Bans proposed for hallucinogenic herb salvia

The psychedelic Purple Sticky label warns that the contents of the cylindrical package - dried leaves of the hallucinogenic herb Salvia divinorum and a chemical extract of the drug - are to be used as incense only. But at $30 for a pillbox the size of a small jar of lip balm, that’s some awfully expensive fragrant foliage.

It is legal to sell, possess, and ingest salvia in the District of Columbia. But the same stuff, long used for medicinal and mystical purposes by Mazatec Indians in Mexico, will get you arrested in Virginia, where a ban on salvia passed last year.

Last month, the Ocean City Council passed emergency legislation to ban salvia products, which were being sold at almost 20 shops on the resort town’s boardwalk. An identical ban followed suit in Worcester County on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, and state Delegate Jim Mathias, a former mayor of Ocean City, plans to push for a statewide ban when the General Assembly meets in Annapolis this winter.

Salvia has been gaining popularity over the past decade as a smokable drug whose psychotropic extract provides a short-lived but potent hallucinogenic trip.

The 2008 National Survey on Drug Use and Health estimated that 1.8 million people in the United States had tried salvia, “and it’s probably even more now,’’ said Matthew Johnson, a psychopharmacologist at the Johns Hopkins University medical school, where he studies salvia and its active ingredient, salvinorin A. “It’s really hit a critical mass in the last couple of years.’’

There’s ample evidence online: Salvia, which is widely available for purchase on the Internet, has become a popular theme on YouTube, where countless bong smokers in their teens and 20s have posted videos of themselves stumbling, laughing uncontrollably, talking nonsensically, and just plain freaking out.

“It’s an unpredictable drug that clearly alters rational behavior and alters your psyche,’’ Mathias said.

Researchers worry that a rush to regulate the drug could interfere with efforts to learn whether salvinorin A can be used to treat cocaine addiction and Alzheimer’s disease, among other conditions.