Yesterday, the New York Times carried a story about a movement to criminalize yet another substance in order to protect those idiots who might want to injest it. The target this time, an herb called salvia divinorum, is the focus of legal attention by various states because it is a powerful hallucinogen. Some idiots have apparently been posting videos to YouTube showing themselves getting high on it. One Texas representative, Charles Anderson, commented: "When you see it, well, it sure makes a believer [in prohibition] out of you." (Hmm, Representative, I wonder if a video of some guys getting drunk on beer would be any more edifying.)
The fact is, the state should not be involved in determining what people put in their own bodies. If someone is stupid enough to poison themselves with some drug, that is their problem, and my tax dollars shouldn't be spent on it. We shouldn't be criminalizing people for just being stupid.
What makes this really disturbing is that salvia divinorum looks as though it could be a useful component for psychiatric medications and possibly AIDS treatments. Idiots like Rep. Anderson, in trying to protect people from themselves, will only slow the progress of medicine.
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