A Rising Blight on Natural Incense

I'm a fairly upset incense maker today. Yes, the issue of another author plagiarising me is still on-going as my publisher takes the appropriate legal steps to resolve the problem...but it's still upsetting. I'm upset at this moment for a completely different reason. "Herbal incense". That's what I make, that's what I teach others to make, and what thousands of hobbyists and professional incense makers around the world create daily. That term has been hijacked by a new, and certain to be fairly short-lived, industry. People selling herbal-substitutes for cannibis have chosen this completely FALSE name to market their products. It is a simple case of "gray market" products attempting to "piggy back" on legal, legitimate products. First let me say that I fully support legalizing cannibis. It is a natural, herbal, gift from Mother that is far less dangerous than alcohol or other such substances. That's not at all what this issue is about. The sellers of this material are, in fact, selling a combination of herbs (and often a variety of chemicals as well) to intoxicate people (almost exclusively minors or very young adults) with very questionable substances. There are tons of mind-altering, legal herbs out there and you don't need to go to a "head shop" to buy them. A number of states have banned these substances, but in many cases the producers simply change the banned ingredient to something else and it's suddenly legal again - until legislatures go back and add the new substance to the banned list. The simple fact is that NOBODY burns these materials as incense. They are manufactured, marketed, and sold with the express intent that they will be SMOKED. Sorry, but that's not "incense" which is defined as "something burned for its scent". Real incense is never smoked. Why do I care? Well, for one I am concerned about the safety of those who smoke these materials. Most are very young and ignorant of what they are smoking and what it could do to them. Beyond that, I am very concerned about the long-term impact to legitimate incense makers. At some point, it seems likely to me that state governments, perhaps even the Federal government, will start to put bans in place. If those bans are not carefully written, they could easily result in legitimate incense being banned as well. Throwing the baby out with the bathwater is an easy solution compared to the challenge of drafting legislation that would keep our incense legal while banning the crap sold in headshops for kids to smoke. To that end, beginning next week I plan to begin writing to my legislators, both state and Federal, about this issue and the importance of protecting genuine incense while also protecting our youth from unknown dangers of unregulated smoking products. Once I have a letter drafted, I will post it for others to use if they desire. We are a very small industry in America and have long "flown under the radar" but I now see a huge danger looming on the horizon. Companies like Juniper Ridge and Fred Sol might find themselves without products to sell. Companies like Shoyeido, Baiedo, and Nippon Kodo, might find themselves forced out of North America. Perhaps it's finally time for our industry to step into the public eye and speak out against these smoking "incense" companies and make our case before blanket bans on "herbal incense" begin to appear.