‘Magic mint’ triggers cosmic, and legal, high

Psychoactive plant called Salvia takes users on a heady ride

updated 7:13 p.m. ET July 25, 2006

Hunter knows how to mellow out on marijuana. It's something he does all the time. But the first time he smoked the leaves of a plant dubbed the "magic mint," he felt as if he'd been slammed into another dimension.

As drug trips go, this one was more terror than pleasure.

"The first time I did it was with a lot of people," recalls Hunter, a Toronto university student who asked that his real name not be used. "That was probably a bad idea because I did it and before I even knew what was happening, I was just like transported into another world.

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"Then someone was around me and they just tapped my shoulder, and I forget if I was annoyed by that, but it felt like spikes going into my body. I felt like I was being stabbed, but obviously it was the Salvia."

Salvia divinorum, that is — a member of the sage family of plants that has been used for hundreds of years by the Mazatec indigenous people of southern Mexico as a medicinal herb and means of divination.

Today, it continues to be used in shamanistic rituals. But it has also become popular among the university and college crowd in Canada and the United States — although for many, once is enough, experts say.

What may be surprising, given its powerful hallucinogenic effects, is that cultivating, selling or using Salvia divinorum are all perfectly legal in Canada and most of the U.S.

In Canada, neither Salvia divinorum nor its main active ingredient, salvinorin A, are regulated under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, says Health Canada spokeswoman Carolyn Sexauer. The substance can be imported and sold provided no health claim is made regarding its effects.

"Health Canada is collecting data regarding evidence of abuse of this substance and its dependence potential, and we continue to monitor Salvia divinorum," Sexauer says.

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The Diviner's Sage, as it's sometimes called, is sold in specialty "head" shops across Canada and the United States, and can be ordered over the Internet. Most of it comes from Mexico.

But the plant is not a substance to be smoked lightly, says Chris Bennett, co-owner with his wife, Renee Boje, of Urban Shaman in Vancouver, which specializes in plants used for shamanistic and religious purposes, including peyote and Salvia.

"We have a self-imposed age limit of 19 in our store," says Bennett, explaining that anyone under that age will not be sold psychoactive plants. "When people do come in and they start talking about, `Just get me ripped,' we start explaining what our shop's about. We start laying a rap on them about the spiritual use and the history of the substances. And they generally get uncomfortable and leave."

At Urban Shaman, about two grams of dried Salvia leaves sell for $8 and a 10-times stronger extract goes for about $25. But prices vary widely across the continent, depending on the source.

Bennett says it takes about 10 deep inhalations of Salvia smoke to achieve its full effect, which is short-lived as drugs go, lasting anywhere from 10 minutes to half an hour.

Salvia-induced hallucinations are as individual as the people who partake of the plant.

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