RonnySimulacrum

Hey everyone, I am 50/50 for the plant meet. Its been a long time since i have been to the gardens but i hope to make it down sunday ;-)

Hey Anodyne, thanks for your question. Tickets will be available around the start of next year. There are many reasons tickets are not available yet but the main one is the exact cost of the event is not known yet and tickets cost need to reflect the cost of the event and not just be plucked out of the air. Let me put it another way, everyone that supports the fundraiser now is effectively helping keep the ticket cost down and help paying the deposit of the site to make sure the event can go ahead. If you won't one of the first tickets join the mailing list as that is the best way to make sure you get the most up to date info. Hope that help answer your question.

Hey everyone. We are just flagging that it’s less than a week to go on the entheogenic inspired EGA fundraiser campaign. So if you have been thinking of supporting or meaning to go back and grab one of the amazing perks on offer, time is running out. If you had a quick look early on in the campaign it is worth revisiting the perks on offer as we have updated the list and added more as we progress over the project. Australia's psychedelic culture is vibrant, informed and well connected. Many festivals, conferences and other events have helped to foster this culture of which EGA is a big component. Those who have attended an EGA symposium know how special and significant these events are, the strength and power of the community by drawing everyone together, and continuing the conversation on defending freedom for ethnobotanical plants and their role as a medicine. The EGA volunteer team is already hard at work in order to produce a unique, world-class symposium in Australia in 2017. The goal is to have 60 experts in the field of psychedelics deliver a professional conference program in a beautiful outdoor setting, complemented by an integrated arts and workshop program. We invite you to support the vision of a large-scale professional conference on psychedelics in Australia in 2017 and to help further establish Australia’s important role in global psychedelic culture. We ask that if you have not yet done so, please made a donation - big or small – it all helps immensely in this final stage, and there are some fantastic rewards available, provided by the generous community of EGA supporters. EGA sends much gratitude and love to those who have already donated, but we ask they do us one last favor and share the campaign over your networks. Thank you! If you haven’t already, please consider contributing to EGA’s ‘Support the Conversation Around Psychedelics’ crowdfunding campaign at the following link - https://chuffed.org/project/psychedelics Kind regards Ronny

EGA wishes to send out a massive thank you to everyone that has donated to our current ‘Support the Conversation Around Psychedelics’ in Australia campaign. We have now achieved 55% of our total and feel it is worth highlighting this achievement. Big thanks also to the artists and pledge donors that have helped make this all possible and with less than a month till the campaign ends it is essential to make sure you participate now. It is very important that we achieve our goal and secure the venue for next years psychedelic symposium and that this dialogue can take place right here in Australia. Even the smaller donations really help support our goal. We have been adding some nice pledges as we go along; even just yesterday Mitch Schultz director of the DMT: The Spirit Molecule donated some DVDs so if you need a copy of this film then why not support EGA and head over to our campaign page and get a copy as its just one of the many amazing items on offer. To support the EGA fundraising campaign head over to the following link and remember share this campaign with your friends - www.chuffed.org/project/psychedelics

See you there people ;-)

Any thoughts on bring Tom Roberts over?

I hope to see some of the old school EGA freaks out for this one, thanks for the support naja naja & toast and other. Everything still coming together for this one, but as volunteer projects go it is taking longer than expected to get all the pieces to line up (WHATS NEW). Thanks for all the above speaker suggestions and its interesting to see who people are keen to see over. Hey Evil Genius, how do we get a hold of your book?

