ALTERED STATES: The Mexican herb Salvia divinorum contains the most powerful natural hallucinogen known. Scientists think that it could treat several types of mood disorders but worry that regulations could stonewall research.
Image: EDWARD KINSMAN/Photo Researchers, Inc.
-
The Best Science Writing Online 2012
Showcasing more than fifty of the most provocative, original, and significant online essays from 2011, The Best Science Writing Online 2012 will change the way...
Read More »
As the source of the most powerful natural hallucinogen known, salvia is drawing scrutiny from U.S. authorities who want to restrict this Mexican herb, now used recreationally by some. But neuroscientists worry that controlling it before studies have determined its safety profile is premature and could hamper research of the drug's medicinal value. Increasingly, evidence is piling up that it could lead to new and safer antidepressants and pain relievers, as well as even help in improving treatments for such mental illnesses as schizophrenia and addiction.
The plant, formally known as Salvia divinorum, has a long tradition of shamanic usage by the Mazatec people of central Mexico. Salvinorin A, the primary psychoactive component, is part of a class of naturally occurring organic chemicals called diterpenoids, and it affects neural receptors in the brain similar to those that respond to opiate painkillers such as morphine—but without euphoric and addictive properties. That is because salvinorin A binds mostly to only one type of receptor (the so-called kappa opioid receptor) and not significantly to receptors that could lead to addiction (such as the mu opioid receptor).
As the popularity of salvia has risen over the past 16 years—its psychoactive properties were discovered in 1993 by Daniel Siebert, an independent ethnobotanist based in Malibu, Calif.—calls to treat the plant as an illegal drug have grown louder. Twelve states have recently placed S. divinorum in their most restrictive controlled substance category, and four others have laws restricting sales. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration has listed salvia as “a drug of concern” and is looking into the drug to determine whether it should be declared a Schedule I controlled substance, on par with heroin and LSD.
The unusual properties of salvinorin A intrigue scientists. Psychiatric researcher Bruce Cohen and his colleagues at Harvard Medical School have been developing analogues of salvinorin A and studying their possible mood-modulating properties. The team’s work with salvinorin A in animals suggests “that a drug that would block kappa opioid receptors might be an antidepressant drug—probably a nonaddictive one—or a mood stabilizer for patients with bipolar disorder,” Cohen remarks. By activating the kappa opioid receptors, drugs such as salvinorin A could reduce dependence on stimulants and the mood-elevating and mood-rewarding effects of cocaine. Because salvinorin A can produce distortions of thinking and perception, researchers speculate that blocking the receptors might alleviate some symptoms of psychoses and dissociative disorders.
Some investigators, including the team at Harvard, believe that modified forms of salvinorin A could bolster its medicinal value. Tom Prisinzano, a medicinal chemist at the University of Kansas, points out that some chemical transformations of salvinorin A have different pharmacological abilities—such as a longer-lasting action or an enhanced ability to bind to receptors—and no hallucinogenic properties. Modifying its novel structure, he says, “could potentially treat a number of different central nervous system disorders.”
But if salvinorin A becomes a federally scheduled drug, research on it would become “much more difficult,” predicts Rick Doblin, director of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, a nonprofit based in Santa Cruz, Calif. Prisinzano agrees, saying that “there will be a lot more paperwork involved,” subsequently making approval for clinical studies harder to obtain. For example, human studies with LSD were essentially blocked for more than 35 years because of federal restrictions, and currently only one human study with LSD is being conducted in the world. As Doblin puts it, approval boards at universities and research institutions view proposals involving criminalized drugs with extreme caution. “And funders are reluctant to look at potentially beneficial uses of drugs of abuse,” he adds.
