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Salvia Divinorum

This is a paper I did for my research writing course, a lot of it is personal experience and opinion.

Salvia Divinorum:
A Divine Tool or a Dangerous Hallucinogen?

Salvia divinorum is an herb that contains the world’s most potent, naturally occurring hallucinogenic chemical, called Salvinorin A. States are joining together, attempting to make this herb illegal. Salvia is a ritualistic tool that is still used in that way to this day. However, because young adults are abusing this herb, it should be regulated in a manner similar to alcohol, rather than banning its sales and use.
Salvia divinorum, aka ’Magic Mint’, ‘Ska Maria Pastora’, and ‘Sally D’ is a plant that has been on this Earth for a long time, and, as the National Institute on Drug Abuse will tell us, is just now hitting the college and high school drug abuse scene. It has been known a lot longer than that to the indigenous people of Oaxaca, Mexico. The Maztec Indians used this herb for vision quests and medicine. The journal, Herb News, informs us of its effects, “…the intense, dreamlike experience it induces can be very unpleasant. It has been dubbed a ‘spacio-temporal dislocation’ that alters perception of time and space (A).” The state of mind induced is how Shamans, Native American medicine men, are able to pull forth a cure for whatever ails their people. This state also allows one to seek deeper truths. Salvia is still used to this day in this traditional manner, amongst Native Americans and Pagans.
There are three ways, to this day, known to consume salvia divinorum. The first method, which is the original traditional method, is done orally through a quid. Sagewisdom.com informs us that a quid is generally eight to twenty-eight leaves rolled together in either a cylinder or a ball. They also tell us that it is generally chewed on every ten seconds, with the remainder of the time the quid remains under the tongue. The quid is very bitter and has a rather unpleasant taste...