Follwing a message I got from Curt (Time Machine Guy)…

When a Trend Isn’t Worth Pursuing, Even a ‘Magical’ Trend …Salvia divinorum or Salvy

You’ve probably heard of Magic Mushrooms, Peyote, and other hallucinogenic drugs.  They rose to prominence in the early 1960s and it seems young people, especially in the U.S., have been in search of the next product straight from Mother Nature that will give them a high …

Well USA Today recently ran a story on Salvia divinorum, a leafy plant better known by this moniker: magic mint.  It grows in remote Mexican villages and is a good cash crop for the poor farmers who live there.

The ITM had been seeing increases in the term as we tracked You Tube entries, blog posts and other articles about the magical mint.  But this is where the filtering process comes in.  At first we were very excited because of the sharp uptick in interest … and then we did some more research.

“By far and away the most potent naturally occurring hallucinogen.”  That was the description of “Salvy” (another nickname for the plant) from the head of a national drug screening program.  And before you think he’s just another right-winger who thinks the mere mention of natural drugs is ridiculous, he does see a benefit in using extract from the plant to relieve mental illness.

But we saw the writing on the wall.  Just because something is popular doesn’t mean it’s going to provide an avenue for profit.  And of course we would never advocate doing anything illegal – but that’s the thing: until recently the magical mint was 100% legal in the United States.  It still is in 39 states.  That has one of our research assistants fueling up his gas tank right no, but that’s another story …

When looking at products to capitalize on ideally we’re shooting for something with a little more ‘growth sustainability.’  In this case, this was one ‘magical trend’ we took a pass on.  This example emphasizes the importance of the screening process AFTER the raw data has produced an area of interest.