Jared Loughner, arrested in the Tucson massacre that killed six people and critically wounded Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, used the hallucinogenic drug salvia, according to a friend.
The drug, which is legal in Arizona, is the same substance that Miley Cyrus was recently caught smoking. It derives from Salvia divinorum, a plant thats grown in Mexico, and it can be chewed, smoked, or swallowed as an extract. Unlike cocaine, salvia isnt a stimulant. Instead, it induces a high of several minutes that alters the users perception of reality. Users often report that they perceive themselves as turning into an object, like a chair.
The drug isnt addictive, but it has been singled out in a few cases of death. Paul Prezkop,MD, of Loma Linda University Medical School in California, said one patient he treated suffered an episode of psychosis brought on by his use of salvia. In another case, a teenager, Brett Chidester of Newark, Delaware, killed himself in 2006 after smoking salvia for several months. I believe the use of salvia was reshaping Brads mind, distorting how he viewed himself the world around him, his mother, Kathleen, told an interviewer in 2009. He just snapped. After her sons death, she campaigned successfully to ban salvia in Delaware.
