A big yellow sign on State Street reads: "Salvia sold here. Get it while you can." Many who pass by are perplexed. To the middle-aged and older, salvia is a perennial flowering plant found in many local gardens. But a growing number of young people, even middle schoolers, know salvia as an unregulated drug that delivers a powerful high. Salvia divinorum, related to but different from the backyard salvia, is a perennial herb of the mint family native to the Sierra Mazateca region of Oaxaca, Mexico. It contains a powerful hallucinogen considered by some to be as potent as LSD, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration. [continues 1020 words]
While Serving A Warrant, Concord Authorities Say, They Came Across Illegal Cultivation Of Psychoactive Fungus CONCORD -- In the world of narcotics enforcement, seizing cocaine, methamphetamine and marijuana is a daily chore. But it's rare for authorities to come across psilocybin mushrooms -- the so-called 'shrooms of the '60s -- as Concord detectives did recently. Sidney Wayne Bishop, 40, was loudly strumming his electric guitar in his Colfax Street home on April 21 when he was surprised by a search warrant from officers looking for marijuana. [continues 744 words]
The Power And Peril Of Religious Exemptions From Drug Prohibition On February 22, 2006, U.S. Border Patrol agents noticed a minivan and a sedan traveling close together on Interstate 10 near Lordsburg, New Mexico. After going east for about 10 miles, the two drivers turned onto New Mexico Highway 113, traveling south, then turned around and headed north, moving in tandem. Based on "a totality of the circumstances," the agents pulled over both vehicles. The minivan was occupied by Dan and Mary Quaintance, a middle-aged couple from Pima, Arizona. Timothy Kripner, a 23-year-old from Tucson, was driving the sedan, a rented Chrysler 300 in which the agents found 172 pounds of marijuana in three plastic-wrapped bundles, two in the trunk and one in the backseat. Kripner also was carrying a walkie-talkie, which he apparently had been using to communicate with the Quaintances on the road, and a certificate, signed by Dan Quaintance, identifying him as a "courier" for the Pima-based Church of Cognizance. "I am the head of my church," Dan Quaintance declared, "and I have the right to have that marijuana." [continues 5761 words]
Andrew Feldmar, a Vancouver psychotherapist, was on his way to pick up a friend at the Seattle airport last summer when he ran into a little trouble at the border. A guard typed Mr. Feldmar's name into an Internet search engine, which revealed that he had written about using LSD in the 1960s in an interdisciplinary journal. Mr. Feldmar was turned back and is no longer welcome in the United States, where he has been active professionally and where both of his children live. [continues 668 words]
Andrew Feldmar, a Vancouver psychotherapist, was on his way to pick up a friend at the Seattle airport last summer when he ran into a little trouble at the border. A guard typed Feldmar's name into an Internet search engine, which revealed that he had written about using LSD in the 1960s in an interdisciplinary journal. Feldmar was turned back and is no longer welcome in the United States, where he has been active professionally and where both of his children live. [continues 650 words]
If Homer had been a drug connoisseur, his epic poems would have sounded like this. Dale Pendell has the kind of counterculture bona fides that either kill you or make you eccentric. He was in the Bay Area leading up to the Summer of Love. In 14 years living in and out of the Sierra, he botanized with old miners, hooked up with Gary Snyder, started a poetry journal and published Allen Ginsberg. He did just about every drug with a street value until 1989, when he curbed taking them, the better to be able to write about them. "Pharmako Poeia," the first of a trilogy, appeared in 1995; the second, "Pharmako Dynamis" in 2002; and the third, "Pharmako Gnosis," last year. If there has ever been a more sustained but unremarked effort to shock, it would be hard to find. All three books have gone largely unnoticed. [continues 397 words]
Clergy in Illinois are supporting the legalization of medical marijuana, arguing that its use in treating pain and nausea associated with chemotherapy treatments for cancer, the pain of multiple sclerosis and other conditions is moral. What do you think? I tend to side with the Illinois clergy. True, some of them may be duped by those who want free pot anywhere and everywhere. But I think the relieving of suffering is of paramount importance. Also, part of me wants to say, "What's the big deal? We have legalized drugs now that we can purchase in our supermarkets." I am speaking, of course, of alcohol; we can buy as much as we want, and drink as much as we want. I think the same ought to be true for marijuana. Maybe there should be a prescription attached; I don't know. But why should there be no laws against alcohol consumption but stringent laws against marijuana consumption? [continues 1472 words]
MEXICO CITY - The anti-drug operation was in the works for months. And the news would be big, officials said. But when Mexican police burst into a plush home in the capital's exclusive Lomas de Chapultepec neighborhood last month, guided in part by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, they were taken aback. They found stacks and stacks of crisp, green U.S. $100 bills. In closets, in drawers, and suitcases. The attorney general's office arranged the bills into a huge, bed-shaped platform, with Ben Franklin beaming from a thousand eyes. The first estimate by authorities put the take at $100 million. Then the bill-counting machines came in and the figure topped $200 million. It was the biggest drug cash seizure ever. [continues 1658 words]
A Canadian Psychotherapist Who Conducted Research With LSD Was Denied Entry to the United States After a Border Guard Googled His Work. Andrew Feldmar, a well-known Vancouver psychotherapist, rolled up to the Blaine border crossing last summer as he had hundreds of times in his career. At 66, his gray hair, neat beard, and rimless glasses give him the look of a seasoned intellectual. He handed his passport to the U.S. border guard and relaxed, thinking he would soon be with an old friend in Seattle. The border guard turned to his computer and googled "Andrew Feldmar." [continues 2893 words]
