When mind-altering substances like psychedelics produce unpleasant experiences - "bad trips" or worse - the real cause is often not so much the drug itself, but "dosing." In street slang, "dosing" does not refer to the normal medical administration of measured amounts of a drug. Instead, the slang use of "dosing" is the dangerous and stupid practice of covertly administering a drug to an unsuspecting user. During the 1960s, some proponents of LSD usage were so enthusiastic about its effects that they routinely offered strangers spiked drinks containing the drug. But it's one thing for a fully informed emotionally mature adult to voluntarily take a drug. It is quite another when someone is "dosed," and has effects mimicking a psychosis. The reckless abuse of LSD soon led to draconian criminal laws and suppression of research into potential beneficial effects of psychedelics. More recently, there has been concern about so-called date rape drugs, GHB for example, slipped into a woman's drink to facilitate sex (of course, the most common date rape drug is simply alcohol).

Salvia divinorum is a sage used for millennia by natives of Oaxaca for its psychoactive properties. The active ingredient of the plant is salvinorin A, which is similar in potency to LSD. The drug is now available worldwide through the Internet and in head shops as leaves for smoking, or as a liquid tincture. Salvia produces intense short-lived psychedelic effects - longer effects when taken orally, shorter when smoking the leaves. In most of the United States, salvia is still sold legally. Users generally report pleasant experiences, but some have reported the opposite result - fear, terror, panic and worse. The September 2008 issue of the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry reports a case of Salvia dosing that led to a near-fatal toxic psychosis.salvia

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I felt like I was in a scene from my childhood, almost as if I had smoked salvia as a child and was feeling something in the present. I felt (note, I didn't see any of this, it was purely a feeling) like I was eight years old, in a park around my house in a swing during the middle of a summer day. After I got this feeling, the feeling of the park transformed into where I was: the beach at present age. I then began to see (through closed eyelids) what looked like a ranch in Mexico. I then "felt" that I was in the desert southwest, looking into this ranch. Through closed eyelids, I saw the beach I was on, but then a few yards away, the beach sand ended and the ranch/desert began. In the ranch, I thought I saw a beautiful Mexican lady. I then felt I was on an Indian reservation, with some Indians. I felt the feeling of the peyoteros. I then felt the ranch/desert/reservation drift away, not in a normal fashion, but around my body in a 360 degree turn around my body. I felt a closeness with the aura of it all. I then felt "normal" again and lied there still for a few moments, with my eyes closed. M had wondered off and I heard him in the distance. I then heard footsteps come behind the umbrellas, and then around them. I felt the presence of some old, yet beautiful man (could have been a woman) sprinkle some dust on me. I didn't feel the dust, but I felt something mentally. I then opened my eyes. I felt exactly like what happened to Jodie Foster in the movie Contact, as she crashed onto the beach after being transported in that machine. Also, the scene afterward where she comes back to earth, yet still feeling she was on that beach.I sat up and walked off to the edge of the beach. I was left with a sort of knowingness. I realized many things at this point. I would call this the best part of the experience. Salvia is definitely a "teacher" plant. I now look upon her very seriously and with the utmost respect.

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