Mom Blames Salvia for Son's Suicide (CBS and ABC)

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Banquo

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The Dangers of Smoking Salvia
Nightline video report (CLICK HERE)
ABC News

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Mom Says Legal Herb Killed Son
CBS News Early Show
WILMINGTON, Del., Sept. 25, 2007

(CBS) Of all the crazy videos posted on YouTube, those depicting teenagers smoking an herb called salvia divinorum, then seemingly losing control, are among the most disturbing. Salvia is legal in most of the country and it seems to be a fad among teenagers, said Dr. Bryan Roth who studies the herb.

"It causes a very intense hallucinogenic experience," Roth told The Early Show national correspondent Tracy Smith. "People are more or less instantaneously transported into an alternate universe." It may look like the kids in the YouTube videos are having fun, but Kathy Chidester is convinced salvia killed her only child. Sixteen-year-old Brett Chidester was a whiz on a skateboard, a straight-A student and the joy of his divorced parents lives. Then he started smoking salvia.

"He got withdrawn within the last couple of months," said his father, Denis Chidester. "And he wouldn't open up like he used to. I figured it was a teenage thing. Boys don't like to talk to their dads." But Brett's mom did a little digging on his computer and found out he was buying salvia online and smoking it.

"He'd say, 'Mom, it's legal. There's nothing wrong with it. If it was bad it wouldn't be legal,' " Kathy Chidester said. Brett's mood grew darker and on a cold Monday in January, at his dad's Delaware home, Brett Chidester did what his parents believe salvia drove him to do: he killed himself.

"My life as I knew was over," Kathy Chidester said. "It'll never be the same. He was our light and our life and it's gone." While Brett's is the only known case that could link salvia to suicide, some fear there could be others out there. The journal Addiction says salvia is becoming increasingly popular among teenagers, which alarmed Delaware Sen. Karen Peterson.

"I thought this is not something that I would want people using driving around the streets of Delaware," she said. Three months after Brett committed suicide, Delaware passed a law that banned salvia for recreational use. Delaware is one of five states to classify salvia as a controlled substance.

Since salvia is still legal in the rest of the country, you can order it off the Internet or buy it in a smoke shop. Smith went undercover in New York, where it's legal, to see how easy it is to get. In less than an hour, she was able to buy it in leaf form, powder, and even an extract that comes in flavors. But don't let it fool you. Experts say this is the most potent naturally occurring hallucinogen.

"It should be regulated," Roth said. "It is more difficult for people to buy alcohol or cigarettes than this extremely potent hallucinogen."

The DEA is considering classifying salvia as a schedule one drug, which means it has no medicinal use and a high abuse potential like heroin or LSD. That would make it illegal to buy, sell or use in all 50 states.

"Because people are buying this through the mail it certainly would be a lot more effective if the federal government dealt with it," Peterson said. "And then we wouldn't have to deal with it state by state." Still, salvia experts are conflicted. While most agree that it should be regulated, they also say it could help treat diseases like Alzheimer's and HIV and worry that a strict DEA ban will stop that promising research.

But Kathy Chidester is convinced that without a federal ban other kids will suffer the same fate as her son. "I want the DEA to take action and I want it to be outlawed and regulated across the United States," she said. "I don't want anyone else to ever have this happen. I mean, I wouldn't wish this on our worst enemy."

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/09/25/earlyshow/contributors/tracysmith/main3295276.shtml
 
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What a suprise... NOT! I knew that after all those youtube videos of dumb kids smoking salvia and acting like retards that it would eventually get media and government attention. Give it some time and it'll be illegal. Doesn't matter much to me anyways, IMO salvia is shitty and has unpleasent effects.

How much would you want to bet that the mothers son was into other harder drugs too. I doubt salvia alone would drive someone to suicide, unless you had problems in the head to begin with.
 
without knowing all the details...

it looks to me like the usual blame everyone and everything except yourself type of deal. Why anyone would want to take salvia repeatedly for recreation is beyond me. I didnt find it in the slightest bit pleasant. Also the smoke is absoutely rank and you struggle to get the stench out of any pipe or bong you use to smoke it.
 
So...where's the link between salvia and suicide? That article certainly doesn't talk about one.
 
the mom said it was teh drug salvia... 1 anecdotal report is usually all that's necessary for a link in articles now it seems
 
What a stupid article...

The kid was obviously having family problems. Salvia's intensive effects don't last that long, and you have to smoke huge hits to even get it to work. The mom is scapegoating a substance so she won't feel guilty for contributing to her son's death.

There was no salvia found in his system at the time of his death. They altered the death certificate three months later to add salvia as a "contributing" source of death.

His suicide note said nothing about salvia, but he had diary entries that mentioned it: "Salvia allows us to give up our senses and wander in the interdimensional time and space.... Also, and this is probably hard for most to accept, our existence in general is pointless. Final point: Us earthly humans are nothing."

So basically, we have a case of a kid that got into existentialism and killed himself due to accepting his own pointless existence. Blame books, not drugs!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brett's_law
 
I am so damn sick of hearing about that chidester kid. He had real issues far before trying salvia. The plant didnt kill him, he did and his partents need to come to terms with that akready:|
 
OFF TOPIC: just watched the video report again. there appears to be an ex-BLer who flashes on screen for a few seconds (0:06-10 and 0:25). hint: she's asian.

