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The Salvia Ban Wagon
How does terrible drug policy get made? The mad rush to criminalize a psychedelic herb provides a textbook case.
A couple of years ago, John Bulloch watched an alarming report on an Atlanta TV station about an exotic-sounding drug called Salvia divinorum. Bulloch had never heard of the plant, a psychoactive relative of sage that the Mazatec Indians of Oaxaca, Mexico, have used for centuries in healing and divination rituals. But according to the news report, salvia was becoming increasingly popular among American college students, who sometimes called it "Sally D" or "magic mint" (since salvia, like sage, is a member of the mint family).
The most horrifying fact of all: Salvia was perfectly legal. In their far-reaching crackdowns on drugs that people enjoy, state and federal legislators somehow had missed a plant that contains the most powerful naturally occurring psychedelic known to man.
Bulloch—a Republican state senator who represents the area around Ochlocknee, Georgia, a tiny town near the Florida border—was astounded. "I thought, 'Why hasn't somebody already jumped on this?' " he told the Florida Times-Union in March 2007. "I hurriedly got legislative counsel to draft the bill"—legislation making it a misdemeanor to grow, sell, or possess salvia. "Since then," the Times-Union reported, "Bulloch has been scouring the Internet to find information about salvia. None of what he has learned has dissuaded him from trying to make it illegal."
Bulloch's approach to salvia—ban first, ask questions later—epitomizes how drug policy is made in America. Although his bill has not yet passed, 15 states have banned salvia since 2005, and many others are considering similar legislation. Their precipitous action makes the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, which has been monitoring salvia as "a drug of concern" since 2003 but still has no definite plans to classify it as a prohibited substance, look rational and reticent by comparison.
The penalties for violating state salvia laws vary from modest fines to decades in prison. Kenneth Rau, a North Dakota bottling plant employee who has the dubious distinction of being the first American arrested for salvia possession, bought eight ounces of leaves on eBay for $32 in December 2007. He says he did not realize a state ban on the plant had taken effect the previous August—a plausible claim, especially since the plant matter that police discovered in his home was clearly labeled "salvia." Last spring Rau received three years of probation for simple possession. But he originally was charged as a dealer and could have received a prison sentence of up to 20 years, all for a bag of leaves that was legal in North Dakota four months before he bought it and remains legal in most of the country.
To drug policy historians, the reasons for the rush to ban salvia are familiar. Sensationalistic press coverage, in this case supplemented by salvia users' documentation of their own trips on YouTube, has attracted the attention of legislators eager to grandstand as guardians of vulnerable and impressionable "young people." Few politicians can resist the allure of a drug described as "cheaper than marijuana, stronger than LSD, as fast-acting as crack cocaine, and legally available to minors" (as The Ithaca Journal put it in 2004). The endless repetition of a few anecdotes that supposedly demonstrate salvia's dangers—most conspicuously, the story of a Delaware teenager's 2006 suicide—has found a receptive audience among politicians who automatically assume that an unfamiliar psychoactive substance must be a menace. And since these lawmakers bridle at the notion that anything good could possibly come from altering your consciousness, they see no downside to banning salvia before it becomes a problem.
The idea that salvia "could become the next marijuana" (as the Associated Press warned last year) is mostly misbegotten. The salvia experience is so unpredictable, so incompatible with social interaction, and so frequently boring or unpleasant that it's safe to assume the herb will never be as popular as pot. But the comparison rings true in several other respects: Both salvia and marijuana are psychoactive plants linked in the public mind to Mexico, both appear to be nontoxic for all practical purposes, and both have intriguing medical potential. Salvia's detractors, like marijuana's in the 1920s and '30s, claim it causes insanity and violence. In both cases prohibition occurred at the state level first. If salvia continues to follow the pattern set by marijuana, it will ultimately be banned throughout the country, despite a dearth of evidence that it poses a serious threat to individual health or to public safety.
Something About Mary
Salvia's ritual use in Mexico goes back hundreds of years, but outsiders paid little attention to it until the mid-20th century. Starting in 1938, anthropologists and naturalists visiting Oaxaca mentioned a visionary tea made from a plant variously called hierba Maria (herb of Mary), hoja de adivinación (leaf of prophecy), or ska Maria Pastora (leaves of Mary the Shepherdess). They reported that the local healers known as curanderos used the potion, traditionally linked to the Virgin Mary, to diagnose illness and locate lost objects, finding clues in what their patients/clients said under its influence.
The self-taught American mycologist and ethnobotanist R. Gordon Wasson, best known for his research on hallucinogenic mushrooms, was the first visitor to describe his own experiences with ska Maria Pastora. In a 1962 leaflet published by Harvard University's Botanical Museum, Wasson announced "a new Mexican psychotropic drug from the mint family" that he and his colleagues dubbed Salvia divinorum (diviner's sage). He said it was "a psychotropic plant that the Mazatecs consume when mushrooms are not available," a "less desirable substitute" for psilocybin-containing fungi.
In a 1961 salvia ceremony, Wasson drank a foul-tasting mixture of leaf juice and water under the guidance of a curandera. "The effect of the leaves came sooner than would have been the case with the mushrooms, was less sweeping, and lasted a shorter time," he reported. "There was not the slightest doubt about the effect, but it did not go beyond the initial effect of the mushrooms—dancing colors in elaborate, three-dimensional designs." The second time around, about a year later, Wasson was joined by his friend Albert Hofmann, the Swiss chemist who first synthesized LSD. They experienced similar effects.
Given Wasson's lack of enthusiasm for salvia, it's not surprising that the plant remained obscure for decades, with nothing like the fame or following attracted by LSD, psilocybin, or peyote. That began to change in the 1990s, thanks largely to the efforts of another amateur ethnobotanist.
Daniel Siebert first came across salvia in the late 1970s while researching medicinal plants. Later someone gave him a cutting, which he used to grow a plant that he added to his collection of interesting herbs. About a year later he accidentally broke off part of the plant and decided to try it, chewing up a wad of 26 large leaves. "It was that initial experience that really piqued my interest," he says. "I found the effects really intriguing, and it was very comfortable and easy to handle—much more manageable than most other psychedelic drugs I had tried." Today Siebert, who lives in Malibu, runs the Salvia Divinorum Research and Information Center (sagewisdom.org), the most comprehensive online repository of information about the plant.
The website, which also sells the herb, includes a link to a 1994 article Siebert published in the Journal of Ethnopharmacology that helped explain why ska Maria had disappointed so many psychonauts. Siebert's research confirmed that salvinorin A, first isolated a decade before, was the plant's main psychoactive ingredient. It turned out to be highly potent, producing noticeable effects at a dose of half a milligram, compared to about 10 milligrams for psilocybin and 250 milligrams for mescaline. (Contrary to some overheated press reports about salvia, LSD, a synthetic psychedelic, is far more powerful than any of these, effective at doses as low as 50 micrograms, or five-hundredths of a milligram.) Siebert's experiments with volunteers who tried different routes of administration revealed that swallowing salvia was the worst way to absorb salvinorin A, which is "deactivated by the gastrointestinal system." Two other routes were much more successful: through the oral mucous membrane (by holding masticated leaves or leaf juice in the mouth) and through the lungs (by inhaling the vapor).
This information, combined with the realization that salvinorin A is highly stable and remains in salvia leaves even when they're dried, set the stage for the plant's commercialization. Soon it was available from head shops and online vendors in the form of liquid extracts and smokable dried leaves, often fortified with extract. Holding the liquid in the mouth more closely resembles the traditional method of consuming salvia, with the effects felt in five to 10 minutes and lasting an hour or two. But the alcohol-based extract tastes terrible and produces relatively subtle effects. (See "Salvia and Salivation," page 42.) The smoked form produces faster, more intense, and shorter effects, appearing within 30 seconds and subsiding after five to 10 minutes. It sells much better.
According to the latest data from the federal government's National Survey on Drug Use and Health, 1 million Americans used salvia in 2007, up from 750,000 in 2006, the first year the survey asked about the drug. Those numbers make salvia currently more popular than LSD, used by 620,000 Americans in 2007. (In terms of lifetime use, however, acid droppers outnumber salvia smokers by nearly 10 to 1.) Salvia, like other psychedelics, is most popular among 18-to-25-year-olds, 2 percent of whom report past-year use.
As is often the case with drug fads, interest in salvia has been driven partly by the same press coverage that has encouraged legislators to crack down on it. Salvia distributors say they see spikes in sales after anti-salvia articles appear. "Every time there's a news story on it," says John Boyd, CEO of Arena Ethnobotanicals in Encinitas, California, "it brings it to people's attention."
Still, salvia is much less popular than marijuana, used by 25 million Americans in 2007. It is also less likely to be used more than once. Tiffin University psychologist Jonathan Appel, who co-authored a 2007 article on the rising popularity of salvia in the International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction, says, "We're talking about a small percentage of people who are using it and an even smaller percentage of people who go back and use it again."
'The Worst Substance of This Earth'
Siebert says the prevalence of smoking, which produces quick, intense effects, helps explain why many users report overwhelming experiences they are not eager to repeat. High doses are another factor, since vendors compete based on the potency of their fortified leaves, bragging that they are anywhere from five to 100 times as powerful as the untreated plant. "When you smoke," Siebert says, "the effects come on almost instantly, and it's disorienting. Suddenly you have this dramatic shift of consciousness, especially if you're taking a high dose, and it can be frightening and uncomfortable. That starts everything off on the wrong foot."
