SALVIA D: Don't confuse it with Sunny D. It's not the same stuff.

The Wanderer is big. Like, Viking big. They call him the Wanderer, he says, because of his supernatural ability to lead his troupe of medieval war re-enactors back to their cars at the end of a hard-fought battle. It's not an easy task, considering these journeys take place at night, in dark forests with ponds and rivers.

But tonight he's playing the didgeridoo in a drum jam in the back of a bar in Eastlake. As his friends beat handmade drums behind him in the semi-darkness of the bar's dining room, he takes a moment to explain what it feels like to try Salvia D.

"It's like a 12-hour acid trip in 15 minutes. You go shhhhhhhhhhhhhoooooooo!" he says, making his left hand into an airplane which rockets toward space. "Then it's like, "Okay, I'm in another dimension. That's cool.'"

But what does another dimension feel like?

"It's like outer space," says the Wanderer. "Except it's inside."

Other drummers take short breaks to eat baskets of chicken wings or to rest and talk. Striking up conversation is not hard. A middle-aged man who might be mistaken for an accountant in the real world passes out a calendar of pagan events. Like everyone here, he's friendly and chatty with first-time visitors to this scene. With little prodding, many admit that, like the Wanderer, they've experienced Salvia D, and readily recommend it to newcomers. It's not a recreational drug, they warn, and should only be used for meditation. But no one has had a bad trip. And most are eager to do it again.

What they don't know is that the Ohio legislature is quickly trying to make Salvia D illegal. Lawmakers want to lump these drummers into the same category as crack fiends and heroin junkies.

Bummer.

Blame the Mazatec Indians. The natives of Oaxaca, Mexico are the ones who introduced Salvia divinorum to some hippy tourist who then brought the herb back to the United States. Mazatec shamans have used the plant, a relative of sage and member of the mint family, to produce visions during spiritual ceremonies for centuries. They call it la Maria, because they believe it is the incarnation of the Virgin Mary.

No one really knows where the Mazatecs got their stash. To this day, no one has been able to locate Salvia D growing in the wild. It's one of a few species to be considered a cultigen, which means either the Mazatecs' ancestors created it through a primitive form of genetic engineering or Salvia D has since become extinct in nature.

Luckily, it's not hard to make new Salvia D plants. Chop off a stem, put it in some potting soil, and the thing grows roots and makes new leaves.

In an interview with NPR in 2006, Dr. Bryan Roth, a biochemist and neuroscientist at Case Western Reserve University, called Salvia D, "essentially, the most potent naturally occurring hallucinogenic drug." Dr. Roth now works for the University of North Carolina and has since published a paper on the effects of the herb. He was the first scientist to successfully isolate the active component of the plant, a molecule called salvinorin A.

Salvinorin A is unlike any hallucinogenic drug known to man. Unlike LSD, this molecule seeks out a single, specific receptor in the human brain. Dr. Roth believes this trait could aid in the development of new medicines to help schizophrenics, Alzheimer's patients, even people who suffer from HIV/AIDS.

The trips also feel different than LSD experiences.

"The hallucinatory effects are potent and intense, with extraordinarily rapid onset, and can last up to an hour," Roth writes in a report co-authored by Dr. Timothy Vortherms. "Interestingly, the hallucinations produced by S. divinorum appear to be qualitatively different from other hallucinogens; users typically describe their experience of "entering another reality' and having a "separation from body'." Some people describe feeling "gravity storms" and seeing "reality swirls."

There are varying degrees of potency in the Salvia D sold in area head shops. The herb is generally divided into grams or half-grams, and labeled 10X, 20X, 30X, etc. The number stands for the amount of Salvia D extract that has been used to multiply the effect of the herb; 10X is 10 times as potent as the leaves used to produce it. Anything above 15X is considered enough to blow your mind.

The Mazatecs chewed the stuff. But it tastes like a monkey's ass, so most people smoke it. Since it has to burn at torch-like temperatures, the water bong is the preferred delivery system, so that the smoke can cool before inhalation. Others simply drop liquid extract under their tongues (which burns) or brew the leaves into a tea.

There's even a rating system that Salvia D psychonauts use to judge their experiences. Created by "Sage Student" Daniel Siebert, on his Web site, SageWisdom.org, the scale goes from 1-6. Level 1 is a very subtle feeling of euphoria. After reaching Level 6, users wake up and cannot remember what happened in the last 20 minutes. Siebert recommends shooting for Level 5, in which the user "loses all contact with consensual reality." In this state, "one experiences merging with God/dess, mind, universal consciousness, or bizarre fusions with other objects real or imagined, e.g. merging with a wall may be experienced." He suggests enlisting the help of a "sitter" to make sure you don't fall on the floor or otherwise hurt yourself during this separation from reality.

Although Salvia D has been sold in Ohio for over a decade, it has exploded onto the local stoner scene in recent months thanks to the rising cost of cigarettes, the diminishing local marijuana market and the advent of YouTube.

