The article is referring only to salvia divinorum. People who write articles on this should label it correctly and not incorrectly by just refering to it as salvia. This certainly will tick a lot of people off. Over on the salvia forum there have been people asking where they can get it over a period of time. This one plant is giving salvia a bad name. Salvia plants covers a wide spectrum. If you go over to the salvia forum and talk to Richard de Fresne who is an expert on salvia plants he could explain it all to you. He also runs the plant farm in N.Carolina the "world of salvia" As long as you dont grow the salvia divinorum plant you most likely would never have a problem.

In fact if you havent already this post should be over on the salvia forum. Over the last two or three years I have seen similar posts about this plant over there.

Thanks. I thought all salvia had the same basic properties. I didn't know there was a salvia forum. I will check that out. I just immediately connected salvia with my hummers and came here.

People soooooooooooo over react! To the best of my knowledge, of the 900+ salvia varieties which are all herbs by the way, only one has been used as a "psychedelic drug", and that being Salvia Divinorum, which I have never even seen. It is not a common salvia. So just leave the salvia coccinea and the rest of them grow in the gardens. They won't hurt anyone.

Regarding poisonous plants, well we have tons of them, and they all vary in the level of poison. Lilies are considered mildly poisonous, but my dogs chew on them all the time to no ill effects. Also datura has been used in the past for a high amongst teens, but you can't get rid of everything in your yards.

Check out the following:
Erowid's Psychoactive Herbs http://erowid.org/psychoactives/psychoactives.shtml

I'm not suggesting that you use these psychoactive herbs, but you might be surprised to find out how many them that you already have growing in your yards including datura, brugmansia, passionflora a/k/a incarnata passion vine, coleus supp. a/k/a Flame Nettle, Painted Nettle, Joseph's Coat, wormwood which is an Artemisia, and Salvia divinorum to name just a few!

And check out this for more information on herbs that you probably have growing in your yards.
http://erowid.org/herbs/herbs.shtml

Though the article did mention salvia divinorum, 99% of the time just the word salvia was used, implying they were referring to any/all salvia.

I always wondered about all the plants in our yard that are considered poisionous for pets. Many pets, many years, never a problem. Always preferred eating grass to re-deposit on my rug.

Thanks for the links. Very interesting. Wouldn't think of trying any of those herbs. Even poppy seeds on a bagel and Listerine shows up in our random drug tests.

The article ran on our local news channels a couple of years ago and it wasn't stipulated that the plant in question was S. divornium. I wrote to the stations giving them more info and asking them to please do a follow up with the additional info. One station did but the others didn't. That report sent out a lot of misinformation to a lot of gardeners.

Penny

Penny, that is so true. At our Master Gardener's Children's Discovery Garden, everyone was getting ready to pull out all of the salvias, including the salvia coccinea and salvia greggii! People just flipped out. So I sent out emails telling people basically what I said on this post. They finally calmed down.

Penny, I should have thought of doing that. Great idea. The last thing on my mind was getting rid of them. I was trying to figure out to hide them under other plants for my hummers. I was so thrilled my B&B's came back this year in my zone. No way was I yanking them.

If the plant police want to yank out my salvias they will have a fight on their hands and will have to haul me to joil first. I now supply most of the salvias that hummingbird gardeners grow in my area both from seeds and plants in the spring. In fact I just sent out two batches of seeds to people in the next county.

Don't forget that the popular herb we use during the holidays when roasting that Turkey and stuffing is seasoned with Sage ... Salvia officianalis. Many other salvias are used to flavor fruit drinks and garnish desserts.

Penny

For most of us, any D.E.A. agent who messed with our hypothetical S. divinorum would be ignorant of the law.

However the agent would be within her rights to go after Penny's hypothetical S. divinorum. The difference? Penny distributes.

(As in all matters, there always may be state or local laws of which to run afoul.)

Salvia Divinorum has given the salvia species a bad name. There are hundreds of cultivars of this species and the big trouble is that people who just call it salvia is regarded to believe it is referenced to the one which is illegal in many states. Many many types of salvia are offered in many nurseries over the country and they are not illegal or they wouldnt be selling it. But just mention the word " salvia " to a teen and you might get a double take as they automatically think of the divinorum which they may know of or have heard about. I grow many different types of salvia in my gardens and they are all legal.

I have given plants of many genera to nextdoor neighbor.
S. coccinea in the case of Salvia.
I made reference to it in presence of 35-yr-old other neighbor
who visits there often.
Some time later the first guy told me that the second smoked some of
the Salvia that I had given.