REPORTER: Ginny Stein
It might not always look like fun, but these people are all trying the hippest new hallucinogen.
WOMAN: I'm pretty sure I'm going into it.
MAN: You want a little bit more?
It's a herb called salvia, also known as diviner's sage or magic mint.
MAN: So this is Casey smoking salvia for like the billionth time.
A US Health Department survey estimates almost 2 million people have tried it, and more than a third of those in the past year alone.
MAN: Hold it in, don't breath it out. You feel it yet? Give me a thumbs up when you feel it. He's going to feel it about now.
BOY: My heart's going faster and faster. Yeah. Oh, shit.
Salvia use has skyrocketed in the past year, spurred on by the flood of videos like this posted on the YouTube website demonstrating the herb's short-lived but intense effect. Thousands of videos have been posted, and the most popular have been viewed over a million times. Salvia is a member of the mint family, and for centuries it's been used by Mexican shamans wanting to connect with the spirit world. But now it's become commercially available across much of America.
JOHN LONG, SHOP OWNER: This is the 10, 15, 20. And then we are out of the 30.
Here in North Carolina, salvia can be legally sold in stores and online, and it comes in a range of purities to suit every customer.
JOHN LONG: You know the price goes up for the stronger stuff and most people are just buying it to try it.
John Long is a businessman. He helps run what's known in the United States as a head shop. It's within walking distance to the main campus of the University of North Carolina. But he says his clients are not just students.
JOHN LONG: It's a wide range of people. I mean, older people, younger people - obviously have to be 18 to buy it. But, yeah, you have your college kids, you have your early parents, older parents, and then your people that have been around for a while.
24-year-old Travis and 21-year-old Anne have both used salvia. Neither describe it as pleasurable, just intense.
TRAVIS, SALVIA USER: It was an experience, it was something that was good to experience, you know. It's like sky diving or bungie jumping - it was not something I exactly want to do all the time but it would be good to do that.
ANNE, SALVIA USER: I didn't really get that much out of it, it was just a really intense experience for maybe 15 or so minutes, and then it went away. And I just felt kind of icky afterwards.
TRAVIS: See, right now, there could be something flying by him in his eyes...
Like many who've smoked salvia, Travis has watched YouTube's growing collection of clips showing the drug's effects. This one, he tells me, is something he can relate to.
TRAVIS: I mean you just inhale and I give you five seconds. You're like five seconds... because you can see it in his face, as soon as he exhales, right there. He realises what happens and then he's expecting a good time, so he's loving it right now because he's just going through a trip phase and having a good time because that's what they told him. And then he realises it is not a great time because they are not helping him control it. He's just completely engulfed in the situation right now, and it's uncontrollable. He can't control it right now because he has the influences around him.
But even with such powerful effects, little is known about whether salvia causes any long-term damage to the brain, or even whether it's addictive. But one thing researchers do know is that magic mint may well hold the key to important new medical advances.
PROFESSOR BRYON ROTH, PHARMACOLOGY: You can basically sample all the amino acid space in an unbiased fashion...
Professor Bryon Roth is a psychiatrist and pharmacologist at the University of North Carolina, and his lab is one of hundreds investigating salvia's potential.
PROFESSOR BRYON ROTH: What did you find? You've got six plates? Really, of what?
Professor Roth is credited with discovering the unique impact of the herb's active compound, salvinorin A. He says that while other drugs typically stimulate many receptors in the brain, salvia is unique in that it stimulates just one.
PROFESSOR BRYON ROTH: That is the receptor molecule, and this is salvinorin A. This red and white thing here, you can see it there. And that's how it binds to the capia opiate receptor. So in blue here, that's the receptor.
That highly unusual quality could inspire unprecedented breakthroughs, with early evidence suggesting new possibilities for the treatment of pain and psychiatric problems.
PROFESSOR BRYON ROTH: And so here you have a molecule that Mother Nature has made which is highly selective for one target, and if we can understand why that is then that might give us some clues in to how we can use that information and basically make more targeted medications for a number of other diseases.
What's more, salvia may even hold the key to new treatment for drug addiction.
PROFESSOR BRYON ROTH: Which in some ways is somewhat paradoxical because here you have this hallucinogenic agent but paradoxically it may actually have the property of diminishing the reinforcing or drug-addictive properties like certain drugs like cocaine and heroin and so on.
But some are deeply worried about salvia's increasing popularity.
SENATOR RICHARD STEVENS, NORTH CAROLINA REPUBLICAN: I have asked our staff here in North Carolina to do research for me to propose some legislation that would deal with that as an illegal substance in North Carolina.
Republican Senator Richard Stevens' immediate reaction to seeing the YouTube videos was to propose his state impose a ban.
SENATOR RICHARD STEVENS: There were hundreds and hundreds of examples of young people showing themselves in the video supposedly having used this drug. There was one I watched that showed a controlled environment in which a person was there not using the drug and someone who was, and the person was describing what they were feeling and their reactions. And they were very violent and very strong reactions in every case.
WOMAN: It'll go away in like two minutes. Just let it go.
13 US states have already banned or regulated salvia's use. And America's Drug Enforcement Agency is now considering whether to place a nationwide ban on the drug. But outlawing the herb could have unintended consequences. Professor Roth says scheduling it as a class one drug - in the same category as heroin and cocaine - would stifle the promising research currently taking place in hundreds of labs.
PROFESSOR BRYON ROTH: It's possible that a hysteria could develop based in part on all of these videos on YouTube and lead basically to this immediate scheduling of schedule one. If the compound is schedule one it is nearly impossible to then use it, to develop that compound as a therapeutic agent. So it basically puts the kibosh on all sort of therapeutic drug development.
SENATOR RICHARD STEVENS: If that many young people are using this drug with that kind of reaction, it ought to be dealt with. Our young people, sadly, in this country use lots of different kinds of medications for a thrill, for a high, and get themselves hurt, get other people hurt, cause great kinds of calamities in their own families. It's an issue that needs attention.
But surprisingly, for once not every politician is keen to open up a new front on the war on drugs. Democratic Senator Ellie Kinnaird is co-chair of North Carolina's justice committee.
SENATOR ELLIE KINNAIRD, NORTH CAROLINA DEMOCRAT: I think we have to go very carefully and we have to say "Is this really a menace, is this really something that is spreading rapidly and is causing a great deal of trouble for young children or young adults or whatever? Or is this something that is probably very limited in scope and probably, from what I've read, not the most fun, and therefore will not continue?"
MAN: Sit down, Joe. Stop him with the camera. Stop.
WOMAN: You're in my room.
TRAVIS: I couldn't get up and just want to do some salvia in the morning and trip phase. That's a little far-fetched.
REPORTER: Would you do it again?
ANNE: No, pretty much just personally I am studying psychology and all those psychotic symptoms scare me so I don't want to experience that anymore now that I am that much aware of what all is going on, I'm not interested in it.
GEORGE NEGUS: Smart girl. A real dilemma, though, isn't it? Does the good outweigh the bad? We'll get reporter Ginny Stein to keep an eye on developments. Salvia's already banned here, but you can have your say on America's attitude to so-called magic mint on our website sbs.com.au/dateline.
GINNY STEIN
Editor
NICK O’BRIEN
Producer
AARON THOMAS
Original Music composed by
VICKI HANSEN
Reporter/Camera