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<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/science/jan-june08/salvia_05-06.html">http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/science/jan-june08/salvia_05-06.html</a><br>
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<h1><font color="#990000">Little-known Drug Draws New Scientific,
Legislative Attention</font> </h1>
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<td><b><span class="text_v_10_000000_160">Most
of what the public knows about the hallucinogenic drug salvia divinorum
comes in disturbing snippets from a growing collection of online videos.</span></b></td>
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<p>The
setting is usually an abandoned parking lot, or a quiet park, or the
basement of somebody's house. Teens laugh nervously as a friend writhes
on the ground in loose-limbed confusion, disoriented and gripped by
powerful hallucinations.</p>
<p>The source of the delirium is an herb
called salvia divinorum, which is legal in most of the United States.
It can be bought online or in stores as dried leaves or extract. Salvia
is not banned by the federal government, but its growing use has
attracted the attention of as many as nine states that have voted to
make it illegal, and legislators in several other states are
considering restrictions.</p>
<p>At the same time, researchers are just
beginning to understand how the drug affects the brain, and are finding
that its psychoactive ingredient works differently than other
hallucinogens, such as LSD.</p>
<p>Known as Magic Mint, Sally D, or
Diviner's Sage, salvia is a fast-acting natural hallucinogen that
causes an intense 15- to 30-minute high.</p>
<p>A member of the mint
family, salvia's origins trace back to the Mazatec Indians of northern
Oaxaca, Mexico. They either chewed the herb or mixed it with water to
induce visions for shamanic rituals.</p>
<p>"It was similar to how
Native Americans use Peyote," said Dr. Jonathan Appel, chair of the
department of behavioral and social sciences at Tiffin University
professor and a former drug abuse counselor. "Shamans would enter the
spiritual world and do diagnoses from the spiritual world."</p>
<p>In
the many YouTube and Myspace videos documenting teenage salvia use, the
herb is often smoked in a pipe or a water bong, which users say
triggers a powerful high. In one video, a boy blows out smoke, stumbles
across a lawn and then falls over backward, as his friends laugh. In
another, a girl announces she can no longer feel her mouth and in
another, a teen in a hooded sweatshirt stares at his bong and then
screams, again and again, wordlessly.</p>
<p>Users report visual
distortions, loss of balance and motor control. The high is quicker and
more intense than other hallucinogens, causing many users to lose
contact with their surroundings.</p>
<p>"The phrase often used is you're catapulted out of time and
space," Appel said. "You're shot out of a cannon in your mind."</p>
<p>Florida
State Rep. Mary Brandenburg has authored a bill to make sale or
possession of salvia illegal in the state of Florida and punishable by
up to five years in prison. The bill passed the Florida legislature and
is awaiting signature by the governor, which would make it one of as
many as nine states to ban the herb.</p>
<p>"I was concerned first of
all about the potential for physical harm that the use of salvia has,"
Brandenburg said. "I'm also concerned about the use of salvia as a
gateway drug to get into other hallucinogenic drugs. It's legal, and
relatively easy to get."</p>
<p>After failing to get a similar bill
passed in 2007 in California, Republican Assemblyman Anthony Adams of
Hesperia recently introduced a bill to ban the sale of salvia to minors
in the state.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">"You don't have to
look any further than the screens of YouTube to see people using this
drug as a recreational device," Adams said. "It's absolutely
conceivable that someone on salvia could harm themselves or worse,
others, while using the drug."</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">But
John Mendelson, a senior scientist at the California Pacific Medical
Center Research Institute, thinks that designating salvia as a Schedule
1 substance is going too far.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">"You
take a 20-year-old, convict them of a Schedule 1 felony and put them in
jail, and you damn well know what their lives are going to be like,"
Mendelson said. "They're finished. They can't hold a federal job.
There's a real consequence to that."</p>
<p>Some researchers point to
the fact that salvia is fundamentally different then other
hallucinogens. Salvinorin A, the psychoactive molecule in salvia
divinorum, is structurally distinct from other hallucinogens, such as
LSD or mescaline. Research shows that the molecule has no affinity for
the serotonin receptor, a key player in other hallucinogenic drugs.</p>
<p>Instead,
Salvinorin A interacts with the brain's kappa-opioid receptors, cell
proteins that bind to specific molecules. When the salvinorin A
molecule binds to these receptors, it triggers a cellular response that
can be felt throughout the body almost immediately.</p>
<p>It is that
interaction between the herb's molecules and the brain that Jacob
Hooker, a research fellow at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven
National Laboratory, has been studying.</p>
<p>Using positron emission
tomography scans on lab animals, Hooker's team found that within
seconds, a high concentration of the drug localizes in the visual
cortex and the cerebellum of the brain, areas responsible for vision
and motor control, respectively. The drug then clears from the brain
just a few minutes later. Previous research has shown that is also
highly selective, meaning it quickly targets and grabs onto the
kappa-opioid receptors.</p>
<p>"It is incredibly interesting not only
for its selectivity and affinity for this receptor, but also its rapid
onset and short duration," Hooker said of salvinorin A. "It's unusual
to find a drug with such high affinity for a given receptor that has
incredibly short-lasting acute effects."</p>
<p>Beyond the euphoria that
many teens are seeking from the drug, researchers are exploring whether
salvia and the way it affects the brain could lead to new drug
treatments for illnesses like bipolar disorder, Mendelson said.</p>
<p>"In
some animal studies, kappa agonists have decreased animal behaviors
consistent with mania," he said, adding, "I don't think Salvinorin A is
going to be a treatment for anyone. It has distorting effects, and it's
unpleasant for some people."</p>
<p>Drugs that are chemically similar,
however, could have potential treatment uses, he said. It is this
possible benefit that worries him as more states consider designating
salvia as a Schedule 1 agent. Should it be legally lumped in with LSD
or other hallucinogens, researchers would be severely limited in the
work they could do.</p>
<p>In what he hopes will lead to a "smarter,
more nuanced" approach, Mendelson has been conducting trials to
determine the dose levels that cause hallucination in humans.</p>
<p>"We
need to know how many people are using this drug, how much is being
sold, what doses are psychoactive and what the medical and psychiatric
consequences are," he said. "We desperately need that information."</p>
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<p class="text_v_10_1B528E"><br>
<b>---- By Jenny Marder, NewsHour with Jim Lehrer</b></p>
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