want the federal government to be aware this is readily available," Ald. Dana Smith said Tuesday. "It's being used and it can be another step to another drug." The psychedelic drug, also called magic mint or diviner's sage and often compared to LSD, is available in some marijuana paraphernalia stores or on the Internet. It is sold in pill form or as a dried product for smoking and causes intense hallucinations lasting from 30 seconds to 30 minutes. [continues 529 words]
A city council in central Alberta is pushing the federal government to remove a powerful hallucinogenic drug from stores and add it to the list of illegal substances. "It is like the new acid," says Greg Krischke, the mayor of Leduc, a city 35 kilometres south of Edmonton. The psychedelic drug is called "magic mint" or "diviner's sage." It's available in some hemp stores and on the Internet. It is sold both as pills or as a dried product for smoking, and causes intense hallucinations lasting 30 seconds to 30 minutes. [continues 86 words]
A member of the sage family, Salvia divinorum is a cousin of the popular flowering salvia found in many American gardens. Salvia divinorum is native to dark, damp, shady areas in Oaxaca, Mexico, where it has been used for centuries by Mazatec Indians during mystical rituals, and to treat headaches and diarrhea. It was first described in 1939 in a report on Mazatec shamans, and wasn't identified as a psychoactive drug until the 1990s. But, unlike its benign cousins, Salvia divinorum contains a powerful hallucinogenic called salvinorin A, which is described as being as potent as LSD, and "essentially the most potent naturally occurring hallucinogenic drug," according to Dr. Bryan Roth, a biochemist and neuroscientist who directs the National Institute of Mental Health's Psychoactive Drug Screening Program. [continues 170 words]
A big yellow sign on State Street reads: "Salvia sold here. Get it while you can." Many who pass by are perplexed. To the middle-aged and older, salvia is a perennial flowering plant found in many local gardens. But a growing number of young people, even middle schoolers, know salvia as an unregulated drug that delivers a powerful high. Salvia divinorum, related to but different from the backyard salvia, is a perennial herb of the mint family native to the Sierra Mazateca region of Oaxaca, Mexico. It contains a powerful hallucinogen considered by some to be as potent as LSD, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration. [continues 1020 words]
