Q. Can you take a fatal overdose?
A. No case of fatal salvinorin poisoning has been reported. The human oral lethal dose is not known but is believed to be extremely high. Leander Valdes, III provided the following information for inclusion in this FAQ regarding acute toxicity studies in mice: "I tested Salvinorin A intraperitoneally in mice at very high doses and it appeared to be not very toxic. This was long before the compound was being taken orally and it was testing about as potent as mescaline in the assay I was using. In light of the extreme potency of the compound, I think it quite possible and probably very likely that it was not being well absorbed. I had it in a mix of corn oil, tween 80 (a fancy emulsifier) and water. Dissolving the compound in solvents such as ethanol, acetone or DMSO probably delivers quite a bit more drug to the body (I didn't use them because I wanted an inactive vehicle). "
Swallowed salvinorin is not well absorbed. The chances of inadvertently swallowing a lethal overdose of an oral preparation of leaves, slurry or elixir are extremely low.
If salvinorin is inhaled as multiple inhalations of leaf smoke or vapor one could reasonably expect to pass out before he/she could take a lethal overdose. But significantly, nothing is known about the toxic effects of smoking truly massive 'single bolus' doses of pure salvinorin, such a practice might be quite dangerous, and should certainly be avoided.
Although fatal poisoning from Salvia divinorum appears to be very unlikely to occur; there is another type of lethal overdose --- one that kills not by poisoning but by impairing judgment and survival instincts and causing fatal injury. If you smoked salvinorin and then walked out of a ten story window you would be very dead indeed. That's why sitters are needed when smoking or vaporizing high doses.
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