Here’s some nightmare fuel for parents of teenagers – there is a new, legal high out there. Kavasutra is a chain of “kava bars” mostly in Florida (of course!) but also expanding into NYC and Denver (of course!) where they serve tea made from the kava root, or Piper methysticum, a root grown in the South Pacific, brewed into a tea and ingested for medical purposes including relaxation and sedation, similar to alcohol. One to two glasses cause mild throat and tongue numbness, followed by general relaxation and sedation. The effects are mediated by ion channel blockade and GABA manipulation. There is also a concern for possible liver injury, although the jury is still out on that – the liver injuries have mostly been reported in the West and the thought is that the kava is either improperly prepared (using the whole plant instead of just the rhizome that grows underground, as is done in other parts of the world) or perhaps combining the kava extract with alcohol (again – as is done in the US but uncommon in the rest of the world) potentiates the liver susceptibility. In the past, kava was banned in Europe and Canada, but the bans were lifted in the last few years and kava bars have sprung up in those places.
http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/restaurants/article56614613.html
Here is a link to the Kavasutra website:
