Magic Mushroom Ban a fact in UK!

[unico_walker]

Whats this coming smoking ban in the UK?

[Montgolfier]

You mean in the Pubs?

[billbong]

I think and hope there will be a few defiant ppl still distributing mushies over the net. well i fucking hope they dont get busted, probly will tho

[a-SalviaLover]

I hate prejudice. These people make me sick. The danger of using these shroomz is minimal. The are harmless for your organism and are given to us by mother nature. If she has decided that they should exist this means that they have thair place on the world. No one has the power to ban what is created by powers wa stronger than us. The problem of these freaks is that they might lose their power over us. Shroomz make you go out of the borders of the ordinary life. They make me hate the city, its noise, these money thirsty beasts who want to cheat so thay can earn on your back. The agression of our society. That's what mushroomz kill. And the ability to control your mind through laws and media. Thats why mushroomz are dangerous - thay will lose the control they have over you even if you don't notice that they control you. Doesn't matter, shroomz are good. I like them! Very much.

[Montgolfier]

Unclassified, class A, Class B, Class C - doesn't matter, I'' still pick em and eat em


I actually blame the greedy 'head shops' on this one, if they hadnt have drawn un-needed attention to these plants by selling them all over the internet to kids etc then they would probably still be in that legal 'grey area'


Well done UK government - another of natures plants has made its way onto the black market thus creating more stigma and crime.

[enquirewithin]

I think the only prosecutions will be people selling them openly. I can't imagine there being police lurking in the woods, waiting to pounce on unwary mushroom pickers!

[Prince_Charles]

"
I think the only prosecutions will be people selling them openly. I
can't imagine there being police lurking in the woods, waiting to
pounce on unwary mushroom pickers!"



I know of one recent case in the UK where the police were called to a
noisy party and discovered a pile of fresh mushrooms, for which the
owner was arrested and charged. It hasn't come to court yet, but could
be very serious.<>1unction PrivoxyWindowOpen(a, b, c){return(window.open(a, b, c));}

[cannabis man]

in the words of timothy leary 'they have outlawed the number one vegetable on the planet'

[wovotom]

Class A now....wtf!!!!!how can they actually justify an a class justification blo!!!tis just stupid

[Alfa]

Originally Posted by Prince_Charles

I know of one recent case in the UK where the police were called to a noisy party and discovered a pile of fresh mushrooms, for which the owner was arrested and charged. It hasn't come to court yet, but could be very serious

Please let us know more about this case. Can you find links?

[mrpickles88]

This is a very sad topic.

[Alfa]

BBC, Monday, 18 July, 2005
Magic mushroom ban 'too strong'

A Scottish drugs advice service has questioned the decision to reclassify magic mushrooms as class A drugs.

The Drugs Act 2005 has closed a loophole which had previously only banned the prepared form of the hallucinogenic Liberty Cap fungi.
It is estimated that up to one in five 16-year-olds in Scotland have tried magic mushrooms.
But drugs service Crew 2000 said it was "nuts" to categorise them alongside heroin, crack and cocaine.
Spokesman John Arthur said: "I think we are seeing laws passed in this country through ignorance.

Harm fears

"There is no way you could classify the effects of magic mushrooms the same as those of heroin, cocaine, etc - I think it's nuts."
Information body Drugscope said the government did need to clarify the law on magic mushrooms but should not have made them class A. It said that from more than 12,600 people presenting problems to drug agencies in Scotland in 2004, only 30 had used hallucinogenics in the previous month. But Drugscope said local surveys suggested that young people in Scotland and Wales were more likely to have taken magic mushrooms.

Its website says: "In Scotland, for example, one in five 16-year-olds will have typically tried them." Under Clause 21 of the Drugs Act 2005, it is now an offence to import, export, produce, supply, possess or possess with intent to supply magic mushrooms, including in the form of grow kits. Home Office Minister Paul Goggins said: "Magic mushrooms are a powerful hallucinogen and can cause real harm, especially to vulnerable people and those with mental health problems."

The ban covers mushrooms containing the hallucinogen psilocybin but does not affect the much more rarely used magic mushroom Fly Agaric.

[Fantasian]

Is there any progress at this point on opposing the ban?

[Nagognog2]

"There is no way you could classify the effects of magic mushrooms the same as those of heroin, cocaine, etc - I think it's nuts."

