Last week, I saw a report on the local news here in Seattle about a Mexican herb known as
Salvia divinorum, or "diviner's sage." The herb is legal in 48 states, but is a hallucinogen that some are now comparing to LSD. Through internet marketing and word-of-mouth, the herb has become more popular, and has seen an increase in use among teenagers, for whom it is perfectly legal to buy across much of the United States. However, the
suicide death of a teenager in Delaware who'd been using this herb has shone a new light on this ancient sage with a history of religious use.
Daniel Siebert is an expert an the effects of Salvia divinorum and he runs a
website with information and an order form. From Siebert's user guide:
Salvia divinorum is an extraordinary visionary herb. It is not a recreational drug. It produces a profoundly introspective state of awareness that is useful for meditation, contemplation, and self-reflection. Its effects are unique and cannot be compared with the effects of other drugs. The effects of Salvia do not appeal to many people (young or old). The people who are most drawn to it are both mature and philosophically minded. Beware of inaccurate information. There are many unethical vendors who try to lure naive customers by portraying the effects of Salvia as more appealing than they are. The news media often sensationalizes stories about Salvia, exaggerating its effects, risks, and popularity. Much of what has appeared in the popular press is inaccurate and misleading. Salvia is not "legal pot." It is not "legal acid." It is not a substitute for any other drug. Before trying Salvia, it is important that you know about its effects, appropriate uses, and the potential risks associated with irresponsible use.
With all the competing information about this substance, I decided to try it out for myself. I was able to locate a store in Seattle where salvia is sold and I picked up a gram of it for around $30. One night this week, I decided to try it out. The instructions on the package that it came in were somewhat vague (it did advise that you be 18), but appeared to hint that smoking it was the best method of ingesting it, contrary to what Siebert advises. My first attempt at smoking it, I felt nothing more than a slight light-headedness, clearly not what I was expecting. However, I tried again, this time smoking twice as much, and I immediately felt its affects. It was an intense, but brief, mind-altering experience - not exactly thrilling, but not too terrifying either. Although I could certainly see how a teenager without much experience with such things would be frightened by the experience. Visually, things were askew (I was watching TV alone too, also a no-no according to Siebert), and it was hard to process the sounds surrounding me, but after 10 minutes, I was back to the light-headedness of my first attempt, which seemed to linger for another 20 minutes.
The reason that I chose to do it this way first (and not the way that Siebert advises) is because most of the people obtaining salvia the way I did with the given instructions will use it the way I did. I encourage anyone using this herb to read Siebert's instructions first, and I'd definitely not encourage anyone under the age of 18 to use it at all. I still haven't used it in the proper fashion yet, but as someone who's had several very positive experiences with psychedelics like psilocybin, and is "mature and philosophically minded," I'm looking forward to the experience.
I'm not sure anyone will know exactly why Brett Chidester killed himself. I was once a bright 17 year old who fought depression as a teenager, but eventually overcame it to become a very happy and successful adult. My heart goes out to his family and I will join them in calls for banning sales of this herb to anyone under the age of 18 (or perhaps even 21). But making this substance illegal for everyone is the wrong move, and will only lead to the same problems we have with all other illegal substances. It will ensure that whoever it is that sells this now illicit substance has no incentive to verify how old their customers are. And this situation will ultimately do more damage when it comes to a substance that is clearly safe for the large majority of adults to use.
Our national instinct when it comes to mind-altering substances is to just ban them and then pretend we've fixed whatever problem it is we've convinced ourselves it was causing. But sometimes the use of a substance is not so much the problem as the improper use of a substance. If there's something that needs to be done with Salvia, it's that we need to make sure people know that it's not pot, and it's not LSD. And the best way not to do that is to compare it to pot and LSD in an effort to make it illegal. As Siebert says:
Salvia is not a stimulant, it is not a sedative, it is not a narcotic, it is not a tranquilizer. Like many entheogens, at sufficiently high doses it can induce visions, yet it is quite different from other entheogens. Dale Pendell, in his book Pharmako/poeia, assigns Salvia divinorum to a unique pharmacological class, which he calls "existentia." This term alludes to the philosophical illumination Salvia seems to shine on the nature of existence itself.
The bottom line: It's for adults, and it should stay that way.
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In the news (this is two week's worth, from 4/1 - 4/14)...
