Categories: Need to know

Ottawa to ban salvia

Proposal would make it illegal to grow, sell or possess hallucinogenic herb

by macleans.ca on Tuesday, February 22, 2011 11:39am - 130 Comments

The federal government plans to add the hallucinogenic herb salvia divinorum to Canada’s list of banned substances. The change would make it illegal to sell, grow, or possess salvia, which is currently sold in head shops as a “natural health product.” The effects of smoking salvia include a brief but intense 5-10 minute high that may include hallucinations. “I’m concerned about it and I don’t know a single parent who wouldn’t be concerned,” St. Boniface MP Shelly Glover said at a press conference on Tuesday. “We are very worried about the long-term effects.”

Winnipeg Free Press

Tags: drugs

c_RuZ_e

Welcome to the Dictatorship of Canada.
Don't Vote. . . REVOLT!
Brad

Legalize Marijuana!!!

Mr. T

Loser… you probably don't have a job either.

Brad

wow prejudice much? actually I have a great job and wife and kids. I am also quite successful and not a loser.

Take your trolling elsewhere

Mr. T

Despite having all those things…you are a loser!!! A drug addict loser! What kind of a father smokes drugs? Great role model, loser!!!

NotATory

My doctor smokes pot. Give it up jerk.
LdKitchenersOwn

Who said he smokes drugs at all? Why would you assume that only people who smoke marijuana favour the legalization of marijuana?

Brad

MY BODY MY CHOICE!

Mr. T

Wrong asshole! What planet do you live on? As long as you are using my tax dollars for your health care, your statement is retarded. Anyone who does any type of drug should be denied health care for any illness related to the use of drugs.

Brad

WOW!!

Should fat people who eat poorly be denied health care too?? Pretty sure they are a bigger strain on health care than marijuana and saliva… Should we make make fatty foods and MC Donald’s illegal too??
NO because people have the right to choose that is what being Canadian is all about. YOU DO NOT HAVE THE RIGHT TO TELL ME WHAT I CAN OR CAN NOT PUT IN MY BODY.

Take your Stephen Harper dictatorship to another forum….
Asshole…

Mr. T

"Should fat people who eat poorly be denied health care too??"

Yes they should! If you couldn't care less about what you put in your body, why should i care about paying to fix you. It must upset you knowing that Harper is the Prime Minister and will soon have a MAJORITY!!! Haha NDP loser!

Bradkey

Maybe you should go move to the states and pay for your own health care then. Dont let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.
Mr. T

I couldn't agree more Mr. T. People who abuse their bodies don't deserve health care.
Brad

hahaha next time you try to fake a comment you should change your name from Mr. T ROFLMAO

DerekPearce

The "T" stands for troll.

Mr. Dressup

Conservative rhetoric bullsh*t… they are flying as blind on this call as they are on everything they do, that don't utilize science. they don't take public statistics into account… so why the heck would they be interested in the 'true' nature of this or that drug, when they can just as easily outlaw it and feed into their other biggie agenda, fill those $4.5BILLION worth of new prisons Harpo wants to build in the next two years…. He'll lock our idiotic kids up and send us the bill via our taxes… what a world we are giving our children… GET THE **** OUT HARPER.
Mr. Walker

Why doesn't the government ever do anything right? Slavia should remain legal. I have done salvia probably about three times in my life and it isn't anything to worry about, I have smoked marijuana more times than I can count, I smoked weed almost every day while attending the U of S and almost every day during highschool, and still today i sometimes every once in a while like to indulge in marijauna smoke and there are negitive effects on me so far. So Salvia nothing to worry about Marijuana nothing to worry about. We as a nation have been lied to our entire lives about drugs millions of people all over the world die every year from caffine overdoses, from tobacco, from booze, but has anyone ever died from salvia? From marijuana? No not that I have ever heard of.
Signed a teacher in your public school system

carol

people die every day from smoking pot…it's called lung cancer! They also die every day from other abuses… Your opinion is a little sad , considering you are an educator…or are suppose to be…but your spelling gives you away or perhaps it is the uneducated teaching the uneducated…

D.D.S

yup….cigarettes too….but they are legal…..and liver cancer from alcohol….head injuries from roller coasters…..carpal tunnel syldrome from too much uneducated typing……well the list is endless
revolt

Pot doesn't cause lung cancer, retard.

