Salvia: The Other Story

I've been harping on media coverage of the drug salvia recently and criticizing some of the articles that strike me as particularly hyperbolic and alarmist (like this one, which carried a headline literally stating that salvia was "raising alarms"). That's because there's another story to tell about salvia, one that is perhaps easy to miss for being so obvious.

The story is simply that salvia, though it is a powerful hallucinogen that is legal almost everywhere, virtually never causes problems for our society. Nobody kills or robs anybody for salvia. Nobody smuggles salvia across our borders. Nobody steals to support a salvia habit. Gangs don't form to deal in salvia. People don't wind up in the gutter because they just couldn't get enough salvia. And taxpayers aren't wasting tens of millions of dollars to keep salvia users in prison.

Not only that, with no threat of criminal sanctions, those who sell salvia already bend over backwards to be responsible. Salvia merchants voluntarily issue warnings about how to use the drug (like this guide), voluntarily sell different strengths of the drug so that people who are unfamiliar with it don't have too intense of an experience, and voluntarily restrict its sale to people over the age of 18. Users never have to worry that they are buying adulterated or poisoned salvia, because the drug is cheap and plentiful. Manfacturers have no incentive to "cut" it or provide fake products to customers.

Some law enforcement officials and politicians have suggested that salvia is "the next marijuana," and that it therefore needs to be regulated with a criminal regime just as strict, unwieldy, expensive and cumbersome as the one that is applied to marijuana. But given that there is actually no problem associated with salvia, perhaps the reverse conclusion actually makes more sense. Perhaps the example of salvia, which is basically controlled only by regulated market mechanisms, actually suggests an alternative to the way we deal with drugs like marijuana, an alternative that involves a lot less violence, addiction and collateral damage to our society.

Why isn't that the story about salvia?

Related Posts:

A Video on Salvia and Drug Laws 8/16/08

Salvia: Four Simple Questions For Lawmakers 3/27/08

Comments

[Maarten Alme]

Very accurate and useful information. Thank you! 've had severl salvia trips on my own, and the information ofrom the permalink seems to me to be truthful. However, I've had most my trips in solitude, and I believe it to be surrigate for cannabis. It was not! At that time, I've never heard of salvia, and had some freaky, but highly psychedelic experiences. Although, I did follow common sence, and all went well. I_ fell asleep at the end, and had some beautigul visions in my dreams. I can hardly wait to my next session, in which I will introduce my artist friends to a whole new experience from psilocybin... Now, I can go to those hidden places tht once seemed a bit scry to me.

Thank you for holding up the fortress and keep fighting for personal integrity... In other words; Human rights.

[thecountrygoddess]

A comment on the piece: What headlines should be talking about is the economic impact of removing salvia from our stores and then the impact (cost) of trying to police it. I own a store in Illinois and I pay sales taxes and a big part of that is from the sale of Salvia. I absolutely do not sell to minor and I am not a head shop but a spirtual shop. The Economic issue that this will cause me is I will have to lay off 2 employees if we don't stop it from becoming illegal in Illinois. So please read below.

Subject: Save Salvia in Illinois
Everyone, time to unite. Illinois Governor has the power to line veto anything on a bill, which might just save Salvia. If you go to my website at: https://www.thecountrygoddessshop.com/displayProductDocument.hg?productId=3141you will see where you can email the Governor and save salvia. I have provided everything, what to email him, the bill number and the line number for salvia. Help me save it. Losing it will not only mean loosing salvia and a loss to the medical, spirtual and shaman community but will mean many jobs lost in Illinois, businesses closing and lost tax revenue. Please help save Salvia.

Please help us save Salvia, Send this email to as many of your friends and customers as you can and ask them to do the same.

[Kratom]

Salvia isn't an herb that can be easily understood by most people. The care it involves to experience its effects leaves a lot of room for people to make up for their ignorance by assuming its similar to marijuana. Most people try salvia for the experience, and usually don't feel any need to travel quite THAT deeply again. Either way, its a very useful and generally safe way to explore one's inner consciousness.

