Sale of Pealed Cacti Skins = ALL TRICHOCEREUS Sp. ILLEGAL

[laughingwillow]

Sorry to hear you don't feel you have ever been treated well at spf. And I mean that.

I'm still curious as to the FF. Was that one of hippie3's sites?. Not to be confused with forest floor?

Thanks for shedding some light on your id, too. I remember the nick.

lw

[EA-1306]

Soulsvr I think was the guy, I am not sure if that is Hippy3, I kind of doubt it. but maybe. Given some of the wiccan stuff, it might have had something to do with Nan, but I doubt that too.

I might be mistaken about you being there, but I was pretty sure, it was an entheobotany site. Not much myco hat I recall. It has a lot of the same folks that are here.
Here are their archives
http://entheogen.netfirms.com/main/main.html
Maybe it will look familiar, it is gone now.

[laughingwillow]

Naw, I'm guessing you're giving me credit for somebody else's kindness back in the day. I peeped that site and it was new to me. But then, I don't get out much.

Anyway, sorry for treating you shabbily, EA.

lw

[CJ]

EA, you are Anholonium?? Believe it or not,I`ve wondered about you. I `m not inclined to go into all the  'this or that',but one thing I did notice then, is that you addressed me, and that you truly knew more than a thing or two. Actually, I rather respected you because you did seem to know quite a bit, a but didn`t involve yourself in some other things... I quess we all have a private orientation on our perception of others. I simply thought you were a reserved individual who would still extend himself . I learned from you.

     I may not be ageeing  w/ you on issues here,but I`m glad to see you around, and do respect your knowledge of cacti.

[EA-1306]

Thanks.

I learned a lot from others.
Its reciprocity I guess.

I feel dumb now too, for even mentioning my objections and opinions. As I thought about your words in this thread this weekend, they helped me learn as well.

I am just a fool after all...  :roll:

[CJ]

The las` part, naw.

     I`m of course only speaking for meself,but there was a practical level,and a 'extreme' level this thread was running. To me.

     The practical,which you seemed to espouse, is something I can always hang w/,or at least would want to understand...

[laughingwillow]

LOL I guess practicality isn't one of me strong suites, eh brotha-cj?.

EA: This is how we get to know each other, imo. I don't think it would be near as as interesting if'n we all agreed on everything.  

lw

[space]

EA:  Spiritplants is esp. rich in critical intelligence--not the criticizing, pick-it-apart, carping kind, but the sort that picks up a proposition and turns it round and round, looking for both seams of gold and the shine of fool's gold.  I've never had my mind changed so often as when I am hanging here.

Don't let my love of spirited debate mask the fact that we agree on much, including the wisdom of tact and discretion.  I meant what I said about respecting your perspective and integrity.

On the issue in this thread, my main dissent is on timing and blame (I am not ascribing those to your personal point of view):  it's like trying to put the genie back in the bottle after the wishes are granted, and then blaming the genie for wanting to stay free.  

Both spiritual forces (the will to experience) and market forces (the will to supply) make it pretty unlikely that the cacti genie will go along quietly, and I wanted mostly to point out related disagreements are not moral issues or violations of spirit.  

Our world thirsts for transcendence, and our plant allies pose this dilemma over and over:  slaking that thirst breeds popularity, and popularity attracts repression.  We do need folks to do the quiet work of keeping traditions and species alive, but the ancient traditions were by and large not elitist.  The shaman was a member of an elite, but he/she was a gatekeeper to the society at large, not just a few.  And the right ally can crack your head open even if you were just looking for a good time.

The question only arises because of repressive forces; in a better world, we could merely disagree about species ID and soil pH ... about which I know very little!

[laughingwillow]

Great points, spacey.

I sure missed you around here this last while and a half.

I think the topic of elitism, as mentioned by spacey is an interesting byproduct of this thread. Maybe the most interesting, imo. At least at this point.....

Looking back on what we've been told of practices related to entheogens, it would appear to me that the traditional role of shaman, at least in some cultures, was historically occupied by misfits, at least from the perspective of the mainstream culture, who were feared and maybe even shunned socially. ALso, I think there are prolly more examples of ancient cultures that relegated and guarded their spiritual practices through a strict ruling heirachy of priests and priestesses.

The feasts and orgies of Dionesian origin would appear to be one of the few examples I know of consumption of sacraments by the general population. The author, Joseph Campbell was said to have compared a dead show to the ancient rituals/festivities. I'd really be interested in learning more about that era and those practices.

lw

[CJ]

No Lw,I think you are very practical,from what I know.

[Green2Herman]

I dont really see how the current strategy of banning certain plants can last. First of all it at least for me seems like a relationship exists between "strong" mind affecting plants and their usefullness in other situations.

A good for example would be CB in cancer treatment, both as have been noted the last 3 years as a cure for certain cancer forms and also for releaving certain negative effects of other treatments. Forbidding a plant that holds a cure are hard when the effect gets more well known even if legal alternatives exists.

Also and more important quite a lot of plants seems to be mind affecting. Cinnamon, persley, dill. You name it. A lot of ornament flowers in our gardens and a lot of spices are active.

I am quite sure that as we collect knowledge about active plants it will in the end show that most plants are active and some way or another. This posses a practical problem with banning plants just because they are used for mind affecting properties.

