"As of January 1, possession of salvia divinorum in Illinois will be a felony. Before the legislature passed a bill this year, the obscure Mexican mint with hallucinogenic properties had been unregulated and freely sold at tobacco stores, "head shops," and even gas stations.

"We decided to move forward rather than waiting for someone to be killed because of it," said state Rep. Dennis Reboletti (D-Elmhurst), the bill's sponsor. He told the Chicago Tribune it was necessary for Illinois to regulate the herb tightly because the federal government had failed to act. The DEA considers salvia a "drug of concern," but has so far not moved to schedule it under the Controlled Substances Act."
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Well, I guess I'm glad I don't live in Illinois.
The slow process of illegality is making salvia less and less relevant to young people who are not willing to jeopardize their resumes with a felony conviction. The 'Man' stays in control by shutting off avenues of research and understanding that could help expose those in control for what they are. Control has been around for a long time. The writers of antiquity who made legends out of Yahweh and 'Others' wrote their fantastical accounts for the sole purpose of controlling the populace. After creating their Gods from dust, they then created priests in order to maintain God's rule. Western society continued the process, and now thousands of years later, here we are, all bound up with rules and regulations.

During all this time, a non obtrusive plant was growing along some remote stretch in Mexico. Finally, with the help of the internet, people all over the Western world were turning on to salvia divinorum. Now, it seems that the salvia momentum is slowing down. This is a shame because salvia can possibly show us who we really are. Salvia might help in relieving some psychological diseases. Most importantly, salvia allows us to peer into our minds, to reaquaint ourselves with distant archetypes.

We must not forget, we must not allow slip into amnesia all the strange and captivating motifs of salvia trips. The bizarre wheel-like structure thats rotates seemingly within our minds. What is that all about? Why a wheel for God's sake? Why the consistent reports of 2 dimensional worlds rolling up and unfolding like skins on a cosmic onion. Most importantly, what about the salvia beings who spring up and disappear in the frozen flash of an office rolodex? These beings communicate with us. They show us alien worlds of great artistic beauty. They reluctantly allow us to witness the 'Matrix' like underpinnings of the reality through which we numbingly sleepwalk. We wake up from our trips thinking, "Holy Shit. If the world saw what I just saw, it would flip in amazement!"

We need some kind of spark that will awaken the non-tripping world to the wonders of salvia space. A sudden jolt on evolution's road.

Thanks for reading.
http://peoploid.blogspot.com/

Good stuff Burning , I think a Jolt is coming. http://awakeningasone.com/

It's a good and bad feeling for me at the same time. The interest in Salvia seems to be waning, and I think sometimes it's a good thing because then it may not receive much more demonizing from the media, which could in turn make it illegal in more and more places. But it's such an interesting plant, that I wish everyone was as into it as I, and few others, seem to be.

It's true that this plant has some great potential in healing and showing us things that could be very useful in psychology or mental illness. Am I selfish in being grateful that the wave of Salvia youtubery seems to be drawing back? Negative attention is attention, after all. But I, for one, would rather it fade into relative obscurity than to have to worry about it growing in my house.

Also, interesting link Shaman.

Well, I have a soft spot for you tube videos. It's the only way that I can watch someone tripping. Unfortunately, the trippers usually just lay on their backs gulping at air like dieing fish. Some videos are really bad like the one from that douche (forget his name) with the action figures. Some are hilarious like this one:
http://www.youtube.com/v.../watch%3Fv%3DXFo-TNCQ-Sk

But yeah, you're probably right, Dioxippus. No sense awakening the politicians.

To be honest, that vid you linked to did make me laugh. But I agree with you in that most of the videos are just people rolling around, not knowing where they are, with their friends teasing them/exploiting them for views on youtube. Sickens me, because I see Salvia as a plant that deserves, even demands, respect. There are some good ones out there though, like the tvsuat ones.

Let's not talk about that Vinny guy with the action figures...christ. His are some of the worst youtube videos I've ever seen. Ah, what the hell. For anyone interested in seeing some truly sickening garbage:

http://www.youtube.com/user/LEATHERrebelJUSTICE

LOL. I think you have a love/hate relationship with Vinny. He does have a good voice and face for cable TV. I think he could do a decent weekly show on MTV. So many people would be repulsed by him that his ratings would soar. If he popularized salvia, conservative politicians would burn salvia users at the stake. This is one guy we need to forget about.....if we only could.

