Stop The Sage Surge: Atkins Takes Away Shamanistic Stuff?
On Tuesday, the Public Safety and Civil Justice committee heard Rep. Joe Atkins' (DFL-South St. Paul) proposal (HF 2949 / SF 2668) to add a relatively unknown garden plant, Salvia Divinorum, to the state's slate of esoteric Schedule IV restricted substances, placing it alongside hazardous yet unpronounceable compounds, worthy of a maximum of five years in prison for possession and/or a $10,000 fine. The hearing was another classic episode of the sordid policy show known as the "Failed American War on Drugs." Atkins admitted that he had no expert witnesses lined up, but he could load a web clip from ABC News, wherein John Stossel deployed some hokey morphing effects upon YouTube clips of youngsters smoking Salvia. Committee chair Rep. Joe Mullery (DFL-Minneapolis) joked that they looked like legislators on the floor after hearing dozens of amendments.
The GOP side asked if anyone had done any studies about the impact of Salvia. Not really. Has this been a problem in Minnesota? No one knows. It might be "worse" than LSD, Atkins theorized, and thus ought to be on a state drug schedule somewhere. Since the ABC News printout which passed for 'research' noted that Salvia is a popular garden plant, Rep. Mary Liz Holberg (R-Lakeville) wondered if a class of nice old ladies would become criminals. A rural representative groaned that each of his counties were building new jails to hold non-violent drug offenders, how would this proposal affect that problem? Atkins said this plant is available down the street at Maharaja's, which ought to be unacceptable. And that was pretty much the extent of this lofty drug policy debate. The voice vote sounded narrowly in favor; Mullery declared it passed.
So what is Salvia Divinorum? A member of the mint family, it's another one of those herbs which can make you get pretty dizzy for a few minutes as you smoke it, and then feel tired and foggy afterwards. Out in the wide world of American drug use, no one really wants to smoke Salvia repeatedly, because it's generally quite unpleasant. At the highest doses, visual traces and stumbling around the furniture may happen -- thus a 'sitter' is usually recommended on the Internet to keep the smoker from bumping into things for a few minutes.
Known as the Diviner's Sage, it is one of the highly respected spiritual plants of Central America, used in Mayan rituals to form a deeper connection with sacred natural forces. (Freedom of religion, anyone?) An attractive plant for gardening, it's actually pretty comparable to morning glorys: The lysergic acid in morning glory seeds are an analogue of LSD; those flowers are also long held as sacred in Central America. Salvia has rare and unusual active chemicals which break down very rapidly in the body, but also have weird properties that might turn out to be useful in medicine (Salvia disrupts cocaine addiction in rats). Its Wikipedia page spells out the chemistry and how a handful of media reports get amplified by politicians -- the ABC story has given rise to some lurid dreams in various statehouses.
Every major shift in American drug policy has been a political reaction to a perceived 'moral panic,' and Atkins conjured the wan specter of one with his video clip. The hearing was devoid of any provable social context. The overcrowded jails, the failed lives, the disaster of the American war on drugs is due in no small part to how policymakers never weigh policies about alcohol, tobacco, narcotics, random herbs, and prescription medications within a single, logical set of criteria. The result has been the punitive drift of politicians collecting notches in their belts; the money gets poured into useless jails. One in 99 adult Americans is now incarcerated.
From an unlikely source, we heard a detail about Salvia's utility which really brought everything full circle: Apparently, the City of St. Paul plants them along the Summit Avenue boulevard.
[As long as we're on the subject, there is some hope for useful reform this year: Rep. Phyllis Kahn's (DFL-Minneapolis) federal law-friendly industrial hemp program and the medical marijuana bill are both winding through committees with bipartisan support. Phyllis got backing from GOP Reps. Jim Abeler (R-Anoka) and Bud Heidgerken (R-Freeport), the GOP iconoclasts of the week!]
The GOP side asked if anyone had done any studies about the impact of Salvia. Not really. Has this been a problem in Minnesota? No one knows. It might be "worse" than LSD, Atkins theorized, and thus ought to be on a state drug schedule somewhere. Since the ABC News printout which passed for 'research' noted that Salvia is a popular garden plant, Rep. Mary Liz Holberg (R-Lakeville) wondered if a class of nice old ladies would become criminals. A rural representative groaned that each of his counties were building new jails to hold non-violent drug offenders, how would this proposal affect that problem? Atkins said this plant is available down the street at Maharaja's, which ought to be unacceptable. And that was pretty much the extent of this lofty drug policy debate. The voice vote sounded narrowly in favor; Mullery declared it passed.
So what is Salvia Divinorum? A member of the mint family, it's another one of those herbs which can make you get pretty dizzy for a few minutes as you smoke it, and then feel tired and foggy afterwards. Out in the wide world of American drug use, no one really wants to smoke Salvia repeatedly, because it's generally quite unpleasant. At the highest doses, visual traces and stumbling around the furniture may happen -- thus a 'sitter' is usually recommended on the Internet to keep the smoker from bumping into things for a few minutes.
Known as the Diviner's Sage, it is one of the highly respected spiritual plants of Central America, used in Mayan rituals to form a deeper connection with sacred natural forces. (Freedom of religion, anyone?) An attractive plant for gardening, it's actually pretty comparable to morning glorys: The lysergic acid in morning glory seeds are an analogue of LSD; those flowers are also long held as sacred in Central America. Salvia has rare and unusual active chemicals which break down very rapidly in the body, but also have weird properties that might turn out to be useful in medicine (Salvia disrupts cocaine addiction in rats). Its Wikipedia page spells out the chemistry and how a handful of media reports get amplified by politicians -- the ABC story has given rise to some lurid dreams in various statehouses.
Every major shift in American drug policy has been a political reaction to a perceived 'moral panic,' and Atkins conjured the wan specter of one with his video clip. The hearing was devoid of any provable social context. The overcrowded jails, the failed lives, the disaster of the American war on drugs is due in no small part to how policymakers never weigh policies about alcohol, tobacco, narcotics, random herbs, and prescription medications within a single, logical set of criteria. The result has been the punitive drift of politicians collecting notches in their belts; the money gets poured into useless jails. One in 99 adult Americans is now incarcerated.
From an unlikely source, we heard a detail about Salvia's utility which really brought everything full circle: Apparently, the City of St. Paul plants them along the Summit Avenue boulevard.
[As long as we're on the subject, there is some hope for useful reform this year: Rep. Phyllis Kahn's (DFL-Minneapolis) federal law-friendly industrial hemp program and the medical marijuana bill are both winding through committees with bipartisan support. Phyllis got backing from GOP Reps. Jim Abeler (R-Anoka) and Bud Heidgerken (R-Freeport), the GOP iconoclasts of the week!]
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