ABC News: College Kids Using Hallucinogenic Drug Bought Right off the Store
It's an article talking about salvia, a plant that originates from Mexico. It is a hallucinogenic that has somehow “fallen through the legislative cracks and into the hands of college kids”… it's also a popular landscaping and gardening plant. So now everyone's up in arms about how this plant is not regulated by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency. Hold onto your rootbeer, Martha! You can even buy it on the Internet!
Then this 28-year-old lawmaker from Maine says, “The worst-case scenario is someone gets behind the wheel and hurts another person or that someone takes the drug in the home and hurts themselves for lack of bodily control. And we as a society end up incurring the health care cost.”
Say what?? You have GOT to be kidding me! I highly doubt that the percentage of salvia-induced accidents will come anywhere close to the percentage of those caused by alcohol! But then he goes on to say, “We end up paying for the [negative effects] of those who use substances irresponsibly. We need to balance between individual citizens and their civil rights vs. the cost the government has to pay for those who can't handle those substances responsibly.”
So here's a novel idea… why don't we punish those who are irresponsible drug abusers (prescription drugs included) and leave the rest of the users alone to do their thing? Need I even mention our over-crowded correctional facilities or the price the war on drugs has cost our country?
While the most natural of healing and medicinal herbs and plants that grow from the ground are prohibited, America turns to prescription drugs and over-the-counter pharmaceuticals, fast food, candy, tobacco, alcohol and highly caffeinated beverages. Who pays the health costs of the overweight? Who pays the health costs of the smoker who gets lung cancer?? Who is profiting? Think about this next time you pay for your prescription or fork over $10 bucks for a beer at the concert venue. Who will exploit your addiction from beginning to the very end, even if the end is your ruin, just to make a profit? Who holds those people accountable? Who regulates the FDA? It's insanity!
Later, Barstow redeems himself by saying, “If you're going to have a tobacco provision of salvia, it should be considered for marijuana as well.
The overall discussion needs to be held.”
At least he's smart enough to make the correlation.
I just don't believe that the government has the right to tell a person what they can and cannot put into their own body.
*gets off soap box*
I've been in drug rehabilitation for the past three months because I use to shoot up. I was caught by the police and being at my first problem they agreed to let me go if I got into rehab. Why can't I do whatever I want? It's my body, I wasn't driving, I wasn't causing problems to others.
I use salvia oil for my gums. My doctor said it's the only herbal product that will help me. I never thought it might have hallucinogenic effects. Come to think of it, while I volunteered to an alcohol rehab center I started seeing more and more people using alternative drugs. They were afraid not to be caught with cocaine or marijuana so they used some plants we believe to be harmless.