Salvia, K2 to be outlawed July 1
By Victoria Cumbow, The Huntsville Times
May 10, 2010, 7:30AM
Deborah SouleDave Dieter / The Huntsville TimesDeborah Soule, executive director for Partnership for a Drug Free CommunityHUNTSVILLE, AL -- On July 1, salvia and several legal herbs treated with K2 will become illegal in the state of Alabama, thanks to a bill passed by the Alabama Legislature and signed by Gov. Bob Riley in April.
While some consider it a victory in the fight against drugs, others argue that it will only contribute to putting the products into the hands of teens.
"This is a very good day for the state of Alabama," said Deborah Soule, executive director of Partnership for a Drug Free Community.
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When has prohibition of anything ever worked in recorded history?
I know people get tired of hearing me say it, but legalizing marijuana (for adult use) and taxing it would bring in a minimum of $130 million (and that is a real low ball estimate). Releasing all non-violent drug prisoners would save another $132 million. Not to mention all the money that would be saved in the court system, which is over run by non-violent drug offenders who have no business being arrested and tried for a victimless 'crime'. We could also downsize the bloated police departments and their 'drug task forces' could be done away with completely.
We only have two options when it comes to drug policy. We can take control of the market and use the lucrative billions to fund better education, infrastructure, and other worthy programs or we can keep it in the hands of the modern day Al Capone's and fund crime, violence, death, disease and destruction. The latter is what we currently have now and obviously it isn't working out so well.
Every time a person is arrested, tried and imprisoned in Alabama for one year over marijuana and now salvia and K2/Spice one teacher gets a pink slip.
Despite decades of people like Ms. Soule pushing for more prohibitionist laws Alabama ranks #1 in teen drug use according to the Annual Pride Survey. Think about that....we have the toughest drug prohibition laws in the US and the highest rates of drug use in the nation among our teens.
All prohibition does is drive the drugs and those who use them underground where there are absolutely no safety nets like checking ID, knowing what is in a product, the purity of product. Prohibition makes any drug easier to get and increases the danger factor to the maximum. This won't stop kids from getting drugs. What it will do is ensure that more will die from polluted products and preventable overdose deaths.
The only people who support prohibition are the politicians, cops, drug dealers and people like Ms. Soule, all of who profit directly from prohibition at the expense of the lives of our kids.
I'd love to challenge Ms. Soule to a public debate on the drug laws and their complete lack of effectiveness. Wonder if she would be brave enough to take me on?
4 comments:
Challenge Deborah Soule to a debate in public! I will sign the petition on Facebook or anywhere else you create it! The time has come to galvanize and relegalize marijuana in the USA.
James Partsch-Galvan
www.mayorgalvan.com
After years of misdiagnoses, testing, and pill after pill shoved down my throat there was not a speck of progress in treating my cluster headaches. An oxygen tank will help most, but it was ineffective in my case. A low dose of Salvia divinorum has an abortive effect for me within a few minutes. Ask anyone that suffers from cluster headaches and such brevity is nothing short of a miracle. I have consumed a mind altering dose, and it is not personally unejoyable, but it is not something I would recommend to most people. However, I take it in such a minute amount that there are not appreciable effects.
I won't compare this to the plethora of medicinal uses marijuana is shown to have or the inhumanity of its criminalization. Far more will benefit by tossing its prohibition aside than that of salvia. I've advocated its legalization for as long as I can remember, but I thought (naively) that salvia would stay under the radar. This is just one of the few corners the gnarled fingers of government have yet to wrap around.
Thank you for all your diligent work to keep people aware just how far those grubby fingers have crept. All the best.
As the President of Pride Surveys, I wonder where you get your information. The Pride Survey DOES NOT show Alabama as having the worst drug use in the USA. We do not rank states at all.
doug,
I got it from The Birmingham News who most likely got it from Carissa Anthony, coordinator of the Hoover Coalition Promoting a Safe and Healthy Community, or perhaps from Pride itself.
I had an editorial printed in response to the article mentioned above. National Survey shows drug war failing teens.
Here are some
additional articles who used the same survey and came to the conclusion that teen drug use in Alabama is higher than in other states.
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