Last year a commenter on reason's blog, Hit & Run, called salvia "THE WORST substance of this Earth," adding, "If you want kids to stay off of drugs, give them some Salvia and tell them this is what cannabis, hash, and LSD are all like." Erowid.org, a website that provides information on a wide variety of psychoactive substances for an audience that is more Leary than leery, is less vehement, but it notes that salvia's effects "are considered unpleasant by many people." Bryan Roth, a psychiatrist and pharmacologist at the University of North Carolina, led the research that showed how salvinorin A binds to the brain. "Most people will say they don't like it," he says. "It's just too intense. If it has any effect at all, I would say it would be to diminish the tendency for drug abuse."
Users are apt to be especially disappointed if they are expecting a fun party drug similar to marijuana. "I smoked with a friend last week who became the leg of a table," says Rick Doblin, president of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies. In his 1994 paper, Siebert listed commonly reported themes of salvia experiences, including "becoming objects," "visions of various two-dimensional surfaces," "revisiting places from the past," "loss of the body and/or identity," "various sensations of motion," "uncontrollable hysterical laughter," and "overlapping realities." Such experiences might be interesting, rewarding, or revealing, but they are not exactly conducive to social activities.
"Salvia is not a recreational substance," says Jeffrey Bottoms, who works at Mazatec Garden, a salvia importer and distributor in Houston. "It isn't pleasant. It doesn't make you feel good. It's not a mood elevator. If you're depressed, it's not going to make you feel a little better. In fact, it will make you feel a lot worse." Ready to try it yet?
First you may want to check out the videos. Search for "salvia" on YouTube, and you'll find hundreds of videos of teenagers and young adults staring into space, laughing hysterically, falling over, crawling on the floor, and speaking in tongues while their friends alternately giggle and reassure them that it will all be over soon. These videos, widely credited with helping to popularize salvia, do not make it seem very appealing. Nor are they all that alarming, except perhaps as a sign that a disturbingly large number of people want the world to see their displays of drug-induced idiocy. In some of the videos, the salvia smoker freaks out a little, but these "bad trips" (breathlessly advertised as such) look pretty mild, consisting mainly of restlessness and a repeatedly expressed wish for an end to the ride, which arrives soon enough.
Yet the YouTube videos come up frequently in newspaper stories about salvia and in the comments of politicians who want to ban it. In January, explaining his motive for sponsoring a prohibition bill, Maryland state Sen. Richard Colburn (R-Dorchester County) told the Baltimore Examiner that the YouTube footage is "pretty disturbing," adding, "Just imagine if that was your child." Colburn's YouTube-inspired bill would classify salvia as a Schedule I substance, making people who sell it subject to prison terms of up to 20 years. According to the Santa Fe Reporter, New Mexico state Rep. Keith Gardner (R-Chavez), sponsor of a similar bill, "says all the evidence he needs of the drug's dangerous potential is available on YouTube." He told the paper the videos are "dramatic as hell—you gotta watch 'em. At first I thought, 'This is just somebody pretending.' It's amazing how powerful this drug is."
Texas state Rep. Armando Martinez (D- Weslaco) says he introduced a bill that would ban salvia sales to minors based on "what we've seen on YouTube and what a friend of mine's nephew had mentioned about all this." He settled on age restrictions, as opposed to a complete ban, because it seemed easier to accomplish. "Any way we could stop this from getting into the hands of our children or adolescents," he says, "I think that it's something we need to do. If that means a complete ban, then I would support a complete ban."
Texas state Rep. Charles "Doc" Anderson (R-Waco) already does, arguing that age restrictions could "do more harm than good," making salvia use a mark of adulthood. The New York Times reports that Anderson has tried to stir up support for a ban among his colleagues by citing a YouTube video that shows a salvia smoker behind the wheel of a car. The video in question, "Driving on Salvia," is part of a humorous series called "Being Productive on Salvia" featuring a Los Angeles production assistant named Erik Hoffstad. Other episodes include "Gardening on Salvia" and "Writing a Letter to Congress on Salvia." The running gag is that Hoffstad can't manage to do much of anything after taking a salvia hit. In "Driving on Salvia," he never actually tries to start the car, and the scariest moment occurs when a cat unexpectedly jumps on the hood.
'Beyond Anything We Have Seen Before'
Martinez and Anderson both raise the specter of salvia-impaired driving, but neither can cite any real-life examples of it, in Texas or elsewhere. That's not surprising, since (as Hoffstad's video illustrates) someone tripping on salvia, unlike someone who has had a few drinks, is in no condition to get into a car, start it up, and drive away. It seems the only way this hazard could materialize is if someone brought a bongful of salvia with him on a drive and lit it up while stopped at a light. Although the driving scenario seems implausible, salvia prohibitionists are right that there is a potential for accidents under the drug's influence, which is why vendors warn their customers to put away hazardous objects and enlist a "sober sitter" to keep an eye on them during their trip.
When I press Martinez and Anderson for examples of actual harm caused by salvia use, as opposed to hypothetical risks, the best they can do is cite bad but brief trips. Anderson also claims "we are seeing the flashback scenario." But as Siebert notes, "Any kind of intense or traumatic experience," including war, car crashes, and near-death experiences, "can produce flashbacks.…Intense psychedelic experiences can be extremely frightening, and it may be that there's some internal psychological mechanism of revisiting that kind of material later. But it doesn't appear that there's any organic, direct reason for this. It's not like the drug hangs around the system and suddenly pops up in your brain one day. It seems to be more like the way the brain deals with very intense or confusing experiences."
Last fall Anderson told the Waco Tribune-Herald that "with a single use [salvia smokers] can cause some serious, serious damage to their brain." Roth, the salvia researcher, says "there's no evidence for that statement." In fact, says Siebert, animal studies of salvia give "no indication of it having any significant toxic effects, even at doses that are hundreds of times more than what humans would ordinarily use." Even salvia's detractors concede that addiction does not seem to be an issue, since few people who try the drug want to use it on a regular basis. Despite a dramatic increase in use during the last few years, emergency rooms are not seeing a flood, or even a trickle, of salvia users, probably because a hospital trip usually takes longer than a salvia trip.
The lack of alarming statistics helps explain why the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), which has the power to ban psychoactive substances without new legislation, is still waiting and watching six years after declaring salvia a "drug of concern." DEA spokesman Rusty Payne says, "I don't think we have enough information yet." And there's no telling when they will. "It's going to take a while," Payne says. "If we decide to schedule [salvia], we'll publish a notice [in the Federal Register]. If we don't, we won't." Although Payne says the delay should not be read as a judgment on salvia's dangers, the DEA can act much more quickly when it wants to, as when it banned MDMA on an emergency basis in 1985. "When they say they've been looking at it for years," says Rick Doblin, "it means it's not much of a problem."
Nor is salvia a high priority at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Officially, the FDA says herbal products like salvia are "unapproved new drugs" and "misbranded drugs" if they are "marketed with claims implying that these products mimic the effects of controlled substances." Products are deemed to be "illegal street drug alternatives" when they are "intended to be used for recreational purposes to effect psychological states (e.g., to get high, to promote euphoria, or to induce hallucinations)."
"I am aware of that law," says Arena Ethnobotanicals CEO John Boyd, "and that's why if you check our website there are no references to anything like that." Many salvia vendors do tout the psychoactive effects of their products, promising "psychedelic," "visionary," "enlightening," and "enjoyable" experiences. Yet except for two warning letters it sent in 2002, the FDA does not seem to have taken any enforcement actions against companies that sell salvia. While FDA spokesman Christopher Kelly says "we do not discuss potential, pending, or ongoing actions," none of the distributors I interviewed was aware of any recent warnings or seizures.
As for Congress, Rep. Joe Baca (D-Calif.) introduced a bill to ban salvia in 2002, declaring, "We know very little about the drug, but what we do know is frightening. This drug's power is beyond anything we have seen before." But the bill died in committee, and Baca never reintroduced it. I contacted his office a couple of times to find out why but did not get an answer.
'Our Existence in General Is Pointless'
By contrast, there's been a flurry of anti-salvia activity at the state level in the last few years. With so little evidence that salvia is hazardous, prohibitionists lean heavily on anecdotes. Ohio state Rep. Thom Collier (R-Mount Vernon), who introduced a salvia ban that took effect in April, said he was motivated by the death of a Loudonville boy who was shot by a friend. But according to the Cleveland Plain Dealer, "it isn't clear whether the friend was on the drug when he shot and killed the 12-year-old." The Columbus Dispatch notes "there was no direct evidence…that the shooting was drug-related."
Similarly, when Rep. Baca proposed a federal salvia ban in 2002, he cited the case of Daniel Moffa, a 15-year-old Rhode Island boy who smoked salvia one morning and stabbed his pot dealer on the way to school. Moffa later told WPRI, the Fox affiliate in Providence, that he was "paranoid" and "hallucinating," thinking the dealer looked "evil" and "horrible." The story sounded fishy to Daniel Siebert, since he didn't think a salvia user on a trip that intense would be able to coordinate his movements well enough to meet someone and repeatedly stab him. Still, Moffa's parents initially blamed salvia for the assault because "we had no other plausible explanation," the boy's father explained in a 2007 email message to Siebert. Since then, the father said, "we have found out that Dan suffers from bipolar affective disorder with psychosis." While "the salvia may have contributed to an episode," he added, it "was not the real cause."
The most influential salvia horror story involves Brett Chidester, a Wilmington, Delaware, 17-year-old who in January 2006 pitched a tent in his parents' garage, went inside it with a burning charcoal grill, and stayed there until he was dead from carbon monoxide poisoning. Brett had been experimenting with salvia and claimed it had given him profound insights. "Salvia allows us to give up our senses and wander in the interdimensional time and space," he wrote in an essay discovered after his death. "Also, and this is probably hard for most to accept, our existence in general is pointless. Final point: Us earthly humans are nothing."
