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 veggie
Registered: 07/25/04
Posts: 17,504
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 Last orders for magic mushroom enthusiasts [UK] 
#4334711 - 06/25/05 12:38 AM (18 years, 9 months ago) |
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Last orders for magic mushroom enthusiasts
June 25, 2005 - guardian.co.uk
Bad news for psychedelic fungi fans. There are just 24 more shopping days before magic mushrooms are declared illegal - and that's official.
Ignoring pleas from mushroom retailers and consumers, the government yesterday announced that clause 21 of the Drugs Act 2005, reclassifying psilocybe mushrooms as a class A drug alongside heroin and crack cocaine, will come into force on July 18.
From that date, importation, possession or sale of magic mushrooms will be punishable by a life sentence, effectively outlawing sales via market stalls, head shops and the internet.
Laying the statutory instrument before parliament, the Home Office said the only exception would be for wild mushrooms, growing on uncultivated land.
Landowners who are unaware they have a controlled substance, or who pick the mushrooms with the intention of delivering them to the police, will also be exempted.
Transform, the drug policy group which has been a vocal critic of clause 21, immediately condemned the Home Office's decision, saying the exemptions did little to clarify what it considered flawed legislation.
"How is someone supposed to know what is uncultivated?" asked Transform's director, Danny Kushnick. "This has nothing to do with clarifying the law or goods drugs policy. It's simply about shutting down vendors who have been selling mushrooms."
The Entheogen Defence Fund, a group set up to protect the interests of mushroom retailers and consumers, said the announcement would make no difference to its campaign to have clause 21 overturned through judicial review.
Declaring criminalisation of magic mushrooms a retrograde step, it predicted the reclassification would simply encourage more youngsters to try ecstasy, LSD, heroin and cocaine.
"The sale of 100,000 kilos of magic mushrooms per annum has had a big impact on the reduction of the illegal use of soft and hard drugs," said EDF's chairman, Mike Bashall. "Expect more crime and more deaths related to illegal drugs."
Backed by Dutch wholesalers, for whom the UK has become a lucrative export market for psychedelic fungi, the EDF has raised ?10,000 to challenge the British legislation. It points out that in the Netherlands the sale of magic mushrooms is legal and says that clause 21 could be in breach of European Union law making it illegal to place restrictions on free trade except in specific circumstances, such as for the protection of health and life.
Caroline Flint, the Home Office minister, who spearheaded the legislation through parliament shortly before the general election, said mushrooms could trigger psychosis and there was evidence users could be at risk of self-harm.
However, a Dutch study found no evidence to link magic mushrooms with psychosis and said that mushrooms did not lower users' violence threshold.
Since consumption usually took place at home or in the open air, "there is no inconvenience to other people," it concluded.
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SuperD
Cacti junky
Registered: 10/05/03
Posts: 6,648
Loc: The bridgesii bridge
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Re: Last orders for magic mushroom enthusiasts [UK] [Re: veggie]
#4335292 - 06/25/05 07:36 AM (18 years, 9 months ago) |
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<<Landowners who are unaware they have a controlled substance, or who pick the mushrooms with the intention of delivering them to the police, will also be exempted.>>
There's the loophole you UK Shroomerites have been waiting for. "But officer, these 3 pounds were being delivered straight to the police station!"
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    D
Manoa said:
I need to stop spending all my money on plants and take up a cheaper hobby, like heroin. 
Looking for Rauhocereus riosaniensis seeds or live specimen(s),  me if you have any for trade
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ZippoZ
Knomadic
Registered: 06/17/03
Posts: 13,227
Loc: Pongyang, North Korea
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Re: Last orders for magic mushroom enthusiasts [UK] [Re: SuperD]
#4335603 - 06/25/05 10:54 AM (18 years, 9 months ago) |
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yay, thats almost as good as the fiske v.s. florida clause 
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PEACE
 zippoz
"in times of widespread chaos and confusion, it has been the duty of more advanced human beings - artists, scientists, clowns, and philosophers - to create order. In such times as ours however, when there is too much order, too much m management, too much programming and control, it becomes the duty of superior men and women and women to fling their favorite monkey wrenches into the machinery. To relieve the repression of the human spirit, they must sow doubt and disruption"
"People do it every day, they talk to themselves ... they see themselves as they'd like to be, they don't have the courage you have, to just run with it."
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kake
The answer to1984 is 1776.
Registered: 05/06/99
Posts: 2,782
Loc: The 66th harmonic
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Re: Last orders for magic mushroom enthusiasts [UK] [Re: SuperD]
#4339281 - 06/26/05 01:25 PM (18 years, 9 months ago) |
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Quote:
SuperD said:
<<Landowners who are unaware they have a controlled substance, or who pick the mushrooms with the intention of delivering them to the police, will also be exempted.>>
There's the loophole you UK Shroomerites have been waiting for. "But officer, these 3 pounds were being delivered straight to the police station!"
I was thinking the same thing.
That is hilarious as well, I mean, whoever is going waste their time picking mushrooms just to bring them to the police deserves to be pimpslapped with some enlightenment. With this logic, it would be analogous to the government encouraging people to go out into the woods and gather poisonous plants and bring them to the police. Even if there are souls out there that would go out on their land to pick the mushrooms, can't they just let these wackjobs destroy them on their own, throw them away, or otherwise? Seriously, I cannot see anyone but the craziest of the crazies doing something like this.
Just another case in point that these government officials are severely delusional.
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The answer to 1984 is 1776.
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