Importing literature

[Alice]

How exactly does one determine if a certain piece of literature is a prohibited import into australia?

There does not appear to be a "list" of banned books as such, but i imagine there is a published set of current guidelines etc which must be adhered to if one is to avoid prosecution in the event that a parcel is intercepted.

but how to be sure where the line is drawn, and determine if the literature is prohibited or not? Is there some one or organisation you can write to for confirmation?

For example, all of the main "cookbooks" eg by fester, otto snow are prohibited. but why is something like The Entheogen Review ok? ER contains "questionable" content, chemistry etc, yet it legal to inport into the country. Why?....

[Torsten]

 

all this was discussed in a thread just the last couple of weeks (as well as several before). Have a look two threads down in this forum. The list is on the OFCL website.

[Alice]

ah yes, so it was... well dont i feel silly, now its on record that alice is a lazy bitch.

i am well aware of your annoyance T, and i apologise.

i perhaps should have been more specific in my post...

AFOAF recently expressed interest in ordering the entheogen review 1992-2005 DVD from the publishers, as it is affordable for him, and contains all but the most recent issues. It was suggested to FOAF that ER could be purchased in aust, but on furthur investigation it seemed that only the mags, not the DVD, were available locally. He obviously was not aware of the OFLC site, and wanting to be certain of the laws so as not to break them, he asked if i might put the question to you knowledgable people...

The following comments have added to our confusion regarding the ER's legality here...

Please consider that virtually all ethnobotany books are 'RC' refused classification, ie illegal to possess, sell or import. Any book that describes the ingestion of a drug is illegal. It does not matter whether this is a scientific text or anovel. And that's where the idiocy starts - we have thousands of novels on the shelf with various acts of murder and drug taking, but they are not censored, while books on ayahusca and shamanic tribes are illegal slap.gif

Those ethnobotany books that are not on the OFLC database are only not there because they have not been referred for classification yet. All of them would not pass classification.

Two books of almost identical content and yet only one is banned. Does that make the other one legal? NO! Ideally all books should be classified before being sold or imported, but in reality only those referred to the OFLC by authorities and individuals will go through the process. That does not make the rest of them legal though.

I couldn't find any previous posts regarding this in particular (yes i UTSE).

i was somewhat reluctant to bring this up directly...

so please remove this post if inappropriate.

[gomaos]

yeah regarding books the australian government is like Hitler!

He had all books that his dumb Nazi Party didn't like, openly burned.

Stupid australian government!

[Torsten]

It's really quite simple. 99% of people who import dodgy books are not aware that they are breaking the law and hence customs does not prosecute them at first offence (unless it is something obvious like Uncle Fester's books). Even most customs inspectors have no diea what they are supposed to be looking for (and I wonder how many actually feel right about picking on books). I would say that importing the ER DVD will probably have no consequences, or at the most a confiscation and a nasty letter. The only time you really have to worry is if you are importing a book that already has an RC listing and you have already received one written registered mail warning from customs. Simple as that.

personally I think it is impossible even for customs to enforce the law as it stands. It is broad and arbitrary. As I said, imagine if they had to confiscate every book that described the ingestion of an illegal drug (incl fiction).