A month after Brett's death, his mother, Kathy Chidester, told the Wilmington News-Journal: "We just won't have any answers, and we have to learn to accept that. But my gut feeling is it was the salvia. It's the only thing that can explain it." A month later, the state legislature had approved Brett's Law, which made salvia a Schedule I drug. The same week the ban took effect, Delaware's deputy chief medical examiner, Adrienne Sekula-Perlman, changed Brett's death certificate, adding "salvia divinorum use" as a contributing cause.
Since then Kathy Chidester has campaigned for similar laws across the country, and 15 more states have either banned salvia or (in the case of California and Maine) prohibited sales to minors. The laws all passed by overwhelming margins, in some cases unanimously. Anti-salvia bills have been introduced in at least 22 other states. "My hope and goal is to have salvia regulated across the U.S.," Chidester wrote in testimony supporting the proposed salvia ban in Maryland last January. "It's my son's legacy and I will not end my fight until this happens."
Appel, the Tiffin University psychologist, does not think salvia should be legal for general use, but he is reluctant to draw any firm conclusions about Brett Chidester's death. "I wouldn't feel comfortable saying it caused him to commit suicide," he says. Such explanations, he adds, are "a way to try to make sense of something that's pretty senseless. We're always looking for rationalizations and reasons, particularly when there aren't any."
Roth, the University of North Carolina psychiatrist, is also opposed to using salvia recreationally, partly because of the psychological risks. But he says it's difficult to say what role the drug might have played in Brett Chidester's suicide. Although "it's tragic that this young guy killed himself," he says, "there's no way of knowing if salvia had anything to do with it.…There have been a couple of reports of people having long-term psychotic episodes after smoking it that have appeared in the literature. It would seem, given the apparent widespread use of salvia, that if these are side effects, they don't occur at very high prevalence. Otherwise, the ERs would be filled with people having bad salvia reactions."
Siebert concedes that salvia "might have influenced [Brett Chidester's] thinking in some way" but adds: "He must have already had some thoughts about suicide. I don't think salvia's just going to put thoughts into peoples' heads. Mentally healthy people don't decide to take such a drastic action based on [an idea] they had during a drug state. Psychedelics basically amplify a lot of your own internal stuff. If you're already having some kind of dark thoughts, a psychedelic experience could amplify that, and it could lead to a problem for some people."
Notably, there is no indication that Brett Chidester was under the influence of salvia when he killed himself. The idea seems to be that using the drug encouraged him to reach conclusions about the nature of life that were conducive to suicide. That theory, notes Richard Glen Boire, a senior fellow at the Center for Cognitive Liberty & Ethics, "could apply to some of the greatest pieces of art in the history of the world. It would make Nietzsche a controlled substance. There is a lot of cultural production out there that shows a way of looking at the world that isn't all sunny and rosy."
'One Life Lost Is One Too Many'
If Brett Chidester's suicide looms large in the thinking of anti-salvia legislators in other states, that's partly because they rarely have evidence of harm caused by the drug closer to home. According to local press coverage in one state after another, police are not reporting salvia-related problems. Neither are schools, hospitals, or drug treatment centers. Legislators want to ban it anyway.
Their reasoning is simple: Why wait for a problem? Martinez, the Texas legislator, says he favors "a proactive approach." Over the course of my 10-minute interview with him, he says "one life lost is one too many" four times and "you can't put a price on life" three times. To his colleague Anderson, who utters the phrase "it's a hallucinogen" eight times during a 30-minute conversation, it's self-evident that any drug falling into that category should be banned.
Georgia state Sen. Don Thomas (R-Dalton) has a similar attitude. In 2007 he candidly told the Florida Times-Union he knew nothing about the benefits of salvia use. "I just know about the publicity of the dangers of it," he said, "so my first impression is to ban anything of that nature." That same year, defending legislation that would ban the sale of salvia to adults, Wisconsin state Rep. Sheldon Wasserman (D-Milwaukee) told the Wisconsin State Journal, "This bill is all about protecting our children."
Salvia prohibitionists say a complete ban is necessary to protect children because, as Wisconsin state Sen. Julie Lassa (D-Stevens Point) told the Wausau Daily Herald in 2007, "many people believe that because it is legal there are no risks associated with using salvia." Last year Massachusetts state Rep. Vinny deMacedo (R-Plymouth) told the Plymouth News, "I believe by not making this drug illegal we are sending a message to our youth that it is OK." Appel, the psychologist, agrees that salvia users "make the assumption that because it's legal it'll be safe."
But people do not assume that tobacco and alcohol are safe simply because they are legal. Furthermore, anyone researching salvia online would come across myriad warnings from vendors and users about the drug's risks, along with the YouTube videos, which highlight the potential for bad trips. "I don't buy this idea that people think because it's legal it must be good," says Doblin, "because the corollary is not true." Especially when it comes to marijuana, he says, "People don't think, 'It's illegal, so it must be bad.' " People inclined to experiment with salvia, he says, generally don't believe that "the drug laws make sense."
To the extent that people do believe that, says Richard Glen Boire of the Center for Cognitive Liberty & Ethics, it's a dangerous misconception. "In a mature society," he says, "you would laugh at the idea that if something is available it is therefore stamped 'approved' and 'safe.' I don't think we should be creating a society that's safety proofed in a way that [ignores] the reality of living."
Yet the war on drugs has conditioned people to expect that, with a few grandfathered exceptions, psychoactive substances that are not classified as pharmaceuticals will be banned. You hear it from salvia smokers on YouTube as well as salvia scaremongers in state legislatures: I can't believe this stuff is legal. Ultimately, that is the crux of the prohibitionist argument. Salvia must be banned because it's legal.
Once a few legislatures act on that premise, public officials in other states start to worry they will look irresponsible if they don't follow suit. Last year Van Ingram, compliance branch manager with the Kentucky Office of Drug Control Policy, told the Owensboro Messenger-Inquirer, "Our neighbors in Tennessee and Missouri felt it was important enough, so it is important for us to look at it as well." A month later, after the Florida legislature approved a salvia ban, state Sen. Evelyn Lynn (R-Daytona Beach) told the Associated Press, "I'd rather be at the front edge of preventing the dangers of the drug than waiting until we are the 40th or more."
'A Philosopher's Tool'
Since there is no political upside to resisting prohibitionism, it's surprising when legislators decline to panic. Two states—Maine and California—have prohibited salvia sales to minors instead of banning the drug completely. This year Maryland's House of Delegates likewise ended up rejecting a ban and endorsing age restrictions, but the state Senate did not act on the bill before the end of the legislative session. The Drug Policy Alliance, which testified against the Maryland ban, also helped change a New Mexico prohibition bill into a ban on sales to minors, although the legislation has not passed yet.
One respectable antiprohibitionist argument is that banning salvia could impede valuable medical research. Salvinorin has intriguing properties that have made its derivatives the focus of research aimed at finding better treatments for pain, drug addiction, depression, and various neurological conditions. "For those of us who study this sort of thing," says Bryan Roth, "the fact that salvinorin binds to just one [brain receptor] is pretty amazing. It opens up the possibility that if we can find drugs that block the effects of salvinorin at that receptor, they might be effective in treating a number of diseases."
Roth worries that placing salvinorin on Schedule I of the federal Controlled Substances Act, the most restrictive category, will "make it more difficult to do research on it and investigate the potential therapeutic utility of derivatives. By definition, a Schedule I drug is devoid of any medical benefit. That makes it next to impossible to demonstrate any medical benefit. They made LSD Schedule I in the '60s, and they're only now getting around to looking at potential medical benefits. It really slows things down."
While some salvia prohibitionists say they don't want to interfere with scientific research, they do not recognize any legitimate nonmedical use for the plant. They see teenagers getting wasted on YouTube, and they see medical applications that might one day be approved by the FDA, but nothing in between. Siebert, who thinks thrill-seeking salvia smokers do not understand what the plant is all about, recently told the German magazine Hanfblatt, "Salvia is not an escapist drug. Quite the contrary: It is a philosopher's tool." He says, "It produces a very internal state where you go into yourself. You're more aware of your subconscious feelings, and often you gain insight into problems in your life that you're trying to tackle." Last year he told Newsweek, "I realized I wanted to marry my wife as a result of the salvia experience."
In a 2003 Erowid survey of 500 salvia users who filled out an online questionnaire, 47 percent reported "increased insight," while 40 percent said they felt an "increased sense of connection with the universe or nature." Other commonly reported effects were improved mood (45 percent), calmness (42 percent), weird thoughts (36 percent), a feeling of unreality (32 percent), and a feeling of floating (32 percent). About 26 percent reported "persisting positive effects," compared to 4 percent who reported "persisting negative effects" (typically anxiety). The sample was self-selected, so the responses are not necessarily representative, but they give a better sense than the YouTube videos do of why some people might find value in the salvia experience.
"It makes things that are bothering you become clear," says Mazatec Garden's Jeffrey Bottoms. Some users report that salvia relieved their depression or helped them break bad habits. A 2001 case report in the Journal of Clinical Psychopharmacology described a 26-year-old woman whose chronic depression disappeared after she started taking small doses of salvia three times a week. Arena Ethnobotanicals CEO John Boyd says he tried to give up cigarettes many times over the years and finally quit the week after his first salvia experience. Doblin notes that Canadian Quakers who have used salvia during meetings "felt that it deepened the silence and made people speak more from the heart."
Although Siebert does not put much stock in spiritualism, he recognizes that other salvia users see their experiences in religious terms. "It seems so real that people often interpret it at face value and think they have actually had some kind of spiritual journey," he says. "I don't personally believe that's what is really going on. But that doesn't mean it's not meaningful for people."
