Purple Sticky Brand

CORPUS CHRISTI — Recently, the City of Corpus Christi passed an ordinance banning smoking products containing salvia divinorum and other similar chemicals. Salvia divinorum is an herb traditionally used by the Mazatec Indians of southern Mexico as part of their rituals. All our stores have stopped selling salvia divinorum and any similar products. We will not sell those products.

However, along with the ban on salvia divinorum, the city also passed a ban on any smoking paraphernalia that “can be used” with illegal smoking materials. This ordinance is extremely broad and criminalizes the display, possession, or sale of every pipe, cigar and rolling paper in Corpus Christi. This ordinance seems to require every tobacco accessory store in Corpus Christi to close. We hope this is not what the city intended.

Many of us have been in business for over ten years with no problems whatsoever with law enforcement. All of our stores are locally owned small businesses. Combined, we employ dozens of people and pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in city and state taxes. Our customers come from every walk of life — military personnel, senior citizens, business professionals, blue collar workers, students — all of them patronize our stores. We are part of this community and are proud to call Corpus Christi home.

Similar stores exist in major cities throughout Texas and have operated for decades without problems from law enforcement. Even without the city’s ordinance, paraphernalia is already illegal under state law. But state law requires police to prove the person charged with possession of paraphernalia had the intent to use the device with illegal drugs. The city’s ordinance removes the requirement that police prove intent and instead gives police broad powers to arbitrarily charge whoever they want. Will the police ticket the young person with the long hair and tattoos for having a pipe but let the elderly man with the corncob pipe go? Major grocery stores like Walmart and H-E-B display pipes and smoking accessories in plain sight. Why isn’t the city going after them? We do not believe the paraphernalia ordinance is constitutional and have filed a lawsuit against the city.

We want to see Corpus Christi grow and become the community we know it can be. But we cannot do business never knowing how the police will enforce a paraphernalia law that no one seems to understand. If the city insists on enforcing this ordinance, the result will be that many of us will relocate to a neighboring community that wants the business, jobs and tax revenue we bring. Why does the city want to chase away almost a dozen businesses that have been operating peacefully and legally for a decade in the middle of one of the worst recessions in American history? Help us by contacting your council member today — if not your business could face big brother next.

MAR 01 - 

Chemicals like K-2 and Spice are designated as Schedule I substances, the most restrictive category under the Controlled Substances Act

The Final Order was published today in the Federal Register to alert the public to this action.  These chemicals will be controlled for at least 12 months, with the possibility of a six month extension.  They are designated as Schedule I substances, the most restrictive category under the Controlled Substances Act.  Schedule I substances are reserved for those substances with a high potential for abuse, no accepted medical use for treatment in the United States and a lack of accepted safety for use of the drug under medical supervision.

Over the past couple of years, smokeable herbal products marketed as being “legal” and as providing a marijuana-like high, have become increasingly popular, particularly among teens and young adults. These products consist of plant material that has been coated with research chemicals that claim to mimic THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, and are sold at a variety of retail outlets, in head shops, and over the Internet.  These chemicals, however, have not been approved by the FDA for human consumption, and there is no oversight of the manufacturing process. Brands such as “Spice,” “K2,” “Blaze,” and “Red X Dawn” are labeled as herbal incense to mask their intended purpose.

Since 2009, DEA has received an increasing number of reports from poison control centers, hospitals and law enforcement regarding these products. At least 16 states have already taken action to control one or more of these chemicals. The Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984 amends the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) to allow the DEA Administrator to place a substance temporarily in schedule I when it is necessary to avoid an imminent threat to the public safety. Emergency room physicians report that individuals that use these types of products experience serious side effects which include: convulsions, anxiety attacks, dangerously elevated heart rates, increased blood pressure, vomiting, and disorientation.

“Young people are being harmed when they smoke these dangerous ‘fake pot’ products and wrongly equate the products’ ‘legal’ retail availability with being ‘safe’,” said DEA Administrator Michele M. Leonhart.  “Parents and community leaders look to us to help them protect their kids, and we have not let them down.  Today’s action, while temporary, will reduce the number of young people being seen in hospital emergency rooms after ingesting these synthetic chemicals to get high.”

Notice of Intent to Temporarily Control Five Synthetic Cannabinoids

An Interview with Daniel Siebert

A YouTube video interviewing ethnobotanist, pharmacognosist, and author…  Daniel Siebert.

Siebert has studied Salvia divinorum for over twenty years and claims to be the first person to identify (and consume in 1993^[2]) Salvinorin A as the psychoactive principal of Salvia divinorum.^[1][3] In 1998, Siebert appeared in the documentary Sacred Weeds shown in the United Kingdom.^[1] He has discussed Salvia divinorum on National Public Radio,^[4] Fox News, CNN,^[5] Telemundo and his comments have appeared in the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, and The New York Times.^[1]

In 2002, Siebert wrote a letter to the United States Congress in which he objected to bill H.R. 5607 introduced by Rep. Joe Baca (D-California) which sought to place Salvia divinorum in Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act.^[6]

In 2009, like the six years preceding it, he stated plans on publishing a book about Salvia divinorum called Divine Sage. Now he claims an anticipated release date in 2010.^[7]

St. Boniface MP Shelly Glover may well be — along with all the other parents she insists share her fears — “very worried about the long-term effects” of salvia divinorum, but until that or some other evil of smoking this herb is established by scientific evidence, the hallucinogen ought not be banned. There is little science that says it is dangerous to human health and safety.

