MA salvia ban

[mconlonx]

A ban has been proposed and has been in process in Massachusetts. The initial house bill crept up and went through committee with no one speaking against it, mainly because the bill has been camouflaged not to show up on the states' bill search engine. The title/abstract merely states that it is a bill regarding controlled substances, but the wording of the bill would place salvia in sched 1, a complete ban.

Public hearing is tomorrow. If you live in MA and want to keep salvia legal there, show up and speak out against the bill. This is the only thing proven to work and tomorrow is the last chance before it goes to the Senate for vote. If it makes it out of committee with a recommended yes vote, it will pass and be signed by the governor.

Details here:
http://www.mass.gov/legis/185history/h04434.htm
"Public Hearing date May 13 pm at 1:00 in Room A-1"

Bans fail whenever there is public opposition at committee hearings. If you want to keep salvia legal in MA, this is your last best and possibly only chance...

[mconlonx]

No really, can anyone be there?

I know at least one other person from over on edot is going to attend and speak out against the ban.

[Paradoxic]

I went through the orders placed at Salvia Source and sent out emails to everyone from MA about the hearing. Hopefully someone attends.

Thanks for the notification

Its lame that they are so subtle when they announce the hearings. Its often quite difficult to find out about them.

[mconlonx]

Aye, I would have posted this sooner, but just found out about it yesterday. Thanks for sending out the notices!

[mconlonx]

Two people spoke out against the ban, a BU professor and some dood off the street from over on Edot.

DeMacedo set up a projector with a computer and showed a YouTube salvia trip clip of a teen using salvia to the committee.

Who knows how it's going to work out. They apparently amended it to include other paraphenalia, so maybe it will die because of that, of not just because of how ludicrous it is to ban salvia.

[Paradoxic]

It doesnt seem like showing a video of someone tripping would help the case. But then again maybe if it showed the people saying they never want to do that again it could help. Do you happen to know what point he was trying to make with the video?

[DrYRHead]

Either that, or the fact that the people in the videos are only disoriented for a few minutes. After all alcohol can mess you up for quite a few hours. Some of those YouTube SD Videos seem to remind me of people on N2O, and, BTW, N2O is not totally banned. In many places it is still quasi-legal even. 

Whatever the case, what is ominous about this particular MA bill is that the Reps that wrote it HID the real agenda of the bill. Perhaps, these characters wanted to surprise the head shops, and arrest the staff and owners. Such that they could send them up the river for 10 to 20 years with out the vendors even knowing what hit them. In other word, to NOT give the vendors time to take the SD off of the shelves of the stores, etc. 

[mconlonx]

Here's the text from the Edot member (not me) who attended the meeting and spoke out against the ban:

Ok, I went today.
As soon as I got there I sw the DeMassi guy was setting up a computer with an internet connection and a projector and logging on to YouTube.....I groaned. Although he did show an incriminating video put up by some youtube moron, luckily it wasn't all that bad of one.

There was one other speaker against it. He is a professor of physics I think at a boston area university. He spoke VERY eloquently against a ban noting a lot of very good points.
The I read my bit. I added in a big plug against banning pipes and tobacco papers hoping that if nothing else I can appeal to their sense of sillyniess on that issue and force the bill back to a re-write.

here is what I read to them...(I added a bit since yesterday on the pipe and paper issue)

-------------------------------------------
Legislators assume that salvia is a health threat to users, or to society in general.

Is there any evidence to support that assumption? Have there been any studies
suggesting that salvia is harmful?
Is there any reason to believe that salvia is more dangerous than other legal drugs, such as alcohol and tobacco?

What will it cost the state of Massachusetts to criminalize salvia?

How much will it cost to arrest, prosecute and incarcerate people like me who enjoy the occasional use of non-addictive and short duration salvia divinorum rather than using addictive substances like alcohol or tobbaco?
How many families will be broken up by criminal prosecutions around salvia?
How many students will lose their federal financial aid as a result of drug
convictions for salvia?

Are these costs significant? and are they costs this state wants to pay?

As a 55 year old resident of Massachusetts, a professional buisnessman, family man, grandfather,
and taxpayer who has enjoyed using salvia divinorum for its relaxing qualities, I very much oppose your proposition that would make me a criminal for use of salvia in this state.

Less government intrusion upon personal liberties is supposedly a basic theme that politicians profess these days, yet this bill is proposing just more of that.
I would like to suggest that Massachusetts follow the lead of several other states in making
salvia divinorum illegal for those under the age of 18 and leave such matters of personal
choice up to adults to make for themselves.


As for the other verbage in this amendment refereing to "rosebud" pipes and "blunt" wrapping papers...
Which pipes would now be illegal? wooden ones? ceramic ones? glass, metal or plastic ones?

And which shape pipes would be illegal? Are there certain shapes of pipes such as round, square, long, sort, or curved that we are now going to legislating shapes? Are there certain colors, patterns, or pictures on pipes now to be made illegal? My grandfather used to smoke a ceramic tobacco pipe with pictures on it...was he a criminal?

And what is the definition of "blunt" rolling papers that this amendment would outlaw? Are they thick paper, thin paper, what type of paper? are they flavored? are they white, red, brown? Or should paper in general be made illegal in the state of Massachusetts?

However well intended tis amendment is, such poorly thought out reactions to the real drug problems in Massachusetts will not be addressed by this amendment and would only add more burden to the already overburdened legal system of Massachusetts.
---------------------------------

Only two people showed up to speak out against the ban, but it only took two people opposing bans in OR and ME to make things work out well. Cross your fingers...

[Paradoxic]

Either that, or the fact that the people in the videos are only disoriented for a few minutes. After all alcohol can mess you up for q few hours. Some of those YouTube SD Videos seem to remind me of people on N2O, and, BTW, N2O is not totally banned. In many places it is still quasi-legal even. 

Whatever the case, what is ominous about this particular MA bill is that the Reps that wrote it HID the real agenda of the bill. Perhaps, these characters wanted to surprise the head shops, and arrest the staff and owners. Such that they could send them up the river for 10 to 20 years with out the vendors even knowing what hit them. In other word, to NOT give the vendors time to take the SD off of the shelves of the stores, etc. 

Yeah thats a bastard move by the legislators. I can see why they might try to do that...the concept of a head shop is basically blatantly to serve illegal purposes, lol.

But N20 is completely legal, its present in every can of whipped cream you buy. Smoke shops in my state sell N20 cartridges and crackers to go with them.

[skagardener]

this almost makes me want to cry. i disagree with almost every aspect of our "government" i would rather call it a crooked business, no monopoly, that is trying to invade our rights and take over all other nations in the world. i am glad someone could make it, and i hope all goes well. and if anything ever goes down in north carolina, anyone let me know, i will drop anything that is going on and drive with my money to get to the courthouse. now that i think of it, is there any legislation in north carolina that anyone is aware of?

[mconlonx]

A ban bill has been introduced in SC, but not NC as far as I know. Go to the NC state legislature website and find the bill search function. Type in "salvia" and see if anything comes up... although that wouldn't work for the MA bill because salvia wasn't in the bill title, so searches didn't pick it up.

If you want to get proactive about it, contact your legislature and ask them to sponsor regulation of salvia for sale to 18+. Use ME and CA as examples.