By contrast, Worcester County, Maryland, Commissioner Linda Busick is sure a salvia experience cannot possibly be meaningful, at least not in a good way. "It's supposed to be inducing spiritual growth," Busick scoffed in a 2008 interview with the Salisbury Daily Times. "It's certainly detrimental to anyone who uses it. I don't know of any beneficial effects that it has." Van Ingram, the Kentucky drug control official, is on the same page. "Anything that makes you see visions or things that are not there," he told the Owensboro Messenger-Inquirer last year, "is hardly harmless."
Anything? As Boire notes, "The visionary state goes back millennia, and it cannot be prohibited. Every night we enter into a visionary state. Every book you read, everything that goes through your sensory apparatus, creates a type of vision." Doblin adds: "Seeing visions is the core of a lot of different religions, and whether that's harmful or not depends on the context, the support, how people interpret the visions. Seeing things that are not there is not necessarily harmful. This whole idea that different is bad, that a change in consciousness is in itself harmful, is really one of the fundamental problems inherent in the drug war."
Senior Editor Jacob Sullum (email@example.com) is the author of Saying Yes: In Defense of Drug Use (Tarcher/Penguin).
Editor's Note: We invite comments and request that they be civil and on-topic. We do not moderate or assume any responsibility for comments, which are owned by the readers who post them. Comments do not represent the views of Reason.com or Reason Foundation. We reserve the right to delete any comment for any reason at any time. Report abuses.
There really is a subset of people in this country who find it suspicious when others enjoy themselves. Unfortunately, these are the people most prone to going into politics.
Goddamn pureaucrats.
"A Democrat is someone who can't stand the idea of someone else earning more money; a Republican is someone who can't stand the idea of someone else having more fun than he does."
Something like that.
at least I've never voted Repugnantkin. -
I don't see it posted here, but in the print edition I liked Sullum's personal description of using salvia.
Maybe we should start a letter writing campaign to congress about this. Watch video, heh...
From what I hear, that stuff is its own punishment.
Used wisely it's a blessing and a possible blissful joy...used for kicks it's possible to feel quite kicked, at least nightmares will end when the dreamer begins to grasp that his own play of consciousness is producing them. The goal is to awaken within (or from) the dream so the nightmare vanishes to a Lucid Dream.
http://www.sagewisdom.org/usersguide.html is always help to read before attempting its use. -
One effect of salvia I've noticed in my usage of it: Massive spontaneous erections.
Granted it's during the most intense period of hallucination, so it's not like it's terribly useful then. I've also confirmed this in discussion with male friends who've taken salvia trips. Something like 75% have mentioned that that occurred. Granted the sample size is very small (less than 10), and all of the subjects were in their 20's and 30's, but its definitely an observation I haven't noticed anywhere else. It could be an awesome start to a research project.
Massive spontaneous erections.
So you say...
"Massive" erections? How massive? I mean, not that I need any help, eh hem.
Granted, I haven't chased people around with a ruler during the fact... That would probably be a very bad thing for a person in the middle of a trip.
So you could say the evidence is largely anecdotal. But if there's anyone with a small research budget and a lot of guinea pigs (or grad students), it could be an interesting hypothesis to test.
Huh huh..he said "small research budget."
"Massive spontaneous erections.
Granted it's during the most intense period of hallucination"
It just looks massive.
I'd think the big pharma companies would be all over it if it can do that.
Not just the pharma companies! But thanks for asking!
I believe
had mentioned that smaller amounts can be used as an aphrodisiac. A girl-friend of mine confirmed this with me a few times, shortly after the first 10 minutes, kissing and lovemaking would begin :) -
Stuff tastes NASTY, and the effects have a very religious feel. Best tried if you've got Dex in your system.
Or so I was told in college. :-)
Chewing the fresh leaves, especially with some fennel seed (which improve the flavor) is a good way to go.
http://www.sagewisdom.org/usersguide.html -
Fennel seed IMPROVES the taste?
That is all I need to know.
When can we get pot and LSD legalized?
I can't say when LSD and cannabis will be legal in USA, you may want check "Mexico and Argentina move towards decriminalising drugs
In a backlash against the US 'war on drugs', Latin America turns to a more liberal policy ...http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/aug/31/mexico-argentina-decriminalise-drugs "
Or wait until after 2012...
So much article, so full-of-win.
Gotta love how "protecting" the children means pushing it underground. How many teens have credit cards with which to buy their salvia online? Don't head shops already card, since they're selling tobacco products?
But no, I'm sure once it's on the black market, it will be MUCH harder for young people to obtain.....
And hey, now that they've gone after sage, how long till they go after nutmeg?
People who describe salvia trips as unpleasant have obviously never taken Nutmeg.
I tried nutmeg once in jail. what a horrible experience. I couldn't get that taste out of HOURS
I always wonder if politicians want to protect children why they don't ban aspirin. How about all the cleaners and poisons found in a common household? These people are ridiculous.
Oh, please don't give the pols ideas!
If you saw The Today Show this morning you'd have been treated to a hysterical piece about the totally new thing the kidz today are doing. It's called "huffing". Kids can even buy things like nail polish remover, paint thinner and oven cleaner at the store!!!
I share the planet with a bunch of fuckin' idiots.
Lenny Bruce went on network TV in the 60's with a bit about kids sniffing glue. The censors let it pass, because they thought it was non sequitir humor instead of a slice of underground subculture life.
The best part about this crazy new huffing trend. I now get carded for compressed air, and I don't get carded for alcohol.
Bah... this was me, not J sub D.
I blame threaded comments, and a distinct lack of alcohol.
Shut up, IceTrey! Don't give them ideas!
And hey, now that they've gone after sage, how long till they go after nutmeg?
Actually, I'm surprised nutmeg oil isn't already on one of the schedules, like sassafras oil.
What do ya wanna bet its on the same DEA watchlist as Salvia?
What's next belladonna and Skull cap?
Wow Vicodin and most opiate base RXs given in the states do the same thing, but offer no health benefits. Again no one is rushing to shut down GlaxoSmith and Klein.
No health benefits from opiates?
What are you smoking dude? -
What's next? Jimson weed. It's a weed very common throughout North America. There was a weed in my garden with pretty flowers, that I have seen others grow for its flowers, so I kept it there instead of weeding it. Only later when I saw a GOOD picture on the internet of what jimson weed looks like (I had already read about the weed before) did I realize that it was jimson weed, and I realized how common jimson weed is in general, since I know I've seen it many times before.
If you eat enough of it you can hallucinate like crazy. One common observation is that users start smoking imaginary cigarettes in their hands.
It's everywhere and very distinctive looking, like I said, so no laws will really stop kids from trying it - then again, kids are stupid, so I doubt they'd have the wherewithal to try to identify it themselves using pictures and then take it.
Then again, it's also highly toxic. The dose for getting you high is only a bit less from a dose that can make you violently ill or kill you. So if that isn't a deterrent from kids trying it, well then I'm not too sad 'cause all you'd end up with is Darwin Award winners.
oh yeah I forgot to add that the trips are generally unpleasant with jimson weed - like with the smoking salvia - only like, 10 hours of nightmares
I found it pretty boring, actually. More dizziness than anything else. And yes, it tastes terrible.
More importantly, though, WTF is up with people like Baca? You know he can't possibly have any evidence for statements like "This drug's power is beyond anything we have seen before", so where is he coming from? Somebody needs to pin him down on stuff like that. Unfortunately I suppose the truth is that very few politicians lose support for looking "tough on drugs" OR making provably false statements. Still, I want to see some interviewer ask him: if we find a new psychedelic drug, and it has no side effects at all, should it be banned? Why or why not?
If it was boring, you probably didn't get enough in you. In my experience (smoked extract) it is anything but boring.
I second and infinitize that :)
(although apparently there are some people called "Salvia Hard-heads" where not much happens, I think "set & setting" along with dosage is possibly the factor)
Just reading http://www.erowid.org/library/.....ence.shtml
and http://www.sagewisdom.org/usersguide.html
can be the cognitive keys to that inner door. -
So chewing = boring, smoking = unpleasant, and the only reason people rush out to try it is the do-gooders say how amazing it is.
Sounds to me like the do-gooders are the ones popularizing it, if they stopped it would never take off, people don't seem to like it.
wow - that's an angle I've never actually thought of
I've smoked it over thirty times and never had an experience that wasn't either enjoyable or at least somehow uplifting or spiritual. If you're a religious type, you may read a religious element into the experience.
Your mileage, of course, may vary. Start with a dose »below« what you think is a threshhold dose and do that several times over the course of a couple weeks, then start increasing it. If you very carefully increase the dose over time, you minimize the chances of a "bad trip".
i haven't tried it yet, but it looks like i should get it now before committing a felony.
all together now: yo, fuck nanny-staters. -
What do ya wanna bet [nutmeg oil] on the same DEA watchlist as Salvia?
I wouldn't put it past the DEA to add Calcium Carbonate to the watch list if two people posted web videos pretending to get high while snorting it.
That makes me think of a good "punk'd" project: going to every Congresscritter, showing them some bogus videos of teens "getting high" on an obviously innocuous substance (e.g., snorting ascorbic acid), and then seeing if any of them start legislation to ban or limit its use.
Get them exposed for the complete nincompoops they are, I like I like!
But cmon, if dihydrogen monoxide didn't work.....
you mean like snorting lemonaide mix? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xq-2RGwpfsw
anyone else go to legoland from smoking salvia?
and beyond...
from http://www.erowid.org/library/.....tml#5.17.3
Third Method: Meditation on IllusionIf still going down and not liberated,
Meditate as follows:
The sexual activities, the manipulation machinery, the mocking laughter,
dashing sounds and terrifying apparitions,
Indeed all phenomena
Are in their nature, illusions.
However they may appear, in truth they are unreal and fake.