Thanks everyone for there suggestions, I will further add here some of the names that have come up over the table on this end over the last 2 months. There is some cross over. But its good to see other names suggested also. Erik Davis - https://techgnosis.com Tom Lloyd - International Drug Policy Adviser Casey Hardison - https://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/casey-william-hardison-psychedelic-chemist-254 Charles Eisenstein - http://charleseisenstein.net/ Matt Johnson - http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/profiles/results/directory/profile/0800020/matthew-johnson?pagecount=10&clearpagecache=false&modalpref=false&currpage=1 Martin Ball - http://www.martinball.net/ Carhart Harris - http://www.imperial.ac.uk/people/r.carhart-harris *Dave Nutt - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Nutt *Dave Nichols - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_E._Nichols David Nickles - https://www.dmt-nexus.me *David Luke - http://www.parapsych.org/users/dluke/profile.aspx Rick Doblin - http://www.maps.org Kathleen Harrison - http://botanicaldimensions.org Ben Sessa - http://www.drsessa.com Jennifer Dumpert - http://oneironauticum.com James Oroc - http://www.dmtsite.com Giorgio Samorini's - https://www.facebook.com/giorgio.samorini?fref=ts *Paul Stamets - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Stamets Jag Davies - http://www.drugpolicy.org/about-us/staff-and-board/staff/jag-davies-director-communications-strategy Julie Holland - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julie_Holland Thomas Roberts - http://niu.academia.edu/ThomasRoberts - Nese Devenot - http://www.psymposia.com/magazine/preview/coming-out-of-the-psychedelic-closet-final-thoughts Peter Sjöstedt - http://www.philosopher.eu * Due to time frame, other conditions or cost it is unlikely this speaker can attend in 2017

Maybe if people could also add a web page or link to people work, that would be helpful ;-)

Yes, hope to make this but got stuck working, let us know if audio or film of the talk turn up as sad i missed this event.

