Salvia divinorum, Hallucinogens, and the Determination of Medical Utility

Abstract

In 1970, The United States government enacted the Controlled Substances Act (CSA). The CSA usurped all existing federal laws regulating controlled substances and established three primary criteria for evaluating all drugs: medical utility, potential for abuse, and safety of the substance. Since the passage of the CSA, the federal government has generally taken the lead when regulating drugs; however, a psychoactive plant, Salvia divinorum, has illustrated some of the problems when evaluating hallucinogenic drugs under the current regulation scheme. Beginning in the late 1990s, S. divinorum began to appear for sale on the Internet and in “head shops,” often marketed as a “legal high.” The availability of a “legal high” has concerned many state lawmakers, but failed to gain the attention of federal drug regulators. To date, nearly half of the individual United States have chosen to regulate S. divinorum. One of the reasons for the regulation is that hallucinogens are not typically considered to have medical utility and have often been deemed to have no recognized medical utility. Furthermore, hallucinogens tend to be niche drugs with no real potential for abuse or addiction. As recently witnessed with the case of S. divinorum, the plant may not have a recognized medical utility, but the plant does not seem to present any real danger either. These circumstances can be problematic, since the rush to regulate a “legal high” seems to take precedence over determining if S. divinorum has medical utility.