They are like dreams and apparitions,
Non-permanent, non-fixed.
What advantage is there in being attached to them,
Or being afraid of them?
All these are hallucinations of the mind.
The mind itself does not exist,
Therefore why should they?
Only through taking these illusions for real will you wander around in
this confused existence.
All these are like dreams,
Like echoes,
Like cities of clouds,
Like mirages,
Like mirrored forms,
Like phantasmagoria,
The moon seen in water.
Not real even for a moment.
By holding one-pointedly to that train of thought.
The belief that they are real is dissipated,
And liberation is attained. -
not legoland, but charlie brown land, and school bus land - lots of two dimensional orange coloured things and thick black lines. Strange, but I know EXACTLY what you mean by LEGO... salvia is the craziest stuff out there, and you should only try it after doing your research and having some idea what to expect. But even then...
BakedPenguin: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwylBRucU7w
And who could forget: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UsNbsjpuLc
I'd never seen the "Cake" sketch. I did remember the "jenkem" hoax, though.
What are these drug warriors smoking?
Re: Anomalous,
What are these drug warriors smoking?The "let's get the fun out of everything" weed.
In other words, we DONT want what they're smoking.
nice job on this piece
solid journalism on a contentious subject. it's about time. Though I doubt it'll change any legislators or politicians' minds. Banning substances rarely make sense outside of the political arena...
I'm a strong opponent to prohibition and this country's drug policy. I find the idea of criminalizing the use of substances by consenting adults to be laughable.
However, while Salvia certainly shouldn't be outlawed, it is good for people (kids) to become educated about just what it really is.
I saw the stuff being sold like it was "fake herb" in a smoke shop right on the Vegas Strip. People don't realize that this stuff is really hardcore, and not in a pleasurable recreational way.
People used to take psychedelics really seriously. And people who are ON psychedelics remember why they are taken seriously, though it's too late if they came unprepared.
It's sad that lots of people just want to get high from some nice, safe, pleasant cannabis. But they're forced to do all sorts of nasty things such as Salvia, inhalants, glue, cough syrup overdosing, and alcohol binging.
You see, prohibition has caused this exact outcome.
1) Claim weed is a hallucinogen
2) Prohibition prevents legitimate safety measures.
3) Suddenly kids are fucking with totally powerfull hallucinogens with no idea what they're messing with.So yeah: Labels on the products, so people know EXACTLY what they're getting. If you don't do your own research before buying at that point then, well, fuck you.
Consult the internet, consult a doctor, talk to friends, i don't care. Otherwise you're just a darwin-award-waiting-to-happen.
great article. a couple years ago I wrote a letter to the editor in favor of keeping salvia legal after the paper ran a salvia scare story. keep up the great work! I'm glad reason is covering this. maybe you could do a story on how the DEA is viewing the synthetic JWH and CP cannabinoids and the plants Kava and Kratom as "Drugs and Chemicals of Concern". we need more great journalism to speak out against making more things like this illegal.
Good lord, kava?! If you tried salvia and were not impressed, don't waste your time with kava.
That flavor will stay with you forever. And as for effects.....ummm, yeah, not worth the flavor.
I don't know some of the kavalactone extracts are pretty powerful. if you like downers like benzos and barbiturates anyways, they all work on the GABA A receptor.
though I'm not saying its super strong or anything but a good antianxiety herb. its insane that they would go so far as to even be "concerned" about it. -
oh and another thing that I wish reason would mention is that banning salvia will discourage research into potentially potent non-addictive or at least not as addictive narcotic pain killers. a bunch of mu opioid agonists have been synthesized from Salvinorin A and B (the chemicals from salvia divinorum) one of the most potent is one known as herkinorin. in studies it appears a tolerance to herkinorin might not develop, though it may cause tolerance through a previously unknown mechanism. these chemicals must be studied and banning salvia is going to chill research into these amazing compounds.
oh I see toward the end they DO mention salvia research but not herkinorin by name.
still a great article, though! -
Fabulous article. The exaggeration on the part of the prohibitionists is ridiculous, and completely unwarranted. I tried the stuff in college, and I guess I didn't realize how truly cool my conservative parents were at the time, because I told them all about my purchase and plans to smoke with a friend-- They didn't go on a crusade to ban it, I came through just fine, and still think it's a good thing I tried salvia.
And hell, since when does NOT banning something equal a societal endorsement of said thing? Heaven forbid we fail to stipulate value judgements on everything.
Great article, thanks.
I first tried Salvia in 1998. I smoked some that someone had grown and tended themselves. I found its effect to be very powerful, but very temporary. I have used it a few other times since then, but have decided that it isn't something I care very much for. I prefer the sacred mushroom for my psychedelic re-creations.
The article makes some very good points about the failure of the process of banning a substance: outlaw it first, ask questions later and without due research. That said, if the idiots who want to show everyone videos on youtube of themselves using it and trying to do things ...like operate a vehicle (as one person I know did ...Fortunately he wasn't even able to turn the key), they give the pols reason to be concerned. It isn't the drug that is really so much the problem. Rather it is the combination of its very powerful effect and the kids who have no business using it until they have grasped life a bit better. I agree with a policy premise that kids shouldn't have unrestricted "legal" access to powerful psychoactive drugs. As a society, that is just not responsible. We live in a culture that is, by and large, totally dismissive of the sacred aspects of psychedelics generally, so there is no real means of teaching people how to use them responsibly. There is no context, only dysfunction.
As a person who has used psychedelics I generally don't think casual access is any better than I do total prohibition. I believe Timothy Leary was right when he stressed that the most important aspect of psychedelic use is "set and setting," though I don't suppose I can expect our so-called "leaders" to understand what that means or to actually pass legislation that allows clinical research while minimizing reckless behavior.
It is totally inappropriate to compare Salvia with Mary Jane. ...Might as well compare the effects of Salvia with smoking Damiana or Valerian ...which would be just as meaningless. -
Since you mentioned Leary and "set and setting" I thought I'd provide some links to a couple of the texts which are helpful in achieving that :)
http://deoxy.org/psyexp.htm (erowid also has this text in its entirety)
I agree with what Xenes said. look at the videos on www.funnytripz.com. No one is violent, no one is hurt, most people experience what they experience and laugh.Isnt that what life is about,experiences and laughter?I guess even things that make you smile will need have government approval... oh wait they already do
The only religious experience that I have had was under the influence of salvia. By religious I mean that I experienced what seemed to be a consciousness other than myself and not that of another person. I know that this consciousness was a hallucination due to parts of my brain communicating in an unusual manner, but the experience gave me insight into what many people have experienced as being the existence of a god.
"On the Pharmako/Poeia mandala, I put the little leaves on the path between phantastica and inebriantia, and name itexistentia . By existentia, I do not mean anything Cartesian, nor even David Bohm's separate-from-self implicate order, but mean that which precedes essence.
It's a personal thing. Existence.
If you can just stop thinking about it.
Salvia divinorum is what you get by crossing an entheogen with an atheist."
The Salvia divinorum chapter
by Dale Pendell -
Excellent article on the insanity of the push to ban a possible cure for the insanity of our current nightmare.
Thank you!I always refer people interested, curious, or uncertain about the herb to:
for the proper and safe use of this sacred and powerful plant ally. -
Terence McKenna reported:
Supposed to attack these head-on and you will find a deep sense of gratification thatwill fuel your happiness.
A drug policy respectful of democratic values would aim to educate people to make informed
choices based on their own needs and ideals. Such a simple prescription is necessary and sadly
overdue.A master plan for seriously seeking to come to terms with America's drug problems might
explore a number of options, including the following.1. A 200 percent federal tax should be imposed on tobacco and alcohol. All government
subsidies for tobacco production should be ended. Warnings on packaging should be
strengthened. A 20 percent federal sales tax should be levied on sugar and sugar substitutes,
and all supports for sugar production should be ended. Sugar packages should also carry
warnings, and sugar should be a mandatory topic in school nutrition curricula.2. All forms of cannabis should be legalized and a 200 percent federal sales tax imposed on
cannabis products. Information as to the THC content of the product and current conclusions
regarding its impact on health should be printed on the packaging.3. International Monetary Fund and World Bank lending should be withdrawn from countries
that produce hard drugs. Only international inspection and certification that a country is in
compliance would restore loan eligibility.4. Strict gun control must apply to both manufacture and possession. It is the unrestricted
availability of firearms that has made violent crime and the drug abuse problem so intertwined.5. The legality of nature must be recognized, so that all plants are legal to grow and possess.
6. Psychedelic therapy should be made legal and insurance coverage extended to include it.
7. Currency and banking regulations need to be strengthened. Presently bank collusion with
criminal cartels allows large-scale money laundering to take place.8. There is an immediate need for massive support for scientific research into all aspects of
substance use and abuse and an equally massive commitment to public education.9. One year after implementation of the above, all drugs still illegal in the United States
should be decrimi-nalized. The middleman is eliminated, the government can sell drugs at cost plus 200 percent,
and those monies can be placed in a special fund to pay the social, medical, and educational
costs of the legalization program. Money from taxes on alcohol, tobacco, sugar, and can-nabis
can also be placed in this fund. Also following this one-year period, pardons should be given
to all offenders in drug cases that did not involve firearms or felonious assault.If these proposals seem radical, it is only because we have drifted so far from the ideals that
were originally most American. At the foundation of the American theory of social polity is
the notion that our inalienable rights include "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." To
pretend that the right to the pursuit of happiness does not include the right to experiment with
psychoactive plants and substances is to make an argument that is at best narrow and at worst
ignorant and primitive. The only religions that are anything more than the traditionally
sanctioned moral codes are religions of trance, dance ecstasy, and intoxication by
hallucinogens. The living fact of the mystery of being is there, and it is an inalienable religious
right to be able to approach it on one's own terms. A civilized society would enshrine that
principle in law.Terence McKenna in Food of The Gods
http://www.wattpad.com/180211-.....ckenna?p=1 -
welcome to the website.
http://www.christianlouboutinvips.com -
My only point is that if you take the Bible straight, as I'm sure many of Reasons readers do, you will see a lot of the Old Testament stuff as absolutely insane. Even some cursory knowledge of Hebrew and doing some mathematics and logic will tell you that you really won't get the full deal by just doing regular skill english reading for those books. In other words, there's more to the books of the Bible than most will ever grasp. I'm not concerned that Mr. Crumb will go to hell or anything crazy like that! It's just that he, like many types of religionists, seems to take it literally, take it straight...the Bible's books were not written by straight laced divinity students in 3 piece suits who white wash religious beliefs as if God made them with clothes on.