You must understand that the dimwits who try to pass these laws have a very narrow window of experiential date to work with. They regard the difference between a couple of mushrooms and a bolt of heroin to be on the order of a glass of sherry and a shot of whiskey. And, no doubt, have never tried any of the above - or would admit to such. If you did try such, then you are not capable of formulating any rational thoughts. Too late for you, sinner.

So the mushroom and heroin are bad as a lump-some issue that ANY alteration of consciousness is bad. As has been shown here in the USA, when you approach this topic using logic, the use of any/all drugs is to escape from reality, drown the kids in the bathtub, blasphemy the name Jesus, and just be a hateful jerk all around. You can't argue with these characters. Bad is Bad. You say otherwise? You are not listening to them and you are, by proxy, bad as well.

[Alfa]

The Entheogen defense fund does no longer exist. Their site is gone. No court case has been made. Where has the money gone?

[Alicia]

Before the Uk ban came into action Those sites were around for a while but like MMF Magic Mushroom Forum which was around for years also disappeared. call it paranoia but it seems like they were just taken off .

[Abrad]

There was something about the guy that ran Magic Mushroom Forum stealing funds from the EDF on the site. It was supposedly resolved though.

[Alfa]

The magic mushroom forum was run by a guy who was imprisoned for having child porn pics on his pc. That's why that forum went down. As far as stealling there where some suspicions, but they have been sorted out.

[Alicia]

That has shocked the hell out of swim, I cant believe it. have to tell some people this, who thought it was because of claus 21.

[dirk]

It was quite a shock to us all at the time.
Here is a news clip regarding the case.

http://archive.thisisdorset.net/2005/7/9/109329.html

His computer had been confiscated in 2003 apparently. It took the police two years to get a case together!

[enquirewithin]

13 August 2005

EXCLUSIVE: MUSHROOM CRACKDOWN 'JUST SHAM'
By Bob Roberts, Deputy Political Editor (Daily Mail)</DIV>

A CRACKDOWN on magic mushrooms can today be exposed as a sham.
In a written Commons answer, Home Office Minister Paul Goggins said the Government expects to make only 10 prosecutions a year of users and dealers in the illegal fungi.
The admission comes a month after the Drugs Act 2005 was introduced to make the hallucinogenic mushrooms a Class A drug - and Goggins said at the time: "They can cause real harm, especially to vulnerable people."
Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Mark Oaten said: "These mixed messages can only serve to bring the drug laws into further disrepute."
Home Office statistics reveal use of the fungi has risen 40 per cent in a year, with more than a quarter of a million people estimated to have taken them between 2003 and 2004.
But Petra Maxwell of the drugs information body Drugscope said classifying magic mushrooms as a Class A substance alongside heroin and crack cocaine was not "proportionate" as users often use them to treat migraines.

[Alfa]

The Science and Technology Committee of the UK house of commons, has released a study today which reveals that it was wrong to ban magic mushrooms in the UK. It completely wrecks all logic behind the mushroom ban and shows the UK government has been in complete error.

The study can be found in the file archive: Drug classification: making a hash of it.

Here is the section on magic mushrooms:

Magic mushrooms
54. Magic mushrooms contain psilocin and psilocybin, naturally-occurring compounds with hallucinogenic properties. Psilocin and psilocybin were designated Class A drugs under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, apparently on account of their hallucinogenic properties. Psilocin is also listed under Schedule I, the highest level of prohibition, under the UN’s Convention on Psychotropic Substances 1971.94 Sir Michael Rawlins, Chairman of the ACMD, told us: “I have no idea what was going through the minds of the group who put it in Class A in 1970 and 1971 […]It is there because it is there”.95 The Home Office has admitted that it has never conducted any research into psilocin use and that there is “no clear evidence of a link between psilocin use and acquisitive or other crime”.96

55. In the past a legal loophole meant that fresh magic mushrooms were not treated as controlled drugs, providing that they had not been ‘prepared’ (i.e. dried, packaged, cooked etc.). Section 21 of the Drugs Act 2005, which came into force on 18 July 2005, makes it an offence to import, export, produce, supply and possess with intent to supply magic mushrooms in any form.97 Because the decision to place magic mushrooms in Class A was a clarification of the law rather than a reclassification decision, the Government was not obliged to seek the advice of the ACMD in the usual manner. Nevertheless, the Government told us that it “did write to the ACMD, and ask for its views on [its] proposals before the Drugs Bill was introduced”. 98 The ACMD endorsed the move, telling us: “in March 2004 the Technical Committee heard that, over recent years, there had been a substantial increase in the number of retail outlets selling ‘fresh’ magic mushrooms. In fact HM Customs and Excise estimated the importation of 8,000–16,000 kgs during 2004”.99
However, the ACMD did not conduct a full review of the evidence in arriving at its decision. The Government’s use of a clarification of the law to put fresh magic mushrooms in Class A contravened the spirit of the Misuse of Drugs Act and meant that the ACMD was not given the chance to consider the evidence properly before responding. We also note the admission by the Home Office Minister Paul Goggins that “the Home Office received no submissions in favour of the clarification of the law in respect of magic mushrooms prior to the Drugs Act 2005 being granted Royal Assent on seven April and four submissions against”.100