Post from the front of the EGA page - http://www.entheogenesis.org From Medical to Recreational: The Road the Regulation On Saturday the 5th of December EGA premiered the Melbourne screening of DrugLawed, a New Zealand documentary following the atrocities of the global drug war instigated by the United States. The screening was followed by a panel which focused on current drug policy issues and pragmatic ways to move forward. The panel was chaired by host of Enpsychedelia (http://www.enpsychedelia.org & http://www.3cr.org.au/enpsychedelia) on 3CR Nick Wallis and included the following guests: Greg Chipp: Greg Chipp is a director of Drug Policy Australia, a newly-established public health NGO primarily concerned with drug policy advocacy and with promoting new legislative approaches to minimise the harms associated with the use of psychoactive substances. He has been actively involved in politics and public policy development for several decades, beginning with his involvement in the Australian Democrats, a political party he helped establish in the 1970’s. More recently Greg stood as a Drug Law Reform candidate in the 2013 Federal election campaigning on a platform of decriminalising the use of all drugs and calling for a Royal Commission into the health and economic costs associated with the criminalisation of recreational drug use. Greg believes that the current prohibitionist approach of criminalising drug use does more harm than good, and that a new regulatory system for Australia based on the ‘Portugal Model’ is both realistic and achievable. Helen Barnacle: Helen Barnacle is a psychologist with over three decades of experience. Now in private practice, Helen continues to work with people with addiction issues, ‘victims of crime’, trauma, women experiencing violence and the general community. She is also a musician who spent many years performing and song writing. Between 2000 and 2010 she devoted considerable time and energy to utilising the arts to work with young people, particularly young women in custody in the youth justice system. Helen is the author of ‘Don’t Let Her See Me Cry’, a best-selling autobiography depicting Helen’s remarkable journey from a hopeless young heroin addict facing prison with a new baby, to successful psychologist. Helen became the first woman to keep her baby in prison beyond the age of one, after receiving the longest drug-related sentence ever meted out to a woman in Victoria. Greg Denham: Greg Denham is the Executive Officer of the Yarra Drug and Health Forum and is also the Australian representative for LEAP – Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, a US based group made up of police who want to end the war on drugs. He has over 25 years of local, national and international experience in illicit drug policy and policing. Greg is a former member of Victoria Police and has spent a significant amount of his career training police on drug harm minimisation policies and principles. In recent years Greg has been an advisor on several international harm reduction and HIV prevention projects in Asia and East Africa. He has also worked for the UN, work that focussed on providing technical advice for law enforcement, government, non-government and community groups on HIV prevention through harm reduction programs. Greg is a strong advocate for drug policy reform and is committed to removing punitive and discriminatory drug laws that stigmatise drug use and deny human rights. Fiona Patten: Fiona Patten is the founder and leader of the Australian Sex Party and a Member of the Victorian Legislative Council for the Northern Metropolitan region. She came to politics after 20 years of lobbying for the rights of organisations involved in civil liberties movement – including HIV/AIDS organisations, sex worker advocacy, adult media and anti-censorship groups. Fionahas been a drug law reform advocate for decades and has been very proactive in the movement. Arik Reiss: Producer of DrugLawed and currently working on the sequel, DrugLawed Two. There is a Kickstarter campaign currently running to help fun the next film. Details can be found here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1989898482/druglawed-2 PANEL OVERVIEW: Fiona Patten MLC has submitted a wide ranging inquiry into Victoria’s current drug laws. Details on the 'Inquiry into Illicit and Synthetic Drugs and Prescription Medication' can be found here: http://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/lrrcsc/inquiries/article/2809 and it is not due to report until March 2017. The Terms of Reference of the inquiry are very broad: 1. reviewing the effectiveness of drug treatment programs in Victoria with recommendations on how treatment and harm minimisation strategies could be used as an alternative to criminal penalties; 2. reviewing the effectiveness of Victorian government investment into illicit drug supply reduction, demand reduction and harm reduction strategies and programs; 3. reviewing effectiveness of drug detection programs including roadside testing and procedures for deploying drug detection activities at events; 4. assessing the impact of prescription medication on road safety; 5. reviewing and assessing the effectiveness of laws and regulations relating to illicit and synthetic drugs; and 6. assessing practices of other Australian states and territories and overseas jurisdictions and their approach to drug law reform and how other positive reforms could be adopted to Victorian law. The inquiry will look into practices such as using Passive Alert Detection (PAD) dogs, commonly known as sniffer dogs at music festivals and other events. This particular topic had been in the news surrounding the panel, as sniffer dogs operations at festivals have been linked to dangerous consumption behaviour by patrons trying to avoid detections. At the time of writing this, nearly 40,000 people have signed Adriana Buccianti’s Change.org petition (https://www.change.org/p/my-son-died-at-a-music-festival-don-t-let-any-more-young-people-die-at-australian-festivals), asking that sniffer dogs be called off. Adriana is the mother of Daniel Buccianti, who passed away following an opiate overdose at Rainbow Serpent Festival 2012. The campaigns for cessation of sniffer dogs is a step in the right direction, but another step toward reducing harms is the introduction of drug checking services such as as pill testing. The panelists briefly touched on this topic, which has been building in momentum for many months and has recently reached a high point. The peer-based psychedelic and other drug harm reduction and education service DanceWize has lead the push for these services to be implemented at Victorian festivals. The panel also touched on the recent introduction of an amendment to Victoria’s prohibition legislation which seeks to widen the scope of prohibition and the penalties associated with possession, supply, manufacture and cultivation of Schedule 11 substances, which includes cannabis, LSD, MDMA and psilocybin. The amendment has already passed the Lower House with very little debate. The only amendments offered so far were from the Liberal Party, who wanted to increase already extensive sentences proposed in the Bill. Sections 71E and 71F of the proposed amendments focus on the possession or distribution of instructions relating to the cultivation, supply or manufacture of a Schedule 11 drug. In layperson terms, this means that if you possess a book or magazine that includes basic cannabis cultivation instructions, then you could potentially face hefty penalties, including jail time. It seems plausible that even printing out a copy of psilocybe mushroom growing tips could be considered grounds for prosecution. (http://enpsychedelia.org/enpsychedelia/blog/victorias-book-ban-on-the-horizon-for-2016/). Greg Chipp of Drug Policy Australia is working with a small team of people to protest against the introduction of these amendments. The Bill is currently sitting in the Legislative Council and won’t be debated until Parliament resumes in 2016 on February 9th. Over your holiday season, make sure to get in contact with your representatives in the Legislative Council and let them know that you think Sections 71E and 71F of the Drugs, Poisons and Controlled Substances Amendment Bill 2015 go too far. The more that your representatives hear your voice on these important issues, the more likely it is that they will raise objections, discuss this with their colleagues and potentially introduce amendments to stop this sort of thing from happening. The panelists went on to take a more optimistic and pragmatic look into how currently illegal drugs could be regulated in the future, giving us some of their ideas and thoughts on this particularly complex issue that receives too little attention. The key to making change happen is for you to get involved. There are people already out there doing some heavy lifting. Find the others and give them a hand. Writing to your politicians helps to seed ideas in their mind but also writing to your paper, speaking to the radio stations and television stations and of course getting out on social media are all good ways for you to engage. Be polite and check your facts when you engage. An informed advocate is far more effective than someone who is passionate but unable to communicate well with those who don’t already agree with the position of the passionate advocate. WHAT CAN YOU DO? If you’re a University student, get involved with the beginning of drug policy reform groups on campus. http://enpsychedelia.org/enpsychedelia/blog/help-setup-university-campus-drug-policy-reform-clubs/ Write to your local members of parliament. Make sure you know who you are writing to, whether they are your federal representative or state representative and which house they sit in. Participate in the online discussions. Write to your local paper, call your radio station, write to your television station. Become involved with groups like Drug Policy Australia (http://www.drugpolicy.org.au/), UnHarm (http://www.unharm.org/) and DanceWize (http://hrvic.org.au/dancewize/volunteer-form/). Attend EGA events (http://www.entheogenesis.org). Support PRISM (http://www.prism.org.au). Listen to Enpsychedelia (http://www.enpsychedelia.org). Speak to your peers and relatives openly and honestly about your own drug use or interest in drugs. Open up the dialogue. Keep compassionate. Remember that your preferences may not be the preferences of others and that is not a reason to judge another negatively. If someone is having a difficult battle with a substance, help them rather than stigmatise them.