In his view, progress in regenerative medicine could achieve longevity escape velocity in which researchers develop anti-aging therapies faster than a person approaches death from aging.
Another excellent post, thank you, this is why I continue visiting here!
Very nice article.
There is just ZERO reason to make salvia illegal.
Actually I think we should legalize all drugs and tax them proportionally to their damages. Alcohol and tobacco (smoked) will be expensive, yet will improve with that respect.
And I think the health insurance company will eventually pay you to smoke cannabis and salvia divinorum. -
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text:
If you're looking for top image quality for less than a grand, one of these
rigs is your perfect 10.
If there were any doubt remaining that the digital SLR is the camera for photo enthusiasts, 2006's blockbuster introductions wiped it out. Five 10MP cameras hit the U.S. market, all packed with high-end features and priced at $1,000 or less (street) -- including, in four cases, a kit lens.
But these cameras are about more than megapixel counts or price breaks. They represent a genuine maturing of the digital SLR. High resolution no longer comes at the price of excessive digital noise at higher ISOs. Image adjustments like color saturation, contrast, and white balance can be fine-tuned in the camera. Yet, for all the tinkering you can do with their controls, you can still switch them to auto-everything mode and use them like a point-and-shoot (a very good point-and-shoot).
If you've been waiting to make the move into a digital SLR, or you're planning to upgrade from an older DSLR, one of these five models should nudge you off the fence. To help you decide which one's for you, we've compared the models head-to-head on performance and features.
Canon |
$710, body only; |
Nikon |
$940, body only; |
Pentax |
$920, body only; |
Samsung |
$900, body only; |
Sony |
$700, body only; |
How we rank them: 4 factors
Image Quality Shots Canon EOS Digital Rebel XTi Nikon D80 Pentax K10D Samsung GX-10 Sony Alpha 100 |
1. Image Quality
You know the mantra: resolution, color accuracy, digital noise. These three factors make up our overall Image Quality rating. (See "How to Read a Camera Test," January 2006, or www.PopPhoto.com, for the details.) We've summarized quality ratings in the camera profiles that follow; for Certified Test Results from the Pop Photo Lab, look for our full tests of each camera at www.PopPhoto.com.
Lab numbers are solid, objective measures of image quality, but you're not buying a DSLR to photograph resolution charts and GretagMacbeth color patches. For an illustration of what these ratings mean for real-world shooting, we photographed the scene on the facing page with all five cameras under the exact same studio flash lighting conditions, using each manufacturer's 50mm f/1.4 lens. All cameras were set to ISO 100, recording in highest-quality, highest-res JPEG format, using custom white balance, and bracketing around f/16 in 1/3-stops. The magnified detail shots accompanying the individual camera reports show what to expect from a 1x1-inch square taken from a 13x19-inch enlargement at 200 dpi.
As image quality is the most important factor by far in choosing a camera, we give it twice the weighting of the other factors in our overall ranking.
2. Ease of Use
Given all the adjustments available on these cameras, it's inevitable that many controls will end up in menus, even with lots of external buttons and dials. How each camera strikes a balance between external and menu controls is critical to ease of operation. We look for well-placed controls, clear labeling, logic, and simplicity in menus, as well as a good "feel" to the camera. Performance factors count here, too, as pokey autofocus, shutter lag, or short battery life also detract from ease of use.
3. Control
Control stands for adjustability: the extent to which a user can precisely fine-tune a picture -- before, during, and after the shot. DSLR controls include both the traditional camera adjustments (metering and exposure, autofocus, flash output, drive modes) and digital settings (file size and quality, white balance, color spaces). This current crop of 10MP DSLRs also feature considerable image tweaks and fixes, such as color-balance and color-saturation adjustments, shadow/highlight controls, even in-camera processing and conversion of RAW files. We evaluate the power and usefulness of these various controls.
4. System Flexibility
The legacy of the 35mm film SLR guarantees that users of any of these cameras will have plenty of choices for expanding their collections of lenses and other accessories. Even DSLR newcomer Sony can bank on a large existing base of interchangeable optics from Konica Minolta, in addition to its growing catalog of Sony- and Zeiss-branded optics. And all the tested cameras have full-featured accessory TTL flash units in their respective systems. That said, it's no secret that Canon and Nikon lead the league in this regard, given their vast lens and accessory catalogs, as well as their line of camera models ranging from entry-level bargains up to full-bore professional rigs.
Image Quality Uncovered
A floral arrangement with hands is an ideal subject to show how well the test cameras record skin tone, fine detail, shadow/highlight range, and colors ranging from subtle pastels to bright primaries.
RAW vs. JPEG
Image-quality judgements were made after evaluating highest-quality 10-megapixel JPEGs. Most of the variations in color, contrast, and detail are the result of JPEG image processing. In all cases, RAW images from these cameras exceeded JPEG quality, and differences between images became less apparent.
Editor's Note: Some readers have been confused by variations in our image quality rankins. For further explanation of our testing procedures and how we arrived at different results for the five cameras tested here, see this discussion on the PopPhoto.com forums.


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Mark Bautista is a Filipino (born August 10, 1983) singer, actor and commercial model. Born into a large, impoverished family in Cagayan de Oro City, Philippines. Bautista received his career break when he was a Grand finalist on Philippine reality TV talent search Star for a Night and eventually placed second behind Sarah Geronimo. He is now with the GMA Network.


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Archive for November 10th, 2011
Billy Crystal replacing funny Eddie Murphy as Oscar Host (snore)
November 10th, 2011
Green celebrity Billy Crystal has just confirmed via Twitter that he will be replacing funny Eddie Murphy as the next Oscars host. The actor has already hosted the famous awards show 9 times, so producers know they can count on him to do a good job hosting. Sort of. Funny celeb Murphy was scheduled to replace Anne Hathaway and James Franco, the pair that resoundingly flopped hosting last year's event. While Hollywood social circles are small, the choice to rehire Crystal (considering his relative obscurity in recent years) surprises and somewhat bores most. Why isn't he the best choice as the next Oscars host? Keep reading... More good news and green gossip on this [...]
Kristen Stewart: New role model for women and famous humanitarian?
November 10th, 2011
Off camera, Kristen Stewart is known as a green celebrity humanitarian for her support of charities that help with AIDS, homelessness, disaster relief, women's rights, abuse, and more. She is known to have supported the following charities: Oxfam, the Red Cross, and Shoe Revolt. But, the famous humanitarian actress is most famous for her role on the silver screen playing Bella Swan in The Twilight Saga, the trilogy of films based on the book series by writer Stephenie Myer. Want to know more about what she has been up to lately? Keep reading... More good news and green gossip on this [...]


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Western Maryland Regional Medical Center
Eric and Hannah Wingler, a son, Rylan Ridge Wingler, April 16, 2012.
Ashley and James Divelbiss, Little Orleans, a son, Brock James Divelbiss, April 23, 2012. Maternal grandparents are Gregory Norris and Pamela Norris, Orleans. Paternal grandparents are James Holland and Cathy Holland, Cumberland.
April 27, 2012


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April 25, 2011 - Trinity students and alumnae give life to the mission that our Founders envisioned! Continue reading
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Trinity Alumnae
April 10, 2011 - School reform needs transformational leaders. The mayoral command-and-control model does not work. Continue reading
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March 27, 2011 - Geraldine Ferraro's legacy demands that we redouble our efforts to promote women's leadership in the rising generations! Continue reading
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March 13, 2011 - We pray for our alumnae and friends in Japan, especially those at Notre Dame Seishin University in Okayama, and ask how we can help... Continue reading
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January 9, 2011 - We remember Phil Shannon's zest for life and amazing generosity, and send our messages of great gratitude and support to Mary Shannon. Continue reading
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November 29, 2010 - Cathie Black will do fine as Chancellor of the New York Public Schools. But the War of the Wonks over education credentials is distracting from the real business of education reform. Continue reading
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November 11, 2010 - What is it with Trinity Women, the irresistible urge to fly close to the flame? Cathie Black, Nancy Pelosi, Kathleen Sebelius and so many others show us new ways to reinvent our careers continuously, never give up, always be of service to the greatest human needs on the face of the earth. Continue reading
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November 9, 2010 - Cathie Black '66 will bring a fresh leadership style and deep commitment to excellence to her new role as chancellor of the New York City Public Schools. Congrats, Cathie! Continue reading
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November 4, 2010 - Among the many election post-mortems, I've not seen many commentaries on the considerable setbacks for women that Tuesday's tsunami of change brought to Washington... Continue reading
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August 23, 2010 -
Across the years I've had the privilege of knowing some pretty phenomenal women, and in just the last week I've had the real pleasure of introducing several of them to our newest Trinity Women during the orientation program for the… Continue reading
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Elisha Cuthbert Engaged to NHL Star Dion Phaneuf
Description:Toronto Maple Leafs captain, Dion Phaneuf popped the question to his longtime girlfriend, actress Elisha Cuthbert over the weekend and the blonde beauty said yes! The newly engaged couple surprised their family and friends with the news over a lobster dinner Monday night at a Prince Edward Island restaurant. Cuthbert announced the happy news via Twitter saying, "Happily, happily, happily, happily engaged! This has been the most amazing weekend ever." (0:51)
Source: The Fumble
Tags: captainwag , crystal marie denha , dion phaneuf , dion phaneuf engaged to elisha cuthbert


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Here's the Starbucks gun request the company made today. The company, which has some 10,000 stores and 160,000 employees in the U.S., is asking customers who carry handguns in open-carry states to please not bring their guns into the store. It's hard to believe this will be taken as controversial or as anything other than reasonable, fair and sane, but we are an interesting country.
