Wow! Who knew? I was considering putting some in this year because it looked pretty. I guess I'll look for it in trades here. I think it's a little ridiculous, though. They haven't stopped selling nutmeg and that can be used as a hallucinogenic (in large quantities) too.

Well, at the end of the year,I'll have seed for 4 different varieties. I'm hoping I won't be too busy so I can bag and self pollinate to have pure seed.

This article states that it is Salvia divinorum specifically.

Not sure if the ones we grow belong in this dried and then smoked variety. Anyone out there know salvias better than I?

It is only Salvia divinorum, no other salvia has hallucinogenic effects. Every few years there's a plant the kids seem to be trying. For awhile there it was Datura. Most any plant labeled as poisonous will get you high in a small dose. Unfortunately, kids can get very sick or die because doses can be very minute or the drug amount in a plant can vary according to growing conditions sort of like how some hot peppers can be more potent when the weather is hot and dry.
Ok, I seem to know a lot, but no I've not been smoking any plants, LOL!
Remy

That's nice to know, it's not the stuff I'm growing than.

There are many salvias that are used in cooking and to flavor and or garnish deserts teas and fruit drinks.
Every year this pops up somewhere. Last year 'salvia' was reported on one of our local news channels as the 'new drug'. The station didn't bother to find out if it included all 900 plus species of salvia or just one particular species. I wrote a long letter to the station manager that they were going to cause a lot of illfounded panic by not getting all the facts.

Yes it is Salvia divornium that is the culprit. If it was all salvias I would have been dead long ago since I use culinary sage when I cook and I test the nectar of ALL of my salvias by taste.

I currently grow the following:
Salvia guaranitica Black & Blue
Salvia guaranitica the species
Salvia guaranitica Black & Rouge
Salvia guaranitica Van Remsen
Salvia coccinea the species
Salvia coccinea Coral Nymph
Salvia coccinea Lady in Red
Salvia coccinea Forest Fire
Salvia Subrotunda
Salvia Azurea
Salvia Greggii Cherry Stampede
Salvia pachyphylla
Salvia Darcyi
and have in the past grown
Salvia Purple Majesty
Salvia microphylla Wild Watermellon
Salvia greggii Cherry Queen
Salvia Raspberry Truffle

Penny

Wow, Penny
that is an impressive list of Salvia. I would love to see pic's of your garden when it's in bloom :)

We just moved up here from Louisiana, and it's those folks down there who are largely responsible for this.

Salvia isn't the only plant that they've decided to outlaw (I don't believe the rest of the country is following on anything but the s.d.). It's going to be impossible to enforce, but they've taken a whole list from some outdated book from the 70s and made them all illegal to grow. I'm glad I'm not gardening down there anymore (I also don't have weed year round!).

Ages ago, I smoked salvia divinorum (hey, it was legal, and I like to explore my psyche), and I can say that it should not be sold in headshops in little baggies to kids as a party drug. It's a potent entheogen. Ritually used, it's really something. But it does act on the opiate receptor in the brain, which makes me think it could become addictive (never for me, because the self-examination was too intense, the way I used it, to want to repeat very often). From what I understand, the kids were smoking it, along with doing pills and alcohol, and then either falling over or running their heads into walls or equally idiotic and destructive things.

(It's a sad aspect of American culture that we legislate everything to parent the least capable, as if there's no middle way between absolute prohibition and absolute deregulation.)

I hope this post goes through. I'm not only new to Oswego, but new to this board. I tried to post something about hummingbirds when I first registered, but it never showed up. (It was a thank you to Penny for the hummingbird map...I've got it bookmarked and check it, waiting for those little flying jewels...)