POLICE MAKE SALVIA BUST DESPITE LACK OF PROPOSED LAW

A legislative bill that would make Salvia divinorum an illegal drug in
Nebraska has little chance of passage during the last six weeks of the
legislative session.

Lincoln Police on Monday made a Salvia bust anyway.

Citing a state statute that prohibits Nebraskans from selling certain
compounds that will induce an intoxicated or otherwise mind-altering
state, officers executed a search warrant on Exotica, 2441 N. 48th St.
The Lincoln store sells the herb, a cousin of sage, generally smoked
to create a short-term hallucinogenic experience.

Exotica owner Christian Firoz said four officers entered his store
early Monday evening, took all his Salvia and issued him a citation
for selling certain compounds.

"They said they're going to hit everybody that's selling Salvia and
take everything," Firoz, 35, said.

Firoz said his court date is April 16, and that he's going to
challenge the citation.

"I signed (the citation)," Firoz said. "I'll be in court. We plan to
fight it because we've been selling it for a while and it's a lot of
our sales."

He also said the information that he has leads him to believe it is
legal to sell Salvia.

Sen. Vickie McDonald of St. Paul sponsored the bill to ban Salvia on
behalf of Attorney General Jon Bruning. The bill has no priority
status, and there's little movement to add it as an amendment to
another bill.

But Lincoln Police determined that a law currently on the state books
outlaws the sale of Salvia.

One day after Firoz was quoted in the Journal Star about Salvia
divinorum's trance-like effects, his quotes ended up in a Lincoln
Police report, Lincoln Police Capt. David Beggs said.

"It's all psychological," Firoz said in the article. "It puts you in a
trance. It's very hard to explain."

State statute 28-420 bans the sale of any substance which will induce
an intoxicated condition when the seller "knows or has reason to know
that such compound is intended for use to induce such condition."

The "intoxicated condition," as defined by Sec. 28-419, can include a
"condition of intoxication, stupefaction, depression, giddiness,
paralysis, inebriation, excitement, or irrational behavior, or in any
manner changing, distorting, or disturbing the auditory, visual,
mental or nervous processes."

Beggs said an undercover officer purchased some Salvia earlier at the
store Monday. Then the search warrant was executed, resulting in the
seizure of 8.5 grams of the substance.