Schwarzenegger said no to salvia divinorum
Salvia divinorum, a plant that can be used as a hallucinogenic drug, has been unencumbered by legal restrictions in the Golden State but that will change in 2009.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed A.B. 259 on Tuesday. The law, authored by Assemblyman Anthony Adams, R-Claremont, makes it a misdemeanor to sell salvia to minors. Adults will still be able to purchase and use the drug.
I spoke with San Bernardino County Sheriff's Lt. Jerry Davis late Wednesday about salvia. Davis said he's worked narcotics cases for a decade has taken an interest in salvia.
He said salvia use hasn't risen to epidemic proportions but he doesn't like it.
"There is absolutely no good reason to use this stuff," Davis said. "Whereas pot will just make you paranoid or happy or really hungry, this stuff will make you hallucinate like an acid trip."
Davis related to me some discussions he's had with salvia users who experienced bad trips. He told me one person got into a fight with mini blinds, and another had a confrontation with food.
"One told me that they had a burrito on their plate and it grew legs and feet and started coming at them" Davis said.
Davis, like Adams in an interview earlier this year, referred to the many YouTube videos that show teens high on salvia. The clips often show users - especially first time users - tripping out while friends sit back and laugh the user's actions.
The effects of salvia, Davis said can be compared to an out-of-body experience or even time travel.
One commenter on a YouTube video had this to say:
"that ...[expletive deleted] makes you feel like a puppet, or like your getting pulled into something like a different dimension..no joke...i do think it is funner to watch people on it, that [expletive deleted] made me feel way too [expletive deleted] weird."
Another viewer of a different video argued the YouTube users are paving the way for salvia's eventual prohibition:
"people need to STOP making salvia high videos please i want to bea ble to smoke this legally"
Salvia was first used by the indigenous people of Oaxaca, Mexico. Now, Internet retailers sell the plant alongside other herbal products that are billed as legal alternatives to marijuana or tobacco as well as other botanicals.
Daniel Siebert of Malibu is a salvia advocate with a Web site dedicated to the plant and its uses. I interviewed him in January and he said he does not oppose restricting salvia sales to minors.
On his Web site, he writes that some people use salvia as an entheogen, which means they seek to attain profound spiritual experiences via salvia-induced altered perceptions.
He also writes that salvia users should not use the drug while alone. Siebert recommends that users have a "sitter" to watch out for them if they have a bad trip.
"Having a sitter present is absolutely essential whenever you are taking a dose that might be high enough to cause you to lose awareness of your physical environment, freak out, or become delusional," he writes.
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I think it's a good attitude that will end up costing way less to the state and still protect kids.
Way to go.
hey guys, check out this site I just found about Salvia: www.salviasociety.org I heard about it on Fox News last night. The guy who owns it was talking how he's trying to stop legislation in different states from banning the herb. I hope he succeeds, meanwhile they just banned it in my State (Minnesota)
It only really works smoking strong extracts. The plain leafs won't make you trip, they are great for lucid dreaming and they are mildly euphoric and have some pain killing properties.
Ban the extracts that's the problem, the plant itself isn't bad, you can't trip out from the plain leafs. It doesn't work if you eat them or make a tea, but if you chew enough leafs you can trip but it's not anywhere near as intense as the extracts. It's entirely the extracts that make it so weird.
I don't want to see the plant banned, just ban sales of extracts. It's hard to make extracts and it takes alot of leafs to make 1 gram of strong extract, making it impractical for most people to do that if they grew it.