Concern grows with Salvia popularity

North Stonington (WTNH) - A drug called Salvia is growing in popularity among teens. It's a drug that some say causes a serious high and is easy to attain.

Officials are concerned and want to make sure parents know about it.

Salvia is a smokable drug.

"I was shocked at the extreme high that the students get in such a quick period of time," said Principal Michael Susi of Wheeler High School in North Stonington.

It's a severe high that is sometimes a hallucinogenic.

It didn't take long for Susi, the principal of Wheeler High in North Stonington, to find the effects of the drug on YouTube.

The user is sometimes unable to even sit up. A sitter stays with the person. This is what some North Stonington students, even academically high achievers, are doing. Some remember the experience.

"Other individuals said they were completely out of it the entire time that they were on their trip," said Junior Rebecca D'Angelo. "They had no idea what happened."

Salvia Divinoram -- a type of mint plant -- has been used by Mazatec Indians in Mexico for centuries but it's fairly new to Connecticut.

"Especially within the past few months that kids really started talking about it and I heard about parties where it has been done," Rebecca D'Angelo.

So where do the students get this new drug?  It's only a mile from the high school and is legal. But you do have to be 18 to buy it.

"A lot of kids, they don't feel like they're doing anything wrong because it's legal," said D'Angelo.

And that's what makes it so scary for Michael Susi who held a workshop to let parents know about it.

"This is unchartered water for us. So before something reactive and responding to an accident or a death we'd like to get out in front of it and hopefully prevent those things," Susi said.

Another way he'd like to do that is to get Connecticut to follow about a dozen other states and make Salvia illegal.

Right now though he said not enough people know about it to be that concerned.