The Convent garden now has 16 new plants, thanks everyone ;-)

Really fun day out, thanks for coming everyone

How to find the Oratory when you get to the convent - Map - http://www.entheogenesis.org/sites/default/files/content_images/acf_plant_meet_oratory.pdf

Really looking forward to seeing everyone, apologies in advance if i look busy, its my look you know ;-) Bring some extra plants that we can give to the convent gardener at the end of the meet. Plant meet here we come.

Greetings everyone, the online ticketing sales will be on until 9am Saturday 5th Dev for the Melbourne screening of Druglawed. After that you will have to try your luck at the door tomorrow. http://www.entheogenesis.org/tickets

EGA PREMIERE SCREENINGS OF DRUGLAWED DOCUMENTARY LIVE INTRODUCTION BY THE FILM MAKER ARIK REISSAND DRUG LAW REFORM PANEL SYDNEY SCREENING FRIDAY 4TH DECEMBER MELBOURNE SCREENING SATURDAY 5TH DECEMBER You are invited to be a part of a special premier film screening and law reform discussion panel entitled ‘FROM MEDICAL TO RECREATIONAL - THE ROAD TO REGULATION’. The discussion will be held in conjunction with the official Druglawed screening on 4th of December in Sydney and the 5th of December in Melbourne. Each Screening will have a live introduction by the filmmaker Arik Reiss. The Sydney panel guests include Will Tregoning (Unharm), Dr Mehreen Faruqi (The Greens NSW), and Arik Reiss (Drug Lawed Producer). The Panel will be facilitated by Dan Gooden (Sydney Evolver Spore). The Melbourne panel guests include Greg Denham (LEAP), Greg Chipp (Drug Law Reform Australia), Helen Barnacle (Clinical Psychologist), Fiona Patten (Australian Sex Party Victoria MLC), and Arik Reiss (Drug Lawed Producer). The Panel will be facilitated by Nick Wallis (Enpsychedelia). Following the film screening the panel will focus on themes brought up in the movie, the consequences of the effects of prohibition on the population, especially Cannabis prohibition. We will hear about the latest developments in Australia and around the world from the perspectives of an artist, an activist and a progressive politician. There has never before been as much pressure as there is now to end the War on Drugs - despite the many challenges ahead there is light at the end of the tunnel. This conversation will raise possibilities for the way forward. The Melbourne screening will also feature an exclusive discussion by Arik Reiss about law reform and his future film projects. Tickets to Sydney screening: http://www.trybooking.com/JOCJ Tickets to Melbourne screenings: http://www.entheogenesis.org/tickets Sydney Facebook event page - https://www.facebook.com/events/168407116840338/ Melbourne Facebook event page - https://www.facebook.com/events/1512802425705796/ Trailer: https://youtu.be/q2Dtr08WCFU Facebook: www.facebook.com/druglawed Twitter: www.twiter.com/druglawed

Yes Cactus and anything really is fine ;-) Natives even better ;-) R