See what we're tweeting about
25 Comments
Add CommentExcellent article. As a medical doctor, I find it disappointing and frustrating that scheduling has inhibited research on substances such as psilocybin and LSD, which have been shown by prior research to have tremendous therapeutic potential. I hope there will be a more intelligent approach to dealing with salvia. The argument that "scheduling the drug should wait until evidence about its effects and toxicity become clear" makes a lot of sense to me, but will it make sense to the DEA?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRandy S. Baker MD
What about the experience with other drugs of abuse such as, indeed, LSD? Studies WERE done on them, and they didn't result in the production of any useful medications. What REASON is there to think this would be any different?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn response to Denise M, the medication itself can justify its own existence and intentional use. For example, Alcoholics Anonymous was found to be about 400% more effective when combined with LSD. Also, this same agent, at below-threshold doses, alongside another inappropriately scheduled naturally occurring compound, (psilocybin), have been used by thousands of migraine and cluster headache sufferers for effective abortive and preventive treatment of these horribly debilitating and painful conditions. Please bear in mind that there were thousands of published articles relating to the profound benefit of these compounds before the hysterical (i.e. political) legal shutdown that resulted in an almost total silence in research, and very promising therapeutics, in this field. Definite enhancement had clearly been shown in the realms of psychotherapy, creativity, spirituality, and addiction recovery. Indeed, if these legitimate reasons were not enough to justify the existence and use - legal or otherwise - of these compounds, it should be noted that very similar analogues to these tryptamines are actually the prescribed pharmacological descendents of the original ergotamines in question. It would not surprise me to learn that these variants were derived from their matrix before the absurdly draconian shift that effectively froze a very promising field of therapeutics and research.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think this article would have done well to mention the rather astounding safety record of Salvia Divinorum, considering that hundreds of thousands of people, idiots included, have used it with remarkably few reports of any harm, its almost total lack of toxicity,lack of addictive properties (actually an anti-addictive), and the fact that most who try it do not return to it. The Lancet had an editorial a couple of years ago saying front-and-center that forty years of head-in-the-sand witch-hunting is enough, and now it's time to revive a legitimate inquiry into the huge therapeutic realm of these very promising compounds and their variants.
Basically, the only basis that the DEA and their FDA mafiosos can try to emphasize (in favor of scheduling) is the rather flimsy presupposition that all "recreational" use equals "abuse." In the case of Salvia "recreational" users, this would include the approximately 70% who do so for spiritual reasons (see Erowid.org).
If we are willing to declare outright recreational drug use a felony, let us start with Viagra, which actually has some serious risk.
Unreal. Read the truth about salvia and its tremendous medicinal potential: http://www.salviasociety.org/salvia-medicinal-uses.htm
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou want to keep it off the boardwalk, that's fine you can ban it from the stores, but don't criminalize it and deny people with cancers, AIDS, mental disease their cure!
Unreal. Read the truth about salvia and its tremendous medicinal potential: http://www.salviasociety.org/salvia-medicinal-uses.htm
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou want to keep it off the hands of teens, that's fine you can ban it to minors like Cali and Maine did, but don't criminalize it and deny people with cancers, AIDS, mental disease their cure!
Since when has potential medical benefit mattered to the people who prosecute the "war on drugs"? In their mania to ban everything people might use to get high, they won't let little things like social benefit, human rights, or plain common sense get in the way.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBig pharm, now operating hand in hand with the ObamaNation, prefers to develop their own "drugs of abuse". Therefore, they operate in league with their Pelosi "people don't know what's good for them" driven medical control freaks. Folks, this is NOT about Science. It IS about Control. The LSD story provides a perfect example of the relationship between governmental control and freedom - academic and personal.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSurely, we don't need to add yet another substance to a growing list of products for the illegal drug business to profit from.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe don't provide a solution by banning it. We create a larger problem.
Whether it has beneficial effects or not, the money fighting the drug cartels could be spent more effectively at the root of the problem - the users.
And legal sales of recreational drugs generate an amazing amount of "sin" taxes.
Old points, I know...
