English 280: The Journalistic Essay

By Shayna Curran

Christine took a very large dosage all at once. “Ahh, these fuckers show up every fucking time”, is the last thing she says before her face goes completely blank.  She looks at the ground as if it is water swallowing her up; her neck sways rapidly back and forth as she avoids something coming up from the floor that no one else can see. She curls up her knees in horror, trying to get her feet on the couch.  Mark is next to her, and in her flailing, she latches on to Marks thigh for dear life.  Mark and Christine are friendly when sober, but certainly not on a thigh grabbing basis.  They have both lost their sense of propriety completely. After she stops moving, Christine is still clearly out of it, but more catatonic than manic.

These effects are from a drug that’s been getting a lot of public attention lately.  Salvia Divinorum is a powerful hallucinogen that in most U.S. States, remains perfectly legal.  The drug is readily available at specialized online stores, and most head shops carry it as well.  It comes in a small amber vial, with flavors like strawberry, cherry, and vanilla, and is sold in different potencies that are 5, 10, 20, up to 50 times more powerful than the plant in its natural form.  I had the opportunity to see four college students use green apple, 20 extract salvia, one of them feeling the effects for the first time.

Although it is not the drug of choice for most students, due its intense effects, it has gained an infamous reputation via YouTube, where dozens of videos depicting college aged students incapacitated from the drug have been posted.  A four year-long surge of popularity in salvia use has been completely overlooked in the rules and regulations of Bridgewater State College, the school these four students attend.   This is because most lawmakers across the globe are trying to figure out what to do with Salvia Divinorium, the world’s most potent natural hallucinogen.

There is the issue of legislation at the collegiate level, but also on a very national scale.  Since the drugs growing popularity amongst expanded-consciousness seekers, or “psychonauts”, legislators in some states can’t get Salvia banned fast enough. Florida, Louisiana, Missouri, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Delaware, North Dakota, and Illinois have already made Salvia a schedule I drug, a status reserved for drugs that are highly addictive and lethal. Unfortunately, many of these states are making Salvia illegal without any rational discourse about it; namely, in the case of Delaware, and “Brett’s Law”

Brett Chidester was a troubled 17 year old boy. He took his own life in January of 2006, his mother citing Salvia as the drug that pushed her son over the edge. Three months after the suicide, a law was put in effect in the state of Delaware making Salvia illegal. Because the legislation had no other prompting other than the grieving outcry of Brett’s mother, it is now referred to as “Brett’s Law”.  Although he had admitted to trying salvia before, the medical examiner found no trace of salvinorin, salvia’s active ingredient, in Brett’s body.  This did not stop Brett’s death certificate from being altered, three months later, to say that Salvia was a compounding factor in Brett’s death. There have been no other reported instances of Salvia related suicides or overdoses.  Suicide is the third leading cause of death in Brett’s age demographic. Something isn’t right with the logic used for banning this plant, used in Delawarean decorative gardening for decades.

One rather effective way of finding out how Salvia works is through observation.  Four students have chosen to take salvia, and allowed me to document the process. Among the participants are Hillary Yorke, 19; Christine Hausammann, 19; Mark Gamble, 19; and Sean Moriarty, 20.

Hillary is a 19 year old music major at Bridgewater State College. I sleep under her bed. That is, she’s top bunk, I’m lower. Hillary has attempted to smoke salvia before, but to no effect.  Some people have a difficult time adapting to the smoking method of salvia, because it is unlike that of tobacco or marijuana smoke. According to www.salviasmoke.com, you must “Burn and inhale the -entire- bowl. Make sure you circle the lighter around the bowl to get everything. The Salvia must be burnt all at once to work, unlike another popular, less legal herb”. It is important to hold in as much smoke as possible, all at once, for as long as possible; otherwise salvia is not worth the $50 buzz. To safeguard against human error, we will be using superior tools. Specifically, a RooR custom “Little Sista Icemaster 5.0” made of 5mm thick borosilicate glass.

Our equipment has been hand crafted by German Physicists who have been perfecting the optimum water/volume ratio in bongs for the last thirty years.  They invented the “diffuser”, a series of perforations at the bottom of the down stem, which creates tiny, smooth smoke bubbles.  RooR also popularized the ice catcher, three indentations in the shaft, like an inverse sugar cone, to hold ice cubes. Ice concentrates and cools the smoke. The overall appearance of the water pipe, and all RooR’s in general, looks like something from a laboratory – clear thick glass in the shape of a funnel.  This apparatus, along with an “L” shaped 6 seater couch and a living room safe from disapproving Republican legislators, creates ideal conditions for smoking hallucinogens.

One of the reasons Salvia has been so hard to regulate is that there is no other drug like it. It is like marijuana in that it can be smoked, but the effects are much more intense.  It is a hallucinogen like LSD, but with much shorter effects, salvia lasting 11 hours and 40 minutes less than the average length of an average acid trip. The effects of salvia come on quickly and peak after 5 minutes, with milder effects for the next 15 minutes.

