Pubdate: Thu, 06 Mar 2008
Source: Newsday (NY)
Copyright: 2008 Newsday Inc.
Contact:  http://www.newsday.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/308
Author: Reid j. Epstein
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topic/salvia (Salvia Divinorum)

LAWMAKERS SEEK TO BAN PLANT CALLED A HALLUCINOGEN

Perfectly legal to sell and use, salvia divinorum is a  mystery to 
most adults but, according to legislators  and others seeking to ban 
it, a danger youths know too  well.

At a public hearing Tuesday, Suffolk Legis. Lynne  Nowick (R-St. 
James) played videos she'd found on the  Internet of teenagers 
ostensibly stoned from salvia, a  plant native to Mexico. She called 
the effects  "dangerous" and called for the county to ban the plant.

Representatives from the Smithtown Central School  District, Suffolk 
Police and local anti-drug groups  implored legislators to outlaw 
salvia because, they  said, people believe it is safe because it is legal.

"It has a chemical hallucination so powerful that the  person using 
it may have an amnestic episode," said  Krista Whitman of the Quality 
Consortium of Suffolk  County, which represents drug treatment centers.

But Brian Del Rey, who runs Club 13, a Florida company  that sells 
salvia online and to retailers on Long  Island, said the plant is 
neither addictive nor  harmful.

"It's a meditational aid," he said. "It's an  existential process, 
it's not for everybody."

The worst that can happen, he said, is "people seem to  giggle a lot."

Eight states and 15 countries have banned salvia, said  Daniel 
Siebert, who runs the Salvia Divinorum Research  and Information 
Center from his Malibu, Calif., home.  New York's state Senate has 
passed bills to ban salvia  four straight years, though companion 
legislation never  made it out of the Assembly.

"I look at this as a gateway drug," said state Sen.  John Flanagan 
(R-Northport), who sponsored the bill  that would impose a $500 fine 
for anyone who sold  salvia. Nowick's measure would make possessing 
or selling salvia a misdemeanor punishable by a $1,000  fine.

Assemb. Daniel O'Donnell (D-Manhattan), who sponsored  the Assembly 
bill to outlaw salvia, said the plant has  no proven medicinal use.

At the Gotham Smoke Shop in Huntington Station, a small  purple 
container of "Purple Sticky Salvia" sells for  $25. Though a clerk 
initially said salvia is best  smoked, the store manager then told a 
reporter it is  only to be burned as incense. Neither would give their names.

Del Rey's company used to sell salvia to the Utopia  shops in 
Hicksville and Centereach. Utopia's owner,  Mark Levine, said he 
pulled the stuff from his shelves  two years ago after a woman called 
him to complain that  her son swallowed salvia leaves.

Levine said he sold salvia as an incense to customers  interested in 
Wicca, a type of witchcraft with  nature-oriented practices derived 
from pre-Christian  religions. But in recent years, he said, salvia 
became  more popular with young people he believed were  misusing it. 
Still, he said efforts to ban salvia only  serve to make it more popular.

"Once they're reading up on it and finding out the  legislature is 
trying to outlaw it, that immediately  increases the lure," Levine said.

Del Rey said there is little reason for local lawmakers  to ban 
salvia, since it can easily be purchased online.

"To ban it, to take away people's pursuit of happiness,  is an 
error," he said. "If they want to get a hold of  it, they will."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom