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Salvia Divinorum: Banned in Ohio in 90 Days

Submitted by Phillip Smith on (Issue #567)
Drug War Issues
Salvia Divinorum
Politics & Advocacy
State & Local Legislatures
State & Local Executive Branches
Prohibition

Salvia divinorum will become a Schedule I controlled substance in Ohio 90 days from Wednesday. That's the day Gov. Ted Strickland (D) signed a bill banning the plant that passed the legislature late last year. It is unclear how salvia possession defendants will be charged, but a fifth degree felony, the least serious in Ohio, merits a jail sentence of up to a year.

salvia leaves (photo courtesy Erowid.org)
Ohio now joins at least nine other states that have banned the use, possession, or distribution of salvia. In California, minors are barred from possessing the plant or its extracts.

Although used for centuries by Masatec shamans in the Mexican state of Oaxaca, salvia has in recent years become popular among recreational drug users here. Smoking extracts of the plants causes a powerful, disorienting, five-to-10 minute hallucinogenic experience.

Young people posting videos on YouTube of themselves under the influence of salvia have aroused anxious parents, politicians, and policemen across the land, who, seeing someone get high, can only come up with a reflex response to ban the new "threat." But salvia is not addictive and has not been linked to overdose deaths.

In Ohio, the sponsor of the ban bill, former state Rep. Thom Collier (R), seized on the killing of a Loudonville boy by a friend who had earlier used salvia. But even Collier has admitted there is no evidence the salvia use was directly involved in the killing.

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This work by StoptheDrugWar.org is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International

Comments

Anonymous (not verified)

Salvia is not a party drug. The majority of people use it for meditation. A company named Club13 has the best Salvia.. Visit their site: http://www.club13.com and get your Salvia while you still can...

Fri, 01/09/2009 - 3:45pm Permalink
Anonymous (not verified)

The War On Plants (WAP) continues. Wait till the powers to be find out what happens to people when they smoke tobaco. You do get a high, don't you? The Secret Government knows we know that all this is bull. How? They keep telling us pot is bad for us but continue to promote alcohol and cigaretts at every sporting event. Fact: Cigarett-related deaths account for approx. 450,000 and alcohol close to 500,000 casualities.

Mon, 01/12/2009 - 9:26am Permalink
Anonymous (not verified)

salvia, look these government officials need to stop punishing the people who just want to have fun, those people who kill each other cause of it, thats their bad stupid morons shouldn't do that, i did drugs, drank, and smoked weed, and never did anything out of the ordinary run through my mind. their all just scared,
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! if your scared go to church b*tch @ss government pussies!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Mon, 01/12/2009 - 3:44pm Permalink
hendry3765 (not verified)

Not surprising. I live in a relatively rural area about an hour outside of Dayton. People here just react to whatever they're told, no thought required. As anyone who is not ignorant about the subject knows, this is hardly a substance that is habit forming. In fact none of the usual myths used for justifying prohibition of other substances are really relevant to salvia.
People decided salvia is a drug and drugs are bad mkay, thats all the more there is to it. No rational reason just like the majority of actions that take place here in the midwestern braindead-zone that is Southern Ohio.
One other example of regional sheer stupidity. Recently the company DHL closed a location in Wilmington, Ohio. The loss of jobs would have been compensated for by the opening of a new casino if it weren't voted down by the moral majority. Currently Ohio gamblers go to Indiana and supply that state with tax revenue. My county alone would have received approx. 1 million a year in revenue to do with what it pleases.
Yet another example of christians saving us from ourselves.
Real Eyes, Realize, Real Lies

Mon, 01/12/2009 - 4:10pm Permalink
mlang52 (not verified)

I lived in Indiana just across the border form Oxford. I wondered if they were going to listen to the propaganda that was, admittedly coming out of the competing casinos! I had no idea, by the end, who was telling the truth! But, like you say, the money will keep going out of the state to those exact competitors that destroyed the referendum.

What are they going to do when the jobs dry up?! I bought my only package of salvia there, in Oxford. It lasted two months!

Tue, 01/13/2009 - 12:17am Permalink

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