HI! Canada is considering banning Salvia Divinorum http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNew...ghing-salvia-ban-110219/

I am scrambling to do my part to write the appropriate people to stop this nonsense. But I don't have an organized reference for scientific articles, which would be helpful in a letter in support of salvia. Articles that give the message, salvia is not dangerous, not addictive etc. Anyone out there have some links to good scientific salvia articles that I can use to help support the claims I will be making in my letters? Thank you very much.

heres a little article hope it helps

http://www.stuffdaily.co...wer-of-salvia-divinorum/

I am sure the main cause is because of recreational use, and all the idiotic videos that were posted on youtube.

I was thinking about doing the same thing. It was only a matter of time before they tried to ban this wonderful plant. They sell it in convenience stores all over Ontario. I'm glad I have my plants, but I still would like to see this plant remain legal. Perhaps they'll realize that it isn't a threat to public safety and they'll do what Maine and California did.

I'm going to search for as many articles as I can find that display Salvia for what it really is. Please help us Canadians out! Any articles you come across that discuss it's anti-depressant effects or anti-addictive effects would be very helpful.

Evidence that it's not addictive comes most tellingly from the United States' Drug Enforcement Administration: "The percentage of first-time users who become regular abusers of the substance is also difficult to determine; however, one Internet distributor indicated that only 1 in 10 customers places a repeat order for the drug... Salvia divinorum most likely will not become widely abused"(DEA 2003)

Further indications that the continuance rate is low come from a survey conducted at a large university in Florida (Khey et al. 2008). An abridged version of the notes I took from this source:




As far as its antidepressant effect goes, there are preliminary indications an Australian psychiatrist... here are the notes I took from his papers:


Daniel Siebert has received dozens of anecdotal reports from people addicted to alcohol or other drugs who have “cured” their addictions using S. divinorum, as well as similar testimonials from individuals alleging that it alleviated their depression (Ketcham 2007)

Here's the abstract (Baggott et al. 2004) of a survey of 500 people who had used the plant (considering Earth and Fire Erowid are coauthors, the data was presumably collected via erowid.org):



A factoid you can use regarding responsible use: There have been no documented cases of individuals attempting to drive under the influence of Salvia divinorum (Griffin et al. 2008). [Sidenote: Unfortunately I personally know of one such occurrence, where some passengers deliberately deceived a friend of mine while he was driving (telling him the pipe was loaded with cannabis, which, like many chronic users, he was comfortable driving under the influence of); fortunately no accident occurred as a result of this horrifying lapse in judgment. And since it ain't in the literature, it's probably best not to mention it]


Full citations for the works mentioned above

• Baggott, M.J., E. Erowid, F. Erowid, and J.E. Mendelson. 2004. "Use of Salvia divinorum, an unscheduled hallucinogenic plant: A web-based survey of 500 users" Accessed February 10, 2011, http://www.sagewisdom.org/baggottetal.html. Abstract of a poster session presented at the 2004 meeting of the College on Problems of Drug Dependence in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
  
• DEA. 2003. "Information bulletin: Salvia divinorum" Microgram Bulletin 36(6): 122-125. (Available online: http://www.usdoj.gov/dea...gram/mg0603/03jun-mb.pdf)
  
• Griffin III, O.H., B.L. Miller, and D.N. Khey. 2008. "Legally high? Legal considerations of Salvia divinorum" Journal of Psychoactive Drugs 40(2): 183-191.
  
• Hanes, K.R. 2001. "Antidepressant effects of the herb Salvia divinorum" Journal of Clinical Psychopharmacology 21(6): 634-635. (Available online: http://www.sagewisdom.org/jclinpsych.html)
  
• Hanes, K.R. 2003. "Salvia divinorum: Clinical and research potential" MAPS 13(1): 18-20. (http://www.maps.org/news-letters/v13n1/13118han.pdf)
  
• Ketcham, C. 2007. "Under the spell of the magic mint" Gentleman's Quarterly June 2007: 208-211, 240-242.
  
• Khey, D.N., B.L. Miller, and O.H. Griffin III. 2008. "Salvia divinorum use among a college student sample" Journal of Drug Education 38(3): 297-306.
  

