By Sarah Schulz
sarah.schulz@theindependent.com

"We haven't seen any of it here," said Grand Island police Sgt. Ellis Collins, a member of the Tri-City Drug Task Force.

Despite the lack of Salvia divinorum in this community, Collins said officers are aware of the plant and of the Lincoln Police Department's use of an established state law to confiscate it from at least one store in that city.

Salvia divinorum is a small, leafy, green plant found primarily in the Mazateca region of Mexico. The drug is most commonly found in dried leaf or extract form and is typically smoked or chewed, according to the Web site, www.salvia.center.com.

According to the Web site, salvia has a strong psychedelic effect and, when smoked, has an onset time of 20 seconds to two minutes. The primary effects last from five to 15 minutes and may cause the user to have visualizations, time distortion, social dissociation, altered thoughts and behavior, dreamlike states, increased sensations, changes in body temperature, senses of fear or panic, increased perspiration and introspection.

The relatively short high may be part of the reason the drug has not yet caught on in Grand Island, Collins said.

"You don't get a lot of bang for your buck," he said.

In comparison, the high from methamphetamine, which is common in Grand Island, can last four to 24 hours, depending on potency, according to Midwest HIDTA.

Salvia is legal in Nebraska. However, Lincoln police used a state statute that bans the sale of any substance that induces an intoxicated condition when the seller knows or should know that "such a compound is intended for use to induce such a condition."

Collins said he didn't know of any stores in Grand Island that are selling the drug. However, during an October 2007 town hall meeting on drugs, an attendee said Salvia divinorum is planted in city-maintained gardens around Grand Island.

If salvia becomes available in Grand Island or people are found to be in possession of it, Collins believes his department will make arrests under the same statute Lincoln is using.

Christian Firoz, the Lincoln store owner who has been cited, told the Lincoln Journal-Star he plans to fight the citation because he believes it is legal to sell salvia.

The area might not be gray permanently.

A bill (LB840) that would make Salvia divinorum illegal in Nebraska has moved to the floor of the Legislature, but it has no priority status and there's little movement to add it as an amendment to another bill.

Sen. Vickie McDonald of St. Paul sponsored the bill on behalf of Attorney General Jon Bruning, who included the bill in his legislative package for the year.

"Salvia is a powerful hallucinogen that can be purchased legally," he said. "This legislation will make it illegal and put it on par with other powerful drugs like peyote, psychedelic mushrooms and LSD. Several other states have already made salvia illegal. It's time to add Nebraska to the list."

According to www.salviacenter.com, the drug is considered a controlled substance in Delaware, Louisiana, Missouri, New Jersey, New York and Tennessee.

The bill adds salvia to the Schedule I classification of the Nebraska Uniform Controlled Substances Act. If the bill becomes law, possession of salvia would be a Class IV felony, carrying a penalty of up to five years in prison.

"Videos of teens using this common plant to get high have become an Internet sensation," McDonald said in a press release issued by Bruning on the legislative package. "Nebraska needs to classify Salvia divinorum and its active ingredient, salvinorin A, as a controlled substance in order to protect our children from a drug being portrayed as harmless when it's not."