suicide blamed on salvia.

[Hazed]

Originally Posted by Joint

My personal answer to that question is, I can't have fun when I'm dead. Even at low points in my life, I know in the future there's still time to have fun again, to feel good again. With death, that's it, it's done. No more enjoyment. I mean yeah, we all die, but why not try to have fun while we're here, ya know? There's no big secret in life, or some destination we're supposed to try to obtain. Just finding things to enjoy is enogh. At least that's my philosophy.

yeh, I live for the next ounce, thats it and all.

anyone inbetween the ounce and me is a problem to be solved

[boredjim8]

Originally Posted by Fëanor

Besides, even if I decided I wanted to kill myself at the very beginning of my trip, by the time I wrote a suicide note, set up a fucking tent, set up/lit a grill I'd be sober anyway! It doesn't last that long, and no one could possibly set up a tent while they're tripping that hard anyway.

i think u took it wrong.. he didnt kill himself on salvia (sp) the salvia made him realize how pointless and unimportant humans are and life is worthlsess (casue of waht he saw in his trip) and he didnt want to live nemore.. he didnt kill himself casue salvia told him to

[Spasmolytik]

Besides, it would technically be impossible for someone to consciously make the decision to kill oneself while "in salvialand". You lose control over your body and relinquish the ability to decide what happens next.

[TheColonel]

This just reminds me of every single south park episode, but our society is too stupid to realize the err of their ways, see the big picture in the end and take a lesson away from all this.

Instead what we have is a reactive society that jumps on the prohibition bandwagon for fucking everything. Parents and other authority figures seem to point fingers at everything except for the most influential ones... themselves.

its so much easier to point the finger at something we know very little about.

"We just won't have any answers, and we have to learn to accept that," Kathy Chidester said. "But my gut feeling is it was the salvia. It's the only thing that can explain it."

Good intuition Ma!

[Ars moriendi]

^ so true

these days parents actually have to ask 'do I know this person?' before letting the child go out because they aren't around most of the time

on top of that they seem dead set on rasing another round of ignorant babyboomer types who live in the now so much they lose sight of how bad the governmnet is fucking them lol

[Joint]

Originally Posted by TheColonel

Good intuition Ma!

Very true.

For what it's worth though, we do have to see this from the parents eye. They have a good kid, does well in school, doesn't get into trouble. Then one day they open their garage door and he's dead. Where do you go for answers to something like that? The sad part w/ most suicides is that there are no answers. But people want answers so bad, they want something to blame, so then drugs, alcohol, or in this case salvia get's the rap. I mean in all honesty, salvia probably did play a part in his death. Should we outlaw it? No, after all, having a crappy job, a cheating spouse, "bad music", lots of booze or many other things contribute to suicides yet remain legal. I don't blame the parents for believing that salvia may have played a role, but shame on them for suggesting that because their son killed himself (and he may be the only person to have ever done so) that the substance should be illegal for everyone else. That's fascism, plain and simple. Using the state to exersise unneccessary social and economic control over other citizens is by very definition fascist.

[Perfekt]

Wow, this is ridiculous!!! Imn ot saying it doesn't suck that he killed himself but seriously come on. They might make this an illicit drug because of this, and they dont even have solid proof this is what made him kill himself. Lets look at some numbers:

Avg. Deaths from Alcohol poisoning per year : 317
# Of people dead from alcohol related accidents : 15,935
Number of people die due to alcohol : 100,000
Number of alcohol related deaths : 100,000
# of people ever died from a marijuana overdose : 0
# of people to die from a salvia overdose : 0
# of people to die from salvia related suicide : MAYBE 1

Although everyone knows this I just thought I would put some numbers to it....It's pretty ridiculous..

~perfekt

[designatedtoker]

i knew him, close friend.

[Ars moriendi]

Originally Posted by Perfekt

Wow, this is ridiculous!!! Imn ot saying it doesn't suck that he killed himself but seriously come on. They might make this an illicit drug because of this, and they dont even have solid proof this is what made him kill himself. Lets look at some numbers:

Avg. Deaths from Alcohol poisoning per year : 317
# Of people dead from alcohol related accidents : 15,935
Number of people die due to alcohol : 100,000
Number of alcohol related deaths : 100,000
# of people ever died from a marijuana overdose : 0
# of people to die from a salvia overdose : 0
# of people to die from salvia related suicide : MAYBE 1

Although everyone knows this I just thought I would put some numbers to it....It's pretty ridiculous..

~perfekt

don't for get this one...

approx. 2 out of 100,000 xtc users have died as a direct result of mdma (not fake or cut tablets) based on their lack of certin enzymes that process phenylalanines

basically they'd get sick or die from overdosing on sugarfree things like smits chewing gums diet sodas and anything else containing aspertame or sorbitol

this makes mdma an extremely safe drug in real world figures dispite all the controversoal toxic stuff

pot and x both get a bad rap when both are extemely safe extremely helpful (cancer aids post tramatic stress disorders from rape or combat and so on) to mankid yet both are held back

we all know why... scripts make the economy roll along as do unhappy tired people easily brainwashed into taking the governements big bro bullshit

[just_a_girl]

Originally Posted by Joint

It's far more likely that this kid was just going through that late-teen/early-twenties existentialist question-existance phase.

