legalising drugs - the easy way

[spaced]

I have found a way of making various herbal based entheogens available for therapeutic use which would not involve great changes to the current legislation. With a bit of work the changes could be made over night - or at least in time for Christmas. It involves looking at the scheduling system. Currently things like mescaline, psilocybin and lysergic acid are included in schedule 9 which means the sale, possession etc of such drugs is illegal and likewise with herbal preparations containing such ingredients.

Those familiar with the scheduling system will know that each schedule has different regulations concerning sale and supply. Hence something in S4 can only be purchased with the aid of a doctor's / dentist's / veterinarian's prescription. S3 drugs can only be sold through pharmacies. S8 drugs are addictive and having these without an acompanying prescription may get you into just as much trouble as having an S9 drug.

What I've come accross is an obscure schedule - schedule 1, which currently has nothing in it. This is included in WA legislation and I'm not sure if other states would have such a schedule. It reads as follows:

"Schedule 1 - Poisons of plant origin of such danger to health as to warrant their being available only from medical practitioners, pharmaceutical chemists or veterinary surgeons."

Hence an entry for mescaline in the SUSDP may look like this:

S1 MESCALINE in herbs, or preparations for therapeutic use containing 10% or less of mescaline

S9 MESCALINE except when included in schedule 1.

It would be a relatively simple task to go though the SUSDP and make the appropriate changes for the various herbal products. this would ensure uniform legislation accross Australia (assuming S1 exists in other states). The scheduling does insist that the "poisons" are to an extent a "danger to health." Whilst some may debate these definitions it wouldn't make much difference from a practical point of view and it would keep anti drug campaigners happy. Also its not just legalising drugs but more a system of regulating supply which would keep bureaucrats happy as they could apply taxes and so on.

I'm not saying I think its a good system. I'm personally in favour of anarchy and good public libraries - but it would keep a number of different parties happy and its there so why not use it?

[RonnySimulacrum]

Informative

[squiresk]

On you go then.

I dunno how you'd actually go about getting things rescheduled. Why were such substances, for example, salvanorin A and the plant itself, scheduled in the most restricted categories in the first place, and not into your Sch 1.

All the best.

I wonder what the status of Salvinorin B?

k.

[nabraxas]

It would be a relatively simple task to go though the SUSDP and make the appropriate changes for the various herbal products. this would ensure uniform legislation accross Australia (assuming S1 exists in other states).

i'm sorry. i was sort ov with you upto & after this point( totally agree w/ your politics, nicely put ), but i dont get how you do the changes. are we talking hacking here? excuse my denseness.

[Torsten]

Spaced - the SUSDP scheduling process takes several months and is done by a non democratically selected board that has no process of accountability or review.

S1 is an old schedule and is left intentionally blank in the newer SUSDP. The WA and other state legislation may refer to it for two reasons: 1) the state act you have in front of you may be an old copy that hasn't been updated, or 2)it is not just the current listing, but also the process that is taken into account for state scheduling (ie, as all content of S1 have been placed in S8 & S9, these two schedules are now replacing S1 in the state schedule).

The reason for the change from s! to the other two was given by the TGA as 'wanting to have increasing number relative to increasing standard of control'. This statement made absolutely NO sense, as S2 is far more controlled than S6 or S7, and then S8 & S9 are more controlled than S6 & S7. It made a lot more sense the way it was..... but that's what you get from an undemocratic body that has uncontrolled power.

[Dubius]

This is a test

[Guest VENDEJO]

Originally posted by spaced:

I'm personally in favour of anarchy and good public libraries

Who pays for the public libraries if there is anarchy?

[Darklight]

Couldnt be much less funding than they get now

[spaced]

Originally posted by Torsten:

1) the state act you have in front of you may be an old copy that hasn't been updated,

The schedule was listed in a January 1999 update of the Poisons Act 1964. They might have changed it since then but judging by the speed the Health Department of WA is deeling with grey water regulations and updating the Misuse of Drugs Act I doubt very much that it would have changed.

or 2)it is not just the current listing, but also the process that is taken into account for state scheduling (ie, as all content of S1 have been placed in S8 & S9, these two schedules are now replacing S1 in the state schedule).

You mean to say that once some of the stuff that is now in S9 used to be in S1 and hence could be purchased legally through a pharmacy?

I was for a while working on a short legal guide for WA ethnobotanists examining the various problems and loopholes. The only problem was it got to about 10 pages long and I hadn't even covered about half the crap related to the topic. By the time I get around to finishing it they probably will have changed everything anyway.

[spaced]

Originally posted by VENDEJO:

Who pays for the public libraries if there is anarchy?

That's true. Also there'd be no typewriters, bookbinders the machinery necessary to build the library, etc. But then you wouldn't have to bother reading rubbish like state drug legislation as it wouldn't exist. There would be no organised crime and we would in a much more harmonious balance with nature.

[Darklight]

Originally posted by spaced:

There would be no organised crime

It would be disorganised, right?

