The Salvia divinorum Research and Information Center - Shroomery

Ps94amay99
vaporized compound may this be unnecessary. Felipe paraphrased his father's explanation of the potion's mechanism of action
as follows, " What happens to the soul when one drinks la María (their name for the infusion) is that it has so much strength
that one is left as if in a faint. And, therefore, a person becomes intoxicated when la María enters them, along with the prayers
of my father and the words of Christ. It really isn't alcohol, however. You go into a 'delicate (special)' state... At times one
becomes half-drunk, but with the result that what they are experiencing will be engraved on their mind." It is obvious that Don
Alejandro realized the importance of ritual and expectation to the visionary experience. Speaking out helps fix it in the mind.
During the two sessions, Díaz and I felt mental sensations that included flying, floating, traveling rapidly through space,
twisting and spinning, as well as a heaviness or lightness of the body. Physically, we had slurred speech and awkward sentence
patterns. We both had a normal pupillary response to a flashlight shined in our eyes by Paul. Díaz later felt a chill that was
accompanied by a lowered heart rate. After the sessions were over,and the light was turned on, we were dizzy and stumbled
about when we tried to move around. Understanding this effect, Don Alejandro suggested that Paul do the driving. Although
we recognized the physical incoordination, we felt that, mentally, we were in combined states of acute awareness and receptive
minds. Interestingly, Siebert (1994) noted incoordination at high doses of vaporized and inhaled salvinorin A, but his subjects
were extremely confused. The curandero spent hours before each session describing what we would see. This had a
tremendous influence on my second experience. During this session Díaz mentioned plants and flowers. I then began to see
them also. Later, he apologized to Don Alejandro for not seeing what was supposed to appear, especially the saints and other
religious figures. As he finished speaking, I saw such imagery. When I described my vision of a castle, Díaz saw one also. The
most amazing experience was that which happened to me on my return to the motel. Don Alejandro had described what the
visionary journey would be like. I am sure that when I found myself in the meadow, talking to the man in white who fit the
description of a saint, I was in the curandero's heaven. The hallucination was quite complete, being visual, oral, aural and
tactile. Experiences for other ways of taking the leaves or salvinorin A should be similar, only varying in duration and degree
of intensity.
Investigators' reports of the effects of chewing a quid, smoking the leaves, or inhaling the vaporized compound, say they last
from 30 minutes to 2 hours, peaking at about 1 hour. The second time I took the infusion, made from 50 pairs of leaves, the
effects lasted at least 4 hours before I went to sleep. Don Alejandro had said the visions would last all night. When he took the
preparation with us, he went outside and vomited. He said this would end the effects. On making the infusion, he noted the
head of foam, which indicated it would be quite potent. The Mazatec way of either grinding or crushing the leaves in water is a
pharmaceutically elegant way of preparing a microsuspension or emulsion of salvinorin A. This explains the foam on the top
of a "good" preparation. It is much more effective than the crude emulsion that was made to dose the mice (this emulsion
might serve for oral dosing of the compound, however), for it disperses the compound without an accompanying settling out.
Ingesting this infusion, one has visions that last for an extended period of time, as the drug is slowly and regularly released and
absorbed through the stomach and gastrointestinal tract. Vomiting, therefore, will remove the remaining infusion and drug
from the body, ending the experience. One can also understand why dried leaves aren't used by the Mazatecs. Drying
drastically alters the chemical composition of the leaves, and the microsuspension/emulsion of salvinorin A will not be formed.
Since salvinorin A is insoluble in water, the dry leaves will not serve to prepare an effective infusion.
From the above, it is apparent that both S. divinorum and salvinorin A are prime candidates to become drugs of widespread use
once knowledge of their effects spreads. A small investment in fertilizer and solvents, with only a minimal need for mastery of
laboratory technique, would make cultivation of S. divinorum and isolation of salvinorin A potentially much more attractive
than trying to synthesize LSD or phencyclidine derivatives. Smoking the dried leaves, eating the fresh ones, or taking the
infusion should not be major problems to treat in the emergency room. However the fraction of a milligram of salvinorin A
needed to induce visions can easily lead to problems in measuring out accurate doses. Smoking the compound in the manner of
cocaine free base might add to its mystique; being vaporized and inhaled means that the effects are almost immediate.
Unfortunately the extreme potency of salvinorin A could readily lead to overdosing and its associated problems, especially as
nothing is known about methods of treatment or the compound's metabolism in the body. Using medications might prove to be
disastrous. There is a lot of research to be done on S. divinorum and its active ingredient.
REFERENCES
Aguirre Beltrán, G. 1973. Medicina y Magia, el Proceso de Aculturación en la Estructura Colonial. México, D.F.: Instituto
Nacional Indigenista.
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