Ok folks!! I thought it's about time I brought you a report on the current magic mushroom legal/political situation in the UK. I shall give you a brief run down:
Magic mushrooms have technically been illegal only when prepared ( as in frozen, dried or made into a tea ). There was however until a few years ago very little people selling fresh magic mushrooms, this changed when someone wrote to the home office enquiring about the legal status. The home office clarified what I mentioned above and included it was totally legal to grow, pick and sell fresh magic mushrooms, and ultimatly said it was up to the courts to deciede.
Since that time there has been an explosion of mushroom retailers ( the figure is about 400 we believe ). This has now caused some concern and there was a period when the police were making arrest's and a few court cases happened but so far to my knowledge there hasn't ben a successful prosecution. In a recent case the judge threw it out almost before it had began, remarking the law as it stands cannot hold mushroom sellers guilty of a crime.
The goverment has also been happily taking tax on the sale of mushrooms ( theres a good ole dose of hypocrasy for ya! )
So...... court case fails, David Blunkett ( the then home secretary )resigns and Charles Clark ( present home secretary )is appointed. First day in the job he announces a new drugs bill proposal. Part of this proposal is to outlaw all psilocin containing fungi whether fresh or dry and have it in class A category ( up there with heroin and cocaine ).
Upon this announcement members of www.magicmushroomforum.co.uk (http://www.magicmushroomforum.co.uk), Entheogen UK mailing list and Psychonaut UK mailing list began gathering idea's to campaign against this. Many letters to MP's and the home office have since been written with a varied response. The main thing to come out of it has been the formation of an organisation named 'The magic mushroom consumers group' ( www.magicmushroomconsumers.org (http://www.magicmushroomconsumers.org) ). Also in current formation is 'The magic mushroom retailers group' ( www.magicmushroomretailers.org (http://www.magicmushroomretailers.org) )
Soooo, the bill proposal has recently had its 2nd reading in the house of commons. From reading the transcripts from this talk it is apparent that there are a few sympathetic MP's that are ready to challenge the goverment. Although the ill informed stements from the 'anti's' are ignorant enough to drive the most immpecable pacifist to arms!
The next stage is that a 'select commitee' has been chosen, this commitee will discuss the bill proposal and advise MP's before they vote on the bill. It must be noted that the bill is not just about magic mushrooms, it concerns various other sections mainly centred on improving police powers in relation to drugs.
The MMCG and the MMRG are now in the process of creating a 'dossier' that will be sent to each member of the select commitee. The emphasis is on educating the commitee and the amount of information, research and hard evidence in our favour is huge. But whether we can rock the vote...we hope for the best! Upon the commitee are a few members that may be called 'sympathetic to our cause.
Well folks, that is how things stand at the moment, there is until febuary the 3rd before this commitee ends and alot of work is being done to ensure we can turn some opinions in the commitee. Any questions just fire away...I shall try to get back to you all but it may take some time, im very bust at present
I need not go through our arguements as it would take allday, for more information please visit:
www.magicmushroomconsumers.org (http://www.magicmushroomconsumers.org)
or
www.magicmushroomretailers.org (http://www.magicmushroomretailers.org) ( online within next 24 hours )
or
www.magicmushroomforum.co.uk (http://www.magicmushroomforum.co.uk)
Booooooooosh
fight the powers that be, bushy ;)
any updated news?
The commitee conclude on the 3rd of febuary. By then we may have osme news on whether there will be ammendments to the bill proposal. Should outlawing still bevery much on the agenda then our next place of attack will be the house of Lords. A bill proposal must pass through their house before it becomes law and we have a chance to stop it there if we can find support. We will keep you updated.
Booosh
It totally rocks, the effort you are putting into this law-reform on behalf of mushroom. We have almost won our battle for free weed in many parts of the world and i wish you good connections in moving us forward.
OK, the commitee has finished. The commitee stage is to propose ammendments to the bill proposal. The only amendment to clause 21 ( the clause on banning fresh mushrooms ) was to make them class C not A ( that still is 2 years for possession and 14 for supply...not good enough! )..that ammendment was rejected so its looking like they wanna make it Class A all the way ( life inprisonment ).
Whats more, The present home secretary Charles Clark recently confirmed that fresh magic mushrooms are currently legal ( although if he has his way they wont be soon ), however in recent weeks police have still been arresting and charging suppliers. How can this be, its insane!
Booosh
Next update: Goes to house of Lords on the 4th of April, it is hoped the lords will reject it..we shall see...the good bit though is that it is widely thought the bill will not get through because of the up and coming general election. If it's not through by the time the election comes the process goes back to square one ( and this time we will be even more prepared!).
There was some great news recently, De Sjamaan won his court case, not as well as he would have liked but it has furthur ramifications, check this post he made on the www.magicmushroomforum (http://www.magicmushroomforum) recently:
De Sjamaan wins court case!