Congress is considering using biological weapons (mycoherbicides) to eradicate illegal crops.
The Washington Post writes about Dr. Nora Volkow, the head of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, and the great-granddaughter of Leon Trotsky.
The two air marshalls accused of drug smuggling pleaded guilty.
April 11th was "National DARE Day." Tom Angell notes that DARE is easily enough of a failure to win praise from the Bush Administration.
A study by the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) shows that the nearly decade-long downward trend of teenage drug use continued through 2004.
David Borden writes in the Drug War Chronicle about how the Department of Homeland Security thinks that part of its job is to combat drugs.
Rob Kampia writes at Alternet about the money wasted fighting marijuana use.
Defense Attorney Marc J. Victor writes that we need to legalize methamphetamine.
Klaus Rohrich writes in the Canada Free Press that we must legalize drugs now.
John Fugelsang writes a good post on the drug war at the Huffington Post.
The recent Greek study saying that marijuana causes memory and cognitive difficulties was a good example of how not to conduct a study on marijuana.
Rooster30 at DailyKos posts a diary discussing what to do about the war on drugs.
Police in Arizona thought they were busting some meth cooks, but instead found a family with several children fighting the flu.
A UCLA study has shown that California taxpayers have saved $2.50 for every dollar spent on treatment under Proposition 36. Robin Beck points out that despite the economic benefits, we have yet to reap the rewards of the societal benefits of having so many parents not in jail.
Steve Kubby was once again released from jail in Placer County, near Sacramento.
Six defendants in Oakland pleaded not guilty to a series of charges for supplying medical marijuana dispensaries in California. If convicted, they could be sent to jail for life for growing a plant that California voters approved as medicine a decade ago.
Also in Oakland, Alameda County officials have banned pot-flavored candy.
An Emeryville, CA man was given $15,000 by the city because police raided his medical marijuana plants.
Sonoma County, California officials are extending the moratorium on new medical marijuana dispensaries for another year.
Radical Russ finds out what discrimination feels like. Here's the letter he's written trying to finding legal representation. He's also lost any chance at severance pay.
Two defendants facing federal drug charges in Tacoma, Washington were on their way to a dentist in Seattle to have the gold removed from their teeth before their lawyers were able to intervene. Libby at Last One Speaks notes that these folks weren't even convicted yet.
Alaska's Senate and House will be voting on a bill - primarily meant to curb meth use - that would recriminalize possession of marijuana in the state as well.
Montana has kicked off an aggressive anti-meth advertising campaign, and they're building two new treatment facilities in Lewistown and Boulder.
The Committee to Regulate and Control Marijuana (CRCM), the group trying to get a vote in November to legalize and regulate marijuana in Nevada, responded to a hack job opinion piece in the Nevada Appeal and discussed some very questionable polling numbers. The CRCM needs volunteers for phone banking.
Larry Pozner writes in the Denver Post criticizing the arrest of a second person (an AIDS patient) in Denver for marijuana possession since voters legalized possession in November.
The former head of La Junta, Colorado's Chamber of Commerce was charged with running a home meth lab.
An Appeals Court in Texas reversed the convictions of two women who were found guilty of Delivering a Controlled Substance to a Child for using illegal drugs while pregnant. An Appeals Court in New Mexico ruled that it's not child abuse either.
The Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission decided to stop arresting people inside of bars for public intoxication as a way to pre-empt drunk driving. The Hammer of Truth blog played a big role in shining a light on these jackasses.
The funding for Texas's infamous drug task forces has finally run out.
Grits For Breakfast points to officials in Texas who've discovered that anti-meth laws don't work to reduce addiction.
A bill has been introduced in Minnesota to become the 12th state to legalize medical marijuana.
A man in Des Moines, Iowa who accompanied his cousin while he picked up a package of marijuana is being charged for unpaid taxes on the package to the tune of $181,677.
Ottumwa, Iowa is another community seeing a sharp increase in property crime since making it more difficult to purchase cold medicines.
Law Enforcement Against Prohibition founder Jack Cole spoke at the University of Missouri-Kansas City about why prohibition doesn't work.
The Illinois House and Senate passed a bill that makes it easier for meth addicts to find a meth cook in their community. The House also passed a bill requiring that the dogs of those convicted of drug crimes be neutered.
Susan Lampert Smith writes in the Wisconsin State Journal about a woman who ended up being another victim of the drug war.
