Brits Ban Shrooms

Jesse Walker | April 21, 2005

And I didn't even realize they had been legal:

Peers, MPs and drug advocacy groups have rounded on a new law reclassifying magic mushrooms as a class A drug, saying the legislation was rushed through parliament in last week's "wash-up" without adequate debate and will criminalise a group of people who were doing no harm to themselves or others.

Home Office sources have indicated that clause 21 of the new drug bill could come into effect in time for the Glastonbury festival in June. Magic mushroom retailers have vowed to challenge the ban, saying the statute contravenes European free trade regulations and is deeply flawed.

I love the free trade angle. Any chance there's a pot clause in the FTAA?

Comments

|4.21.05 @ 2:55PM|#

Retailers to challenge class A classification amid claims that new law will drive trade underground

That didn't stop the pols from passing any of the other drug laws, did it?

Funny that anyone would think that an appeal to reason would work.

|4.21.05 @ 3:04PM|#

will criminalise a group of people who were doing no harm to themselves or others

also applies to all of the other criminal drug laws. Now of course we do need drug laws... to make sure that the stuff people are selling is sufficiently pure.

Larry A|4.21.05 @ 3:06PM|#

I wonder how many of the shroom dealers are in the position of, "Well, all those other laws were okay, so I didn't bitch. But now you're messing with my stuff."

The only way to protect your right to do what you want to do, is to protect my right to do what you don't want to do.

"First they came for the Jews..."

|4.21.05 @ 3:19PM|#

"Drug advocacy groups"

Is that when a group of people nag the one guy who's holding to bust it out?

|4.21.05 @ 4:55PM|#

The ban, which makes the importation, possession or sale of magic mushrooms punishable by a life sentence.

Whoa! I thought draconian & stupid drug policies were restricted to the US and a few loony Asian/MidEast states. I guess it's equal opportunity time.

And here I was thinking that legalizing all drugs won't be politically feasible in the short term BUT legalizing a few drugs like cannabis, psilocin, dextroamphetamine might be somewhat possible, if still relatively farfetched. Guess not.

|4.21.05 @ 6:47PM|#

daksya - no, Britain has been a big, draconian partner in the war on some drugs along with us for quite a while. I'm actually surprised that psilocybin wasn't already illegal.

Although to be fair, the brits did chill out a little bit on mj - basically, if they find a shitload of mj with a shitload of coke, they prosecute both, but if they only find a shitload of mj, they probably won't prosecute.

|4.21.05 @ 8:29PM|#

I'm actually surprised that psilocybin wasn't already illegal.

It was, and is. So far, fresh mushrooms weren't illegal. Dried, or "prepared" shrooms were. Otherwise, there'd be psilocin pills. Who wants to eat rotten fungi, if there was a straight source?

|4.22.05 @ 7:35AM|#

"Is that when a group of people nag the one guy who's holding to bust it out?"

From what I understand, this is usually handled by a group's self-appointed Reeferee. :)

|4.22.05 @ 8:18AM|#

Okay, so this is only tangentially related at best, but my idiot state house of representatives just voted to ban all sales of Sudafed and Actifed and increase sentences for meth use.

Tom Morris|4.23.05 @ 10:38AM|#

Yep. I always wondered what they were going to do about the shrooms dealers on Oxford Street in London. Not that I have a problem with them, but our Government seems to. As usual: damn government.