Brad

WRONG!

http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20110222007195/en/Cannabis-Science-Extracts-Kill-Cancer-Cells-Cancer

Brad

My mistake i thought you said pot doesn’t cure cancer. Previous comments left by Mr.T left me a little heated and I misread.

You are also right in the fact that is does not cause cancer.

http://www.opposingviews.com/i/smoking-marijuana-does-not-increase-lung-cancer-risk
Keith in Brampton

It has many of the same carcinogens as tobacco – some in higher quantities (or so I was taught in my Drugs and Behavior course in university). I find it hard to believe that it doesn't pose the same risk.

Do you know of any other studies to back up the one you link to? One study doesn't make the case, but if there's corroborating research, I may have to rethink the issue…

I do know a heavy pot user who developed severe emphysema from the stuff, though.
Jan

People don't smoke 20 plus joints a day. The two are used totally differently.
Keith in Brampton

Remember the guy with the bad emphysema? Mind you, by the time he came down with emphysema his brain functions had gone from genius level to well below average, if his conversational ability was any indication. And yeah, I fully acknowledge his usage was highly abberant.

Still, if I remember my course materials, tar content for example was about ten times that of cigs, so that would mean far fewer joints would be needed to receive the same level of toxicity of some substances.

Brad

Please provide proof to your statement.
I have proof proving you wrong and I would like to see 1 case where someone has died from using marijuana.

http://www.selectsmart.com/DISCUSS/read.php?16,693724

Healthcare Insider

Well Brad if you count people with drug induced psychosis or schizophrenia who have commited suicide. Listen, I don't really even differentiate between alcohol and pot but I it is foolish to say there is no risk of adverse outcome to anyone who uses it because that just is not true. Just as with alcohol, some people should not partake.

Brad

People who have a history of certain mental illness should take marijuana or many many many other legal substances. Should someone with onset schizophrenia drink alcohol? no because alcohol does the exact same thing. Education and prevention over incarceration and prohibition. Look at tobacco, Canada had a huge anti smoking campaign and the number of smokers in Canada dropped dramatically and tobacco stayed and still is legal (as it should be). There is no reason the same would not work for marijuana. Did you know that marijuana was made illegal before anyone did any testing on it? it was illegal for tens of years before there was a single arrest. Why are we wasting tax dollars on prison and prohibition when we could be taxing the sale of marijuana and putting it into the health care system. Look Canadians are going to smoke pot if its legal or illegal thats that and to think otherwise is crazy. Why are we putting people in jail for the preference for a less harmful substance?
Marijuana is far less harmful than tobacco and alcohol as stated in the 2003 report on cannabis by the senate of Canada as well as several other studies competed by the justice and other government departments. LEGALIZE IT TAX IT AND LET OUT HEALTH CARE SYSTEM FLOURISH!!
Brad

Also the illegal status of marijuana is far more of a safety issue to the public than cannabis itself.
How many people are shot and killed in BC over marijuana??? how many mothers have had to watch there kids get taken away in to jail in cops cars because of marijuana prohibition? how many house fires have been caused by illegal grow ops not properly installed due to power theft from fear of getting caught. How many innosent kids have got to jail for pot and came out hardened bad criminals?

Look at alcohol prohibition, Alcohol prohibition started organized crime (Al capone).

If you ask me and the MANY MANY STUDIES prohibition is far more harmful than cannabis.

How many people march in support of prohibition?? none.

Every years millions around the globe march for there freedom to choose marijuana.
also do you ever see legalize cocaine or heroin rallies? no cause those are the real drugs…

NotATory

Never ever been a documented instance of lung cancer caused my smoking just cannabis. Never ever has there been a death caused by cannabis consumption.

Clayton

They should, saliva causes cancer, but only if taken in small doses over a long period of time.

MostlyCivil

I read the same thing. gotta. made me spittin' mad.

EeeOar

That was close…would have been a big problem for the good folks of Dog River, SK…..;-)

Halo_Override

I'm very worried about the long-term effects of Shelly Glover.

Jesse

LOL
Brad

I am worried of the long term effects of a Conservative Government.