Sorry for taking so long. I have been hit by a severe case of the flue after an exhausting period. But not without results. I have won the courtcase on magic mushrooms, but not to my satisfaction. Here's the deal:
The vice president of the INCB (International Narcotics Control Board of the United Nations) has declared the folowing under oath(in a nutshell)(hold on to your seat):
* Magic mushrooms do not fall under the 1971 convention on psychotropic drugs of the UN. They are not listed and do not fall under the control of the list. Nor fresh nor dried. Not even extracts of it. The UN has specificly not listed psilocybe mushrooms on the list.
* You can not make an illegal preparation of something which is not controlled. i.e. Psilocin and psilocybin are controlled. As long as you do not seperate these substances from the mushroom, no illegal substance can be made from psilocybe mushrooms. Dried mushrooms, packed mushrooms, etc are not on the list. If the lawmakers would have reasoned otherwise there would be no need to place cocaine and coca leaf on the list of controlled substances.Placing cocaine there would have been enough. An even better example is heroin, opium and a specific part of the papaver plant I do not know the english name of. All tree are listed seperate with reason. No other part of these plants are controlled.
* Governments that think the UN treaty on psychotropic drugs give need to control psilocybe mushrooms are mistaken.
* The CAM study is still accurate. New data did not lead to think psilocybe mushrooms are harmful to public health. The new study on psilocin by the UK Heffter institute & Zurich psychiatric hospital in fact added to fact that psilocybe are not harmful to public health. The INCB sees no reason to advise to control psilocybe mushrooms.
* The former is the vision of the INCB and the vice-president of the INCB.
* Before he went into office, the vice-president of the INCB was in his former position; the senior head-inspector of controlled substances within the Dutch government. This means he has been the person responsible for the controlled substances law (opiumlaw) in the Netherlands for about 20 years. Speaking from this experience he said that the supreme court has made an error when ruling dry mushrooms illegal.
Be aware that the INCB is the organ that has just slapped the USA for being to lacks on party drugs. They are very conservative and very high thought of. See their site for more info: www.incb.org (http://www.incb.org)
Differrent experts declared about psilocybe being unharmful and that there is no way of finding out if mushrooms have been dried on purpose or by a shed of sun / room temperature. I declared that they should come after me, not after my sales representatives who had my mushrooms, working for me.
My defense had many defense lines. My attourney and I worked hard on this. It had been a hard battle to get the UN in the courtcase as the DA wouldn't let us. Yeah, you've read that right. So this courtsession went well. Now here's the deal: the UN says the supreme court is wrong. This court (High court) is lower in rank than the supreme court. To rule against it would be like saying to your boss, that he's full of sh*t. Anyway, something not done. So we knew this would be a hard nut to crack. I took lots of media pressure with me. Alover the news on how shrooms are less harmfull then a beer, etc. Our case was very strong. We expected light punishment or victory. The aim was to go for the supreme court and legalise dry mushrooms.
One of our defense lines was there was no way of seeing how mushies are dried, police do not have enough expertise to judge what is dry, that there is no definition of dry and that prohibiting dry mushrooms leads to selling stronger drugs: fresh. I laid out a series of mushrooms ranging from ultra fresh to super dried in front of the judges. To let them say, where they become illegal. They repeatedly asked me to tell them, where fresh ended and dried started. Ofcourse I had no clue and told them that I was hoping for their clarification. They where not amused at that point.
I suspected that the high court would run for the door, instead of lashing at the supreme court. They did. They ruled that all charges where dismissed, because there was no evidence that the mushrooms where to dry or what a dry mushroom; i.e. illegal mushroom is.
This left us with an unsatisfied feeling. Yes, we won. My sales representative is free to go without punishment and I will can get the substantial amount of money that was lost with this case back. (laywer, court, witnesses expenses, confiscated mushies, etc)But the ruling did not say anything about the UN and that dry mushrooms are legal. We want to appeal, we dont care about the penalties & money, but appealing when you've won the case is not possible. My laywer is currently researching some rarely used law, to see if there is a possibility. I've done a press release anouncing several actions in the hope to motivate the DA to appeal. I do not think he's happy with the current ruling as it leaves the prosecution of dried mushrooms practicly impossible.
Here comes the most crappy part for the UK: since we won, the court feels no need to type out the testimonial of the vice-president of the INCB. But we need it desperate for the UK courtcases. My lawyer is trying hard to get this fixed. If it won't work, I'll try to get the Vice-president to put his views on paper. Either way. I'll let it be translated and then legalised by a authorised translator and get it to you.
Two thoughts I would like to underline are:
1. With such specific courtcases as on mushrooms, make sure you get a good, and very motivated attourney.
2. Do not underestimate the psilocibin study. It shows that the substance is unharmful, controlled in error and is done by a UK institute. On top of that it is fairly new.
My best, Ananda
For anyone wanting to read the whole thread, goto http://www.magicmushroomforum.co.uk/for ... =1811&PN=1 (http://www.magicmushroomforum.co.uk/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=1811&PN=1)
Boooosh
Anyone have a link to the study he refers to? I would very much like to read it.
