The Bong Show

MASSACHUSETTS LAWMAKERS ARE PUSHING TO CRIMINALIZE SALVIA

Is This a Test-Run for Marijuana-Law Reform?

As Massachusetts currently considers a more rational marijuana
policy, some state legislators are using the flawed logic of
prohibition to try to outlaw another plant they fear kids are using
as a legal substitute for pot.

This past month, supporters of a ballot initiative that would
liberalize this state's marijuana laws through decriminalization were
given a hearing at the Massachusetts legislature's Joint Committee on
the Judiciary. The proposed reforms, which voters might have a chance
to consider in November, stem from the thinking that current criminal
laws are a costly and ineffective way of actually keeping people from
smoking pot or using other drugs. Making possession a civil rather
than criminal offense would modernize the state's drug policy, and
would be more respectful of "the civil liberties of those having a
harmless toke," as the Phoenix wrote this past November, endorsing
the proposal.

Even as this drug-liberalizing proposal is being debated, however,
Republican state representatives Vinny deMacedo, of Plymouth, and Dan
Webster, of Hanson, are opening another front in the drug war by
seeking to list Salvia divinorum -- a hallucinogenic plant that can
be purchased legally online or in local smoke shops -- as a Class C
drug, along with LSD and marijuana. Seven states have already
criminalized salvia, and North Dakota is currently prosecuting the
first case under that state's law.

But if preventing youths from using salvia is the goal, the history
of drug prohibition suggests that criminalization may be the worst
way to do it.

Salvia is a powerful entheogen -- a "god-creating" substance that
causes vivid spiritual feelings, altered perception, and
hallucinations. Studies suggest, however, that salvia does not
produce the euphoric high that, in other drugs, promotes addiction by
triggering the brain's "reward" circuitry. Indigenous groups in
Oaxaca, Mexico -- the plant's native territory -- have used it for
years to achieve those spiritual states. But despite salvia's
non-addictive effects, deMacedo still labels it a "gateway drug."

"Call me old fashioned," he says, laughing, "but I think drugs are
bad. When kids see a drug that is legal, there's a feeling that it
must be okay." DeMacedo introduced House Bill 4434 on behalf of
police in Plymouth and Hanover, who first heard from parents about
MySpace posts and YouTube videos showing high-school students acting
goofy while supposedly on the drug. (As of April 22, a YouTube search
for "salvia" resulted in 3740 hits, many of which appear to feature
kids who have smoked the drug, who then either seemed trapped in
slow-motion bewilderment or in fits of convulsive laughter.) The
legislators are concerned that, in an unregulated market, kids can
access salvia easily.

DeMacedo's fix for that unregulated-market problem, however, is not
to regulate salvia, but to outlaw it.

The legislators' underlying concerns are legitimate. In principle,
currently anyone can buy salvia from smoke shops around the state (or
online). And because scientists are as yet unclear as to its
long-term effects, precaution suggests we might want to keep salvia
out of teenagers' hands. (That said, while there is little science to
detail the risks or benefits of salvia, preliminary studies suggest
that derivatives of its active chemical could be useful for treating
cancer, Alzheimer's, or even AIDS. But if the history of marijuana
research is a guide, criminalizing salvia will freeze research into
potential therapeutic applications.)

DeMacedo says he has neither evidence of hospital visits nor any data
demonstrating salvia's harm -- the logical link between the existence
of a drug and the need to regulate it. Armed with just the concerns
of local police and buoyed by anecdotal evidence from YouTube, the
Massachusetts legislators will need to convince the public and fellow
lawmakers that salvia prohibition would work. Like other anti-drug
advocates around the country, deMacedo and Webster are applying the
logic of marijuana prohibition to the salvia dilemma, despite the
fact that the current marijuana policy is demonstrably ineffective at
keeping kids from smoking pot.

This country's experience with prohibition has proven only that
outlawing drugs creates underground black markets -- on the street,
it doesn't matter how old you are, as long as you have cash. Those
black markets are also ground zero for much of the violence and
social disorder people attribute to drugs.

By contrast, alcohol regulations are much more effective at actually
keeping alcohol out of kids' hands. Massachusetts imposes strict
penalties on bars and liquor stores that sell to minors, which in
turn serves as a powerful deterrent. One local high-school student
even says that he can buy marijuana much more easily than alcohol due
to strict ID-checking policies.

As such, the primary hoped-for benefit of criminalization -- reduced
usage -- might not occur. And enforcing drug laws is costly: for
comparison's sake, note that arresting and prosecuting marijuana
offenses costs Massachusetts about $130 million per year, according
to a 2005 study by Harvard professor Jeffrey Miron. Though enforcing
salvia laws would be far cheaper, it reminds us that law-enforcement
budgets could instead be going to health care or education.