UK - Dried Peruvian Torch Shavings Legality

[ssnake110]

Well, SWIM has a few questions and I´m sorry if they´ve already been asked, but SWIM would like to be certain.

I read a topic here about the legal classification in the UK of dried Peruvian Torch shavings, and told SWIM who is wondering whether or not SWIM should go ahead with his plans on buying dried Peruvian Torch shavings from a source in Britain.

SWIM is a foreigner who is currently in Spain, and is planning a trip to the Netherlands with a friend (mate?) of his from Britain, and he would like to give the gift of dried cactus shavings to a friend of his for the purpose of incense creation.

The problem may be that customs in the UK, whose laws are unfamiliar to SWIM, may stop the shipment of dried Peruvian Shavings and confiscate said shavings, which would result in a substantial financial loss to SWIM. (especially with considerably unfavorable exchange rates as SWIM is an American)

A second problem presents itself, as SWIM will need to board 2 commercial flights on the way to the Netherlands, all originating in Spain and is planning on doing so with some Peruvian Torch shavings in carry-on luggage.

So SWIM´s two questions are, whether or not it is rare for customs to halt packages containing dried peruvian shavings.

And secondly (and this is of less concern to swim, as the Spanish are lesser narco-fascists than the English and generally less concerned about passangers on trans-national flights), whether or not it would be exceedingly unwise to travel with 100g of dried peruvian torch shavings on a transnational flight to the Netherlands.

I would appreciate any insight on whether or not anybody from mainland Europe has had packages confiscated by British customs that contain dried cactus shavings and whether or not they think it would be wise to travel with said packages on a transnational flight, so I can communicate all relevant information to SWIM.

Thank you all. Happy tripping.

[Bikelbees]

Why not just ask them to post straight there (AMS)? Whilst regular security checks for flying may draw attention to unfamiliar items, it seems unlikely that packages posted in the EU would regularly be checked in any event.

[sergei77]

Dried mescaline cacti are technically legal in the UK according to this court ruling, but it seems that Customs and police are in denial (or somehow see themselves as having the authority to override the law as interpreted by the courts) so packages might still be seized but prosecution is unlikely since it would almost certainly fail:

http://www.erowid.org/plants/cacti/cacti_law2.shtml

[jaffacake]

Bad news on this, Rudi Fortston a UK council gave his decision on whether dried cactus is illegal and he says they still are class A. None of the cases where people were let off have been subject to a decision by the Court of Appeal and in none of these "first instance" cases has the judge said that the decision of the Court of Appeal were wrongly decided. The Court of Appeal binds all lower courts. The Court of Appeal still rules that dried cacti are class A drugs.

[Bikelbees]

Originally Posted by jaffacake

Bad news on this, Rudi Fortston a UK council gave his decision on whether dried cactus is illegal and he says they still are class A. None of the cases where people were let off have been subject to a decision by the Court of Appeal and in none of these "first instance" cases has the judge said that the decision of the Court of Appeal were wrongly decided. The Court of Appeal binds all lower courts. The Court of Appeal still rules that dried cacti are class A drugs.

When did the Court of Appeal decide this? It is true that the Crown Ct decisions are not binding, but given that AFAIK the only case to make it to even the Crown Ct was thrown out after months of work by the CPS, it would seem irrational to pursue the same matter again, especially given the reasons for throwing out the other case were principally due to uncertainty in the law, how could it be more certain given that decision?

Personally, I wouldn't give much too weight to what Rudi Forston says on this, but that is due to the negative feedback I have been given about his "performance" in another drugs matter.

[Bikelbees]

Originally Posted by ssnake110

Well, SWIM has a few questions and I´m sorry if they´ve already been asked, but SWIM would like to be certain.

I read a topic here about the legal classification in the UK of dried Peruvian Torch shavings, and told SWIM who is wondering whether or not SWIM should go ahead with his plans on buying dried Peruvian Torch shavings from a source in Britain.

SWIM is a foreigner who is currently in Spain, and is planning a trip to the Netherlands with a friend (mate?) of his from Britain, and he would like to give the gift of dried cactus shavings to a friend of his for the purpose of incense creation.

The problem may be that customs in the UK, whose laws are unfamiliar to SWIM, may stop the shipment of dried Peruvian Shavings and confiscate said shavings, which would result in a substantial financial loss to SWIM. (especially with considerably unfavorable exchange rates as SWIM is an American)

A second problem presents itself, as SWIM will need to board 2 commercial flights on the way to the Netherlands, all originating in Spain and is planning on doing so with some Peruvian Torch shavings in carry-on luggage.

So SWIM´s two questions are, whether or not it is rare for customs to halt packages containing dried peruvian shavings.

And secondly (and this is of less concern to swim, as the Spanish are lesser narco-fascists than the English and generally less concerned about passangers on trans-national flights), whether or not it would be exceedingly unwise to travel with 100g of dried peruvian torch shavings on a transnational flight to the Netherlands.

