On Friday 10 December 2010, footage of Miley Cyrus smoking from a bong appeared online. In the clip, Cyrus laughs and talks to an unidentified woman who is filming the teen star. The bong was reportedly filled with salvia, a psychoactive herb that is legal in California.
On Friday afternoon, Cyrus' father, Billy Ray, took to Twitter to express his disappointment over the video. "Sorry guys. I had no idea," he wrote. "Just saw this stuff for the first time myself. I'm so sad. There is much beyond my control right now."
The video was reportedly filmed in Cyrus' L.A.-area home on 28 November 2010, just days after she turned 18. "Having a little bit of a bad trip," she laughs in the video, moments after taking a hit from the bong. Cyrus then looks off in the distance and asks, "Is that Liam [Hemsworth]'s lookalike, or what the hell is that? Is that my boyfriend?"
She then spends the next 90 seconds laughing uncontrollably while someone behind the camera asks her to "tell us your thoughts, girl, tell us what's on your mind!"
Legal experts weighed in, noting that Cyrus is not breaking the law in the video since she was of age and allegedly smoked the substance in a state where salvia is legal. "The video might be embarrassing to her, but it does not put her in any legal risk," Keith Stroup, legal counsel at the marijuana advocacy group NORML. "At the moment, salvia is not illegal in California, so even if she walked out on the street and smoked it in front of police, she couldn't be arrested. And the video of her smoking isn't enough to get her in trouble, because there's no proof she wasn't smoking tobacco."
"Salvia is a drug of concern," said Michael Sanders, a spokesperson for the Drug Enforcement Agency. "We are taking steps to look further into it."
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