[Green2Herman]

I dont really see how the current strategy of banning certain plants can last. First of all it at least for me seems like a relationship exists between "strong" mind affecting plants and their usefullness in other situations.

A good for example would be CB in cancer treatment, both as have been noted the last 3 years as a cure for certain cancer forms and also for releaving certain negative effects of other treatments. Forbidding a plant that holds a cure are hard when the effect gets more well known even if legal alternatives exists.

Also and more important quite a lot of plants seems to be mind affecting. Cinnamon, persley, dill. You name it. A lot of ornament flowers in our gardens and a lot of spices are active.

I am quite sure that as we collect knowledge about active plants it will in the end show that most plants are active and some way or another. This posses a practical problem with banning plants just because they are used for mind affecting properties.

From this of course comes that in preserving sacred plants not only information about their spiritual properties can serve a function, but also to introduce them in other contexts as treatments, spices and ornaments. Common active and sacred plants as Morning Glory and Tree Datura will not be forbidden because they exists in plenty as ornament flowers. Poppy is also in a lot of countries not forbidden to grow in your garden since it already is a common ornament flower.

[visionarybear]

i believe the trichocereus genus to be in the same light, countless ornamentals and landscaping cacti exist everywhere, illegalisation would be near impossible w/ any practicality, aswell as id, how would an un-interested neighbour know the tricho genus from a cereus genus? i could invision a array of false acusations streaming to the authoities until ppl lose interest and it pretty much goes back to the way it is...

would anyone suggest there is a large illicit market for mescaline/cactus? not to say for personal use/growth, but as in sold commonly on the streets?

on the topic of whether to police or not to police sale of dried cactus, i think it is best for s all to use our best judgement wether or not to buy such products,
common sense is important, esp wen dealing with borderline products...

also, i can see that w/ policing, vendors who choose to take down the product will most likely be the conserving grower who wont be pilaging natural stocks, where as the seller that refuses, only wants the dollars from the sales, and in restricting availibility, it pushes the prices up and if the 'bad' vendors are left, nothing is achieved as the demand still exists...

our best judgements are the best thing we can go on for ourselves, because then you can be pure and sincere to your actions rather than 'trying' to do the ight thing by somebody else...

vb~

[Green2Herman]

i believe the trichocereus genus to be in the same light, countless ornamentals and landscaping cacti exist everywhere, illegalisation would be near impossible w/ any practicality, aswell as id, how would an un-interested neighbour know the tricho genus from a cereus genus? i could invision a array of false acusations streaming to the authoities until ppl lose interest and it pretty much goes back to the way it is...

would anyone suggest there is a large illicit market for mescaline/cactus? not to say for personal use/growth, but as in sold commonly on the streets?

on the topic of whether to police or not to police sale of dried cactus, i think it is best for s all to use our best judgement wether or not to buy such products,
common sense is important, esp wen dealing with borderline products...

also, i can see that w/ policing, vendors who choose to take down the product will most likely be the conserving grower who wont be pilaging natural stocks, where as the seller that refuses, only wants the dollars from the sales, and in restricting availibility, it pushes the prices up and if the 'bad' vendors are left, nothing is achieved as the demand still exists...

our best judgements are the best thing we can go on for ourselves, because then you can be pure and sincere to your actions rather than 'trying' to do the ight thing by somebody else...

vb~

Here in Sweden it is to cold to cactii to be ornament outside and the more well known psychoactive cactii are not sold at the stores although not illegal. The police are trying to get room in the media for banning both peyote and San Pedro. I try to spread cactii as gift among a lot of people. San Pedro but also others not that well known. Small steps in a war that have lasted 1000 of years.

Although I dont really see the point of forbidding Peyote and San Pedro even if you buy the enemies arguments. We know a lot of cactii are psychedelic and even more in some way mind affecting. Personally I beliave that probably most cactii are psychedelic. Forbidding these two species will only move missuse to other species which could for the less knowledge users be less safe, while it will not affect spiritual use of San Pedro and Peyote in the way that the policy think (that is I beliave that spiritual users grow their own San Pedro not buying it over the border or in other ways that are easy to policy, but the ban would probably increase social cost for court cases and increase personal stress for a lot of people).

A point would maybe be that spread of cactii as living stock to people that will grow it long term for personal use are good because it makes a more total ban harder. Although any profit giving enthogen business probably adds something by it self since the war for enthogen plants do need money for affecting legislation.

[flip]

The DEA's Microgram is out and it's full of interesting goodies
That make it past the filtering that edits out all the really interesting stuff.
The latest one is from (May 2005 -before this thread started).
That edition took two months to make it out of the editing process.

http://www.usdoj.gov/dea/programs/foren ... index.html

Read about the cacti chips that the local lab in Illinois got....
As said before the main federal lab has gotten many other samples.

it's also worth noting that there are no arrests or other data
on the source of the (leftover?) 25 grams of chips.
They could have been obtained from a minor, their parents,
or someone that is "cooperative".  

I view this as the DEA's notification method to it's agents
to search and report such "chips". it's data collection to gauge the problem.
it's the same thing that preceded emergency scheduling of the early RC's GHB and others.

I'll leave the rest for this forum to discuss.