Does Salvia Show on Drug Test?
What is Salvia?
Salvia has been used for its psychoactive properties for thousands of years. Indigenous Mazatec shamans used salvia in many of their rituals and traditions. They believed that using salvia could help people achieve visionary states of consciousness while undergoing spiritual healing sessions. Today, salvia is primarily used by recreational drug users between the ages of 18 and 25. However, its popularity among young people is relatively new, so the drug has not been researched as much as other drugs of abuse. In fact, the drug is so under recognized that it remains legal in much of the United States. The FDA has not banned it and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has not listed it as a controlled drug. Nonetheless, the active ingredient of salvia, salvinorin A, is widely recognized as the most powerful natural hallucinogen.
How Long Does a Salvia High Last?
When the drug is chewed or consumed in a tea, however, the high can take between 5 and 10 minutes to begin. Smoking salvia is the more common method. After smoking salvia, users can generally expect to experience short term effects for approximately 30 minutes, though the peak effects usually dissipate far sooner.
How Long Does Salvia Stay In Your Urine?
How Long Does Salvia Stay In Your Saliva?
How Long Does Salvia Stay In Your Blood?
How Long Does Salvia Stay In Your Hair?
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Salvia Half-Life
In comparison to other recreational drugs, salvia’s half-life is very quick. The prescription opioid oxycodone, for instance, has a half-life of between 2 and 4 hours. These substances are therefore far easier to detect when people take drug tests. In contrast, salvia is very difficult to detect.
Does Salvia Show Up on a Drug Test?
Proper drug testing can detect salvia. However, because salvia is processed by the body so quickly, the window to detect salvia using a test is extremely short. In many cases, salvia cannot be detected after 12 hours.
Ultimately, whether or not salvia can be detected by a test depends largely on the type of test that is used. Specialized drug tests that are specifically designed to test for salvia can sometimes detect salvia up to 36 hours after it is used. An even more specialized test that measures gas levels in blood can sometimes detect infinitesimal traces after multiple weeks.
Tests that can be used to detect salvia include:
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Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry – tests blood, urine, and saliva
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Liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry – tests blood and urine
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High performance liquid chromatography-atmospheric pressure chemical ionization – tests blood and urine
However, these specialized tests are often quite expensive and not widely available. The standard drug tests that employers, parents, and case workers use can rarely detect salvia. Furthermore, the absence of research on how long salvia remains in the system makes testing even more difficult.
It is unknown how long salvia remains in the urine or saliva, for instance. Hair tests, which tend to be accurate and measure drug use for long periods of time, do not yet exist for salvia. This makes testing for salvia difficult.
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Frequently Asked Questions
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- Marrinan S, Roman-Urrestarazu A, Naughton D, Levari E, Collins J, Chilcott R, Bersani G, Corazza O. Hair analysis for the detection of drug use-is there potential for evasion? Hum Psychopharmacol. 2017 May;32(3). doi: 10.1002/hup.2587. Epub 2017 May 31. PMID: 28568705.
