Now, before certain readers out there go all NARC on my ass, let me say that I make it a point to stay away from hard drugs. No coke, no herion…nothing that’s genetically altered to speed me towards an early death. I like to stick to the hippie stuff; weed, shrooms, hashish…you know, things that come from nature. And I’m very careful about who I purchase this stuff from. Those of us that partake in these sorts of relaxation techniques should always be careful about that sort of thing. People are a**holes.

Right, so public service announcement over. What I’m really writing about is this article I recently read on Salon.com about Salvia, a hallucinogenic substance that’s illegal in about 10 states and is probably going to be made illegal in a bunch more very soon. According to the author of the article (and a few friends of mine), Salvia is super potent — but only for 5 to 10 minutes. Apparently, you will trip off your ass and see the weirdest sh*t in the world (including Aztec Gods…or at least that’s what the writer saw), but it’ll all be over in minutes.

Lots of people want Salvia banned because, well, I mean…it can basically be classified as a drug, and if weed is going to be criminalized, allowing Salvia to be bought over the internet kind of makes the whole keep pot illegal argument look stupid.

Based on the descriptions in the Salon article, and descriptions from my friends (“I was sitting inside the sun, dude. Like, literally inside the sun. It was all round and hot. Like SO hot. And crazy BRIGHT!! How did I not go BLIND?!“), I’m not really eager to jump on the Salvia bandwagon. It sounds a little too intense for my taste. I smoke to relax, not travel to the 5th dimension, and any trip that people recommend having a “sober buddy around” for is not a trip I really want to be taking.

Have any of you ever had experiences with Salvia? Do you think it should be illegal?

Three students at Bard College were arrested earlier this month for toting around a portable drug den.

Apparently, 2 freshmen, along with a sophomore buddy, were moving a bunch of drug paraphernalia in suitcases across campus when they were “spooked” by campus police and freaked out, one of them evidently diving into a bunch of bushes.

After the students were expelled from school, police searched their room and found quite a stash. “Nearly a pound of marijuana, half a kilogram of a partially refined but yet-unidentified hallucinogenic drug, hashish, hashish oil” and the remnants of “a portable drug-processing lab” were confiscated at the scene, causing all three students to rack up felony drug charges.

While I’m not surprised that something like this happened (1st of all, there are college drug dealers everywhere, and 2nd of all, this is Bard College. Smart hippies + campus in the middle of the woods = drug paradise), you gotta shake your head at the stupidity of ruining your life after being at an expensive private college for only two months.

With college acceptance rates lowering daily, admissions making it almost impossible to get in anywhere, and tuition forcing most of us to pay student loans until we’re 50, blowing a perfectly good college career (and future) after only 2 months of moving out of your parents home is redonkulous.

At least give yourself time to learn something before turning into a drug lord. Take a midterm. Go to a party. Befriend a professor. Realize where you are.

Anyone who would throw away such an expensive, once-in-a-life opportunity deserves to get caught.

…Especially if you’re dumb enough to carry your LSD lab across campus in a suitcase.