CHARLESTON - A Wood County delegate has introduced a bill to make the unregulated hallucinogenic drug, Salvia divinorum, a controlled substance in West Virginia.
The bill, H.B. 2415, sponsored by Delegate Dan Poling, D-Wood, would make it illegal for anyone to knowingly produce or distribute hallucinogenic plants for human consumption, specifically Salvia.
"Salvia itself," Poling said, "as a plant is fine. It's a form of sage, although not like what you would stuff a turkey with. It looks good in the garden. But, there is a form of it where you can take leaves and smoke it to get high.
The bill, as introduced, bans salvia altogether as a controlled substance, but was later amended to give salvia a unique classification and permit the plant in medical research and landscaping, Poling said.
"We amended it so people could still have it in their gardens. It's a beautiful plant and it's unfortunate that it's abused. They take a plant a plant that was once beautiful, process it, put it in a box and sell it for people to get high on and there's no law against it," Poling said.
Delegate Larry Border, R-Wood, said the change in the bill was necessary.
"As the bill was originally written, it would have made it a Schedule I substance. The problem with that is, it is raised as a flower by people in West Virginia who don't realize what it could be used for and you could have a situation where grandma is put in jail just for raising a pretty, ornamental plant," he said.
The bill would make a salvia violation a misdemeanor, punishable by 90 days to six months in jail or a maximum fine of $1,000.
"You can have have teenagers smoking it in a pipe while driving down the highway, as high as if they were smoking marijuana and legally they aren't under the influence of a controlled substance. The high doesn't last as long, but you are just as disoriented," he said.
Border, a pharmacist, said the disorientation could make driving dangerous for someone using it.
"It is a short term agent, the affects last maybe five minutes. If somebody is operating a vehicle under the influence of this, it is very dangerous," he said.
Border said the move is especially necessary since Ohio recently banned it.
"What we are afraid would happen with it being made illegal in Ohio is people coming to West Virginia to buy it and who knows what they'll do while they're here," he said.
Sheriff Jeff Sandy, who gave testimony for the House Health and Human Resources Committee last week about salvia, said the high from salvia may be short-lived now, it may not always be that way.
"The marijuana people smoked in the 1950s had a THC content several times less than what's there today. Maybe right now, the effect of salvia lasts three to five minutes, but if we do nothing now to curtail this, people are going to start cross breeding it to increase potency and make the affects last longer. We need to be on the forefront of this and be proactive instead of reactive," he said.
Sandy said the substance can still affect people's abilities to drive, regardless of how long its affects last.
"If you are a parent the last thing you want is for your kid to smoke something like that, which is legal, and get behind the wheel of a car," he said.
Delegate Mitch Carmichael, R-Jackson, said he believes salvia should be controlled, especially if it could be a gateway drug that leads youth to experience other drugs later.
"Anything sold for the sole purpose of mindbending should be regulated," he said.
Parkersburg police Chief Gerald Board said he also believes salvia should be controlled.
"It causes people to see things that aren't there. It affects their emotions and physical abilities. The results are the same as controlled substances, so, in my opinion, it should be controlled or banned," Board said.