In a clip titled "salvia D 25x," a fat man sits on a couch, takes three hits from a pipe and spends the next five minutes in a fit of uncontrollable laughter. A young woman tries to hold off the effects of the herb in "holly + salvia = funny." "I can fight this," she says. "I don't have to roll on the floor. That's my promise." Less than a minute later, she is on the floor where she has become fascinated with a Persian rug. "This isn't real," she says. The short Salvia D vid made by Dan Stansbury from The Maxwell Show on WMMS has logged more than 90,000 hits.

In 42 states, Salvia D is still legal and unregulated. If you want it, you can get it, even if you're a minor. Brett Chidester, a 17 year old from Delaware, purchased Salvia D on the Internet a couple months before he committed suicide in 2006. He'd suffered from depression, but his mother blamed the herb in the local papers and national media dutifully picked up the story and touted Salvia D as the new threat to America's youth. The exposure lead to "Brett's Law," a bill in the Delaware Legislature. The bill turns Salvia divinorum into a Schedule 1 controlled substance in that state, on par with heroin and other highly addictive drugs.

COLLIER: Knows how to have a good time.

Ohio has its own story. Twelve-year-old Drew Bush was a bright-eyed boy from Loudonville, a small burg tucked between Mansfield and Wooster. In 2005, he snagged first place at the annual motocross championship in Galion. Drew didn't use Salvia D, so far as we know. But his friend Sean did.

Sean's mother was an employee of the Holmes County Board of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities. She had a lax view of parental responsibility. For instance, she bought a shotgun for her 13-year-old son. When Sean complained about having trouble getting to sleep and told her that Salvia D might help him, she let him purchase the herb and even bought him rolling papers and a pipe so that he could smoke it.

According to court transcripts, Sean only meant to scare Drew with the loaded shotgun when he got it out of the closet. He pointed it around the room for awhile before aiming at Drew and pulling the trigger. The blast went through Drew's throat and the boy died.

Republican State Rep. Thom Collier met Drew's parents about a year ago. They told him about Drew and about Sean's smoking Salvia D. In May 2007, Collier introduced House Bill 215, which rewrites Ohio Revised Code to include Salvia divinorum on a list of controlled substances. If passed, the herb would become a drug, and illegal, overnight.

"We felt it was time for action," says Collier. "We didn't know how readily available this was. Supposedly it's non-addictive, yet it still has some major effects and side effects. It's just a matter of time before it gets worse and worse. Maybe we can save some lives by nipping this early." He mentions unconfirmed reports of kids becoming violent and jumping out of windows while "high" on Salvia D.

Two weeks ago, Collier held hearings. Drew's parents, Allen and Shelly Bush, testified.

"Sean got 90 days in the detention center," they said. "We feel very, very let down by the justice system. We will never know if the kid was on this at the time he killed our son. Anything that makes you see things that really aren't there should not be a question of whether kids, or adults for that matter, should have access to it. This needs to be illegal for everyone's safety."

Another round of testimony is expected before HB 215 is moved to the floor for a vote, where it is expected to pass.

"Have I ever tried Salvia D? Oh no. I've never even been drunk," says Collier. "I can have a good time without that."

"Just some right-wing politician trying to make a name for himself," says Chris, the man behind the counter at Midnight Oasis, Kent State's premiere head shop. "He probably wants to be governor one day."

Chris has been selling Salvia D at discount prices - $19 for two and a half grams of 20X - for eight years. Chris says he brews Salvia D tea and has never had a bad experience with it. Nor has he heard of any. "It's for meditation," he says. "This isn't some recreational drug. People use it for yoga."

He has noticed a rise in sales of Salvia D over the last year, especially after The Maxwell Show spent a week talking about Stansbury's trip. "But the local pot market has dried up and nobody wants to pay $40 for cigarettes, either," he explains. "So they think they can smoke this like pot. But they can't."

There's a rack of baggies full of Salvia D above cans of synthetic urine, resting in a display case. He sells it in bags that start out at $5 and run up to about $80, depending on its potency.

I pick up a bag of 20X. He says making tea will give me the same experience as smoking, but will only make about two cups.

"You'll definitely feel something," he says.

So, in the spirit of due diligence, I brew some special tea. I retire to my basement with a Salvador Dali calendar and place The Best of Jethro Tull on the turntable. And I wait.

The tea smells a lot like damp earth buried under a layer of moss. It tastes awful. Even with honey and two tablespoons of Splenda, it's barely palatable. But I manage to down a mug and a half.

And what happened next? I'm pretty sure I saw the clouds move inside Dali's "Paranoiac - Critical Solitude." I may have heard the sound of the number five splashing against the sky in "Soft Watch at Moment of First Explosion." And, for a moment, I had the distinct impression that now wasn't really now, but merely a memory I was reliving in the future. But how much of that was wishful thinking? All I know for sure is that I'd had one mother of a headache all day long, but the first half-cup lifted the pain away and left me feeling warm and clear.

Is that worth $19? Probably not.