Evidence Arizona shooter driven mad by

Mexican hallucinogen Salvia

by Terrence Aym

http://www.helium.com/items/2064604-evidence-arizona-shooter-jared-loughner-
driven-mad-by-mexican-hallucinogen-salvia

Jared Loughner was a very disturbed young man driven into depression by a breakup
with his girlfriend, possible anger at his parents and the general feeling that he had
become a loser.

He is the type of guy who fell into the self-made rut of never seeming to get things
quite right. Because of that he looked beyond himself for the root cause of his troubles
and gravitated into the sometimes nightmarish—usually paranoiac—world of conspiracy
theories.

To forget himself and his depressed feelings over an increasingly dim future, he turned
to alcohol and an array of drugs, according to his friend Zach Osler.

During a lengthy interview on FOX News, Osler mentioned Loughner's addiction to

marijuana and to Salvia. FOX, and other media outlets ignored or failed to pick up on
the reference to Salvia.

Besides smoking pot, Loughner smoked Salvia. That fact is significant, possibly crucial,
in understanding how a young man became increasing unstable and transformed from
a deep emotional depression into a raving maniac that decided it was the right thing to
stalk and murder a sitting United States Congresswoman and then purposefully shoot
19 bystanders, killing six of them—including a federal judge and sweet little 9-year old
girl.

What is Salvia?

Salvia divinorum (also known as "Diviner's Sage," "Mexican Mint," and several other
street names), is a plant indigenous to Central and Northwestern Mexico. It has
psychotropic properties and has been used by spiritual healers known as shamans for
several hundred years.

Although legal in most countries—and most of the U.S.—15 states have banned Salvia
and some are planning to regulate it.
The plant is a powerful hallucinogenic and, according to those that have experimented
with it, identity is totally lost when under its influence. In that sense, the plant—the
strongest natural hallucinogenic known—is more powerful than the synthetically
produced LSD.

Although not all of Salvia's properties have been scientifically documented, the known
active chemical of Salvia is a trans-neoclerodane diterpenoid known as "salvinorin A."

The drug is a true mind bender and users' anecdotal testimony relates episodes of
experiencing different realities, seeing strange entities, developing loss of spatial
cognition, perceived energy and pressure changes on the body, flashbacks to childhood
or artificial memories, visions of bizarre cartoon-like characters, and sometimes deep-
seated feelings of unease, loss of control and rabid paranoia.

Although to date undocumented in scientific literature, thousands of users in the United

states have stated that continued use of the drug creates a feeling of isolation and
depression. Some have had suicidal thoughts, others felt strong urges to strike out
against enemies real or imagined.

Dr. Bryan Roth of Case Western Reserve University conducted a study on Salvia and
found some very disturbing qualities about the drug.

"What we found is quite remarkable and unprecedented among naturally occurring

drugs of abuse," Roth told an NPR reporter in 2006. "This compound seems to have
absolute specificity for a single receptor site on the brain."

Many users frightened by drug's effects

While many first-time users of the drug never try it again—their initial exposure
frightens the hell out of them and scares them off—some do go back and use very
strong doses of the hallucinogen.

When Salvia is combined with a fragile human psyche and a brain tending towards
depression or other mental illness, its use can lead to suicidal or murderous thoughts
based on a synthetic reality and a terribly skewed perception of the environment.

"Even experienced hallucinogen users say that the effects of Salvia divinorum are
qualitatively and quantitatively different than any other hallucinogen that they have
ever taken," Roth said during the interview. "It appears to cause an experience that we
have dubbed 'spacio-temporal dislocation.'"

Studies conducted with rats given Salvia produced some terrifying results.

Jared Loughner, according to Osler and other friends, became more and more weird; he
abused alcohol, became a heavy pot smoker and added the dangerous, unpredictable,
little-understood hallucinogen Salvia in with the others.
Loughner's life became a cloudy cocktail of fear, depression, anger and ultimately mass
murder.

Easily available on the web

Available for sale on the Internet, the most popular form is concentrated, dried-leaf
pieces. Because they're concentrated, the dosage is much higher than the shamans
ever use in their religious ceremonies. And in 35 states the drug is completely
unregulated. Its potency can be very high, although no known toxicity has been
discovered.

According to some independent researchers, the levels of Salvinorin A in some tested

samples of Salvia purchased through the Internet were "off the charts."

Although some k-opioid agonists—of which Salvia is a member—are known to cause

acute anxiety, depression, or unease, no large formal study has been done on the exact
properties of the Mexican hallucinogen.

The Brett Chidester case

A controversial case involving the use of Salvia by a 17-year old named Brett Chidester
perhaps sheds some light on the potential dangers of this unknown hallucinogen.

Brett used Salvia for some time and became very depressed. After assuring his parents
that he'd stopped using the substance, he later killed himself by carbon monoxide
poisoning.

His parents remain convinced Brett never stopped using the Salvia; they blame it for his
death.

More AZ-type tragedies ahead?

Perhaps the case of Jared Loughner is unique. Maybe a strange confluence of bizarre
factors all came together as a perfect psychological thunderstorm in the 22-year old's
mind.

Perhaps the combination of his anger, depression, the feeling of not fitting in, the abuse
of alcohol and drugs—added to his growing obsession with conspiracy theories—are a
one-in-a-billion occurrence and will not be repeated by anyone else any time soon.

Or perhaps they will.

It could be that the untested, unregulated psychotropic hallucinogen Salvia is the very
thing that took a troubled boy and turned his confused anger into a murderous fury.

Of course, if that's true, it still does not absolve him of his crime, nor should it afford
him any comfort or outreach of empathy from the public.
But, discovering if Salvia was a significant influence-or the main factor—behind
Loughner's fateful actions on that Saturday morning in Tucson, Arizona should be a
guilt-edged priority.

Almost 2 million American children and young adults have already tried—or are using
Salvia—at the time this article was written. If using Salvia can lead to mass murder,
then thousands of ticking time bombs may already be walking the streets of America.