Young pop star Miley Cyrus recently caused a stir in the media by using it, but until then it’s likely a safe bet that not many Canadian adults have heard about an herb called salvia. It’s also probably a good bet that your high school-aged son or daughter has.
In fact, the Canadian Alcohol and Drug Use Monitoring Survey reports that about seven per cent of all Canadian youth ages 15 to 24 – some 300,000 young people – have used salvia at one time or another.
The fact that salvia has mostly flown under the radar is not an indication that the herb is benign. Some of the potentially harmful effects of smoking the leaves of salvia divinorum – a plant in the sage family that grows naturally in southern Mexico – include hallucinations, slurred speech and awkward sentence patterns, uncontrollable laughter, loss of coordination and loss of consciousness.
Our government wants to protect Canadian youth from the damaging effects of this drug. Before the election, our government proposed adding salvia to the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, classifying it with other psychedelic drugs like psilocybin (magic mushrooms), some barbiturates, amphetamines and GHB, the date rape drug.
There is a pressing need in Canada for these prohibitions in order to protect young Canadians from a currently legal yet harmful drug. There is evidence that salvia is rapidly gaining notoriety among youth. In addition to the alcohol and drug survey I mentioned earlier, the results of the Canadian 2008-2009 Youth Smoking Survey also show that five per cent of all 15-year-olds had used salvia in the past year.
Our government is committed to supporting Canadian parents and families. That is why we are taking action to make salvia illegal in Canada.
This is one of many measures that our government is taking to curb drug use and is in addition to our National Anti-Drug Strategy, which is helping to prevent illicit drug use and is supporting access to treatment for those with drug dependencies.
Our government will always work to protect communities and Canadian children from drug dealers and the scourge of drug use.