I suspect a great deal more supporting data may be found in the literature on the pharmacology of the plant, but I haven't started tackling that subject yet; I'd been planning on saving it until I finish my notes on the chemical literature regarding Salvia divinorum. I'll try to get around to more pharmacological sources in the near future and post relevant info as I find it; in the meantime, a great deal of that literature is available online, so other Nexians can skim it for useful data and references as well (I'll provide a list below with urls)

One final point: The best general reference for background historical info on Salvia divinorum is Jonathan Ott's paper from 1995 (of course it predates the discovery that salvinorin A acts at the kappa opioid receptor and the climb in popularity that the plant has seen in the past 15 years). Daniel Siebert has a transcription of it available at http://www.sagewisdom.org/ott2.html [Full Citation: Ott, J. 1995. "Ethnopharmacognosy and human pharmacology of Salvia divinorum and salvinorin A" Curare 18(1): 103-29.




Here's the list of pharmacology-related papers that Siebert has up on sagewisdom, it's probably worth skimming through the abstracts if anyone has the time:


Roth et al. 2002 (http://www.sagewisdom.org/pnas.pdf)
Sheffler & Roth 2003 (http://www.sagewisdom.org/tips.pdf)
Mowry et al. 2003 (http://www.sagewisdom.org/mowryetal.pdf)
Zhang et al. 2003 (http://www.sagewisdom.org/zhangetal.html)
Chavkin et al. 2004 (http://www.sagewisdom.org/chavkinetal.pdf)
Kugle et al. 2004 (http://www.sagewisdom.org/kugleetal.html)
Yan & Roth 2004 (http://www.sagewisdom.org/yanandroth.pdf)
Butelman et al. 2004 (http://www.sagewisdom.org/butelmanetal.pdf)
Tidgewell et al. 2004 (http://www.sagewisdom.org/tidgewelletal.pdf)
Wang et al. 2005 (http://www.sagewisdom.org/wangetal.pdf)
Fantegrossi et al. 2005 (http://www.sagewisdom.org/fantegrossietal.pdf)
Schmidt et al. 2005 (http://www.sagewisdom.org/schmidtetal.pdf)
Schmidt et al. 2005 (http://www.sagewisdom.org/schmidtetal2.pdf)
Yan et al. 2005 (http://www.sagewisdom.org/yanetal.pdf)
Zhang et al. 2005 (http://www.sagewisdom.org/zhangetal.pdf)
Carlezon et al. 2006 (http://www.sagewisdom.org/carlezonetal.pdf)
Trentini et al. 2006 (http://www.sagewisdom.org/trentinietal.pdf)
McCurdy et al. 2006 (http://www.sagewisdom.org/mccurdyetal.pdf)
Kane et al. 2006 (http://www.sagewisdom.org/kaneetal.pdf)
Vortherms & Roth 2006 (http://www.sagewisdom.org/vorthermsandroth.pdf)
Ansonoff et al. 2006 (http://www.sagewisdom.org/ansonoffetal.pdf)
Capasso et al. 2006 (http://www.sagewisdom.org/capassoetal.pdf)
Vortherms et al. 2007 (http://www.sagewisdom.org/vorthermsetal.pdf)
Willmore-Fordham et al. 2007 (http://www.sagewisdom.org/willmore-fordhametal.pdf)
Butelman et al. 2007 (http://www.sagewisdom.org/butelmanetal2.pdf)
Grundmann et al. 2007 (http://www.sagewisdom.org/grundmannetal.pdf)
Groer et al. 2007 (http://www.sagewisdom.org/groeretal.pdf)
Wannemacher et al. 2007 (http://www.sagewisdom.org/wannemacheretal.pdf)
Rothman et al. 2007 (http://www.sagewisdom.org/rothmanetal.pdf)
Braida et al. 2007 (http://www.sagewisdom.org/braidaetal.pdf)
Beerepoot et al. 2008 (http://www.sagewisdom.org/beerepootetal.pdf)
Capasso et al. 2008 (http://www.sagewisdom.org/capassoetal2.pdf)
Capasso et al. 2008 (http://www.sagewisdom.org/capassoetal3.pdf)
Chartoff et al. 2008 (http://www.sagewisdom.org/chartoffetal.pdf)
Braida et al. 2008 (http://www.sagewisdom.org/braidaetal2.pdf)
Babu et al. 2008 (http://www.sagewisdom.org/babuetal.pdf)
Gehrke et al. 2008 (http://www.sagewisdom.org/gehrkeetal.pdf)
Hooker et al. 2008 (http://www.sagewisdom.org/hookeretal.pdf)
Kane et al. 2008 (http://www.sagewisdom.org/kaneetal2.pdf)
Li et al. 2008 (http://www.sagewisdom.org/lietal.pdf)
McLennan et al. 2008 (http://www.sagewisdom.org/mclennanetal.pdf)
McDonough et al. 2008 (http://www.sagewisdom.org/mcdonoughetal.pdf)
Hooker et al. 2009 (http://www.sagewisdom.org/hookeretal2.pdf)
Hooker et al. 2009 (http://www.sagewisdom.org/hookeretal3.pdf)
Fichna et al. 2009 (http://www.sagewisdom.org/fichnaetal.pdf)
Fichna et al. 2009 (http://www.sagewisdom.org/fichnaetal2.pdf)
Grilli et al. 2009 (http://www.sagewisdom.org/grillietal.pdf)
Inan et al. 2009 (http://www.sagewisdom.org/inanetal.pdf)
Morani et al. 2009 (http://www.sagewisdom.org/moranietal.pdf)
Baker et al. 2009 (http://www.sagewisdom.org/bakeretal.pdf)
Braida et al. 2009 (http://www.sagewisdom.org/braidaetal3.pdf)
Butelman et al. 2009 (http://www.sagewisdom.org/butelmanetal4.pdf)
Pichini et al. 2009 (http://www.sagewisdom.org/pichinietal.pdf)
Seeman et al. 2009 (http://www.sagewisdom.org/seemanetal.pdf)
Tsujikawa et al. 2009 (http://www.sagewisdom.org/tsujikawaetal2.pdf)
Teksin et al. 2009 (http://www.sagewisdom.org/teksinetal.pdf)
Yan et al. 2009 (http://www.sagewisdom.org/yanetal2.pdf)
Butelman et al. 2010 (http://www.sagewisdom.org/butelmanetal5.pdf)
Ebner et al. 2010 (http://www.sagewisdom.org/ebneretal.pdf)
Walentiny 2010 (http://www.sagewisdom.org/walentinyetal.pdf)