I would appreciate any insight on whether or not anybody from mainland Europe has had packages confiscated by British customs that contain dried cactus shavings and whether or not they think it would be wise to travel with said packages on a transnational flight, so I can communicate all relevant information to SWIM.

Thank you all. Happy tripping.

The real problem here is what officials might do, whether they are justified or not. Part of the power of the law emanates from the fear of injustice. People are buying and selling these items throughout Europe quite openly, but customs still seize these items. One angle they have is the conservation laws, any cactus coming into Europe should have appropriate CITES/DEFRA (in the case of the UK) papers. However once in the EU, it should be cleared of that formality and free to move around. Nothing can g'tee that the authorities won't try to pin a drugs charge on you, but if there was any justice to rely on, they wouldn't get away with it.

[Evil GIR]

I guess they rely on the person caught to criminalise them selfs, as long as you denie doing anything wrong and they cant prove your doing anything wrong then they cant touch you.

Inother words keep a clean house, free from anythign illigal and chemicals, also keep a clean computer and dont admit to anything and they cant do anything.

[jaffacake]

dont admit to anything and they cant do anything.

Good advice, but the problem is whether or not the cops feel like making it an issue. If they do and you play hardball with them, then they will take you to Crown Court and if things don't work out for you the magistrate will give you the heaviest sentence he can possibly give you for fucking them about and not pleading guilty when you had the chance.

So instead of a £400 fine for pleading guilty, you could end up in jail.

[Bikelbees]

Advice needs to be thought through in possession of the facts. Some forum users seem v quick off the mark and this can be dangerous. The dont admit to anything is only good advice until you have had proper and considered advice. There are new possible defences being hatched all the time, but its true, if you go not guilty and fail, the consequences are usually worse. If anyone knows a drugs lawyer who knows all the latest ideas in this arena they should get a DF Medal award. Frankly I am dismayed that even the so-called best like Rudi Forston clearly are too weak to confront the court or to even give proper advice on appeals which can be justified "out of time".

[sergei77]

Originally Posted by jaffacake

Bad news on this, Rudi Fortston a UK council gave his decision on whether dried cactus is illegal and he says they still are class A. None of the cases where people were let off have been subject to a decision by the Court of Appeal and in none of these "first instance" cases has the judge said that the decision of the Court of Appeal were wrongly decided. The Court of Appeal binds all lower courts. The Court of Appeal still rules that dried cacti are class A drugs.

Am I missing something?

Where did Rudi Fortston say this?

Where did the Court of Appeal ever rule that dried cacti are class A drugs?

[Evil GIR]

Originally Posted by Bikelbees

Advice needs to be thought through in possession of the facts. Some forum users seem v quick off the mark and this can be dangerous. The dont admit to anything is only good advice until you have had proper and considered advice. There are new possible defences being hatched all the time, but its true, if you go not guilty and fail, the consequences are usually worse. If anyone knows a drugs lawyer who knows all the latest ideas in this arena they should get a DF Medal award. Frankly I am dismayed that even the so-called best like Rudi Forston clearly are too weak to confront the court or to even give proper advice on appeals which can be justified "out of time".

True, I should of mentioned, the amount of research i did and help I got too and all the paper work i handed in. As lomg as you know the law and have proof of passed cases then i dount it would go to court.

[Bikelbees]

Originally Posted by sergei77

Am I missing something?

Where did Rudi Fortston say this?

Where did the Court of Appeal ever rule that dried cacti are class A drugs?

Rudi Forston I am told said this to a would-be appellant.

The CA have never made such a ruling, but this opinion vests on the old view that governed the law on magic mushrooms, in that the preparation arguments were not explicitly limited to mushrooms and this were applied to anything altered by the hand of man. As many of us know, this was utter nonsense, and although counsel was advising some time ago, its a very weak stance. It is true that the courts could still prosecute under this test as the Crown Ct is not binding, but the concerns about that vest more in the uncertainty generated by having a hyper-zealous police force than any grounding in law or commonsense. Its for that reason I still cannot recommend that people openly engage in natural plant sources of DMT and mescaline because there is some plod out there who wants to charge you. There are very few if any enlightened members of the judiciary (they are not even aware of the damning evidence against the present attempts to control drug property), and if it gets to court you could be screwed, not least because of the hopeless state of events where specialist defence solicitors wouldn't know DMT from DDT and the barristers profession is equally as bad, IMO. We need to get this info out there, many people should not be advised to go guilty on drugs charges, and the legal profession should be pushing for ground-breaking defences - instead we see them citing old precedent as if was god-given. By the way, whilst I'm on the subject, I've recently been in touch with the QC who attempted the Article 9 religious freedom defence for a Rastafarian using/supply cannabis at appeal. He lost, and given the quality of his responses to me, I'm hardly surprised. Worse, he told me to forget about anyone finding any chink of light legally despite my confronting him with entirely rational but yet untested argument. With defeatists like that, and QC's charge up to £750/hr, then we have to blame the majority of lawyers for this state of affairs: they have not held the government to account for their irrational drug policy (which they could do legally), they are not interested in the subject and they are spineless.