Hey burnng mouth ..been a while brother!
Lets just pray that salvia stays legal..grow grow grow is the way to go

Hey fractal.....I'll be hanging around here for awhile. I need to read up on all the posts. Hopefully, I can get in a nice groove where I live so that I can visit the salvia entities. I would like to have direct communication with them, but I'm not sure that I can pull it off. They are very finicky about who they converse with. Are salvia/DMT beings uptight? That would be an interesting thread.

Most unfortunate. What a sad philosophy to take. They claim to be concerend about public safety, while admitting that no one has died from salvia. They claim they are concerned people might get hurt from using salvia, yet apparently, see no problem destroying users lives by imprisoning users and charging them with a felony. It's amazing people are still out there falling for this faulty logic, by allowing these laws to be passed. OK, so they're not going to wait around for someone to possibly get hurt from salvia. Instead, they have decided to actively start looking for people to hurt by charging innocent users with a felony. They won't wait around for one user to maybe someday possibly get hurt from saliva. Instead, they'll go out and hurt EVERY user they can find, charge everyone, hurt every user in their path. Plus take jobs away from legal vendors. Plus, once again, strip people of the right to choose what to put in their own body for their own purpose. And what cause do they have to take away this right? Someone MIGHT get hurt? Maybe? Possibly? It shows how incredibly weak an argument has to be in order for a law to be passed, if their are strong biases involved. Salvia is a hallucinogenic drug. By that stigma, all someone has to do is say, "PEOPLE MIGHT DIE!! Do you want people to die? I'm not going to stand around and let my kids die because of this salvia crap." Facts get ignored, the safety record of salvia is ignored, the knee jerk emotional response to a "drug" takes over, and innocent users are prosecuted as a result, and are stripped of their right to choose what to do with their own body. Very unfortunate.

You may be right. It's so ridiculous, it's hard for me to look away. MTV would be a great place for this guy to end up

I've just started growing my own (finally). Nice plants you have there fractal!

I think the Salvia beings can be, but I can't say about the DMT beings (as of yet). It would be an interesting thread, for sure.

I’m not at all optimistic about the state of SD in the US. My state (Wisconsin) enacted some crazy convoluted legislation that makes it illegal to sell and distribute SD with the intent that it be consumed. The law doesn’t address possession at all. Very odd.

Anyhow, I’m a natural pessimist, so it seems to me that more and more states will eventually go the way of Illinois and decide to turn more and more of their taxpaying citizens into prison inmates. “The Land of the Free” already has the largest percentage prison population in the world, and it seems that more and more of our freedoms are being taken away (except for our guns – the one thing almost guaranteed to kill and maim if used as designed!) I really hope that California leads the way – maybe things will turn around, but who knows…

About 3,000 people a year are dying in Mexico as a result of the drug war there. Nearly 30,000 have died in less than ten years. How many would have died if certain substances had been made legal?

Anyhow, back on topic. I’ve been growing my own salvia since I first started using it. It’s rewarding and, I believe, adds to the experience. It’s easy to grow, doesn’t require any special lighting, looks like a generic houseplant, and grows fast. Even a small plant when harvested will produce about 20-30g of dried leaves (50-75 doses!). And once you make your own extract, you’ll see how nasty most commercially prepared extracts really are.

Grow your own and give cuttings to anyone who is interested.

I think we in Canada have been lucky so far. Just a few years ago, I saw Salvia 20x being sold in a convenience store as incense along side glass bongs and pipes. Just asking for it to be banned. According to wiki, sales to minors are now prohibited in Canada. I didn't even realize this until I looked at the wiki page. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Salvia_divinorum_legality.png
I hope that is the extent of it, and they don't push to make it illegal to cultivate or possess (for adults).

I have to agree that it is a fairly easy plant to grow. I had no experience growing anything before starting to grow my plants, and it's been disaster free so far. As for do-it-yourself extractions, I also agree 100%. I had purchased many extracts in the past that were very dark brown, even black, and very harsh to smoke. Salvia extracts are so easy to make, I wonder why these vendors sell such crap? I mean, the extracts I purchased were potent enough, but it isn't all that difficult to produce relatively clean extracts in comparison to some of those black nasty ones. Shows how much some of these vendors really care about their products/customers.

I fully support this sentiment.

I have been searching the past week for cuttings, but all shops refuse to ship to my state of residence because of the legal status.
Salvia sadly became scheduled prior to my interest in entheogens, so I have never had the opportunity to participate in her teachings.

Same here Eden. I've been trying to find a cutting for some time but have yet to come across one.

Nice post Apoc, I couldn't agree more. And with growing and making your own extracts!