6A = THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
SALVIA DIVINORUM
MONDAY,APRIL 29,2002
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It's a booming business, but one that wouldn't have been possible without Siebert's discovery.
delivery company like UPS.
About 10 years ago, when Siebert first started experimenting with salvia, the drug had a reputation of being an "iffy" high.
"Nobody knew what made it work," he said. "There were rumors about these fantastic trips people had had, but most people got no effects off it."
The scientific community had known about salvia since the early 1960s, but whatever created the salvia high seemed too unstable to be studied in the laboratory.
After experiencing one of salvia's mind-bending trips himself, Siebert began to study the plant in his home laboratory. He decided to examine a chemical most other scientists had ruled out.
Salvinorin A, also called Divinorin A, was first isolated in the 1980s, but was not thought to be the active ingredient in salvia because its chemical structure was all wrong.
"It's a diturpine," Siebert said.
"That may not mean much to you, but turpines aren't alkaloids and most major hallucinogens are."
Siebert decided to inhale the vapors of Salvinorin A crystals, just to see what happen. The last thing he remembers is thinking he should throw the crystals away because they didn't work.
A second later, Siebert found himself bodiless, careening through a void. Just as panic set in, he began to come back to himself, but in the wrong place and time.
"I was in my grandparent's living room as it had looked when I was a child," he said.
Siebert returned to his body in the wrong place and wrong time several times before he finally found himself back in his own lab. When he checked the clock,
Siebert found the whole experience had only taken about 20 minutes.
He later published a scholarly paper in The Journal of Ethnopharmacology and began popularizing the idea of smoking salvia leaves.
"It works better if it's smoked," he said. "People don't chew the leaves long enough because of the flavor, so their stomachs break Salvinorin A down and nothing happens."
He said the salvia and Salvinorin A were different from any other drug available. It is that difference that has kept salvia legal in the United States.
Kevin Smith, spokesperson for the Kansas Bureau of Investigation, said most naturally occurring hallucinogens can be prosecuted under the Federal Drug Analoule Act, which prevents people from using substances that are chemically similar to or cause effects similar to illegal drugs.
"But salvia operates differently than anything known," he said.
Another reason salvia remains legal is that, so far, no evidence of serious side effects has turned up.
"Leander Valdez, a scientist at the University of Michigan did toxicology studies on it and everything turned up fine," Siebert said. "While that doesn't rule out internal damage to the brain, we have no evidence that happens either."
Predictably, the Drug Enforcement Administration doesn't think salvia is benign. The DEA lists salvia on their Web site under "licit drugs of concern." Shirley Armstead, PR representative for the St. Louis branch of the DEA, said the drug is dangerous simply because of its hallucinogenic effects.
"Salvia produces changes in perception, thought and mood which can lead to impaired judgment that often leads to rash decisions and accidents," she said.
And there is the danger of a bad trip. Tosha Green, Lawrence junior, had a bad experience with the herb.
Salvia Divinorum
What is it? Salvia divino-
rum, a tropical cousin of
mint and sage.
What's it called? Salvia, Mexican mint or diviner's sage.
Where's it from? The Oaxaca region of southern Mexico.
What's special about it? Because of its unique chemistry, salvia is still legal in the United States.
What's it do? Smoking the dried leaves can cause auditory, visual and tactile hallucinacions. Strength of the hallucinacions depends on size of the dose.
Check out www.sageiwidom.org,www.erowid. org or www.deadiversion.doj.gov/drugs_concern.
"It was horrible, I hated it. My face was numb and it felt like my brain was bleeding," she said.
She added that she would never try it again.
Like most hallucinogens, salvia can produce uncomfortable effects, although Siebert said that it usually was not a problem because Salvia's effects wore off quickly. He said he was more worried about people with psychological disorders using the drug.
"As with all hallucinogens, if you have a psychological disorder, salvia might make it worse," he said.
He also said people taking other medications should not use salvia because no one knew how it reacted with other drugs. But Siebert also said he thought salvia was generally a safe drug. He said people couldn't build up tolerance to it and that it was almost impossible to become an addict.
"It's not the kind of drug people do every day or at parties, it's too introspective. I don't know anybody who does it that
SEE DRUG ON PAGE 7A
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