The state with the highest percentage of students disqualified from receiving student funding is Indiana, the state that the HEA provision author Rep. Mark Souder represents.
The County Commissioner for Lake County, Indiana Rudy Clay thinks that the solution to the crack problem in the run down city of Gary is to send everyone to church.
A physician in Columbus, Ohio is out on bond after being charged with drug trafficking for prescribing pain medication.
Loretta Nall has won the Libertarian Party nomination for governor of Alabama.
A medical marijuana bill introduced in the Alabama legislature died in the Judiciary Committee. However, they passed another bill reducing sentencing for drug crimes to alleviate a prison overcrowding problem.
The Sheriff's Office in Leon County, Florida was ordered by a jury to pay over a million dollars is damages for an unlawful search in 2001.
A woman in Vidalia, Georgia was charged with murder after her 2-year-old daughter died after eating crack cocaine.
The ACLU has filed a lawsuit on behalf of the Indian convenience store owners who were rounded up in an anti-meth sweep in northwest Georgia. They claim the sweep was racially motivated and demand that the prosecutions be dropped.
A federal judge cleared the way towards a settlement in three lawsuits stemming from the incident where police raided a high school in Goose Creek, SC in 2003.
Protestors marched in Raleigh, NC in support of needle exchange programs.
20 people were arrested in a large drug sting in Jacksonville, NC.
Colbert King writes about the whitewash of the Jonathan Magbie case in the Washington Post.
According to a study at Johns Hopkins University, men's brains are more affected by amphetamines that women's brains are.
Several Baltimore cops were among those dealing with legal troubles involving drugs the week of April 1-7. The week of April 8-14 had even more tales of corruption.
Delaware's recently retired chief prosecutor thinks we need to talk about the sad state of the drug war.
Officials in Pittsburgh are discussing the legality of their needle exchange program, which was established as an emergency measure several years ago.
New York police shut down seven clubs in the Chelsea district for allowing drugs to be sold within the premises.
The Rhode Island Department of Health has established regulations (found here) for doctors prescribing medical marijuana under the new state law.
Voters in Provincetown, MA passed a local ordinance to decriminalize marijuana possession. Meanwhile, at the other end of Cape Cod in Falmouth, an undercover cop got nine high schoolers arrested for being sympathetic to her sob stories about needing drugs to cope.
TalkLeft writes about the young man going to jail for two years for a minor marijuana infraction.
Hairy Fish Nuts writes that Canadian medical marijuana patients are concerned that the Harper government will roll back medical marijuana reforms. A bill to decriminalize small amounts of marijuana was defeated in the House of Commons.
The McGill Daily has another profile of Marc Emery.
A methadone patient in Toronto writes to complain that officials are not talking to addicts in developing an effective strategy to implement effective methadone programs.
Police raided a home in East Vancouver, BC looking for marijuana, but instead just terrified some Mandarin-speaking residents who had no drugs.
Drug trafficking through Trinidad and Tobago is reported to be on the rise.
Last One Speaks breaks down an article on a drug bust in Mexico and shows how it is skewed to make the Venezuelan government look bad.
Ollanta Humala, a former army officer who supports legalizing coca farming, won the first round of Peru's Presidential election.
The UK's Education Secretary praised school drug testing.
A British study found that one-third of drivers who tested positive for drugs also passed roadside impairment tests.
The former head of Scotland's major anti-drug agency is critical of lawmakers who he says were driven by treatment and rehab special interests. Meanwhile, officials in Edinburgh are worried about Afghani heroin. However, the Strathclyde Police Federation is calling for all drugs to be legalized.
Bill Piper at the Drug Policy Alliance writes about how well alcohol prohibition is working in Iran.
The U.S. is turning more control of Afghanistan to NATO troops as they warn about increased attacks in the main poppy growing regions. The PakTribune echoes those warnings.
In the Philippines, local officials are trying to get marijuana farmers to switch to coffee or bananas.
The mother of convicted Australian drug smuggler Schapelle Corby is angry at the Australian government for withholding information that potentially could have helped her daughter in her trial in Indonesia. This was not the news that was withheld, but a former drug dealer in Sydney was able to work as a baggage handler at the Sydney airport for four years after his release from prison in 2000. Corby has always claimed that baggage handlers put the drugs in her bag.
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