Anyone ever heard of Salvia?

[BlueStorm]

Apparently it's supposed to be some kind of herbal drug that is better than marijuana. My local news is doing a thing on kids taking this and about how you can get it off the Net and it's legal.

Blue

[KitchenWitch]

1. ah yes, the end of February Sweeps

I have heard of it, never used it though.

[Gormy Cuss]

2. The salvia genus includes the culinary sage plant, but the kids are probably using magic mint

Salvia divinorum, or something like that.

[Chan790]

6. Sage like most culinary herbs has its roots in folk medicine...

and was used as a pharmacological agent. Treatment of the possessed if I remember correctly. Perhaps it has hallucinogenic properties too. All I know is I tried salvia (what is sold as the street name salvia...I don't know the actual latin name or precise plant either) once and got sick from it. It's nasty.

Also, avoid large quantities of nutmeg as all costs. I've never spent more time feeling ill and out of my head than the 12 hours after I drank 4 tbs. of nutmeg in a glass of hot milk.

[idgiehkt]

3. I've heard it is a hallucinogen

It is a very pretty flower. That's all I know.

[BlueStorm]

5. Well one of our local stations is making a big fuss about it

The story is here:

http://www.woodtv.com/Global/story.asp?S=6144416

Personally I think it would be a waste of time and taxpayer money to make this illegal. Why do they want it illegal anyways?

Blue

On edit: I am not sure if the effects listed on this site is even factual or if they are trumping it up.

[idgiehkt]

7. so they can invest in the black market?

:rofl:

that is usually the reason, lol. Illegality of anything spikes the price in the black market. It's a conundrum.

I think that head shops are selling it and perhaps they want to make the sale of it illegal. It seems like if they just classify the kind that is a hallucinogen as a drug that should take care of it. Hell, I've heard you can get high from smoking passionflower leaves. Probably a whole lot of common stuff can make us high. I think drugs should be decriminalized so I don't know what to think about stuff like this.

[BlueStorm]

8. And a lot of herbal psychotropic drugs are very beneficial

I am thinking of trying this salvia and see what it's like. I've wanted to try shrooms as well but I am not sure as to what will happen.

I've smoked pot and it has helped me mellow down a bit.

Blue

[Shakespeare]

9. I'd be VERY careful with salvia.

I've not tried it (but am generally favorable about hallucinogenics), but do a search and you'll find some detailed responses from other DUers who've tried it in the past. From people I know who've tried it, it's a very intense and not terribly pleasant hallucinogenic experience.

[idgiehkt]

10. that's what I've heard too

kind of like a bad trip if you aren't ready for it. I've never heard it likened to something mellow like pot.

[dysfunctional press]

28. i'd go with giving the shrooms a try first.

way back when, i did a LOT of tripping- my nickname became El Cid (the movie was on onetime when we were tripping) because i would generally take twice as much as anyone else. we had a great source- one of the girls in our group had a boyfriend who was a chemistry grad student at the university of kansas who made fantastic windowpane. MDA, MDMA, Mescaline, Mushrooms...we did them all...but i haven't done any tripping in quite awhile...however- if i were inclined to do so again at some point, i think that mushrooms would be my drug of choice. not quite so intense- mostly because most of the chemical stuff is cut with a lot of speeed.

[AllegroRondo]

19. its already illegal in some states

I know it is in Missouri.

[pitohui]

4. anyone ever heard of pine?

salvia is a wide category

it's somewhat doubtful that s. divinorum is all that active, certainly most of the many other salvias are your basic hummingbird plants sold by every home depot and walmart garden dept. in the nation and are not psycho active in any sense

[Spider Jerusalem]

11. Nothing like weed at all.

So totally different you can't say it's "better". It's actually rather hallucinogenic (mostly affects visual and auditory perception); it comes on pretty quickly, and the effects don't last very long, comparatively speaking (so it's somewhat similar to DMT in that respect, although nowhere near as intense).

[Lex]

12. I have some in my garden--butterflies *love* it!

I see purple and red varieties at the garden store. Very pretty, and easy to grow.

[riona]

27. A favorite of hummingbirds too

[begin_within]

13. Certain types of sage are sacred plants to Native peoples.

They use them for religious ceremonies.

[itsmesgd]

36. I personally use white sage to smudge, but the salvia is sometimes used by the Native American Churc

these are the same people who hold peyote ceremonies.

I hope that there is not a knee jerk reaction to the growing numbers of these "local news" stories. If they outlaw all types of salvia, I'm in trouble. I dont smoke the salvia, but the white sage is very important to me.

[idgiehkt]

14. since I'm in the mood

here are some DUer experiences

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=105&topic_id=2708718

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=105&topic_id=3266800

I only am putting these here because I've read (probably here) that it can be harsh and intensely hallucinogenic, something you want to be prepared for.

I personally am clean but I think people should be informed.

[XemaSab]

15. Salvia is the genus name for culinary sage

Go to www.erowid.org for all the drug info you ever wanted and more.

[puerco-bellies]

16. Hi Blue;

I've used it in a past life (long story) and it is a very intense dissociative hallucinogenic. I used to bong it, a couple of good hits of regular, then a hit of the "extract". Wave bye bye to the world for a few minutes. I would get very intense visual, audio, and tactical sensation of fracturing in billions of fragments (always the same sensation/experience). Not for the faint hearted.

I am a child of the 70's and have extensive LSD experience so it was not to much of a challenge to handle the trip. I would caution you to be in a good place physically and mentally if you want to try it.

[Alexander]

17. I've not only heard of salvia, I've used it on multiple occasions.

The only thing in common it has with marijuana is that it's a green plant and you should smoke it out of a water chamber. Apart from that they are nothing alike.

If you ever decide to do it, it can be either one of the most rewarding experiences of your life or one of the scariest trips ever. I've done LSD, and this stuff felt more vivid and real than the acid trips.

The good news is, it is not addictive at all, doesn't show up in drug tests, you are back to normal within 10 minutes, and there are no withdrawal symptoms or aftereffects. So even if you don't like it, you won't have wasted more than 10 minutes of your life.

Also, salvia itself isn't dangerous at all - you can't fry your brain on it like LSD. The only harm you can do is if you try to get up and move around and hurt yourself.

The salvia divinorum leaf itself won't send you on a very intense trip; most people use salvia extract if they want to trip balls. Extracts can be bought at most head shops (although some chicken out periodically, depending on whether or not there's a movement in Congress to ban it) and typically range from 5x to 35-40x. 40x is the strongest I've smoked, and let me tell you, do NOT do this stuff in public, EVER.

The first time I smoked the 40x stuff, I was with a filmmaker friend of mine and we received it free from the lead singer of a reggae band we see (also a friend). He gave us some tips for smoking:

-Don't share bowls; pack each rip separately.
-Use a bubbler or bong of some kind; anything with a water chamber will do.
-Torch everything in the bowl.
-Hold in the smoke and count to 20 (in your head), then breathe out.

What he didn't tell me, but what is at least equally important, are these tips:

-DON'T EVER DO IT IN PUBLIC OR WHILE OPERATING MACHINERY (including cars). NEVER, EVER.
-This is not a party drug. Don't do it at parties, or with people who might just want to "get fucked up".
-Make sure wherever you do it is a comfortable and familiar place.
-Put on soft, somewhat repetitive music that you are familiar with. For example, Philip Glass.
-Sit or lie down when you smoke - moving around is a bad idea.
-Keep the lighting dim.
-Have a good, sober friend there for your first time, just to make sure you don't hurt yourself or break stuff.

Here's my first experience:

We smoked in another buddy's apartment - he and his girlfriend were watching us the whole time.

After I counted to 19, I thought "I don't feel it, this must not be working".

After 20, and the exhalation, I laughed uncontrollably for about 10 seconds.

I blacked out for the next 2 minutes.

The first thing I can remember is that I didn't remember anything - not even my name, or the fact that I was human. Instead I was totally concentrated on what I was seeing, which although it was three people in an apartment, might as well have been another dimension for all I knew. I didn't recognize ANYTHING. It felt like my universe was spinning slowly, like a rotisserie. "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" was playing but I didn't even recognize it was music, or know what music was, even.

After about 4 minutes (it felt like eternity), the trip got a little freaky. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the ceiling fold in on itself, kind of like a staircase imploding. I was convinced - 100% certain - that the folding ceiling was going to crush me. I whimpered, crawled into the kitchen, tucked myself into the fetal position and repeated "Please don't let me die; I don't want to die."

Needless to say, this was a bad first time for me - I was in an unfamiliar apartment, people were staring at me, the music, although familiar, had many changes throughout, and I wasn't mentally, emotionally or spiritually prepared for it. As a result, I didn't do it for several months afterward.

The second time I did it, it was far better, although I made some stupid mistakes then as well - I put on Yes's "Close To The Edge" from the Yessongs album, which is a trip in and of itself. During my second trip I visualized a giant zipper moving along with the letters of the alphabet (all colored differently, and in proper sequence - it felt like kindergarten), again rotating on an axis (a repeating theme in salvia trips for many people)

Again, there was a slight blackout, and I remember hearing Jon Anderson's voice coming from the record player saying "don't fall down" even though I know he didn't say any such thing on the album. Suddenly I realized I was standing, glass bong in hand, and sat down before I did any damage. This trip was far more pleasant.