I have read it Jacko, its called the CAM risk assesemnt. I shall try and link you to it, it's a PDF doc
Booosh
Damn lol, Soz Jacko, all that time and I had it on my own drive, how do I add an attachment here?
Bad news folks, I just watched the house of Lords liveo n the net like it was the world cup final! THings started well with 4 Lords totally discrediting the bill, they got things to a vote...and off course we lost( kind of rent a crowd goverment support appeared in the house when things got pushed to a vote ).
Magic mushrooms will soon be illegal in the UK
There is still hope, there action is illegal
Fuck em and there law
Booosh
Keep up tha good fight and do keep us posted-------- Good Luck- senorsal
High folks!
An update is way overdue so here goes, the UK goverment has made illegal psilocin containing fungi and placed it in class A ( alongside crack and heroin ). This came into force on july 18th.
That was the bad news ( of course ) the good news is sometime in august the EDF ( entheogen defence fund ) take the goverment to court in a judicial review. This will be a legal investigation into the law the goverment has passed and whether it was legal to pass this law. Whether the procedures put in place were followed.
If there is any good left in 'the system' they will throw this law out as it is an 'illegal law' that was pushed through parliment without proper scrutiny and proppelled with lies and propaganda. This lawis not in acordance with the EU convention on psychotropic plants upon which the UK must base their drug legislation.
It is hard to tell, but there s alot of hope that we will see this law quashed in the near future, if not then I will have lost all hope in any good or justice there may be in this society.
Booosh
I seriously wonder what type of criteria they base this law and subject
any harm or social problems related to psilocybin uses?
Even the hospitals must clearly show a slim percentage of psilocybin
od's or even intoxications these years or even in history!!
I'm amazed it was legal for so long even though there has been a mycophobia in europe for hundreds of years :!:
Well perhaps we coult technically free the shrooms!!!
Good luck, peace BushKilla
I felt the need to bring this one up again...even though I am yet to have much more news than last time. Information is imminent though and as soon as I know what is going on I will be sure to add it to this thread. The EDF suffered some technical issues with their website which wasn't good for the cause but the judicial review hangs in the balance...
Booosh
Hi all,
Could this thread be moved to the 'entheogen law' forum ? I'm a mod but dont know how to do such things lol ...lesson needed!
Yo Bush: Keep up the good fight... Since 'da powers 'dat be just assigned me mod status for the Entheogen Law Forum, I would agree this thread need to be placed there. Alas, senor knows not how to move threads... Ha, if'n ignorance is bliss, then senor is 'stoned-immaculate' :lol: ----------- sal
Well...I'll update you all on the situation,
The EDF had started the process of a judicial review against the goverment. With the help of the UK psychedelic internet community the EDF managed to raise £20,000 which was a victory in its own right. The solicitors they got told them they had a very good chance and indeed we did have science, evidence the lot on our side.
Well the EDF had a few serious hiccups in the build up to this that basically cripped the website from being updated and donations halted due to this. Infact we may have lost another £20k in donations going on the previous trend.
This hiccup that the EDF suffered is detailed on their site www.entheogendefencefund.org.uk (http://www.entheogendefencefund.org.uk) and other than the site not being updated also several thousand pounds were stolen.
The solicitors in recent weeks however have now come back to the EDF and said they dont have a good chance at all, quoting that the goverment had evidence ( The Hassler report...a small scale report showing increases blood pressure after psilocybin ingestion....will get link for you all soon bu the report is being seriously mis represented ) that went against our case...this however was not true Hasler himself was contacted and told the UK goverment were misrepresenting his study and pledged he would stand up in court and explain that his study really does not show a harm to public health of mushrooms.
Also, the solicitors told the various EDF members that it was a possibility even if they won they may have to pay some court fee's due to them having a vested interest. They also said that should we lose that all the fee's could be applicable to the EDF...that could mean house re-possession for EDF members.
It seems very strange to me that the solicitors said at the start we had a good chance and then at the end said we had a bad chance. I smell a rat..
Now the solicitors could have stitched us up just for the money..it's possible, maybe even probable but I am not so sure. What I see is that the whole legal system is very clickey, I dont know for sure but I have a feeling the solicitors may have been 'leaned on' on this one....there professional peers and circles may not have approved and they may have feared this was the case. I have no evidence but it does not seem like an unlikely possibility.
And since then we have heard not a single announcement from the EDF..what I report here im hearing on the grapevine through various sources.
But alas, whether the EDF are going to continue we are unsure. A possible solution is for the EDF to be ready for when someone first gets prosecuted for this, the law is not valid until someone is arrested,charged, found guilty and sentenced..followed then by al the appeal possibilities. The EDF could have a great role in offering and obtaining the best evidence and expert witnesses to help whoever happens to come up against the law on this...it only takes one win and the law will be revoked.
In the meantime it has been frustrating to all concerned that £20k has been wasted in this process.
There are also other possibilities and movements avaiable that people are working on.. it seems the battle for the judicial review has been lost the war however will go on.
Boooshpig
I'll take care of that for you, senor.