PROPOSAL WOULD MAKE DRUG EGUIVALENT TO LSD, HEROIN

Hallucinogenic herb used for cheap, legal thrill has lawmakers worried
about abuse.

RALEIGH YouTube may prove the downfall of Salvia divinorum. For years,
college students have used the hallucinogenic herb for a cheap - and
legal - thrill without attracting much attention. But with hundreds of
online videos showing people smoking Salvia and dissolving into fits
of laughter and hallucination, North Carolina is considering joining
14 other states that have outlawed it.

A bill proposed in the legislature last week would make Salvia a
Schedule I drug, equivalent to heroin or LSD.

State Sen. Bill Purcell, a Laurinburg Democrat, said he has no
evidence that the herb is being widely abused, but he is concerned
about anecdotal reports of people who became violent or suicidal while
using it. "Methamphetamine got out of control before we did anything
about that," said Purcell, a retired pediatrician. "I'm hoping we can
do something sooner this time." A member of the mint family, Salvia
was traditionally used in religious rituals by the Mazatecs Indians of
Mexico. It first became popular in the United States in the mid-1990s
under names such as Magic Mint or Purple Sticky and can be found in
head shops in Raleigh and Chapel Hill for as cheap as $14.

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration currently regards Salvia as a
"drug of concern" and is studying it. In the past few years, states
such as California, Florida and Virginia have banned it outright,
while Louisiana and Tennessee have restricted its consumption.

Not everyone thinks it's a serious problem. Bryan Roth, a professor of
pharmacology at UNC Chapel Hill, has studied Salvia and its chemical
derivatives to see whether they can be of use in developing
anti-psychotic medication. He said it is not addictive and its effects
typically last only about 15 minutes.

He said many regular users of hallucinogens say they do not enjoy it
because it is too potent.

"Most people don't like it," he said. "It's just too intense." That
was the experience of James Bonhotel, a 30-year-old bartender living
in Wilmington, who decided to try Salvia after hearing about it from
friends and reading about it on the Internet. He found the experience
"strange and uncomfortable." "After the initial high wears off in
about two minutes, you are left with a hangover of sorts where you
just don't feel right mentally," he said. Few reliable studies have
looked at the use of Salvia. A scientific study published in the Drug
and Alcohol Dependence medical journal in 2007 showed four percent of
students at a college in the Southwest had tried it at least once in
the previous year.

By comparison, 35 percent of students in the same study reported
trying marijuana. Bert Wood, president of the Partnership for a
Drug-Free North Carolina, said he's concerned about Salvia, but he
also doesn't want to attract too much attention to something that
isn't really a major problem right now. "This could end up being like
those books that the Catholic Church bans and then everybody wants to
read it," he said.