Salvia divinorum is as powerful as LSD, but as easy and as legal to buy as a bottle of booze.

Doctors say it's dangerous. Lawmakers want to ban it, but an I-Team investigation found salvia sales in our area booming.

Salvia, known to users as the "Magic Mint," is an herb, part of the sage family, found mostly in Mexico. For centuries, Native Americans have used salvia as part of ritual ceremonies. It's sold on the Internet, and in head shops here as incense, but when you smoke it, it gets you high.

"You're going to have fuuuun," said Brian Fugere, a clerk at "Twisted," a novelty store in downtown Waukesha.

Fugere sells salvia, a lot of it, to everyone from college kids to baby boomers.

"I tell them, 'go on YouTube, see what it does,' explained Fugere. "Usually, they come back and buy it."

What they see on YouTube is euphoria -- thousands of videos showing users' legal highs. Salvia smokers are seen hallucinating, losing control of their bodies, laughing uncontrollably, and talking crazy. Apparently, they're all pretty common reactions.

"One of my friends just went into a laughing spree for about an hour, and he made a mistake. He smoked too much," recalled Fugere.

In its leaf form, salvia isn't all that strong, the high only lasts a few minutes -- if that. That's why smoking salvia extract has become more popular. It's sold as a resin up to 60 times more powerful than the salvia leaf."

"The effects are gone in about an hour, and so people are continuously looking for how to take more to make it last longer," explained Dr. Neil Farber, an anesthesiologist with the Medical College of Wisconsin.

"in general, when people do that, if they're trying to guess the weight, it's a really dangerous way of trying to take this drug," Farber warns.

As for specific, long-term effects of salvia use, no one really knows, because there hasn't been a whole lot of research.

"What type of long term brain damage potential is there out there, and what are people doing to themselves with this product?" asked State Representative Sheldon Wasserman of Milwaukee.

Wasserman, who is also a medical doctor, recently introduced legislation which would ban the sale of salvia banned in Wisconsin. He's seeking support for closing, what he calls, a legal loophole.

"We're saying other things are illegal which do the same thing," says Wasserman. "Then this one is legal, and we're able to sell it at local stores and over the internet, and it becomes a safety concern."))

Wasserman's bill would slap those who sell salvia with a $10,000 fine.

"I'm not trying to put people in jail for years," said Wasserman. "I'm trying to put a fine on it. I'm trying to really go after the manufacturing and sale of it rather than individuals using it."

So far, six other states: Delaware, Louisiana, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, and Tennessee have alread banned the sale of salvia.

Recently, salvia has shown up on the DEA's radar screen, but so far all attempts to ban it nationally have failed.