So What Exactly IS Salvia ?

Young Miss Miley Cyrus was recently captured on video by one of her friends; I use the word friend loosely (see my summary statement below).

In the video, taken a few days after her 18th birthday, Miley is seen taking hits from a bong that is filled with the salvia.

Salvia divinorum is a psychoactive plant which can induce dissociative effects. Its native habitat is within cloud forest in the isolated Sierra Mazateca of Oaxaca, Mexico, growing in shady and moist locations.

The plant grows to over a meter high, has hollow square stems, large leaves, and occasional white flowers with violet calyx.

Salvia divinorum has a long and continuous tradition of religious use by Mazatec shamans, who use it to facilitate visionary states of consciousness during spiritual healing sessions.

Most of the plant's local common names allude to the Mazatec belief that the plant is an incarnation of the Virgin Mary, with its ritual use also invoking that relationship.

Salvia divinorum is generally understood to be of low toxicity and low addictive potential.

Media stories generally raise alarms over Salvia divinorum's legal status and are sometimes headlined with generally ill-supported comparisons to LSD or other psychoactive substances.

Parental concerns are raised by focusing on salvia's usage by younger teens—the emergence of YouTube videos purporting to depict its use being an area of particular concern in this respect. The isolated and controversial suicide of Brett Chidester received much media attention.

Salvia divinorum remains legal in most countries and, within the United States, is legal in the majority of states. However, some have called for its prohibition. While not currently regulated by US federal drug laws, several states have passed laws criminalizing the substance. Some proposed state bills have failed to progress and have not been made into law (with motions having been voted down or otherwise dying in committee stages). There have not been many publicized prosecutions of individuals violating anti-salvia laws in the few countries and states in which it has been made illegal.

So there you have it – the crowdsourced, Wikipedia definition.

What do you think ? Me personally, I'm not buying the story that this video was stolen from her friend. The friend should have known better than to try to videotape a public figure doing something like this – obviously, it has led to nothing good for Miley Cyrus.