“It’s not always a net positive to use criminal law to solve problems,” says Coolman. “Even if you grant that salvia could potentially be harmful, you have to analyze what’s going to be more harmful: a few thousand [people] using salvia? Or a few thousand kids who go to prison, and then we take away their financial aid?”
State lawmakers will probably decide that it’s too risky to let salvia remain unregulated. Still, Coolman says that the salvia debate is “exciting” because it’s a “clean slate,” unlike efforts to change other decades-old drug laws that have already shaped public attitudes. “What if we could actually design a policy that was intelligent and responded to public-health concerns — not paranoia and anxieties — and structured it in a way that produces the best outcomes for society?”
James Tierney is a paralegal working in civil-liberties activism in Cambridge. He can be reached at nozickian@gmail.com.
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