56. In fact, we encountered a widespread view that the Class A status of magic mushrooms does not reflect the harms associated with their misuse. The RAND report concluded that the Government’s decision “was not based on scientific evidence”, noting that “the positioning of them in Class A does not seem to reflect any scientific evidence that they are of equivalent harm to other Class A drugs”.101 The RAND report pointed out that
“National Statistics show that for deaths in which drug poisoning (listed on the death certificate) was the underlying cause of death, between 1993 and 2000 there was one death from magic mushrooms and 5,737 from heroin” and that “The lethal dose for humans is about one’s own body weight in mushrooms”.102 Professor Blakemore was also of the view that “if one could look at all the evidence for harm available now, including social harms, one would say [the classification of magic mushrooms] is wrong”.103 The Government’s own ‘Talk to Frank’ drug information website states that “Magic Mushrooms are not addictive in any way”.104 The drugs charity Release told us that “There was little transparency as to the reasoning behind this policy”, describing it as “an unacceptable situation”.105 Paul Flynn MP was also of the view that “The policy appears to have been driven by something other than evidence” and warned that “other more dangerous mushrooms, not covered by the current law, could be substituted for those that are prohibited”.106 Recent press reports, and data from the European Monitoring Centre on Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA), suggest that substitution with legal hallucinogens – including potentially lethal mushrooms of the Amanita family – is already happening.107,108

57. We were, therefore, surprised and disappointed to hear Sir Michael Rawlins, Chairman of the ACMD, tell us that “it was not a big issue” whether magic mushrooms were in the right Class. In Sir Michael’s view: “there are bigger, more important issues to worry about than whether fresh mushrooms join the rest of the other things in Class A”.109 The Chairman of the ACMD’s attitude towards the decision to place magic mushrooms in Class A indicates a degree of complacency that can only serve to damage the reputation of the Council. Martin Barnes, Chief Executive of DrugScope and a member of the ACMD, did not share Sir Michael’s nonchalance. He told us that he was “not aware that the full council were asked to deliberate on this” and that “it was wrong for the Home Secretary to seek to enact [the change] in primary legislation without properly consulting the ACMD and giving it time to deliberate on it”.110 Mr Barnes was also of the view that “the evidence has indicated that [magic mushrooms are] in the wrong classification”.111 The ACMD should have spoken out against the Government’s proposal to place magic mushrooms in Class A. Its failure to do so has undermined its credibility and made it look as though it fully endorsed the Home Office’s decision, despite the striking lack of evidence to suggest that the Class A status of magic mushrooms was merited on the basis of the harm associated with their misuse.

[Nature Boy]

I hope someone brings all of this to Mary Harney's attention. It's now more undeniable than ever that her action to entirely ban mushrooms in Ireland was a knee-jerk reaction based on a sob story (no offense to the family of the man who died as a result of throwing himself off a balcony after taking shrooms last year but once-offs shouldn't define government policy).

[Fantasian]

Does these mean there might be a chance to reclassify mushrooms and maybe make them available legally again?

[Alfa]

The oppertunity is there. It is now a question if people will grasp the oppertunity and pressure towards reclassification. The amount of pressure and the opposition is essential. Media exposure is important.
All in all the mushroom case is getting stronger, with all the recent publications:

EU drug agency rapport on Magic Mushrooms June 2006

UN sees no reason to ban magic mushrooms
Crew 2000(Scotland) annual report on drugs and mushroom ban
Testimony of Prof. Dr. David Nichols
Testimony of Dr. Rick Doblin, MAPS
Release & Transform joint statement on drugs bill
Acute psychological and physiological effects of psilocybin in healthy humans: a double-blind, placebo-controlled dose–effect study
Risk assessment report relating to paddos (psilocin and psilocybin)
And off course everything on our magic mushrooms law page.

If I am missing documents here, please let me know.