The Ordinary Mystic

News about the “new drug threat” continues to increase as politicians and the media waste no time pursuing a misguided agenda to demonize salvia divinorum.

Without really understanding much about the plant, both are making ridiculously false statements. And recently, overzealous law enforcement officials in Kansas have targeted an innocent grocery store in the drive to rid the area of this new drug threat.

While there are many arguments against making ownership and use of the plant illegal, I noticed yet another reason why it is just a bad idea. Already, many people are getting the false idea that any sage plant can produce hallucinations. Unfortunately, this is being encouraged by the media. At the very least, both the media as well as law enforcement agencies are getting caught up in the confusion.

Take a recent example I saw in a video from an online news report:
New Drug Warning For Parents.

This report involved a city in the state of Kansas, where salvia is banned. The Garden City Police Department searched the area for stores that might be selling the stuff, and found one. The police stated they wouldn’t press charges, but will only try to educate the store owner and clerks.

The problem is - I find it incredibly hard to believe that the stuff they found is salvia divinorum!

The type of shops that sell salvia divinorum are smoke shops and head shops - you know, the places that sell smoking paraphernalia and other legal items of interest. But, based on the images in the video, this place is basically a grocery store - Mi Costenita!

Here is the package:

Perhaps this is why the reporters stated that salvia divinorum was available in local grocery and health stores. This statement was made just for effect, as I seriously doubt that smoking the stuff from this store will give anyone hallucinations. And I can’t believe this corporation is knowingly (or even unknowingly) including salvia divinorum in their stock of herbs, snacks, and spices for human consumption. Not even the head shops do that! On their packaging (for real salvia divinorum), you’ll typically find the CYA warning - “for incense use only, not for human consumption”.

But after being educated by the police about their supposed violation, the store owner and clerks are either going to be more confused, or more likely just have a good laugh at the overreactive authorities.

As the war on salvia picks up steam, how much more time and resources will be wasted pursuing false leads and harassing innocent store owners? And how can you enforce a law against use of a plant that is incredibly similar to the legal varieties, does not show up in a drug test, and where there is only a window of about 15 minutes where the user is obviously under the influence?

And if anyone can confirm that Mi Costenita really sells salvia divinorum, let me know.

[Check out more alarmist news videos on the Salvia Divinorum News page.]

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 7th, 2008 at 1:48 pm and is filed under Salvia divinorum.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.