GUELPH—One year after a local teenager was acquitted of criminal wrongdoing over a violent episode after getting high on something other than what he thought he was smoking, the substance he purchased at a south-end variety store no longer appears readily available in the city.
Inquiries at several shops this week about the product salvia, an herb in the mint family, found that none were selling it. Some shopkeepers were under the impression the herb was now illegal and two said they used to sell it but no longer do.
Guelph Police have also done their own canvassing.
“We went out and checked some stores for salvia and synthetic cannabinoids and we were unsuccessful,” said Det. Sgt. Ben Bair, head of the Guelph Police drug unit. “But that doesn’t mean it’s impossible to find, and different stores at different times may come up with different options.”
He said synthetic cannabinoid availability has “shut down considerably” in Guelph. There was a recent police seizure of it at one store in the city, and the owner was cautioned, he said. Several versions of the drug with names such as Satan, K2, Spice and Mr. Nice Guy have been marketed in Canada. They are now considered illegal.
“All you have to do is look on YouTube to see what salvia does to people, and you would be concerned,” Bair said, adding that locally there appears to be little use of either salvia or synthetic cannabinoids at this time. That perspective comes, in part, from surveying local students about it, he said.
Dried and crumpled salvia looks like a number of dark green herbs, or synthetic cannabinoids. It is difficult to identify and isolate, Bair said.
That identification problem appeared to have played a role in a July 2012 incident in which a 16-year-old youth in Guelph got high and delirious on what he believed was salvia, but which turned out to be an illegal synthetic cannabinoid. The boy smoked a package of Mr. Nice Guy. At his trial, court heard the boy suffered extreme paranoia and hallucinations, believing someone was out to kill him. He sought refuge in two south-side residences, leading to situations where a homeowner was punched and another was barred from allowing police into a residence.
Last Nov. 1, Ontario Court Justice Matthew Graham dismissed charges of assault causing bodily harm and forcible confinement. Graham said the boy was deceived in what he was buying that evening. “You expected one thing and got another,” he told the youth.
Graham was highly critical of the packaging of the substance sold to the youth, noting its cheerful, innocuous messaging was “the antithesis of truth in advertising.” He wasn’t sure, he said, a youth of 16 was experienced enough to be skeptical.
The owner of the store where the teen purchased the Mr. Nice Guy later told the Mercury he didn’t know what the packet contained and that it had been obtained from a Toronto-area distributor. The store owner stopped selling the product.
Traditionally salvia was chewed and used in vision quests. Its hallucinogenic effects are more gradual when chewed. Smoking hastens the effects. Online videos depict significant mood alteration from smoking the herb.
Salvia (salvia divinorum) is native to southern Mexico. Last year, Guelph Police began warning local merchants that the sale of the product could result in legal sanctions, but it is not a controlled substance.
Bair said salvia is now regulated by Health Canada as a medicinal product. As such, vendors must be licensed to sell it.
Police do, however, remain concerned about it.
“These things go in waves, and all it takes is one person in a school to gain an interest in it and start to deal, and suddenly a school can be ravaged with it,” Bair said. “We are keeping our eye on it.”
Salvia and synthetic cannabis in decline in Guelph
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