Salvia: What's all the buzz about?

A young man dressed in a Tupac T-shirt and jeans sits on a picnic table and raises a metal pipe to his lips. At his friends' urging, he lights the bowl and inhales deeply. His eyes widen.

Within seconds, he steps off the bench, staggers into his yard and falls flat on his back. His friends laugh hysterically as the kid stares into the sky, mouth agape; he's disoriented and unable to move. After several seconds, he rolls around in the grass, eventually standing up and looking like he just woke up to the worst hangover ever.

I'm watching a YouTube video -- visited over 188,000 times -- that shows the purported effects of Salvia divinorum, a hallucinogenic legal herb that has Florida legislators concerned.

And after looking at this video and dozens of others like it (there are approximately 3,000 on YouTube), I'm a little worried, too.

Because I'm about to smoke it.

Salvia is not a new drug. Native to Oaxaca, Mexico, the plant has been used by Mazatec Indians as part of a ritual sacrament for hundreds of years. In the mid-'90s, Salvia reached the curious masses after online retailers began marketing the drug in earnest. Now hardly a month goes by without some media outlet reporting on "the next marijuana" and providing a forum to state officials scrambling to criminalize it.

Since 2005, eight states have banned salvia and 12 others are considering it, including Florida. Currently, two bills that would make the possession or sale of salvia a felony, punishable by up to five years in prison, are winding through the Florida legislature.

"[The bill] is on a tract where I'm quite optimistic it'll pass into law this year," says Florida State Rep. Mary Brandenburg of West Palm Beach, who introduced HB 1363. (State senators Evelyn Lynn of Lake Worth and Tampa's own Victor Crist are pushing bills of their own.)

"I'm just so concerned it's so popular among very young people," Brandenburg says. "This drug has great potential for abuse."

But is salvia really the dangerous epidemic the media and politicians make it out to be?

There are no studies on the long-term effects of the drug, though some scientists suggest salvia could treat certain mental illnesses and addiction. The only known death related to salvia occurred two years ago: A Delaware teen committed suicide reportedly after months of salvia use. There was no salvia in his body at the time of death, however.

Locally, law enforcement agencies say they are aware of salvia, but don't know how widespread it is.

Rep. Brandenburg doesn't know either.

"Because it's not illegal, no agency is tracking its use," she says. "So I can't tell you how popular it is."

Inside Ybor City's Kicks On Seventh, owner Will Selochan says salvia sells, but not among teens or college students.

"Kids don't like salvia," he rails. "Salvia is too expensive for kids."

Selochan has sold the herb for the last five years, along with his regular assortment of adult toys, lingerie and tobacco accessories. The average salvia-buying customers are 30-60 years old, he says, and includes Westchase housewives, rich mortgage brokers and people suffering from migraines. He even smokes it himself.

Effects vary, he says, but users can experience weightlessness, laughing fits or "you can end up in TV chasing Spongebob around."

A phone call interrupts Selochan; it's another caller asking for salvia. There's been an upsurge in business since Florida media outlets began reporting on the hallucinogen.

"You just have to try it for yourself and know what you're talking about," he tells me. And that's exactly what I intend to do.

It's 10:20 p.m. and I'm sitting on my couch with a borrowed pipe and about a gram of salvia extract I bought for $20. I pack the pipe with the brittle, dark green salvia leaves -- they smell like grass (the lawn variety) -- light it and hold in the smoke.

Almost immediately, a warmth suffuses my body, and within a few seconds, I feel different, slightly dizzy and my head feels heavier. I begin to sweat, my head droops and I feel like someone is squeezing my temples. Time stops for a second but then restarts, which sends me into a small fit of laughter for no reason. I stand up, stagger a bit and sit back down, because my head has become as heavy as a bowling ball. All of this occurs within 10 minutes. As the effects wear off, my dizziness fades into a dull headache.

Is this it? I smoked half the entire package of salvia and all I have now is a headache. Not that I wanted to hallucinate I was a melting ice cream sandwich (as one user reported), but a nice illuminating vision of the meaning of life would've been nice.

After talks with other people who have tried salvia, I find my experience isn't unique; unless the extremely curious want to plunk down $60-$100 for a more potent extract, salvia is an expensive and short-lived experience that's not much fun. But between legislators hungry for votes and retailers boosting their bottom line, the buzz behind this herb continues to grow.

But onto the bigger question: Should salvia stay legal?

Criminalizing salvia will only make instant criminals out of normally legit retailers, while bolstering a new black market. If even enforceable, the law will fill our already-crowded jails with more nonviolent drug offenders for a drug that has not proven to pose a significant public safety issue. Sure, those salvia-induced YouTube videos are a little disturbing, but they're no worse than the drunken antics on view any given weekend in Ybor City. But perhaps most importantly, banning salvia will only raise its stature.

Because if Florida legislators think banning the herb will end its use, well, they must be smoking something a helluva lot stronger than salvia.