I spoke to Starbucks Chairman Howard Schultz this afternoon, by phone.
Why did you do this? Why does Starbucks have to have a position on people bringing guns in for coffee?
"We are not a policy maker and we're not on any level anti-gun. But over the past four months there's been episodes in and around our stores that alarmed us. Advocates on both sides [of the gun debate] began to stage events in and around Starbucks stores that mischaracterized Starbucks' brand and position. That was not in the interests of our company, our shareholders and employees. So open-carry comes, and we abide by the law. But it began to disturb us, the number of customers and children who became alarmed at seeing people in the store carrying guns. . . . We had a couple situations the past few weeks where some people walked in with rifles! [Some local Starbucks stores] became a staging area for the argument over Second Amendment rights. We're not pro-gun or anti-gun, and we decided to respectfully ask gun owners to leave their guns out of Starbucks."
Why did Starbucks become a theater of the gun debate?
"Our stores are a meeting place, coffee's been part of conversation for hundreds of years" he said. This fact "became a natural opportunity for people to use us as a staging ground."
How do you imagine this working—how do people who carry guns in open-carry states disarm themselves to get a cup of coffee?
"This decision was made through the lens of our values. . . . It's not a ban. We'll serve customers and not ask them to leave. . . . I personally have spent endless hours on this issue. I've spoken to passionate advocates on both sides." He notes that two members of the Starbucks board are former Defense Secretary Bob Gates and former Sen. Bill Bradley. The board voted in support of the request. "We viewed this through the lens of bipartisanship."
In the old Westerns, sometimes the saloonkeeper told the cowboys and ranchers to hang up their guns on a rack before coming inside and drinking. Did that sort of thing pass through your mind?
Interjection on speakerphone from Schultz's public relations aide: "Howard's from Brooklyn."
Your letter seemed particularly polite and eager to strike a fair minded tone. Did it go through a million drafts?
"No. What I tried to do was go through a lens of fairness."
Everyone probably asks you if you have guns. Do you have guns?
"I'm not gonna answer it because I don't think it's about me."
Thirty-one years ago, when a man named Mehmet Ali Agca shot Pope John Paul II, the arrest and the trials that followed were dominated by a question: Who sent the would-be assassin? The Soviets? The Bulgarian secret police? Turkish fascists? John Paul was asked if he had a view, and he said it didn't matter. In his biography "Man of the Century," Jonathan Kwitney reported John Paul's conversation with a close friend Cardinal Andrzej Maria Deskur. "I know well that the responsible one was the devil," the pope said. "And whether he used the Bulgarian people or the Turkish people, it was diabolical."
I thought of that story for days after the first bulletins of 20 children shot in Newtown, Conn. Whatever we find out about the thinking, habits and sickness of Adam Lanza, it was the evil one who sent him to kill those children. And evil is part of life.
But there are three obvious public policy ideas that come to the forefront after Newtown, and what happened there can push them forward quickly.
First, broadly, we must provide more treatment options for parents of children whom they know to be mentally unstable and potentially dangerous. If your child is hungry, you can get food. If your child breaks his leg, the hospital is there. But if your child is psychologically sick or mentally unbalanced and beginning to show signs of violent behavior, you're more or less on your own. We have to change this. We are making more sick teenagers and young men now, not fewer, and this is going to continue as our culture breaks up. I think we all know this, deep down.
Second, Congress should move quickly—really, right away—to ban something almost every member would ban next week if they were given a clean, short, unambiguous piece of legislation. Two years ago, after Tucson, I urgedPresident Obama to make such a bill a priority in his 2011 State of the Union Address.
A hot subject then was the polarizing nature of our political rhetoric. But I wrote:
Normal people are not afraid of a lowering of discourse in political speech. They don't like it, but it's not keeping them up nights. Normal people are afraid of nuts with guns. That keeps them up nights. They know our society has grown more broken, families more sundered, our culture more degraded, and they fear it is producing more lost and disturbed young people. They fear those young people walking into a school or a mall with a semiautomatic pistol with an extended clip.
What civilian needs a pistol with a magazine that loads 33 bullets and allows you to kill that many people without even stopping to reload? No one but people with bad intent. Those clips were banned once; the president should call for reimposing the ban. . . . The president should seize the moment and come out strong for a ban.
My reasoning at the time: many Republicans on the Hill were ambivalent at best about extended clips. Few would go to the wall to defend them. The problem, as I saw it, was the Democratic Party, which had overreached after the assassinations of the 1960s, talked about banning all handguns, and suffered a lasting political setback. (Bill Clinton bucked the trend and paid a price for it.) The Democratic Party got burned and didn't want to mention gun control anymore, even when it came to obvious things like extended clips.
My reasoning now: Newtown changes everything. Move.
What I fear is that the Democrats will overreach and put together some big, comprehensive gun bill that will bog down in useless disagreement, debate and acrimony. But they can get extended ammunition clips banned tomorrow with a brief and limited bill, and they can use that victory to gain momentum and launch a bigger debate on gun violence. A quick victory now would be good for the country: At least something good, one small thing, would have come from the disaster in Newtown, and would have come quickly.
Third, everyone who has warned for a quarter-century now that our national culture has become a culture of death—movies, TV shows, videogames drenched in blood and violence—has been correct. Deep down we all know it, as deep down we know our culture has a bad impact on the young and unstable who aren't sturdy enough to withstand and resist sick messages and imagery.
When Hollywood wants to discourage cigarette smoking it knows exactly how to do it, because it knows exactly how much power it has to deliver cultural messages. When Hollywood wants to encourage environmentalism it knows how to do it. But there's a lot of money to be made in violence…
Peggy Noonan is a writer. For twelve years she has been a weekly columnist for the Wall Street Journal. She is the author of eight books on American politics, history and culture. She was a special assistant to president Ronald Reagan, and before that was a producer and writer at CBS News in New York.
Email her at email@example.com


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Charlotteans will have a chance next month to suggest ways to strengthen the Citizens Review Board, which investigates allegations of police misconduct but has always sided with police in its 16-year history.
A task force made up of members of the Citizens Review Board and the Community Relations Committee is seeking to get feedback and suggestions from the community and groups of concerned stakeholders. The task force will present its findings to Charlottes city council, which will determine what changes, if any, to make to the Citizens Review Board.
If nothing else, I think this will be an educational exercise, Gregory West, chair of the CRB, told other members of the task force on Thursday. Were all a part of this. There might be ideas and suggestions we havent thought about.
In 16 years, citizens have filed 79 complaints about police misbehavior with the Citizens Review Board. But a Charlotte Observer investigation showed that the 11-member volunteer board, after meeting behind closed doors, first with the citizens, then with the police, has voted to dismiss almost every case without holding a hearing.
At an April meeting attended by dozens of sign-waving residents in favor of reforming the board, the city council voted to examine the mandate and powers of the CRB, a decision that could ultimately give residents a better chance of proving that theyve been victims of police misconduct.
Next months community forums are the first major step in that process. People can also submit recommendations online.
Gathering stakeholders
The task force will also meet with several stakeholder groups: the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department, students and staff at the Charlotte School of Law who have studied the board and recommended changes, and members of a coalition group that has advocated for reforming the board.
Were ecstatic that the city will be working with us as we move forward in this endeavor, said Matt Newton, a Charlotte defense attorney and one of the organizers of a group called CRB Reform Now. Part of the reason why we wanted to have a stakeholder group was because we wanted to gather a number of representatives from across the community.
People who feel theyve been victims of police misconduct can appeal to the CRB if they are not satisfied with the results of a CMPD investigation into their complaints. But residents who appeal to the review board must meet an unusually high standard of proof before the CRB will hold hearings on their allegations of police misconduct. The board has only held four hearings in 16 years. After each hearing, the board ruled in favor of the police.
The Citizens Review Board has little authority. It cannot take disciplinary actions against police officers or award damages to citizens. Board members can only advise the police chief and city manager if they believe CMPDs disciplinary decisions were serious mistakes.
In a memo to city council, Police Chief Rodney Monroe said he doesnt think the makeup or powers of the board need to be changed. He has told the Observer that he believes his department does a good job of policing itself, and that the CRB has been responsible for department policy changes that have held police more accountable.
Wootson: 704-358-5046Twitter: @CleveWootson
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Silos by James Hough
silo by Donovan Tillet
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Sidd at the Foot of the Silo by Steven Schutz
Silo ! by elfriede fulda
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How bout you stop lying and just tell everyone you could care less about them and you just want their money.
Solved! Go to Solution.
Do us a favor and stop spamming these forums. It makes it extremely difficult for the Community Connectors to help those with issues. It also makes it harder for them to deal with your issue.
I am sorry you are having issues with the PS3 bundle that was offered. It looked like a great deal, I know how you feel, having had a few of my orders cancelled due to backorder/stock issues.
If you really would like some help, I would suggest following the forum rules and waiting for a community connector to get in touch with you.