A Des Moines Man Is Fighting for the Right to Use Marijuana in Religious Services Carl Olsen is the last member of the Ethiopian Zion Coptic Church. The church, which blends Christianity with ceremonial marijuana smoking, had thousands of members in the '70s and early '80s, Olsen says. "The members would get together [and] smoke marijuana. It causes an intensification of the spirit. It causes a deeper understanding between people, and when you put that into a group setting it's magnified," Olsen says. "Everyone thought we were protected by religious freedom." [continues 630 words]
I was very frustrated when I read the article about salvia in the April 11 edition of your newspaper. All I could think is that it's not the city's fault, and it's not the Emporium's fault. Salvia is completely legal, and there is no reason it should ever be made illegal. The article even quoted James Stone as saying that it's not a question of legality, yet one of morality. And if there's anything I've learned about the government is that they do not belong anywhere in the legislation of morality. It's not their place, nor is it something that can be done; morality is an intrinsic decision. [continues 362 words]
Its name is salvia divinorum, and Middlebury town officials don't want it sold to people younger than 18 -- or anyone else for that matter. The leafy, dried substance, which is legal to sell and possess, causes an effect similar to peyote and hallucinogenic mushrooms. Middlebury public health officer Robert LaFiandra said he is preparing to issue an emergency health order that would forbid its sale by The Emporium of Tobacco and Gift Shop, at 56 College St. The cease and desist order would apply only to the Middlebury shop. Emporium also has a Rutland location, at 9 Evelyn St. [continues 499 words]
City Drug Policy Coordinator Donald MacPherson has won a national award for his efforts to improve the lives of drug users. The Kaiser Award for Excellence recognizes people and groups who promote physical and mental health through drug harm reduction methods. MacPherson, who was responsible for drafting the city's Four Pillar drug policy, won in the Public Policy category. "It's such a dire situation that sometimes it's nice to get the recognition that something positive is happening," he said. [continues 258 words]
Major kudos go to Justin Holmes for his excellent letter, Psychedelic Experiences Enhance One's Life (Issue 14, March 8 ). Psychedelic (entheogenic) experience, when viewed in a spiritual/religious sense, is arguably humanity's oldest spiritual practice. Indigenous people worldwide have for millenia utilized naturally occurring substances to alter consciousness. While experience teaches that a respectful approach to mind-altering substances is vital to safe use, the current anti-drug sentiments do anything but promote safety. The "zero-use" mindset is founded upon a dangerous platform of puritanical absolutism that bears no resemblance to reality. Prohibition of any intoxicant will produce only failed policies - our early 20th century prohibition of alcohol should provide reminder enough of that. [continues 312 words]
The Rev. Craig X Rubin read aloud a passage from 1 Kings as the sun set and his congregation prepared for the Sabbath. Flicking a lighter to the lone candle atop the podium, Rubin burned a bud of marijuana on the flame. He puffed it out, walked to each of the eight members sitting in the pews and waved the smoldering cannabis around them. This, Rubin proclaims, carries the prayers of Temple 420 to God. That's the God of Isaac and of Jesus, because members are Christians and Jews. That makes the congregation Rubin founded last summer unique. [continues 1325 words]
Revelers' beer bingeing episodes on Fat Tuesday and somber Catholic masses on Ash Wednesday are traditionally viewed as far removed from each other. One day is filled with an excess of food, drink and hedonistic pleasure seeking. The other is a day when the devout begin to cleanse themselves with an ashen mark of the cross on the forehead and forego those bad habits - well at least for 40 days. The mood may be different, but religion, drugs, drug users and the devout share a kinship in their experiences, attitudes and behavior. [continues 647 words]
The New Paltz Police Department has issued a warning to parents in the area about the Mexican herb, Salvia Divinorum, which teens are using for its hallucinogenic effects. The New York State government is taking steps to make the now legal drug, more commonly referred to as salvia, illegal. Senator John J. Flanagan is spearheading the movement. "This drug is rapidly increasing in popularity among recreational drug users, especially among young adults and adolescents," said Senator Flanagan. "It is a drug that produces hallucinations similar to those experienced by LSD and it is readily available and legally for sale on the Internet." [continues 405 words]
Scholars and drugs go way back. The nonconformist, academic-genius lifestyle not only allows drug usage but encourages it. Live a Life on the Edge. I go to the ATM alone, and sometimes at night. I take both of my antacids in the morning instead of one with breakfast and one with dinner. I return library books the exact day they are due. This constant flirtation with potential disaster keeps life exciting for me. So naturally I've been thinking a lot about psychedelic drugs. Not in the irresponsible, thrill-seeking, destructive sense (I have enough of that on a daily basis from the activities listed above), but from a scholar's perspective. [continues 621 words]
Updated Version Drops A Clause Allowing Users To Skirt Punishment MEXICO CITY -- A new drug-abuse bill is making its way through the Mexican Senate, just months after a more liberal measure was scrapped amid pressure from Washington. The proposed legislation, due to be voted on Wednesday by the Justice and Health committees, drops a clause that would have allowed drug users to escape punishment. U.S. officials complained that the provision, which they viewed as decriminalization, would have inspired some American tourists to go on drug binges. [continues 774 words]
Staff Sgt. Ian Sanderson started off his Drug Trends in Alberta presentation with a warning, "this is a frank discussion about drugs and we can't sugar coat it." And he didn't. Throughout the presentation, Sanderson provided details on the appearance and effects of certain types of drugs that have been prevalent in Alberta for the past few years. He started the evening off by crushing a few common misconceptions about substances. He said most people mistakenly believe that marijuana has been legalized in Canada, and that the only thing that changed during a review of Canada's Drug Strategy in 2003 was the way police deal with marijuana offences. Research on the medicinal benefits of marijuana to those suffering with a terminal illness is also patchy, said Sanderson. [continues 921 words]