Also, it wouldn't be a bad idea to read Daniel Siebert's letter to congress objecting to their efforts to ban salvia in the US about a decade ago: http://www.cognitivelibe...ebert_salvia_letter.html

Not that Siebert's letter had any effect that I know of (the bill died in committee), but it takes a fairly reasonable approach.

Any unreferenced statements are presumably from his book Divine Sage, which at the time he anticipated publishing in a few months... now, ten years later, he's still perpetually planning on releasing it in a few months. If you need a reference for any of his claims that he doesn't cite, just post it here and I can probably provide a published source.

wow, thanks for that. It will be very helpful, I'm sure.

With regard to physical toxicity: Mowry et al. showed that 6.4 mg/kg/day of salvinorin A by intraperitoneal injection in rats for two weeks produced no fatality or toxicity, and when the rats were killed and autopsied, no changes were noted in their organs or tissues (fulltext available at http://www.sagewisdom.org/mowryetal.pdf)

Maybe a side note to bring up in the letter is maybe alternative suggestions to making it illegal like say:
- cut down on law enforcement costs (selling to people only adults, etc)
- try to show that making it illegal will cause more harm than good
etc

Best way IMO to help make a substantial cause is not through the mind of a scientist or entheogen lover.... but unfortunately like a politician... money is ALWAYS a reason to sway a decision, money makes and breaks governments.

