Where Is Salvia Divinorum Grown?

Salvinorin A is a psychoactive ingredient that produces hallucinogenic effects when the plant Salvia divinorum is consumed. This shrub belongs to the genus Salvia officinalis, otherwise known as the common sage plant, and it is grown in a variety of locales, but is indigenous to one location.

Geography

• While Salvia divinorum is grown domestically in the United States and elsewhere, the plant grows wild and is indigenous to one specific area of the world: the Sierra Mazateca region of Oaxaca, Mexico. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration reports that the plant is regularly imported into the United States from Mexico and Central America.

History

• Indigenous Mexicans and Mazateca shamans used the plant as a spiritual and medicinal tool. Suspicious of outsiders, natives typically hid their Salvia divinorum gardens from view. "R. Gordon Wasson and Albert Hofmann acquired the first specimen of Salvia divinorum from the Mazatecs in 1962," reports the Center for Substance Abuse Research at the University of Maryland.

Legality

• Several states have either enacted or are considering legislation to regulate the production, distribution and possession of the plant. The same holds true for several countries. As of October 2010, the U.S. federal government lists Salvia divinorum as a "drug of concern," according to the website of the U.S. Office of Diversion Control.