The drum beat about that dangerous plant salvia is all over American headlines these days, but leave it to UK psychiatrists to really take the scare tactics to the next level. To coincide with a music festival in Glastonbury, research was presented to the Royal College of Psychiatrists annual meeting in Edinburgh, warning of all kinds of serious trouble from the legal highs being sold in head shops:
"I do not believe the average user of this stuff even bothers to read the label on the back. They see something that says Original Herbal Ecstasy, and they take it without looking.
"But they could cause psychiatric damage particularly if they are taken by accident – and it can be very frightening. We have seen people who present at psychiatric hospitals in a substance induced psychosis.
"The take home message is that we really need to start looking at these substances to see if there is any long term physical or psychological damage."
The problem with this research - and more specifically, the news reports that describe it - is it winds up reading like a veritable shopping list, inadvertently promoting all kinds of mayhem:
Big seller Kratom is an obscure opium substitute plant from Thailand and has been dubbed the "herbal speedball" due its apparent euphoric effects.... Salvia is a herb used for centuries by Mexican Indians in religious ceremonies. It produces a powerful hallucinogenic effect when chewed, drunk in an infusion or smoked through a pipe.... Baby woodrose and Morning Glory seeds bring on hallucinations lasting six to eight hours and nutmeg, half a dozen of which can be ground down, produce 24 hours of hallucinations. Then there is the San Pedro cacti, which contains the outlawed psychedelic substance mescaline, and is prepared as a tea and Ma Huang, an ayurvedic preparation containing ephidrine.
Oh sure, the article occasionally notes you might get into trouble, but it's the kind of balanced warning that actually knocks the psychiatrists' warnings out of the way in favor of practical dispensing advice. For instance, noting that a loophole was closed that once allowed sale of psilocybin mushrooms:
Magic mushroom sellers have switched to selling another mushroom, not yet outlawed - the red and white spotted Fly Agaric toadstool, which contains the psychoactive chemicals muscimol and ibotenic acid which can trigger delirious, dream like states and can be dangerous in overdose.
Of course, aspirin can also be dangerous in overdose, and meanwhile,
delirious, dream like states? Rock on!
Anyway, I'm not suggesting there is zero harm to all of these substances and we should start selling them in the candy aisle at the supermarket. I just think it is nigh unto hi-larious that here we are, careening our way into the 21st century, and we still have to contend with the ludicrous spectacle of the grown-ups warning the kids not to get high because drugs will cause PSYCHOLOGICAL DAMAGE and SUBSTANCE INDUCED PSYCHOSIS! It's
Reefer Madness all over again. A little straight talk would go a lot further, given that no one has ever managed to stop kids from seeking altered states... and no one has ever managed to stop adults, either.
