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Chiefbluntsmoker
peace and loveis all we got
Registered: 03/29/06
Posts: 55
Last seen: 16 years, 9 months
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Mushrooms and the mail
#5891849 - 07/23/06 06:45 PM (17 years, 7 months ago) |
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Hey guys i live in michigan and my friend lives in tennesee, He recently has been finding a few cubensis here and there, and i am really into the sciene of mushrooms and am very interested in viewing a few of them close up and under a microscope. Anyways is it dangerous to send in the mail? i mean i planned on not having him do a return adress and i figured on using a bogus name with my adress. I mean i just want to study these for scientific purposes but the local pigs might think differently. Anyways im in michigan hes in tennesee, wut yall think too risky?
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eris
underground
Registered: 11/17/98
Posts: 48,024
Loc: North East, USA
Last seen: 6 months, 6 days
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Done it before.. it worked. Don't make it stick out or look bulky and it should be ok.
-------------------- Immortal / Temporarily Retired The OG Thread Killer My mushroom hunting gallery
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some1whoisntme
Stranger
Registered: 09/21/05
Posts: 882
Last seen: 9 years, 1 month
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For microscopic viewing, have him send you a pre-mounted slide labelled as something else. ;-)
-------------------- "Ignore the distortion you're forced to percieve and believe that what supercedes is love, but who agrees?"
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Le_Canard
The Duk Abides
Registered: 05/16/03
Posts: 94,392
Loc: Earthfarm 1
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It should be okay, as long as he packs them up good in a well-wrapped box. A few will probably get through, although if you're talking quantities, that'll be a bit iffy.
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lIllIIIllIlIIlIlIIllIllIIl
Stranger
Registered: 12/16/04
Posts: 11,123
Loc: Texas
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Does your buddy have a vacuum bagger? Those would work good and keep them fresh for your observations.
Failing that, cut the zipper off a zip-lock back and use a lighter to seal it up. Glue the sealed bag with the specimens into sheets of cardboard and use that as packing for something else.
You are best off if the specimens are well dried, and the smaller the pieces the more tightly you can pack it. Powdered isn't a bad idea either, but then you won't be able to tell the different parts under the microscope.
Not that I suggest you ship cubes since that's definately illegal. But if you had some nice morels or chanterelles it would probably work decently.
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905
Stranger
Registered: 08/26/02
Posts: 790
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USPS get suspious with no return address, ever since the anthrax in the mail trick.
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cougercruiser
reality is whatyou make it~
Registered: 10/05/04
Posts: 538
Loc: Cali
Last seen: 4 years, 9 months
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Re: Mushrooms and the mail [Re: 905]
#5892092 - 07/23/06 07:43 PM (17 years, 7 months ago) |
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never had a problem~ ship priority
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Iamthewalrus
every evening Idied and everynight I wasreborn
Registered: 03/24/04
Posts: 3,744
Loc: Ontario
Last seen: 15 years, 5 months
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I've sent reg mail from canada to the usa(8gs dry I believe) I crushed them up as well as possible and put polyfil around...no probs other then being begged for more
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WakeboardrB
Pepe Silvia
Registered: 05/18/03
Posts: 13,678
Last seen: 11 years, 8 months
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It is especially easy to send boomers through USPS. The main reason is that there is no real identifiable odor that can get you popped in the event of a random K9 sweep. I've had great success with just bone dry "specimens" in zip lock bags, wrapped in saran wrap.
The nice thing about the US postal system is that during the process of shipping, packages remain the property of either the sender or receiver (I can't remember who, more than likely the sender until it arrives). That means that since it is your property, it requires a warrant or probable cause for actual search. Now say if you are sending improperly sealed marijuana through USPS and Law Enforcement decides to run drug dogs through the mail sorting facility one day, then there is a good chance the package is going to get flagged and searched.
Since drug dogs aren't specifically trained to detect the scent of mushrooms, there is very little chance of your package being flagged.
Now stay away from places like Fedex, UPS or DHL. Since they are privately runned companies as opposed to Federally run, the rules are different for individuals rights concerning packages. Once you give a private company your package, they are basically assuming possession of it until it arrives at it's destination.
This is a bad thing as far as illicit activities go. Now they have full rights to do whatever they want to your package as long as it doesn't violate their personal guidelines. That gives private shippers much greater power to search and report if necessary ANY package going through their facilities.
So, since it was so nice of the Federal Government to protect our "shipments" and lower the risk of us getting popped, you do have a downside. If your package is caught, then you stand a greater chance of being prosecuted for mail fraud in addition to any possession or trafficking charges you are already facing.
That being said, the obvious choice is through USPS.
I don't feel like writing much more so I'm going to sum up the rest of it.
Use First class shipping through USPS if necessary. Since first class mail is usually ground based only, it's not subject to the added scrutiny like air shipped priority or express mail. (With mushrooms this isn't too much of a problem).
Use a fake return address that has a zip code close to the location you ship from. If a post office clerk accepts a package with a zip code that is not familiar to them, it might get the package flagged for more scrutiny due to suspicion.
Now what I did was I would take a bubble wrap mailing envelope and put a stack of folded computer paper in it to fill out the package. Then I would stick a vacuum sealed bag of whatever goodies in it. I would use the address of a local small business picked from random and then put the bubble envelope in one of the post office sealed mailers just to make it look as plain as it could.
Now I did that for small bags. Larger shipments with mushrooms had only one main rule.... no more than 5 pounds per box.
-------------------- Same thing happened to me when I played Neil Armstrong in Moonshot. They found me in an alley in Burbank trying to re-enter the earth's atmosphere in an old refrigerator box.
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