DeKALB | The Mazatecs of Oaxaca, Mexico originally used salvia divinorum for its psychoactive properties. Today it is being used as a recreational drug.

Salvia is a hallucinogen that gives its user perceptions of bright lights, vivid colors and shapes, as well as body movements and body or object distortions. The drug can also cause dysphoria, uncontrollable laughter, a sense of loss of body, and overlapping realities.

Drug experts say this hallucinogenic drug causes a high lasting less than 15 minutes.

There is an acronym for the word ‘salvia’ that rates its intensity. The levels of effects are subtle effects, altered perception, light visionary state, vivid visionary state, immaterial existence and lastly amnesic effects.

These effects are determined by the dosage, as well as the potency of the dose, which can be heightened by putting a coating of salvinorin A on the leaves. Salvinorin A is the active ingredient that produces these effects.

Despite its hallucinogenic properties, salvia divinornim is not currently listed in the Controlled Substances Act in Illinois. However, a bill is pending to make it a Schedule I Controlled Substance, which would make it illegal.

Salvia has a similar chemical makeup to LSD and has many of the same effects.

One of the few places salvia can be bought in DeKalb is Smoker’s World, 818 W Lincoln Highway.

There has been a recent rise in the demand of salvia in Dekalb.

“We sold out before noon on Tuesday,” said the owner of Smoker’s World, who wished to remain nameless.

Before this recent demand of salvia, he said the shop had not ordered any in about a year.

One of the reasons for the low demand of salvia may be attributed to its short-lived effects. The average high off of salvia usually lasts between 10 and 15 minutes.

Salvia was in higher demand, but it has fallen since DeKalb’s banning of glass pipes.

The heightened demand for the drug may be respondent to recent media attention, said the Smoker’s World owner. He said he didn’t feel he’d have needed to order salvia for another four or five months.

Salvia has not been widely tested, and its long-term effects are yet unclear.

Chris Schimmel is a City Reporter for the Northern Star.