ON TOPIC: parents will blame just about anything or anyone for a child's suicide. it's the job of the rest of the country to see through this.
 
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Didn't this happen like a year ago or something and the only effect it has had so far is that it's illegal in Delaware or Rhone Island or something? Pretty funny that they're like re releasing the news again as this already circulated all the major outlets last year when it actually happened.

I like that "experts say this is the most potent naturally occurring hallucinogen."

I got news for you mother fuckers.. I'm an expert and all of the experts here on bluelight know salvia isn't the most potent naturally occurring hallucinogen. Now that I think about it salvia if it's not extracted and infused with salvinorin is pretty damn weak.

The DEA is considering classifying salvia as a schedule one drug, which means it has no medicinal use and a high abuse potential like heroin or LSD. That would make it illegal to buy, sell or use in all 50 states.
Click to expand...

Yep, it's true. It currently has no medicinal use and has a high abuse potential. Searching for Salvia on YouTube does prove that. Videos are plentiful of idiots using it in party situations and everything.

Making it illegal doesn't really matter though. Even if all these people stopped using Salvia there are still plenty of other "potent hallucinogens" that you can aquire just as easily. Someone who knows about Salvia will know about DXM I'm sure. That's where it all starts isn't it? Cough Syrup is a gateway drug and everyone knows it.

The media would never run stories about DXM or Adderal abuse though because there's nothing that can be done about it. With Salvia they can add it on their controlled list and pretend they're keeping the kids safe. If they ran a report on DXM it would be like..

"Your child is getting fucking wasted on Robotussin.. commonly refered to as 'doing the robot' or 'going roboto'.. it produces effects similar to LSD and is just as dangerous.. our undercover reporter was able to purchase two bottles of Robotussin from this corner store in less than 5 minutes.. and guess what? There's not a fucking thing you can do about it bitch cause it's cough syrup.. back to you"

Anyway, the real secret of this whole thing is....

As stated in this she found out her son was using salvia and ordering it off the internet. She had a "serious talk" with him about it and he told her that he would stop using it. This happened 6 months before he committed suicide. The media when they picked up this story makes it sound as if he mentions salvia in his suicide note or was using it when he killed himself.


Oh one other thing I forgot...

"It should be regulated," Roth said. "It is more difficult for people to buy alcohol or cigarettes than this extremely potent hallucinogen."
Click to expand...

Yeah and how many people are dying every year from smoking salvia? How many people try to drive their car on salvia? How long do the effects of salvia last compared to alcohol? How many salvia addicts are there in the world?


This is all just funny to me now because I've finally come to understand that a large portion of the world's population does not examine or think about their existence beyond what they're told to think about. It's like trying to imagine what a mentally handicapped person is experiencing and why they started screaming "NAH NAH NAH!!!" for. You just can't understand if you're not in their place. This is actually sadder though because they could choose to think but are opting out of it.
 
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Amateur research appears to have proven that salvia divinorum causes people to make imbecilic videos, which for me is just cause for its prosciption. ;)
 
I think this woman parenting skill need to be evaluated… She seems to like attention.Let see some articles on her job as a mother in the national news.
 
Kathy Chidester should shut the fuck up. its people like her that keep the idiotic, overly punitive, counter productive drug policies in place.

i understand she must be devastated by her sons death, but crusading agaisnt a mostly harmless herb by demonizing it in the media is a bitch thing to do. i think she needs to find a more constructive outlet for her grief.
 
Yep... not an ounce of evidence that the drug had anything to do with the kid's suicide... flagrantly absurd claims by self-appointed "experts"... purely anecdotal accounts of people "losing control"... dire warnings by "undercover investigators" about how EASY the stuff is to get... oh, and it comes in FLAVORS, obviously the insidious pushers of this devil weed are targeting the grade school market next!

I think we've seen all this before, folks, and we know how the story ends. Smoke 'em if you got 'em.
 
Kul69 said:
Oh one other thing I forgot...
"It should be regulated," Roth said. "It is more difficult for people to buy alcohol or cigarettes than this extremely potent hallucinogen."
Click to expand...
Let's add to that the fact that it's false in the first place. I can get beer or cigarettes back to my house in about 10 minutes flat, if I wanted to do some salvia I would need to find places, drive there, etc. What are the odds that a salvia retailer is closer than a gas station or a liquor store?! LOL. Maybe if she said 'kids' instead of 'people' it would've made the statement quasi-factual, but I still would call bullshit on it. I know that because I was psyched the first time (and only time I think..) I used salvia, the first time I found a place that had it. Meanwhile, even being under 18, it took virtually no time at all to get booze/cigarettes.
 
"The pure compound salvinorin A is active at 200 - 500 mcg when vaporized and inhaled." http://www.sagewisdom.org/caution.html

That sounds pretty potent to me Kul69!

It may not be present in the plant material in high concentrations but the chemical itself is natural and is almost as potent as LSD!
 
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