I've done it maybe 5 times in my life, although not for a couple of years now. It was fun but I don't see myself using it more than maybe a couple more times in my life. It's a profound experience, and you will learn something about yourself, no matter how much you enjoy/dislike the trip.

Salvia was originally used by Oaxacan shamans, used for divination. As a result, it's very popular in the southwestern US - I hadn't ever heard of it before I came to Arizona. Not even these shamans used it more than a few times in their lives.

Recently, however, stupid teenage kids looking for a fix have been using this stuff in public and tripping out, causing lawmakers to work themselves into a tizzy over the damage it's doing to "our children". If those kids could've been bothered to inform themselves about this stuff, and been responsible users, then there wouldn't be this problem.

[itsmesgd]

21. Good advice to anyone out there who finds out about salvia from these expose's on the news

I have seen the news stories that are very inaccurate and basically tell the kids at which head shop they can buy the stuff and that it is a "legal substance" which they mistake for "safe high". The BBC did an excellent series on Salvia Divinorum and it can be seen on youtube. I think that it's pretty dead on (based on my limited "reading" about salvia). Another piece of advice for trippers is to have someone with them when they try it the first few times. Also, no candles. You dont want to have anything around that can be knocked down, tripped over, or otherwise hurt with.

[Carni]

22. Yikes that doesn't sound very enjoyable lol

I definitely just had a "Yep I am getting old moment" while reading your post...that sounds like one hell of a lot of work for a ten minute buzz lol

[Alexander]

24. It's not a "buzz". You trip harder than you ever will, in your entire life.

The fact that you are back to normal in 10 minutes doesn't mean it's a "buzz". You leave existence as we know it for those 10 minutes.

And it's not that much work at all, really. If you follow the steps (and remember itsmesgd's post - DON'T use candles), which takes maybe 5 minutes, you could very well enjoy it.

It's only really scary or unenjoyable if you are goofing off and think "I'd like to get messed up tonight". It should be more like a meditative trance than anything else.

[Carni]

25. I'll have to leave this to the die hard trippers

Back in the late 70's this may have been OK for yours truly...but nowadays I would probably have horrid visions of Dick Cheney and the chimp for a full ten minutes!
(talk about bad trips!)

[Rhiannon12866]

18. I thought that it was some kind of sweetener, but that's Stevia, LOL. n/t

[BluePatriot]

32. Hehe, I got them mixed up too (nt)

[zanne]

20. I grow Salvia

It's a beautiful flower. My garden wouldn't be the same without it.

[stuntcat]

31. I grow it too!

My aunts joke about it being a drug but I thought that was BS.
Maybe next year I'll eat some :) (or smoke it? or rub it on my temples?)

[zanne]

34. Why don't we get down on all fours...

And eat it? It'd give the neighbors something to talk about.

[mitchum]

23. No fun as a recreational drug

[hyphenate]

26. It's a pretty little plant

at least the Salvia I've seen--it has a greyish-white tinge on one side of the leaf, almost like silver. I know very little else about it, except that it is used a lot as a border plant. (In a garden--NOT at the US/Mexican or US/Canadian border!)

[martymar64]

29. I've tried it a couple of times

Concurring with the other posters, it is not a party drug. It's useful for looking into the beyond. I've heard of people seeing "someone" in the trip, a sort of guide from another dimension. I've never seen that myself, but the hallucinations are very intense and I didn't see them as "fun". I remember some brief moments of panic, thinking that I wouldn't come back to reality. That fades when the hallucinations do. Afterwords you may feel a little spent but there are no real aftereffects to speak of.

If you try, take the great advise given here and you should be OK.

[Taverner]

30. Salvia Divorinium - check out Erowid

It's not "better" than Marijuana per se - that's a matter of preference. It is an outright hallucinogen, and the initial effects are stronger than LSD OR Mushrooms. Think DMT.

You basically lose grip of reality 100% for about 5-10 minutes if you smoke it. More so if you chew it.

If you do do it, make sure you do it with someone else, and take turns.

[mark414]

33. meh...it's not really worth the price

[Bassic]

35. Yeah, a friend of mine tried some a few years ago

He kept exclaiming that Moogles and Chocobos were dancing on the wall. Whether he was pulling our leg or not has not been resolved however.

[BlueStorm]

37. Thanks for all of the advice... I will take this to heart..

I have never done an hallucinogen before and really am leery about it since I suffer from bi-polar and take medications for it.

I don't even drink alcohol because of the meds I am on.

Blue

[riverdeep]

38. anyone smoked what?!?

At first I thought it said saliva. If it was so, put in a Jennifer Garner movie and make money off the drool...

[BlueStorm]

39. LOL!!! n/t