Don't know if I agree with the above statement about there being no libraries etc were anarchy to prevail. I thought the whole concept of anarchy was not an absence of organisation, rather it was that organisation is recognised as arbitrary, and undertaken on a local scale. We could debate this one endlessly

and we would in a much more harmonious balance with nature.

You hope. People might still be people no matter the form of government

[Gwydion]

The whole concept of anarchy is so arbitrarily anarchic that it only arbitrarily exists. It is little more than an arbitrary form of deconstructionism applied to whatever you feel like. Because of the danger of arbitrary dictatorship or random total detructive chaos emerging, you won´t find me plugging for it.

(Blame the germanic psyche for demanding order, reason and sustainability )

[gomaos]

Originally posted by Gwydion:

Blame the germanic psyche for demanding order, reason and sustainability

Yeah. Shudder.

For me one of the reasons to leave germany.

Too many squares there.

Not that it's much better here but....

[Gwydion]

You can take the german out of the square, but the square out of the german???

[Gwydion]

Talking of which- have you noticed how much "alternative" culture has benefited from people of a "germanic" background- Marx & Engels, Luther (well it WAS alternative), Schultes, Hofmann, Einstein, Einstuerzende Neubauten, etc etc etc.

I had though of more, but forgot.

A lot of germans were amongst the most eager to first get into the jungle, a lot not coming back.

It´s not that there is anything especially great about being german, or that they´re the only ones, but why are there so many of them in this line of research?

I wonder how many people on this list are german (or similar) as well?

I first noticed this when a whole thread dissolved (or resolved) into german a few months back.

shrug

Just a curious thought

[This message has been edited by Gwydion (edited 04 January 2003).]

[Torsten]

Originally posted by Gwydion:

Talking of which- have you noticed how much "alternative" culture has benefited from people of a "germanic" background-

some less well know, but much more influential & pervasive ones:

Petra Kelly - first green politician ever

Joshka Fischer - first environmental terrorist ever - and now foreign minister

"Reformhaus" - the first healthfoodshop chain (long before Nicholas Saunders).

ahh crap... now I've forgotten half of them too...

A lot of germans were amongst the most eager to first get into the jungle, a lot not coming back.

Yeah, that's probably the same mentality that makes german tourists the most risk taking tourists in the world

It´s not that there is anything especially great about being german, or that they´re the only ones, but why are there so many of them in this line of research?

I've been thinking about this for a while. It s normal for a country to strive harder after loosing a war, but in the case of germany this mentality is much older than the world wars. I also thought it might have something to do with the fact that germany didn't have any major colonies, so they did their research in other places and had to be just that little bit better to be heard/accepted. Also, their research was more for pure knowledge rather than for pure commercial interest, as the commercial interests would have only benefited the colonial power (eg Britain), whereas the pure science would benefit mostly the scientists recognition. While these may have contributed, they seem a little far fetched to explain the whole issue. I think it is simply that germans are inquisitive and question the status quo.

I wonder how many people on this list are german (or similar) as well?

A few. It also seems the germans on this list are more vocal

I first noticed this when a whole thread dissolved (or resolved) into german a few months back.

actually, that was mostly aussies practicing their high school german

[spaced]

Yeah, I dunno. On the one hand I want to get rid of Customs, the Quarantine Department, the health department and most other forms of government, cars, major roads, capitalist infrastructure etc but then on the other hand I want to keep up with the latest advances in ethnopharmacology.

I do agree Darklight, that with human nature as it is, there's always going to be some form of organisation which will attempt to control human behaviour for the purported benefit of collective humanity. If you consider human behaviour as an extension of that of the apes (read Desmond Morris - The Naked Ape, The Human Zoo) then all politics and organised religion is based around some concept of a dominant ape. Apes as they developed both physically and mentally on the path to becoming Homo sapiens went from living in small tribes to large super tribes - cities, countries, the coca colonisation of the earth - too much for any one dominant ape to control. Hence the concept of a super dominant ape was born - this being "God." Not so much "God" as a means of explaining the mysterious workings of the subconscious or the existential crisis confronting the human condition but rather a controlling "God" that dictates who goes to heaven and hell based on how well people abide by whatever faith they follow in "His" worship. In a practical sense, changing "God's" "gender" doesn't make much difference - people are still bound by fear in their choices and actions.

So what does it mean for you sitting at home today? Well you may get a knock on the door and someone will be standing there with a bible and will want to talk about how society would be so much better if everyone followed the guidelines set out in the "good book". If so then this is precisely the line of argument to take. Explain to them how their faith through creating order has also created war, that their concept of utopia is an illusion and that freedom only exists in the mind and is not achievable in realistic political, social or economic terms.

All human actions are based on moral judgements (read Thomas Szas - The Myth of Mental Illness in Insanity and Ideology) and those moral judgements are rooted in the person's upbringing and ultimately the religious values which have been forced upon the individual during early development. The dominant controlling ape/"God" mentality keeps humankind locked into a value system which is creating bridges as it cuts down rainforests. If anything I would say the answer lies in opening people's minds to the true nature of the God experience - to see the broader systems and patterns operating within nature and society beyond that of the artificial constructs of good and bad, wealth and poverty.