Salvia is quite unique in that it is the only naturally occurring hallucinogen of its kind. More well known psychoactives, like mescaline and LSD, act against specific serotonin receptors, whereas salvia is an opioid receptor agonist, working in the same pathways of the brain as serotonin.  By weight, it is the most potent naturally occurring psychoactive known to man.

The discussion turns to who is smoking salvia in the room and who will be “trip sitting”. Kevin, a friend of Mark’s, announces “I will not be partaking, because last time I pissed myself and it got on Mark.” A lively reminiscing session begins: “You sprayed my leg!” Mark interjects. Mark always wears shorts, even in the winter. “I went straight upstairs, got George, and said ‘Just to let you know, your remote control is sitting in a pool of piss, on top of your cooler. I pray to God that you remember to clean that shit up before your mother gets home’ Then I left, cause Lord knows I didn’t want Melinda traipsing in and seeing what her son was doing.”  It’s hard to imagine two manly, polite young men like Mark and Kevin urinating on each other because of a drug with a 20 minute effect on the mind.  This unpleasant experience has not deterred Mark from trying salvia again tonight; he starts with one hit, and goes further than he ever has before with his second.

After exhaling for the first time, Mark whispers “fuck” in a voice reminiscent of a scared 5 year old girl. He digs his heels into the barstool he’s perched on. To Kevin, from some part of Marks brain, “Oh, look at your beeeeard! You’re goanna hurt me!” Kevin apologizes, saying he was in a rush and didn’t shave before he came over. “No, no that’s the drugs”, Mark says, suddenly coming to the conclusion that Kevin’s scruff is not indicative of his impending murder.  Mark is aware of himself, and more importantly, the impaired state he is in.  By the second hit, he is not aware of his fearful state. Mark describes his second trip as floating on a grid of music, without any awareness of his actual surroundings or behavior. Externally, Mark begins to sob. He says something to the effect of “my girlfriend is going to kill me” and buries his face in his hands. He is unaware of these actions as they happened.

Perhaps the new environment for smoking salvia, in a crowded, well lit living room with friends gawking and laughing at the user’s behavior, has resulted in a more tumultuous psychedelic experience. The Mayans, and spiritual seekers up until the last decade, have preferred to take the drug by chewing or smoking the leaves (not extract) in a dark room, with no more than one quiet observer, and a question or cognitive objective to figure out during the experience. Now considered a spectacle, the drug elicits a sinister feeling.

However, Hillary, the first time smoker, had milder effects than Mark.  She begins to laugh hysterically after her dose, and drinks a sip of water with some difficulty. Then, when trying to explain the sensation, she strains to say “It’s like everything has its place”, meaning everyone in the room is sitting in the correct spot, as she pantomimes the placement of our bodies with her arms. After the laughter stops, and she comes down from the high, she does not report having a pleasant experience. “My mouth couldn’t move. It was frustrating. It made me want to kill everybody”

Since salvia use has been brought into the public eye, and perhaps from hearing some local horror stories, the way salvia is treated by head shop owners has changed.  At Buried Treasures, a popular smoke shop near Berklee College of Music in Boston, two Caribbean men behind the counter used to joke around with customers looking to buy Salvia. They would point out popular blends and exchange anecdotes about the drug. Now things are more formal at Buried Treasures. Purchases of salvia are received with apprehension, and include a photocopied flier with a lot of capital letters. “DO NOT ATTEMPT TO OPERATE A VEHICLE OR HEAVY MACHINERY WHEN ON SALVIA”, is one of the warnings. Swimming and being around sharp objects when tripping is also discouraged.  There is no more joking, only concern during the purchase.

As an experienced user, Sean is the last one to take salvia. This 20 year old student and IT professional claims to have gone through a period in his life where he did the drug every weekend. He leaps off the couch after taking a few hits, and addresses everyone: “No, you know what Salvia is like?” and explodes out of the room. Emerging from the kitchen a minute later, Sean carries a soup bowl and a cup of water. “Hey, that’s my soup”, Mark whispers.  Sean runs to the table. “It’s that tension, that breaking point”, the water is pouring in a steady stream, slowly filling up the bowl. “There, right there!” feeling the water run between his fingers.  Sean’s favorite part of smoking salvia is trying to interact with others on the drug, an interest many users do not share.

Everyone else begins to come down, and when the discussion about everyone’s trip becomes more lucid, I know everyone is sober. That is, everyone but Christine. She is still catatonic, staring at nothing, saying nothing, and with no facial expression. No one says anything, but everyone can sense that Christine is still in the middle of a bad trip.  After a few minutes, she whispers to the person next to her, “Who am I? Who are all these people?” She is still dissociative for the rest of the night, an unusual phenomena considering Christine has tried salvia several times before, and has experimented with other hallucinogens, all of which to little effect.  For everyone, including and especially Christine, her reaction was genuinely scary.

The next day, she describes her experience as being completely devoid of ego. She had to keep remembering parts of herself, as she was coming back to reality, but the facts of her life were not easy to remember. “My name is Christine. People call me X. People in this room are my friends. I smoke butts. I go to college” were the only things she could recall for at least an hour. As she went to bed that night, she thought she was dying as her mind replayed all the events of the day back to her.