Salvia

Salvia is a hallucinogen from Mexico. It is a herb that comes from the mint family. "Traditionally, S. divinorum has been ingested by chewing fresh leaves or by drinking their extracted juices. The dried leaves of S. divinorum can also be smoked in rolled cigarettes or pipes or vaporized and inhaled." National Institute on Drug Abuse.

Here is a link to more information on the drug and its effects.

I've never tried it but I do know that Salvia Divinorum is a common household plant here in the UK and is legal. You can go into my local town and buy one gram of Salvia for £30 ($60), so it's more expensive than marijuana but is obviously more readily available. The effects are short lived though.

Yeah, I don't see any unhealthy effects from using Salvia Divinorum moderately, from what I've read. It's effect are mild in visual distortion, uncontrollable laughter, visiting past memories, and a few other minor mind altering effects that are lesser in degree than human dreams. Plus the effect lasts only 1-5 minutes.

The National Insitute on Drug Abuse, is merely advising people against such a drug as Salvia, but its only a opinion. Only a man or a woman, can truly judge if something is healthy or unhealthy.

If I remember right I seen this on a show and some of the kids died. I don't know if they took to much at one time, but it has the potential to be harmful as with any drug.

As far as I am aware, the 'high' is supposed to be a lot trippier and more intense than smoking marijuana, it doesn't even seem to be a similar buzz at all. I have heard of some reports of people freaking out after smoking Salvia, but I haven't heard of any dangers from consuming it.

From what I am understanding, it looks like salvia is probably not addictive and does not cause any harm from the current research that is available. After doing some further research, I found out that this is actually sage and it was originally used by shamans. That was my thinking and it has been confirmed. The shamans/medicine men in my country also use herbs during healings, but they are not addicted to the herbs.

I remember reading something about this, I'm pretty sure they use a mixture of several different herbs and believe it washes away evil spirits (or something to that effect). On a side note, lots of recent research is showing that psychedelics can be very beneficial to the health.

I have heard of this and it can be harmful. I don't know if the harm comes from the drug itself damaging your body, or because people have done things that injured themselves while using it. I do not think it is a good idea to take chances with something like this because you don't know how you are going to respond to it. You might have a horrible and terrifying experience and do something stupid as a reaction.

From what I've read it seems to affect the speech center of the brain, perceptual areas, and motor cortex. This article says that It affects the kappa opiate receptor a cite in the brain connected to human perception http://www.cesar.umd.edu/cesar/drugs/salvia.asp and is still being studied for possible medicinal uses such as pain relief and possibly to treat brain diseases that alter one's perception such as schizophrenia and alzheimers, but alot more study needs to be done before people assume it's helpful for those conditions, as it might also have devastating effects on those already brain-impaired populations.

A study of mentally and physically healthy subjects with prior experience using other hallucinogens at Johns Hopkins University was done on humans;

http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news...via_shows_intense_and_novel_effects_in_humans in which some interesting data suggest that if scientists were to alter a few molecules the drug could possibly by made into non-addictive pain medication

This article http://www.livestrong.com/article/25064-dangers-smoking-salvia/ states that Salvia has been known to trigger a relapse of mental illness when used by some of those individuals, so it is really like playing Russian Roulette with the brain. Nobody knows exactly what will happen to any one person's brain as a result.

The drug is too new to know whether there are long-term damaging effects or addictive effects. Preliminary studies suggest it may be non-addictive, but is as of yet not conclusive.

Still quite controversial then, it me surprises me that shops in the UK are legally allowed to sell this stuff (although it's expensive at £30 per gram). It also surprises me that it can be sold as a normal house plant. The UK law are usually quite strict when it comes to things like this.

Salvia is an herb in the mint family found in southern Mexico. The main active ingredient in salvia, salvinorin A, changes the chemistry in the brain, causing hallucinations (seeing something that seems real but isn’t). The effects are short lived, but may be very intense and frightening.Salvinorin A, the main active ingredient in salvia, attaches to parts of nerve cells called kappa opioid receptors.The effects of salvinorin A are described as intense but short lived, generally lasting for less than 30 minutes. The users see or feel things that aren’t really there. They also have changes in vision, mood and body sensations, emotional swings, and feelings of detachment .

As I said above, I have heard about people freaking out after smoking it. It certainly doesn't sound like something I would want to experience and it's definitely worth it, either the risk or financially. I'm surprised people are allowed to just grow this as a house plant in the UK and they do quite commonly. Are there any countries where this stuff is banned?

What is it? I just saw something with a similar name. Mexico has a lot of different things like this. Looking for some Shamanic visions.

Someone I knew used to grow this, but I had no idea this stuff could be used to get high I mean, it's also used in home remedies to treat menstrual and gastrointestinal issues No doubt that those who want to get high will always find a way to do it.

Speaking of shamanic visions, I recently had someone perform a shamanic spiritual cleansing/healing on me not so long ago. It's not something I've really got into that much before and it pretty much came about by chance but it was an absolutely incredible experience. Not only could I feel incredibly intense energy which was peaceful and comforting but I could also see orbs of light/energy manifesting around me and my light bulb was flickering. It continued for a while and I ended up having to replace three light bulbs. I've also had someone perform Reiki on me several times recently but the effects are hardly noticeable compared to the shamanic experience. That was powerful!

Not so sure about the addictive effects of hallucinogens - people seem to be split on the issue. From personal knowledge, I don't think the scope for abuse of these drugs is the same with other "classically" known drugs, but I understand that bad trips with certain psychedelics can be pretty harrowing.

I haven't heard much about this lately. I've heard about people passing out or having seizure like symptoms from this. They say that the high doesn't last very long but is extreme. This is something I never wanted to try. Over all I've never heard about any long term side effects from this.

In my experience with salvia it was a purely physical feeling. I felt as if the world was closing in on me and squashing into a tiny little particle. The feeling goes away after a few minutes and didn't seem to have any long lasting effects. I would have much preferred a hallucination over what this did to me!