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Growin' Our Own (page 5)

Plant from Mexico has U.S. drug officials on alert

By: Reid J. Epstein (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)

The clerks at Knuckleheads Tobacco & Gifts, a Madison smoking accessories shop, aren't allowed to say words such as marijuana, weed or pot.

Although some customers undoubtedly smoke marijuana and are drawn to the store's water pipes and rolling papers, any reference to illegal drugs could get the clerks into trouble with their boss or the police, who tend to keep a close eye on counterculture establishments.

So it's difficult for them to accurately describe what it's like to smoke Salvia divinorum, a legal and increasingly popular Mexican plant that some in Congress want banned.

"It's like coming down off of, you know, but without the really tired feeling you would normally get," Mike Molkentin said from behind the Knuckleheads counter. "I was able to relax and get into a different mind state."

Molkentin, 20, is a music student at the Madison Media Institute. He called Salvia divinorum "a positive alternative" to smoking that illegal plant.

Drug enforcement authorities would like to stop the spread of Salvia divinorum before it explodes in the United States the way Ecstasy did before it was criminalized.

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration considers salvia one of its "drugs and chemicals of concern." And U.S. Rep Joe Baca, D-Calif., promises to reintroduce legislation in January that would make salvia an illegal drug. Baca introduced similar legislation in October that died in committee.

In Dane County, Wis., police officers have begun to see an increased use of the dark green leaves among teenagers, who either smoke or eat the leaves.

"The fact is, it's out there and kids are learning about it," said Detective George Chavez of the Dane County Narcotics and Gang Task Force.

But because the government does not classify Salvia divinorum as an illegal substance, there is nothing the task force, or any other government agency, can do to regulate its use. "There's not a whole lot of enforcement we can take," Chavez said. "We try to talk to as many people as we can get to. As long as you've got the information, we hope you'll make the good decisions."

A plant that grows wild in Oaxaca, a state in southern Mexico, Salvia divinorum is legal everywhere in the world except for Australia, which criminalized it in June.

For now, it can be purchased at shops such as Knuckleheads, which charges $4.95 a gram, and, more prominently, from stores on the Internet, where a quick Google search reveals dozens of sites dedicated to providing information in hopes of keeping salvia legal.

The Madison-based site Pure Land Ethnobotanicals (www.ethnobotanicals.com) sells the leaves - $25 buys 14 grams - and the more potent salvia extract, which costs $29 per gram.

Pure Land's administrators did not respond to repeated e-mails and phone calls. Its listed address is a post office box at a University Ave. Mail Boxes Etc. outlet.

A small amount of salvia, about half a gram, is enough to produce a "clearheaded state" that is useful for meditation, said Daniel Siebert, a California man who has studied the plant for 20 years and, in the eyes of its devotees, is to Salvia divinorum what Timothy Leary was to LSD in the 1960s.

At medium doses, Siebert said, Salvia divinorum can bring greater awareness of color, including "subtle visions that are geometric patterns not seen with your eyes open."

Higher doses are said to produce more realistic visions in which one sees dream-like scenery. Such visions can resemble those induced by hallucinogenic drugs such as LSD.

"Often there's a narrative quality to it," Siebert said, "like things are happening there."

But Salvia divinorum is by no means a social substance, Siebert said. Unlike Ecstasy, which has been labeled a "party drug," Salvia divinorum users become very introverted.

"You can't really engage much with people," Siebert said. "You sit quietly and become immersed in this inner state. I try to make clear to people that salvia is very different from the other hallucinogenic drugs people use . . . because people use those in a more social context."

Whether there are health risks involved with using Salvia divinorum is unclear.

Chavez and others say smoking the plant's leaves carries the same health risks as smoking marijuana.

"It's in the way it's ingested," Chavez said. "It has PCP and LSD-type effects when you get into the deep stage of salvia use."

Siebert points to the Mazatec Indians of Oaxaca, who he said have been using salvia to meditate for generations without negative health consequences.

"The only risk is that when you alter your state of consciousness, you shouldn't be doing so when you can be jeopardizing other people's safety," Siebert said. "Anything is harmful if you do something really stupid."

Baca, who likens Salvia divinorum to Ecstasy before it was outlawed in 1985, points to the case of a 15-year-old Rhode Island boy who stabbed another youth after smoking the plant. But Siebert said such behavior can't be attributed to salvia.

"You can't get up and walk around on salvia," he said. "At doses strong enough to have much of an effect, you can't negotiate walking to meet someone. It just doesn't fit."

But the case is enough for Baca to push to criminalize salvia. His October effort, dubbed the Hallucinogen Control Act of 2002, would have made Salvia divinorum and Salvinorin A, its active ingredient, Schedule 1 controlled substances. Schedule 1 substances include marijuana, heroin and MDMA, the active ingredient in Ecstasy.

"We know very little about the drug, but what we do know is frightening," Baca said in a statement. "This drug's power is beyond anything we have seen before." What is truly frightening is politicians like Baca.

Baca added that the October bill was introduced to "create awareness" of salvia and that he plans on reintroducing the legislation in January. Hopefully the reintroduced bill will fail as well.

The plant's supporters say it is far less potent than more popular recreational drugs. They maintain the government is merely on a crusade to keep people from enjoying themselves.

"They're on the verge of making it illegal because people are talking about it. The idea that you can use something and have some altered state and not inherently ruin your life runs counter to the idea of the drug war," said Rick Doblin, the president of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, a Sarasota, Fla.-based non-profit organization that studies what it calls "the healing and spiritual potentials" of psychedelic drugs and marijuana.

To read an earlier story about this wonderful plant, click here.