Best of luck with your letter,
I've sent mine
Pce,
ElusiveMind

I don't think either of those arguments would do any good in this case, because they aren't really valid for this particular situation. Banning salvia won't require much in law enforcement costs. Once it's illegal to sell, all the local shops will stop carrying it, their suppliers will stop shipping to Canada. Maybe one or two foreign vendors might continue to ship, and if Canadian authorities become aware of this then they can just have customs flag those shipments. Practically overnight they put an end to the recreational attempts to use salvia, with virtually no costs besides publicizing the ban.

And really, I honestly don't think making it illegal will cause more harm than good. Teenagers and young adults will almost entirely stop doing stupid shit while on salvia (and while the stupid shit tends not to be harmful, stopping it is presumably the intended effect of the ban). Chances are that with virtually all commercial sales halted, they won't even bother making any efforts with regards to the folks who grow it themselves, so it's not very likely to destroy many lives (and the politicians aren't going to see the lives destroyed as a harmful consequence anyway, they'd see it as justice served to drug manufacturers). It's unlikely that a black market for salvia will rise up, where fake salvia leaves are laced with PCP analogues or something crazy like that (although it occurs to me: claiming that this is a likely possibility may help persuade them to keep the relatively benign salvia legal to prevent a surge in PCP use :lol.

I just can't see any politicians being convinced by either of those points with respect to salvia... hell, I'm not even convinced by them, even though I feel salvia ought to be legal in an ideal world.

Ah sorry, my "side-note" on my letter was actually an extra couple pages talking about AFOAF's opinion on the drug war..... .... so it was like the dessert to my salvia letter

As you pointed out, trying to use my points as the main argument would of course go nowhere. For my main letter, I too used academic papers to point out the good and the lack of bad aspects as far as Salvia goes.

Good luck with the letters whomever else is doing one

ElusiveMind

One step at a time... it's probably better not to conflate the issue of Salvia divinorum prohibition with the general issue of the drug war if you hope to be persuasive. Most politicians already have cemented views in favor of the drug war, so if you express generalized opposition to it (no matter how well justified), they will probably be much more willing to write off your points as the rantings of a crazy pro-drug degenerate.

Don't get me wrong, I think it's important to persuade the powers that be of how plainly harmful the drug war is to society. But if you're trying to stop the potentially-impending prohibition of a specific substance, in that context it's better to leave the issue alone. Besides, no matter how many politicians are convinced that the drug war is a failure with unjustifiable economic costs and results in equally unjustifiable damage to society, that won't matter one bit until public opinion is similarly swayed. Politicians don't do things that will make them un-electable. [Notice, for an American example, that out of all elected members of the federal government, not a single one will claim to be unaffiliated with any organized religion despite the fact that 16% of American adults claim no religious affiliation; politicians know that to be electable you have to claim to be religious and you have to claim to support the drug war. Anything else is political suicide until the electoral climate changes]

http://crfdl.org:1111/xmlui

Look under collection "860 Salvia".

Best of luck in your research.

So Entropy, what arguments would you give as to why salvia shouldn't be scheduled? Surely there must be a reasonable alternative to scheduling it. As to the arguments ElusiveMind provided, I see some validity to them. The argument, "the law would do more harm than good". How is that not a valid argument? What is the harm done from salvia after thousands of people have used it over the years? Health Canada isn't saying much about the bad that salvia has done, other than "people are using it". Compare that with the potential harm done to a person who has to go to prison for 3 years (maximum sentence for possession of a schedule III substance). How is that not valid? It seems to me like people are saying, "yeah.... but that won't happen to me. The LE won't really take this law seriously. They'll just stop smoke shops from selling it and everyone else possessing it will be fine. The good people won't get charged." You don't know that. You can be sure that salvia won't put you through anything like 3 years in prison. You can't be sure what LE might want to do.

Well, in any case, even if you say those arguments aren't convincing, I'm still going to try to put every argument out there, though try not to focus on one too muc, just to put it out there in the hopes it might reach someone. Maybe if enough people start speaking up... maybe a difference can be made.

Hmm, that's a tough question. If I put myself in a legislator's shoes, scheduling it really makes a great deal of sense. But here's what I can come up with:

I'm not sure how the Canadian scheduling systems works in terms of presenting barriers to scientific research, but scheduling it could curtail pharmacological research on salvinorin A and its analogues. This sort of research is really flourishing right now, and many researchers seem optimistic that salvinorin A as a lead compound may lead to novel and effective non-nitrogenous opioids. Nations don't want to block themselves from being on the forefront of scientific development.

