An internet search on salvia abuse or addiction provides some excellent deals at your local Lowe’s or Home Depot. It also shows the helpful information that it is deer resistant. Look a little more closely. You’ll see incongruous words such as “psychoactive” and “hallucinogen.” It’s true. This innocuous, pretty purple plant in your herb garden has a sinister side.
What is Salvia Addiction?
According to Wikipedia:
Its native habitat is in a cloud forest in the isolated Sierra Mazateca of Oaxaca, Mexico. It grows in shady and moist locations. The plant grows to over a meter high. Also, the stems are square and hollow. It also has large leaves and occasional white flowers with violet calyxes.
Mazatec shamans have a long and continuous tradition of religious use of Salvia divinorum, using it to facilitate visionary states of consciousness during spiritual healing sessions.
Most of the plant’s local common names allude to the Mazatecs’ post-Columbian belief that the plant is an incarnation of the Virgin Mary, with its ritual use also invoking that relationship.
The alarm generated by this entry is ameliorated by the soothing reassurance that “Salvia divinorum is understood to be of low toxicity and low addictive potential.”
Even more fascinating, [technical details of the plant’s chemistry] shown by salvia may, in fact, serve as a potent addiction treatment therapy.
Effects of Salvia Abuse on the Brain
Although salvia is not illegal according to Federal law, several states and countries have passed laws to regulate its use. The Drug Enforcement Administration lists it as a drug of concern that poses a risk to people who engage in salvia abuse.
By mass, salvinorin A is the most potent naturally occurring hallucinogen. But potency and toxicity are different things. No signs of organ damage occurred in rodents after exposure to large dosages. Rodents exposed to large doses of salvia showed no signs of organ damage.
How Salvia is Used?
All in all, the methods of abuse have not changed a great deal. Users of salvia chew the leaves or they extract the juice drinking. Fresh leaves are chewed, or the juice is extracted from them and drunk. Also, the dried leaves may be rolled in cigarettes, inhaled through a water pipe or hookah, or vaporized and inhaled.
Salvia divinorum has become both increasingly well-known and available in modern culture. The Internet has allowed for the growth of many businesses selling these plants, dried leaves, extracts, and other preparations. The substance has also attracted negative attention from the media, with alarms raised over the plant’s legal status, sometimes headlined with comparisons to LSD or other psychoactive substances. Also, parents worry about salvia usage by young teens.
This drug was the subject of the first use of YouTube within drug-behavioral research: scientists at San Diego State University used videos of salvia users to study observed impairment. Their findings corroborate reports that the most profound effects of smoking it appear almost immediately and last about eight minutes. These effects include temporary speech and coordination loss.
Monitoring the Future Survey on Salvia Abuse
Also, a Monitoring the Future survey conducted by the National Institute on Drug Abuse shows salvia as a substance abused by teens. Perhaps an unfortunate side effect of a science project, the discovery of this sage’s helper from ages past.
Of course, the long-term effects of salvia abuse are unknown. But, recent studies with animals show that salvia harms learning and memory.
If you need help with salvia abuse or addiction, please contact us at A Forever Recovery today. We understand the complexities of addiction and we know what it takes to recover. Call today to get started on your drug-free lifestyle.
- en.wikipedia.org – Salvia Divinorum
- ncbi.nlm.nih.gov – Use of Salvia divinorum in a Nationally Representative Sample