USA - Extracting chemicals.

[Salvinorin A]

SWIM is very confused by the legality of hallucinogenic plants in the United States. DMT was scheduled by the Controlled Substances Act but Ayahuasca is legal based on the Supreme Court decision from Gonzales vs. UDV.

Even though that decision was based on the fact that the gov. couldn't prove the dangers to society that ayahuasca would bring...by precedent, doesn't it sanction plants with illegal chemicals in them? (marijuana leaves for religious use?)

Just another quick note: the French made ayahuasca okay, but only because the people didn't extract the illegal chemicals out of them (haramalas and dmt are illegal there swim believes).

Back to the U.S....so if ayahuasca was approved via the Freedom Restoration Act, is extracting DMT and taking it in conjunction with extracted harmalas for an ayahuasca experience (privately) illegal?

SWIM believes that doing the latter would be equivalent to preparing and using ayahuasca, since all ayahuasca is is a concentration of the active chemicals.....the intent of using purer chemicals is to reduce nausea....does this mean that the government can regulate psychoactive chemicals based on the amount of nausea they produce?

There was one argument on this forum that stated that one isn't individually manufacturing the dmt, just removing it from the plants who made it themselves (unless one counts the steps in the extraction TEKs as manufacturing). Not sure how this argument holds.

And if one had his/her dmt seized at home, and the defendent's case was that he/she wanted to use it privately with harmalas as a simulated ayahuasca experience, how would the court decide? Would it need substantial evidence of the religion? In the case of Gonzales vs. UDV, the UDV is an established church, so they wouldn't need to convince anyone. But swim isn't sure how the court would treat a private individual.

Thanks,
Sal-A