[Evil GIR]

I wanna know is how can you apply a law to a fungi that is specifically mentioned ie; "mushrooms when dried are illegal, because they are a preperation" and then try to apply the same law to a plant that's not even specifically mentioned. If this was the case why do we have other plants specificaly mentioned by law.
The law dose not say in any form that when dry mescaline containing cacti is illegal or a preparation by the hand of man.I guess the only way they could get ya is through your own ignorance and I guess that's what they want.

Knowledge is power as they say.

[Bikelbees]

Originally Posted by Evil GIR

I wanna know is how can you apply a law to a fungi that is specifically mentioned ie; "mushrooms when dried are illegal, because they are a preperation" and then try to apply the same law to a plant that's not even specifically mentioned. If this was the case why do we have other plants specificaly mentioned by law.
The law dose not say in any form that when dry mescaline containing cacti is illegal or a preparation by the hand of man.I guess the only way they could get ya is through your own ignorance and I guess that's what they want.

Knowledge is power as they say.

Mushrooms were never mentioned as such in the specific context as to what actions constituted preparation of a plant containing drugs into a preparation (to use the verb as opposed to the noun, which seems to have confused those great legal minds) of a drug. As everyone should know, all those arguments which convicted people were flawed and later the govt scheduled mushrooms to make it crystal clear, but they did not mention cacti. So now you only have to look at a mushroom to be close on criminal intent - the drying nonsense, well as you know the Crown Ct threw that out last year, but they may try some other angle to ruin someones life with dried cactus or DMT plants.

[sergei77]

Rudi Fortston, in his limited understanding of the issue, is missing two things:

1) Cacti are not the same as mushrooms since they are not "prepared" in the same way, the "hand of man" test defined by case law requires that not only the fungus (or in this case plant) be altered by the hand of man but also that it be put into "a state in which it could be used". Dried cactus is not prepared for use, it requires further preparation (boiling etc.). You could argue that even though it is not fully prepared some preparation has taken place, but where do your draw the line? How "prepared" does something have to be before it becomes a "preparation"? It would be too unclear to enforce and in violation of the principle of legal certainty (Article 7 HRA).

2) In any case, the law with regards to dried magic mushrooms had been totally misinterpreted, I've gone over this a million times, but simply the fact that it says "preparation or OTHER product" containing a controlled substance means that a product is one of many things which can be a preparation, otherwise it would simply say "preparation or product". So when they interpreted preparation and product as being two distinct and mutually exclusive things they were already wrong to start with.

The likes of Rudi Fortston just want to go along with this historical misinterpretation even when they have a chance to finally bury it for good. If my dear friend had taken his advice things would have turned out very differently for him.

[sergei77]

And my friend mentioned above had his dried Peruvian Torch cacti returned by the police right to his doorstep (albeit over a year later!), I couldn't imagine this happening if they really cosidered them Class A drugs.

[FuBai]

They [dried San Pedro cactus skin chips] are still openly sold in smart shops in my area, and the living cacti plants (San Pedro, Peruvian Torch, Peyote) are legal to own etc. In fact I'm pretty sure there are some fine examples in the Windsor Castle gardens. My understanding was that it only becomes illegal once it is prepared in some way, like into the mescaline drink thing as that constitutes preparing the substance for ingestion, whilst they are called Botanical Samples when in chip form. I'm not sure if preparation per se is the thing that makes it illegal, but rather the translation from Botanical Sample to a preparation designed for ingestion.

[Bikelbees]

Originally Posted by FuBai

They [dried San Pedro cactus skin chips] are still openly sold in smart shops in my area, and the living cacti plants (San Pedro, Peruvian Torch, Peyote) are legal to own etc. In fact I'm pretty sure there are some fine examples in the Windsor Castle gardens. My understanding was that it only becomes illegal once it is prepared in some way, like into the mescaline drink thing as that constitutes preparing the substance for ingestion, whilst they are called Botanical Samples when in chip form. I'm not sure if preparation per se is the thing that makes it illegal, but rather the translation from Botanical Sample to a preparation designed for ingestion.

I'm not sure if intention to ingest makes the difference, ingestion was never the point with the drying of mushrooms which were legal to ingest anyway. Even with a glass of such a refreshing cactus beverage, I'm still be thinking, hang on, can this be illegal? It would be a preparation of cactus would it not, not a preparation of mescaline? A preparation of mescaline to my mind would be a salt or other substance derived from mescaline, or possibly a plant-based near-on pure extraction.

[sergei77]

If intention to ingest would make the cactus a preparation then all the fresh magic mushrooms that were sold explicitly for this purpose prior to the change in the law would have been also deemed preparations, but this was not the case.

[The Secret Farmer]

You can buy dried Peruvian torch in the UK from licensed retailers. It can't be class A in the same way a San Pedro or Peyote cactus isn't class A, just the mescaline you can extract from them. SWIM would advise your friend to buy them in the UK himself, rather than risk bringing heat from customs by importing.