In terms of the harm caused by prohibition, I'd definitely suggest that this could lead to a black market situation where PCP-laced herbs are represented as salvia by dealers. PCP scares the hell out of prohibitionists. And while I don't think this is necessarily likely, it is a possibility.

In terms of the lack of harm from the immoderate use of salvia, I'd note that most people who experiment with it recreationally only use it once or twice. Kappa opioids are negatively reinforcing, so there's virtually no abuse potential. And recreational users tend to use the material by smoking it, which greatly reduces the potential for them to do harm to themselves; the state of intoxication is so brief that the opportunity for them to harm themselves is of very short duration. Contrast this with alcohol which produces intoxication of a much much longer duration, as a result of which it is associated with a great variety of dangerous and harmful behaviors (including unprotected sex and driving under the influence), almost none of which have been reported in association with the use of salvia.

Your point about its potential to destroy the lives of those who use it to alleviate or cure depression (especially refractory depression where traditional pharmaceutical antidepressants have proven ineffective) is a good one. This point could be made in conjunction with an acknowledgement that strict age controls (as are employed with alcohol and cigarettes) are very advisable to control its immoderate use, or even a complete prohibition of its commercial distribution. But until there is a framework in place for those who use the plant medicinally to obtain the drug through legitimate medical channels, scheduling the plant is a grossly insensitive action that may have substantial negative consequences to the health and wellbeing of medicinal users.

You could include the argument about economic costs (from the perspective of a fiscally-conservative citizen), but I suspect most legislators realize that they won't have to make any efforts to enforce the law to achieve the desired effect (reducing immoderate recreational experimentation).

Unfortunately I think the cognitive liberty argument will be completely ineffective; those who support cognitive liberty won't need to be reminded, and those who oppose it won't be persuaded.

From an aesthetic standpoint, it's probably best to refer to the plant as Salvia divinorum (properly italicized, genus capitalized, species not capitalized) rather than as "salvia" throughout your letter.

That's the best I can come up with off the top of my head. It's a shame that the best reasons for it to be legal (cognitive liberty, the inhumanity of prohibition, it's history of utility within an integrated cultural context) aren't apt to help the case within the political climates of "Western" society.

In my dream last night, I successfully started a religion which employed the use of Salvia divinorum as a sacrament. My religious followers and I were granted the right to use this plant under the Fundamental Freedoms section of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (obviously I've been doing some reading on the subject)

Any nut can create a cult, the challenge will be to be recognized as a legitimate religion by the Canadian Government. I don't intend to actually attempt this. Probably not anyway.

ITS A SIGN!! Lady Salvia has spoken



It doesn't seem too hard to get something going. Take as an example the Jedi religion that had big base back in 2001.


http://www.jedichurch.or...ebapps/i/4448/5930/32311

The Canadian government wasn't as thrilled to put it down in their summary though, not wanting to play up with media hype

I think their are some requirements for a new religion but not sure off the top of my head

P.S. sorry for being a little off the OP's topic

I appreciate your efforts but its important to realize that politicians and policy makers often don't care about science or understand it. The war on drugs would be over by now if the opposite were true. I don't want to discourage you and I think you should continue what you are doing. If you can think of any specific references you need I can see if I have access to the journals.

entropy and others, thanks for the info...and those citations! i hope you dont mind me using some of your words (reworded) in my letter to the gov. 3.5 hours later i am done and sending. hope we get somewhere.

DING DING DING. i was jsut searching through teh govs site to look for otehr peopel to email my letter to and raninto the minsiter of healths page....this sounds like a good person to also forward your letter to. i doubt she will ever read them, but maybe if she gets enough. call me racist, but whenever i have a chace to have hope in some good decisions i always opt for native over white when it comes to government policy as everyone is scarred to offend the red man in our house of the almighty governemnt lol. heres to hoping.

hxxp://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/ahc-asc/minist/index-eng.php