ANTI-SALVIA EFFORTS ARE UNNECESSARY MEDDLING

While your article on salvia was generally well-balanced, the
essential question of why the drug should be banned was never really addressed.

Contrary to Dr. Miller's assertions, there is little evidence to
suggest that salvia is addictive. While the effects are certainly
powerful, very few users consider them pleasant or euphoric and the
absence of any cited evidence to the contrary is telling.

In addition, while the drug does indeed act upon opiate receptors, it
does so in a way completely different from other opiates known to be
addicting, such as morphine or oxycodone.

In short, salvia has yet to be linked to any health problems
(although indigenous peoples in Mexico and Central America have used
it for centuries if not millenia with no noted ill effects), and the
extremely short duration and overwhelming nature of its effects
render the possibility of its use threatening the user or others
risibly minuscule.

Of course, none of this matters. Salvia will be banned because drug
policy is not dictated by reasonable public health considerations,
but rather puritanism. This drug puritanism, like any other form, is,
to paraphrase Mencken, the haunting fear that someone, somewhere is
enjoying himself.

Not to fear, though, the clucking busybodies at the Legislature will
certainly save us from this noxious scourge of consenting adults
altering their perceptions for a few minutes in the privacy of their
own home. Thank God.

- -- Andrew Miller, Madison