We can't have ILLEGAL drugs taking profits away from LEGAL drugs in this country, can we?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisVery well said. It's very naive to assume that the scheduling purpose of all the potential mind liberating natural compounds would ever have to do with the concern of public health. It would be extremely inconvenient economically, politically and ideologically...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhen administered to a chimp, another hallucinogen, LSD, had the effect of withdrawing the subject from the stablished power hierarchy within the chimps herd, a fact that provoked arousal and upset within the monkey society. Hallucinogens may lessen the power of inhibitory signals from parental figures, but at the cost of destroying ethical controls in the subject's mind. The balance, that includes possible shift to psychosis and impaired cognition, is far from positive
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI find it hard to believe that any self-respecting "scientist" at this point will still lend any sort of credibility to the government's "concern" with our propensity to become "addicted" to anything. The reason why the establishment is attempting to put salvia on the shelf is the same it has for prohibiting our use of blessed plants such as cannabis... They compete favorably with anything big pharma is able to produce or will produce. In the meantime, while we "wait and see" what should be done, the scientists that work for the corporate establishment will "invent" something they can readily put on the market at a dear price... so we will be sure to pay dearly (in more ways than one) for what God and Nature provides for free. In the early sixties I was arrested for attempting to lower the price of tetracycline. Pfizer later lowered the price of its own product in order to leave us out of the game... They rapidly got rid of the competition that way. A year later the price was back to where it had been before our short-lived appearance in the market. So much for competition within the corporate capitalist world.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOh the balance between allowing- adults access to cigarettes, alcohol, McTrans but apostelizing on herbs- Hmmm.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSolution: Let Big Tobacco get in on this turf and they will ensure that its lucrative and legal and harmless. Everyone happy?
Except that tobacco has actually been proven as a cause of death / illness. Kind of a problem there.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have bipolar disorder, and if there is any hope of finding better medications to treat mental illness through Salvia divinorum I hope that research is allowed to continue. For someone living with a mental illness, finding the right medications can be a daunting task, often involving terrible side effects and, more often than not, failure to find anything that works. I am lucky enough to be high-functioning to a point where, if I chose not to tell you that I am bipolar, you would never know.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisUnfortunately, there are so many other people out there with a mental illness that do not have this luxury, especially persons living with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder. ANY possibility of finding new and better medications to treat mental illness could be a chance for that many other people to be high-functioning; to work a job, go to college, raise a family, function in society.
This plant could potentially solve so many problems and I believe that academia should look into its active constituents as much as possible.
I've actually smoked this stuff, and I must say it was the most intense and bizarre experiences of my life. Words fail to describe the experience, but I will say that it is neither pleasant nor unpleasant. It is so intense that most people cannot move for it's whole 5 minute duration. It has zero chance of addiction, believe me, very few have a desire to take it a second time. The real danger is in people ignorant of its effects ingesting it at a point in time when maintaining consciousness is crucial for safety.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEven though I look back fondly on the experience in the way it changed my outlook on life I think it definitely needs to be regulated, but not at the cost of hampering research. From my experience I would say it has a very real potential to help out others in a clinical setting.
I've actually smoked this stuff, and I must say it was the most intense and bizarre experiences of my life. Words fail to describe the experience, but I will say that it is neither pleasant nor unpleasant. It is so intense that most people cannot move for it's whole 5 minute duration. It has zero chance of addiction, believe me, very few have a desire to take it a second time. The real danger is in people ignorant of its effects ingesting it at a point in time when maintaining consciousness is crucial for safety.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEven though I look back fondly on the experience in the way it changed my outlook on life I think it definitely needs to be regulated, but not at the cost of hampering research. From my experience I would say it has a very real potential to help out others in a clinical setting.
As in agriculture with GMO patents, economic considerations are the "driver" of legality, production and marketing -- and "morality". "Mary Jane" is not patented, but when some variety (GMO?) of it is, it will have a legal market. Prohibition was about illegal alcohol. That ended. The time will come to rationalize the laws of drugs. Without the patent protection, or legal restrictions of some sort, the market price will be low and the profitability low. In time, the "value" will become a positive "social" justification. In the case of this herb, it was popular first illegally (prohibition phase) and next the legal phase in a form that enhances profit to the influencial part of society.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe suggestion that the "ObamaNation" is in some way culpable for some kind of orchestrated reduction in freedom of some kind is obviously partisan and blind to earlier reductions by other parties.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe entire post has a childishly obvious prejudice and is worth no more than a pause to tighten the screwed-up ball before tossing it into the nearest incinerator.
