Posted 3/13/2008 05:58:00 PM by Douglas

The war on drugs continues, unabated. You'd think that a naturally occurring plant (NOT weed, this time) would have to be illegal for its owner to be arrested, but you'd be wrong:

A legislative bill that would make Salvia divinorum an illegal drug in Nebraska has little chance of passage during the last six weeks of the legislative session.

Lincoln Police on Monday made a Salvia bust anyway.

Citing a state statute that prohibits Nebraskans from selling certain compounds that will induce an intoxicated or otherwise mind-altering state, officers executed a search warrant on Exotica, 2441 N. 48th St. The Lincoln store sells the herb, a cousin of sage, generally smoked to create a short-term hallucinogenic experience. Exotica owner Christian Firoz said four officers entered his store early Monday evening, took all his Salvia and issued him a citation for selling certain compounds.

When are we as a society going to grow up and quit funding these jack-booted thugs that have nothing better to do with their lives than to delude themselves into thinking they're stopping people from getting high? But it gets better:

State statute 28-420 bans the sale of any substance which will induce an intoxicated condition when the seller “knows or has reason to know that such compound is intended for use to induce such condition.”

I guess Budweiser and Wild Turkey are banned, too? Oh, silly me, they must mean intoxicating substances the state doesn't tax the shit out of and make they own money off of their "intoxicating conditions."

Think of all the money we'd have if they stopped funding the asinine drug war and started taxing the shit out of it like they do alcohol and tobacco, the worst mind altering drugs out there.

I can dream, can't I?