Jeff

Once again a promising naturally occurring remedy for various ailments is being targeted by the federal government. Most likely due to the fact that it is not patentable by any drug company and therefore there is no profit in it. The herb is seen as competition to western pharmaceutical companies who would see profits fall if substances like this or marijuana were ever allowed.
As a parent I am far more concerned about the sale of oxycontin and other narcotics that legally feed the pocket books of the pharmaceutical companies. There potions kill Canadians every day due to the addictive nature of drugs and the spineless physicians who prescribe them without any consideration as to the damage these drugs cause.
Wake up Canada!!
Jeff

The drug companies want us to become patients that’s why they freely prescribe drugs that cause so many side effects so that they can further treat us with more drugs. Canadians spend more money on pharmaceutical drugs than they do on actual physical treatment why is that? Because if we were actually treated we might not need drugs. The drug companies do not want us to become healthy because if we were who would buy their potions. They are the ones that stand to profit by keeping marijuana illegal.
We need to see them for what they are, the true criminals, the organized criminals that are really at the core of this drug issue and are making all the money are the heads of the drug companies and there lobbyists.
revolt

Nanny prison state retardation, bring on the revolution.
revolt

You know they're lying, since when is government ever concerned with the long term effect of anything.

Thwim

Well yes.. she's moving her lips.

revolt

STILL GOT MY NUTMEG, SUCKERS
Guest

If it wasn't for this proposed ban, I never would have even heard about this "salvia" drug.
DJK

Smoking salvia must be one of those unreported crimes we keep not hearing about!

;)
ted

I am more interested in knowing when the government is going to ban Dalton McGuinty from ever working in the public sector ever again, and force him to personally pay the taxpayers back for all the billions of our money that he wasted on ehealth, smart meters, Samsung windmills, and solar panel subsidies.

DerekPearce

What does that remotely have to do with a piece of proposed Federal legislation? Wrong page here…

John B

Wow…another stupid move that the drug dealers will just love. Another product to line their pockets with cah.

There will be increased petty crime so people can pay the higher prices.

Well, this is to be expected from a goverbment that loves to subsidize business…even illicit ones!

John B

Please pardon the typos.

Michael

Huffing gas: Still legal.

People will stop at nothing to get high.
laurieken

Leave salvia along, you idiots. You won't stop me from using it, if I care to do so.
lauriekin

Why doesn't the government ban some of the dangerous drugs approved by Health Canada? Stop wasting money to ban salvia.
Ariadne

All medicine and even anything good, when abused is bad for us. If we legislate everything suppose to be bad, we all end up naked and with nothing at all.
GirlGoesGAH!!!!

NO no no!!!! Adding to the list of prohibited substances is a HUGE step backward in terms of liberty! We should be fighting all forms of drug prohibition–drug use is about individual freedom of choice! The criminal element only comes into play as a RESULT of prohibition laws. Criminalizing people who don't otherwise engage in criminal activity because they choose to indulge in a different substance than state-sanctioned narcotics like alcohol, caffeine and nicotine is absurd, and will only do more harm than good. For people who are concerned about addiction–is better to further marginalize these people by making criminals out of them? And in the case of salvia this is a moot point–it's not really known to be addictive.
At the end of the day, there are THOUSANDS of plants and fungi that will get you high. Banning one will just give rise to another. Are we just going to keep banning plants because some people like to smoke them?
Enough absurdity. Stop criminalizing people for making different choices than what was deemed in the 1950's USA to be "normal". End drug prohibition!!!!

Keith in Brampton

Stoner!

(Just sayin'…)

NotATory

Douche bag!

(Just sayin'…)

GirlGoesGAH!!!!

While the gov't is busy poking their nose in our business for our "protection", they should also ban bathtubs, or at least make it illegal to stand up in them. Did you know thousands of people die each year from falling in the bathtub? Makes the whole drug issue seem a tad bit OVERBLOWN, huh?
jer

This substance is non-toxic at any concentration.

It has no health impact except that in low regular doses, it has been used as a mild antidepressant.

When used at ridiculously strong mixtures (which is common but harmless – hundreds of youtube videos) people act stupid. – kind of like alcohol but faster and without the toxicity, and all traces faded within an hour.

The issues of cognitive freedom and the burdens upon a misdirected legal system, with the social and family impact that prosecution of psychonauts results in, might be too deep for those who are pressing for this ban.
revolt

We'll just call it "enhanced sage" and skirt the laws that way, the ol government trick.
isa

what a joke in europe people use SALVIA for cooking , its been used for the last 2000 years it grows everywhere
its free , and no one has ever died from it or got high on it. what study has the govenm done to come to this stupid conclusion
they are wasting tax payers money,another story to pocket money for themselves, wake up people its all lies to control us and everything we do.and you know what they don't care for your health,or else they would remove booze.cigarettes
make sure night clubs close at 10 so you wont drink and kill someone, control freaks.