Once again Big Brother steps in to save us from a nonexistent threat. Exactly what are the grounds for criminalizing this plant? Where is the clear and present danger? Anyone? Anyone? Has there been a rash of high school kids overdosing on Salvia divinorum recently that I didn't know about? Has Osama bin Laden (remember him?) started cultivating and selling it to fund his fiendish plan for world domination? Or is it just that with the whole "War on Terror" thing fizzling, maybe they need to reignite a new "War on Drugs"? Hallucinogens are relatively harmless substances, whether used recreationally, spiritually or medicinally. That the authorities are forced to demonize such an innocuous plant suggests they've lost all sense of proportion. Not that they had all that much to begin with.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI am a forty year old long time reader of SA. I have been using SD for about 1 year now. To me there is no doubt that SD is an entheogen. This is its most important property. I also suffer from depression and asthma. SD has helped when antidepressants have not. For some strange reason it has also helped with my asthma.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMost bad experiences from SD can be attributed to 2 factors.
1. Too high an initial dose
2. Bad set and/or setting.
As for 1. the original Mazatecs chew the leaves. This if far removed from inhaling 20x, 30x enhanced leaf. I started with unehanced leaf, then with with the tincture and now can tolerate 5x and 10x. Recommnended dose of 5x is .04gms. Get a scale, dont eyeball it.
As for 2. above. Recommended reading (with a very open mind): The Psychedelic Experience, By Timothy Leary. Third Bardo-bad experience, Second Bardo-Good Hallucinogenic experience. First Bardo- The Clear Light
As for legality, of course the Socio/Politico/Religious powers that be are very worried about SD. They are worried about how it will upset their Status Quo. See George Orwell. 1984.
Bad idea: Scheduling SD. I can hear the Mexican drug barons laughing: Those stupid Gringos, I hope they schedule SD so we can start trafficking it and make tons of money off of it.
Of course scheduling plays into the Socio/Politico/Religious mafias hands. More money to fight the war on drugs . More fiery Sunday sermons, more Save our Children outrage.
As I said before SD is an Entheogen. If you are prepared for that then it will enhance your life. If you are not then you will deal with the consequences of meeting G-D and not being prepared. Imagine your embarrassment!
The current status quo for SD is precarious. Numerous states and national governments have banned it. What are they so afraid of?. Alcohol kills millions yearly. Why isnt it banned? No deaths from SD reported, so far.
SD should be regulated, just like cigarettes and alcohol are. NO to minors, etc, etc. Scheduled? NO.
So much about Woodstock these days. The true meaning of Woodstock was: Live and let live. Why have we fallen so far? These are certainly unenlightened times, the return of the Dark AGES.
There is a lot of people who a closed minded to those compounds which have shown to be of use , with no negative affects. In my case I have love ones that suffer every day with only dangerous drugs proscribed. I support all harmless product in the hope of a cure or at least relief from the daily pain that they and there families suffer.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDrdandy
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThey have to know more than we think they do about it. They know Salvia is a medicinal miracle but there's another reason it was moved to schedule 1. Maybe they just don't want people doing research on it because then they might find something they don't want them to see. According to Wikipedia "When it comes to a drug that is currently listed in schedule I, if it is undisputed that such drug has no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States and a lack of accepted safety for use under medical supervision, and it is further undisputed that the drug has at least some potential for abuse sufficient to warrant control under the CSA, the drug must remain in schedule I. In such circumstances, placement of the drug in schedules II through V would conflict with the CSA since such drug would not meet the criterion of "a currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States." 21 USC 812(b)." From the internet research I've uncovered on Salvia, none of these 3 statements seem to be true. Why then is Cocain on schedule 2 for minimal medicinal uses while Salvia is put on Schedule 1 ignoring its extraordinary potential to further medicine and research? This is a site with more information on Salvia Divinorum if any are interested. http://www.salviatruth.com/
Salvia is a important herb which can be used as a medicine to relax. The result are positive for this herb.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGreat post!. In this blog,it explains the salvia tree. W
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this