HA like they help, and just saying your from geek squad says a lot.... a whole lot, lol.
Hes right, dont waste your time. Its not like a Mod or Official Representative will read thing and take action on it. The Best Buy Customer Service Representatives will provide you with False Information and then not be accountable for their actions.
The Mods will not comment on your topic because they dont want to bump your topic back up to the top for the rest of the public to easily see, so they remain silent in the hopes that your topic will die and fall under the first page. Best Buy does not have the pride or integrity to own up to their own mistakes and it is the consumer who is hurt by their last minute actions. They will not offer you compensation because there is not enough of an outcry to warrant one.
If you have not already read my ordeal here: http://fsstarwars.com/2011/12/19/best-buy-screwing
You will see that a Customer Service Representative did not put forward the proper effort to find out information about my order and gave me FALSE INFORMATION, resulting in me cancelling my order. This lead to my 19 hour ordeal, jumping from representative to representative as they continually disconnected me trying to get me to give up. Best Buy has still not owned up to their mistake thus far.
So really, thinking that Customer Service is going to do anything for you isnt going to get you anywhere. But I do commend you no voicing your opinon, as we need more people to cry out against this kind of treatment.
Hey NateNakamura,
I took a look at your blog and have read a bunch of your posts regarding your experience pre-ordering Star Wars: The Old Republic. I'm really sorry for all of the bouncing around and unresolved phone calls you endured. I can understand how you would be upset having cancelled your pre-order off of some misinformation and I'm sure I would feel the same way.
Nevertheless, I was relieved to see that you ended up securing a copy from looking at your purchase history. I hope you're enjoying the game now and please let me know if you have any remaining concerns. I know it's been a while since you posted but I want to make sure everything was addressed.
Hello Kyle,
Thank you for your response.
I am, indeed, enjoying the game.
I still need to address, with Customer Service, as to why this situation occurred and why I was constatnly given the run around. However, due to the holiday season and the long hold times (sometimes disconnects), I have been unable to do so, thus far.
I hope to get in touch with a supervisor, in the near future, to address some of my concerns regarding the attitude of some of the Customer Support Staff members (and to commend the attitude of others) and bring a closing to this. Maybe, as the holiday season slows down, getting in touch with Customer Service will become easier.
Thanks for the quick follow up. I'm actually based out of the Best Buy Corporate campus and I would be happy to formally document all of your concerns regarding the overall experience. Feel free to send me a private message with any pertinent details you would like documented we go from there!


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Musings of an educator from Lawrence, KS. Obsessions include: Kansas Jayhawks, politics, women's rights, TV/movies, music, and books.
Catching Elephant is a theme by Andy Taylor
Normally, I write my short notes, but I'd like to dedicate some time to this issue with New Jersey Governor Chris Christie's othering of a teacher this past weekend at a political rally of his. Most of the coverage around this event has centered on the tenor politicians have set in their quest to reform &As Christie wags a finger at this woman, the crowd cheers, signaling a societal acknowledgment that politicians can lay waste to any courtesy towards anyone, and that democracy is overrated. Surely, dissenters get jeers at any rally, but this particular type of jeer further solidified the idea that teachers' rights are aligned withwomen's rights.
For those unaware, teaching has had the perception of "woman's work" for the better part of the last century. Without workers' rights and collective bargaining, some of the rights teachers have these days wouldn't exist. Yet, it seems clear that teaching as a woman-dominated profession would get accosted by a patriarchal government. The facts are clear: 85% of K-12 teachers are women and 80% of our government officials are men. Even with a margin of error of 5% (give or take), Christie's finger-waging of this teacher is not just symbolic of the attitudes against teachers, but women as a whole
An interesting take on the incident with Chris Christie this week. I think it could have been developed a little further, but very thought-provoking.
Is anybody else completely bothered by the way his wife is just grinning ear to ear as Gov. Christie berates that teacher?!
Even though suicide rates are climbing, the government continues to slash mental health budgets.Nationwide, the number of deaths by suicide surpassed the number of deaths by motor vehicle accidents in 2009, the most recent year for which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provided data.
Care to guess who's spear-heading the budget slashes? I'll give you a hint, they're Democrats.
Wait, you're going to reblog a post about how suicide rates in Kansas have risen 30% because of cuts to the mental health budget and then blame it on Democrats?! You do realize that the entire state of Kansas is controlled by the Republican party, right? Governor Brownback and his minions are the ones cutting the mental health budget. Doesn't have anything to do with President Obama and the Democrats.
It's pretty simple. Poverty is on the rise in Kansas because Governor Brownback is pushing more Kansans into poverty and doing nothing to help those already there.
Bryan Whitney is running against Tea Party schlub, Tim Huelskamp in the Kansas 1st. Huelskamp was unopposed in 2010 and so won a second term in the House of Representatives.
Here's a paragraph from the campaign flyer I picked up when I met him at the Kansas State Fair:
"Kansas deserves more than what they've been getting from their current representation. I will fight for the people of the Big 1st. I will fight for a good FARM BILL because the World needs food. I will fight for EDUCATION because our children deserve opportunity. I will fight for JOBS because the people of the Big 1st are not afraid of work. I will support the rights of RESPONSIBLE gun owners."
Go give the guy a "Like" and let's get started Cleaning the House!
This is one of those situations where anyone is better than Rep. Huelskamp.


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3 hrs ago | Customer Interaction Solutions
Lamborghini looks to accelerate after sales decline [China Daily: Hong Kong Edition]
For Andrea Baldi, managing director of Italian super sports car maker Automobili Lamborghini SpA in China, 2013 was still a successful year for the Raging Bull to record, though the company reported a sales decline from the previous best two years.
Trending on the Topix Network
7 hrs ago | Free Republic
The Need for Speed: LAPD introduce new Lamborghini 'squad...
With a starting price of $182,000, the 2014 Lamborghini Gallardo is the latest edition to the LAPD's fleet of vehicles, complete with traditional black and white paint and 'To Protect and to Serve' written on the sides, according to NBC Los Angeles.
Lambo's design chief discusses the stunning yet subtle Huracan supercar DNA
Fear not Lamborghini lovers, the Italian automaker still has its head on straight.
Understatement has never been Lamborghini's strong suit. Last year, the Italian exotic automaker feted its first 50 years with a pair of wildly over-the-top offerings: the $4 million Veneno and its $4.5 million open-air sibling, the Veneno Roadster.
Lamborghini CEO on New Supercar, the Hurac n
This is a very important car for us, because it is the replacement for the Gallardo, which was the best-selling Lamborghini in history: We sold more than 14,000 of them.
Experience The Geneva Motor Show's Greatness, See Deranged Tuner Cars
The great thing about the Geneva Motor Show is that it's largely about design. You'll see some of the most beautiful cars in the world, alongside some of the most outrageous abominations the supercar-tuning crowd has to offer.
The More Special Editions You Make, The Less Special They Are
Today's column examines the increasingly obvious automotive truth that your car isn't "special" just because it's a "special edition."
2014 Subaru Forester XT, Mass Transit Growing, 2016 Jaguar XE: What's New @ The Car Connection
From The Car Connection : 2014 Subaru Forester XT Six-Month Road Test: Ultimate Guide At one month into our 2014 Subaru Forester XT Six-Month Road Test, we're pleased to report we've settled into an easy rhythm with our Best Car To Buy 2014.
Lamborghini Design Chief Discusses The Huracan: Video
The Lamborghini Huracan LP 610-4 really is a sight to behold. Words and photos just cannot describe how good the car looks in person; clean surfaces, aggressive lines and muscular proportions are combined in a way that only Lamborghini's designers can achieve.
2013 Was the Year of the V-12 for Lamborghini as Sales Rise
Lamborghini's best-selling car ever may have been on its way out, but 2013 was still a record year for the small Italian automaker.
SmartTOP Convertible Top Control Module for Lamborghini Gallardo Spyder available soon
The add-on kit allows using the top with one-touch convenience while driving at slow speeds as well as controlling the top and windows from the original key fob remote.
Lamborghini Huracan Buzz Grows as Car Introduced at Geneva Motor Show
The 2015 Lamborghini Huracan LP 610-4 is drawing attention after being introduced at this year's Geneva Motor Show going on now.
Aventador sales drive record revenue at Lamborghini
Let it never be said that there isn't money to be made selling high-end exotic sports cars.
At The Car Connection we are continually striving to get you timely, relevant information about the vehicle you are interested in.
McLaren stops MP4-12C production
According to the guys at Piston Heads, who have spoken to McLaren Automotive's chief financial, officer, Richard Molyneux, the production of the MP4-12C has been stopped.
Car Design Review 1 has best of 2013 in lavish print and debuts at Car Design Night Geneva
March 11, 2014 Nissan's IDx and BMW's i3 have won the coveted Car Design of the Year award for 2013 cars in the concept and production categories respectively.
You do not talk about Driveclub's release date
Once slated to debut alongside the PlayStation 4 in November of last year, next-gen racer Driveclub has adopted a low profile, like a Lamborghini Aventador in the witness protection program.
Gumpert Tornante Supercar, Lamborghini Super Trofeo, V-8 VW Pickup: Today's Car News
Germany's Gumpert is back after an insolvency near-death experience, and one of the cars it has in the pipeline is a production version of its stunning Tornante concept from 2009.
Audi considering turbo option for longer, wider Huracan-based R8
Huracn was big news in and of itself, but equally as exciting is the imminent arrival of the Audi R8 , which the Huracn presages.
Lamborghini Huracan India Launch by mid-2014
India is no longer a laid back country with the poor getting poorer and richer getting richer, not at least on papers of the Indian government; but is been emerging as a new hub of business for many business houses and other such aspects.