CONGRESS CONTINUING TO FIGHT A TWO-FRONT WAR

On October 10, Congress introduced a bill (HR 5607) seeking to place the
ceremonial plant Salvia divinorum in Schedule I of the Controlled
Substances Act. Oddly enough, considering the introduction of this bill, on
October 21, the Pentagon decided to scale back money allotted to the War on
Drugs in order to redirect funds toward the War on Terror. Apparently, the
$1-billion-a-year budget for drug-related operations was cutting into the
funding for special operations forces, which are now in high demand for
anti-terrorism efforts.

Under the circumstances, then, it would seem like the wrong time to
criminalize a drug like Salvia divinorum, which has a well-established
history of shamanic use by the Mazatec Indians of Mexico, is extremely
difficult to cultivate anywhere in the United States and, according to the
Center for Cognitive Liberty and Ethics, has both low abuse potential and
high psychiatric and medicinal potential.

Indeed, most reports on the drug suggest that it does not meet the criteria
for addition to Schedule I. The only explanations, then, for such an
apparently irrational and ill-timed proposition are the increased
alternative press coverage that Salvia divinorum has received over the past
few years and the fact that the government's counter narcotics program,
which has grown to include 179 separate sub-programs over the years,
continues to be popular on Capitol Hill. Three cheers for never ending wars.