Are there medical or psychiatric uses of Salvia?
A. There are no accepted uses for Salvia divinorum in standard medical practice at this time. Some areas for exploration include Salvia aided psychotherapy (there is anecdotal material supporting its usefulness in resolving pathological grief), use of salvinorin as a brief acting general or dissociative anesthetic agent, use to provide pain relief, use in easing both the physical and mental suffering of terminal patients as part of hospice care, and a possible antidepressant effect. If a specific salvinorin receptor were discovered this would be of great interest to psychopharmacology and neuroscience.
