Lets see...Salvia divinorum is:
Not addictive.
Not toxic.
You can't overdose or die from it.
Not "fun" or "recreational".
Not a party drug.
Most people only use it once or twice.
Widely considered to be an anti-depressant.
Is being researched as an "anti-drug" with reports that it can break addiction in heroin and cocaine users.
Effects last a matter of minutes.
Not shown to cause any psychological damage.
Is not associated with any criminal or anti-social activity.
Seeing as no one can supply a valid reason for making Salvia illegal or a legitimate problem that would be solved by the removal of another of our freedoms, why would anyone concerned for their childs safety and society as a whole want to surrender complete control of its supply into the hands of heavily armed criminal organisations?
Regulate it to over 21 and you can control its supply. Ban it outright and you gift wrap it for the drug dealers who dont care about selling to kids and will undoubtedly mix it with crack or some other substance to ensure repeat custom as salvia is not addictive by itself. I bet your local tobacconist is not so scary now, eh?
I am astounded that legislators don't seem to realise that the first person on record to have their life ruined by using Salvia will be the first person sent to prison under these needless laws.
To clarify, Brett Chidester was a teenager from a broken home and he was, as reported by his friends, a regular abuser of alcohol. Drinking regularly and to excess, there were even claims on his memorial myspace page by his friends that he used to steal drink from his work place to fuel his illegal habbit. These comments were removed by his family when they began to get publicity. Salvia was never mentioned in his suicide note. He did however write this in his journal sometime prior to his death:
"Salvia allows us to give up our senses and wander in the interdimensional time and space.[…] Also, and this is probably hard for most to accept, our existence in general is pointless. Final point: Us earthly humans are nothing.”
Some people will look up at a clear night sky and be blessedly struck by the wonderous enourmity of the universe while others will feel dejectedly insignificant, drowned by the vastness of infinate possibility. You dont punish looking at the stars with ten years in a federal prison just because a single person possibly may have done something stupid because of it.
Contrary to all anecdotal evidence of Salvias amazing anti-depressant properties and without any evidence to support their claims his parents decided that this leaf made him commit suicide. The media has regurgitated this uneducated and emotionaly blinded opinion without even rudimentary analysis.
It seems to me the governments issue with this substance is that it induces dreamstates conductive to expanding conciousness. An "eye opener" if you will.
Now why on earth would a government be afraid of people seeing things more clearly I ask?
Please read this salvias wikipedia link for less biased information than provided by the news media or government
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvia_divinorum