[Coffeesh0p]

I have 2 points to make:

1) People are afraid of substances they don't understand. The alarms that are being raised by salvia are "Oh my god, someone's enjoying something we don't currently control".

2) Some retailers of Salvia Divinorum leaf and extracts advertise their product as "The new cannabis", etc, when it clearly isnt, to attract customers. This negative publicity clearly isn't worth it if comments like that will lead to the substance being banned. As a retailer of salvia products myself, I make a point not to push it as the next wonder drug and only sell to responsible adults. Other retailers would do well to follow suit.

[Jenni]

Politicians always like to look like they're doing something important. This, however, isn't one of those things. Drugs have been culturally driven into our heads that they're harmful, not only physically, but psychologically and publicly.

It's all the same with drugs, they're illegal because of hysteria, religion and lack of education. We all know the myths revolving around the reasons why marijuana is not legal. Do we need to bring up Reefer Madness?

Humans, at least uneducated ones, like to fear things without any evidence to support that fear. People who pass legislation against drugs have very little knowledge about the drug they're trying to put people in jail for, or any knowledge about chemicals altogether. They're not doctors, they're not drug researchers and they're not licensed to dictate what people should be ingesting. What matters to them is getting reelected, reinforcing religious morale(which is unconstitutional), and finding a way to put supposed "misbehaved" young people into jail.

As we speak, someone in their early 20's is in the process being thrown into jail and having their future destroyed, all for a drug that's effects last about 5 minutes and probably didn't have that much effect in him. On salvia, the last thing you want to do is something very constructive. What you want to do is sit just there, or sometimes walk around the room, and awe at the weird feeling inside your veins and the odd ideas that pop in your head, and very rarely even enjoy a short lived hallucination.

The idea people have is that salvia is probably; addictive, toxic at high levels, is a legal marijuana alternative, makes you violent, makes kids do it everyday after school, makes you see horrible hallucinations with every use, is as popular or has the same ability to be as meth or marijuana.

These statements are all false. You cannot overdose on salvia(the more you smoke after a certain point does very little), it isn't addictive, it's effects are very dissimilar to cannabis, it doesn't do anything at all or very little during usual use, most salvia users use it very occasionally(not everyday), and it does not cause people to kill.

NO SALVIA IS NOT A MARIJUANA SUBSTITUTE. Kids don't go get salvia because they want to get a marijuana like high. They do it because they are either bored(because our culture now has failed our kids), because they are curious and ...well...they have a god given right to do so.

Stores that have sold salvia have done nothing but follow the law, and more some. They require an id and sell it only to 18+, and they sell it as not for consumption. Many people in Illinois made a living selling salvia along with other legal herbs. Now they must either move out of state, or

I would much rather find my kid smoking this stuff rather than smoking cigarettes, drinking a lot, or doing hard drugs like meth or XTC.

How can a drug that last 5 minutes cause this much of harm? Well, it can't. Anyone with an educated or half logical mind would know that.

We cannot expect politicians, especially Republican neo-cons, to do any research or pass laws justly regarding health rights.

[August WEst]

As a recovering heroin addict who started smoking weed when I was 16, then after years of being bored with the weed high moved on until I found heroin at age 28. You make a good point, but from everyone I have spoke to about salvia, it isn't that pleasant of a high- and for the price, as high as $60 for the "strong salvia", it isn't worth it. I used to be pro-pot, but after watching myself, my friends, and some family members lose touch with themselves I am not a fan of it. What first "inspired" my art, took place of my art. What "inspired" my friends music, overshadowed it until the guitar was a dusty piece of furniture in the corner.

[salvia]

It's getting banned everywhere now.

[Smoking Salvia]

Exactly, no one ever gives the good story about salvia. People are afraid of what they don't know that's the unfortunate truth about most people and politicians and the media pounce on this as an opportunity