Salvia, regulated in Canada as a natural health product, has been compared to marijuana, except that it produces more often a wild psychedelic trip rather than a cosy high. Those who smoke, inhale or chew it can experience an out-of-body sensation or the sense that they become inanimate objects, such as a table leg. Others collapse into laughing fits. Infamously, Miley Cyrus was sure that a guy at her party looked exactly like her boyfriend. Ms. Cyrus’ mini-trip wrote salvia onto the parental watch lists — who would want their newly minted 18-year-old to indelibly imprint their own “this is your brain on salvia” on YouTube?

Ms. Glover and fellow MPs in the Harper government seem to be taking their drug-watch cues from YouTube and the alarmist anecdotes of legislators in other countries who have acted rashly to ban salvia, a member of the mint family used traditionally by Mexico’s Mazatec natives to produce spiritual visions. The hallucinations can be intense, but are short-lived.

There is no evidence salvia is addictive or toxic. Ms. Glover is probably right on the money when she says most parents would not want their children trying salvia

No need to ban salvia

. It should probably be regulated, like alcohol. Making an herb’s sale, cultivation or possession punishable as a criminal offence, simply because it makes people see weird things or act funny, is hammering up a solution to a non-problem.

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition February 23, 2011 A10

Interesting article from www.dailycampus.com.

http://www.dailycampus.com/commentary/age-limits-on-salvia-alternative-to-prohibition-1.1917300

There is a new “Reefer Madness” sweeping the nation, and no, I’m not talking about Four Loko. The new boogeyman is Salvia divinorum, usually just referred to as salvia. It is a psychoactive herb, meaning it produces hallucinatory effects, usually lasting about 30 minutes. Yet, unlike LSD or other hallucinogens, it is completely natural, as it is simply a plant native to Mexico and does not require any chemical processes prior to smoking it (the most common method of consumption). You may be familiar with it from seeing it used on Tosh.0, in the countless videos on YouTube, or most notably, in the leaked video of Miley Cyrus doing it with her friends.

What may seem crazy to some people is that it is completely legal. That’s right, you can grow as much salvia as you want without hiding it and you can consume it without fear of arrest–even in public. Predictably, this has caused some people in Connecticut and the rest of the country to call for its prohibition, and many other states have already completely banned the plant. Of course, proponents of the ban say that they want salvia to be illegal in order to protect the children. It’s very true that most parents would not want their kids to be able to just go to a convenience store and buy a mind-altering substance. However, the side-effects of an outright ban would be worse than the effects of the herb itself. A much more sensible drug policy would be to impose age limits and other regulations on the sale of salvia, rather than completely banning it.

First of all, salvia is not the dangerous drug that some claim it is. Overdosing is arguably the worst possible outcome of using any drug. However, in 2003, Dr. Mark Mowry of the University of Nebraska did a study in which he gave large amounts of salvinorin A (the psychoactive chemical in salvia) to lab rats to test its effects. His conclusion? That, “the toxicity of salvinorin A is relatively low, even at doses many times that of what humans are exposed to.” Translation: you can’t overdose on salvia.

Addiction is probably the second-worst thing that can happen from the use of a drug. So, is salvia addictive? The short answer is no. A 2005 study by Yong Zhang in the journal “Psychopharmacology” demonstrated that salvia use does not activate chemical reactions in the brain that typically lead to addiction, such as increasing dopamine levels. The researchers concluded that it was not a very addictive drug.

While salvia cannot cause overdose or addiction, it is still a psychoactive drug. Surely something must be done about it, as I am sure everyone can agree that it should not be sold to children. However, banning the substance would just cause the well-known problems of prohibition. Its sale would be relegated to the black market, and drug dealers would take over its growth and distribution. It’s possible that salvia sold on the street could be laced with other drugs, and people buying salvia may be pressured by their dealers into trying harder drugs such as cocaine or heroin. Also, the state would lose out on the tax revenues from the sale of salvia, and would instead need to spend money enforcing its prohibition.

As we have seen with marijuana, making something illegal does not necessarily make it go away. The 1996 study, “Trends in the Incidence of Drug Use in the United States” by R. Johnson, shows that only 0.4 percent of adolescents had tried marijuana in 1930, right before it was banned. Today, about 42.3% of 12th graders have tried marijuana. While there are many factors involved, it is obvious that prohibition does not guarantee that use will stop, or even go down at all.

The most sensible solution to the issue is to impose age restrictions on the sale of salvia. In California and Maine, you must be 18 to purchase salvia, and in Maryland, you must be 21. This makes it much more difficult for young people to obtain the drug. For example, in a survey by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse, a majority of high schoolers said it was easier to buy marijuana than beer or cigarettes. This is because drug dealers don’t card, while store owners do. Imposing age limits, rather than banning salvia altogether, would cut down on adolescent use while not causing all of the problems associated with prohibition.

(BALTIMORE) — Scientists are taking a fresh look at salvia – the controversial herb that can cause an intense psychedelic experience — as a potential treatment for an array of neurological disorders, including addiction. Researchers at Johns Hopkins University Medical School say it could open the door to a whole new class of drugs that have powerful analgesic properties. 

This is the first controlled study in humans on the effects of salvinorin A, the active ingredient in the plant salvia divinorum, which is the most powerful hallucinogen in nature. The study showed the herb has no physically adverse effects on otherwise healthy people. Participants showed no changes in heart rate or blood pressure. 

Lead researcher Matthew W. Johnson, a psychologist and assistant professor of psychiatry, said the study was an attempt to “put some rigorous scientific information into current concerns over the growing recreational use” of salvia. 

The study findings are published online in the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence. 

Johnson said learning about salvia’s effects on the brain could lead to medical advances in the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease, chronic pain and, though it seems counterintuitive, drug addiction. 

http://www.wtma.com/rssItem.asp?feedid=116&itemid=29616831

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