- Bill to Schedule Salvia
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- October 10, 2002
- GPO Bill Access
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- Hallucinogen Control Act of 2002 (Introduced in House)
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- HR 5607 IH
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- 107th CONGRESS
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- 2d Session
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- H. R. 5607
- To amend the Controlled Substances Act to place Salvinorin
A in Schedule I.
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- IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
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- OCTOBER 10, 2002
- Mr. BACA (for himself and Mrs. NAPOLITANO) introduced
the following bill;
- which was referred to the Committee on Energy and Commerce,
and in addition
- to the Committee on the Judiciary, for a period to be
subsequently determined
- by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such
provisions as fall
- within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned
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- --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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- A BILL
- To amend the Controlled Substances Act to place Salvinorin
A in Schedule I.
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- Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives
of the United States
- of America in Congress assembled,
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- SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
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- This Act may be cited as the `Hallucinogen Control Act
of 2002'.
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- SEC. 2. ADDITION OF SALVINORIN A TO SCHEDULE I OF CONTROLLED
SUBSTANCES ACT.
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- Schedule I, as set forth in section 202(c) of the Controlled
Substances Act
- (21 U.S.C. 812(c)) is amended by adding at the end the
following:
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- `(d) Unless specifically exempted or unless listed in
another schedule,
- any material, compound, mixture, or preparation which
contains any
- quantity of the following:
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- `(1) salvinorin A.
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- `(2) salvia divinorum.'.
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- Here is the original story on the salvia plant...
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- New, Legal Plant Hallucinogen
- Moves To Market
- 3-11-2
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- HUAUTLA DE JIMENEZ, Mexico (AP) - This sweltering corner
of the Sierra Mazateca Mountains has seen some unusual visitors lately,
thanks to a fernlike plant with thick stems and fluffy leaves.
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- A British businessman showed up with a sack of pesos,
asking to trade them for a sack of leaves. A Spanish importer offered a
theater-style TV and satellite service in exchange for three seedlings.
A couple from Mexico City spent four days asking questions, learning how
to dry the plant's stems and extract its bitter juice.
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- All were trying to grab a piece of the small but growing
market for Salvia divinorum, a legal hallucinogen that packs a more powerful
psychedelic punch than peyote, psyllocybin mushrooms or any other natural
hallucinogen.
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- "More and more people come here and ask to try it.
Others ask me how they can grow it,'' said Alejandro Martinez, a 24-year-old
student who grows more than 700 Salvia plants next to a mountain stream.
"I had coffee plants, but now I'm planting Pastora in their place.''
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- Known to locals as "Maria Pastora,'' or "Mary
the Shepherdess,'' Salvia is a member of the mint family and a distant
relative of cooking sage that grows naturally only around Mazatec Indian
settlements in this remote corner of Oaxaca state.
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- Internet sites around the world hawk the herb as "legal
ecstasy,'' boast of its wild popularity on the streets of New York's Greenwich
Village and encourage would-be buyers to experience a Salvia trip before
authorities declare it illegal.
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- But for dozens of Mazatec healers, Salvia is a powerful
and sacred plant with curative powers and frightening mind-altering effects.
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- "One has to be very delicate with Pastora. It is
the most dangerous plant we have,'' said Aurelia Catarino Oseguera, a 56-year-old
shaman who speaks only Mazatec. "It opens doors in your head that
let you see God, and that can be frightening.''
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- Users say Salvia can produce vivid hallucinations and
out-of-body experiences, but can also make them feel like inanimate objects
and cause short-term memory loss.
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- Its unpredictable effects make even regular users nervous.
One Internet chat room participant warned those trying Salvia to be ready
for "the most intense experience humanly possible next to death.''
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- "This is not a party drug. It's a drug that takes
you to a very deep and introspective place, and that's not always a fun
place to be,'' said Daniel Siebert, creator of a Malibu, Calif.-based Web
site devoted to selling and researching Salvia.
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- "With high doses its effects happen so fast and
are so intense that you don't have time to really understand what's going
on and you spend your time trying to get back to reality.''
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- The Mazatecs believe that people who disrespect an animal,
a river or any other feature of nature can find themselves cursed with
illness. They must seek the advice of a shaman who offers patients psyllocybin
mushrooms or Salvia to discover what they did wrong.
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- Herbal healers say rubbing Salvia on skin can heal burns
and make scars disappear. They say wearing the sage on the head for 20
minutes can cure any headache.
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- "For our ancestors, Pastora was the most important
plant there was,'' said Arturo Ortiz, a 38-year-old healer whose one-room
shack is cluttered with an assortment of pickle jars filled with herbal
concoctions for afflictions from foot pain to cardiac arrest. "Its
juices have more power to heal than outsiders can understand.''
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- Since the early 1960s, this scruffy coffee-growing city
of 50,000 has been famous in hard-drugging circles, attracting thousands
of hippies looking for a shaman to guide them on a magical mushroom trip.
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- The promise of psychedelic romps brought Bob Dylan, the
Rolling Stones and Pete Townsend to Huautla. Locals even swear that the
Beatles arrived here by helicopter to celebrate Ringo Starr's birthday
in 1968.
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- But fresh mushrooms are available only during the rainy
season between May and August. Four-foot-high Salvia plants grow year-round.
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- Catarino has overseen the mushroom trips of hundreds
of foreigners inside a fiberglass-roofed barn plastered with statues and
pictures of Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary. She said so many tourists
have come asking for Salvia recently that she now refuses to give it out.
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- "When you die, everyone has to pay for what they
did in life,'' said Catarino, who still grows Salvia in her garden to treat
sick neighbors. "If I give Pastora to people who don't need it, I
will pay for it and be punished when I die.''
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- Salvia's growing popularity has spawned a cottage industry
of local coffee farmers who grow the plant for export, said Juan Campos,
an anthropologist at the National Indigenous Institute's Huautla office.
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- "There is some evidence that ritual use is declining
and that some Mazatecs are growing the plant for sale,'' he said, adding
that shipping the sage out of the country is legal as long as exporters
obtain a permit from Mexico's forestry service.
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- Martinez, the student who makes extra money pairing tourists
with their desired drug, said he now meets five foreigners a week who are
looking for Salvia.
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- "Two years ago nobody wanted Pastora,'' he said.
"Wait two more years and everyone is going to be like me: They are
going to be selling it to lots of people.''
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- Martinez offers foreigners the eight to 30 Salvia leaves
it takes to get high for $5.50.
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- On Internet sites from Madison, Wis., to Manchester,
England, an ounce of 100-200 leaves fetches up to $120. International sellers
say they have yet to see an increase in sales, however.
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- "There has been a spike in sales lately but it's
not usually something that lasts,'' Siebert said. "People who are
curious buy it once, find they don't like it and don't buy it again.''
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- The administrator of another online Salvia distributor
said that despite its high price, the sage generates only about $5,000
in annual sales.
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- "It is not a top-selling item,'' said the distributor,
who spoke only on condition of anonymity because he didn't want his cyberspace
competitors to know his share of the Salvia market.
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- Rogene Waite, spokeswoman for the U.S. Drug Enforcement
Agency, said agents are gathering information on Salvia but there is "no
kind of timetable'' on banning it.
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- Martinez said the longer the sage stays legal, the more
people will come here looking for it.
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- "The attitude now is, 'Why not try it?''' he said.
"Many of us hope that doesn't change.''
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- © 2002 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
- http://1010wins.com/StoryFolder/story_216515073_html
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