Originally Posted by Joint

No, after all, having a crappy job, a cheating spouse, "bad music", lots of booze or many other things contribute to suicides yet remain legal

so true. people in Japan kill theirselves a lot because they work the most of their day - lot of stress. it wasn't salvia but him. i know it has to be terrible to lost a child.. after all i have a little 2 months old sister and i can't imagine she would do something like that in 18 years because i'm goin to see her grow up n stuff .. and that's only sisters view. Hallucinogens or even weed in the "late-teen/early-twenties existentialist question-existance phase" can become tricky, i'm goin through it right now, i know how weed made me feel miserable. But it was his decision. If he wanted to stop doin salvia he would. I suppose he had his reasons. We're all different. They can't say "make salvia illegal cause it makes people kill theirselves". that's simply bullshit

[micahgee]

I'm so sick of facism in America. A child dies because of (something), the distraught mother is convinced by the propaganda machine to be the poster child of prohibition. Think about the thousands of alcohol-related deaths, and how many times does the mother champion the dangers of alcohol?

The manipulation is sick, twisted and really shows how low America has become.

Since when do we need to be protected from ourselves anyway? Weren't all the illegal drugs, legal not even one hundred years ago and was there drug-fueled chaos murdering children? Have we crossed the line into fascism?

The biggest factor is education, or rather the manipulation of the education system. We need to educate the masses based on simple facts and numbers. What about a chart showing total deaths in America by cause. Highlighting the legal drugs on top, simplicity its the answer. Writing editorials/essays doesn't work very well as people don't like to read.

We all need to band together, preach simplicity of message, facts and harm reduction

[Ars moriendi]

^ they did the same thing with steroids

some jock moron was crossing into mexico to buy 'em and his mommy found his stupid ass hanging from his own bedroom door with by a belt notched around his neck

she blammed steroids not her shitty parenting her childs fucked up mental state or anything related to his homelife she blamed a silly drug this kid was too stupid to avoid for say..some nice fat building munchie incducin' pot

[Wizzy]

i dont understand why you guys bash everything out there just to defend weed. im a toker but god dang. 1 person dies from salvia and you start comparing it with ciggs and alcohol. why not just say that everything is good in moderation and if people cant be responsible with it then they shouldnt use it. i smoke i drink i blaze and im smart about it so dont start givin the ciggs kill people too and alcohol kills people too so make those illegal speech.

thats my 6 pence

[liveSTONED]

An important piece of this story to remember is that this tragic occurence was about as premeditated as it gets. As others have mentioned, Brett wasn't tripping when he killed himself, and the fact that he went through the trouble to type up a suicide letter and set up a relatively complicated suicide indicates that he put alot of thought into his action, both in his sober reality and salvia reality.

All of us that have tried salvia know how acute the effects are: a person can trip for 10-20 minutes, then come down to complete sobriety within a half hour. It does not leave you burned out for hours or days as LSD can, and all the decisions, right or wrong, that Brett made here were made with a sober mind, the same sober mind that drove the "straight-A student" to all the academic and social successes that his parents tout.

Another point that needs to be made is that, aside from the mention of salvia, the excerpts from the suicide note look quite normal as far as suicide notes go. There is no mention of any substantive (though still abstract) being that forced his hand in this...did Frank the bunny (Donnie Darko reference) make him do it? Of course not. Most people don't beleive crap like that during their trip, much less after the sober reflection Brett had done. Brett merely acted on a concept of life that many could and have come to; and have acted upon, for that matter. Salvia lets one explore one's mind, but you can't discover what is not already there.

Of course, with all respect to the parents, and condolences for their loss, we all know where this is going. History has shown that people are afraid of what they do not understand, and as much of a bad rap marijuana has received over the years, the stigma surrounding hallucinogens is almost unconquerable. Brett's unfortunate demise will be plastered on billboards and will be on the lips of every reporter and prohibitionist from sea to shining sea. Here will be the greatest injustice to Brett's memory, the uncompassionate use of his story as a cold, hard tool for conservative anti-drug agendas. Let's all pray that Brett's memory can stay Above their Influence.

[Joint]

Originally Posted by Wizzy

i dont understand why you guys bash everything out there just to defend weed. im a toker but god dang. 1 person dies from salvia and you start comparing it with ciggs and alcohol. why not just say that everything is good in moderation and if people cant be responsible with it then they shouldnt use it. i smoke i drink i blaze and im smart about it so dont start givin the ciggs kill people too and alcohol kills people too so make those illegal speech.

thats my 6 pence

Your saying the same thing everyone else is, only they are implying it and you're saying it. When people say "Well alcohol kills XYZ and pot doesn't" most people don't think that alcohol should be illegal; they are just pointing out that a liquid that most people drink but only a tiny few get killed on is legal, yet when the same standard is applied to drugs the drug gets made illegal.