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Interview: The Bear-- Owsley: Acid Artist of the Sixties |
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Written by Scott
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Tuesday, 12 August 1997 |
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Page 6 of 9
(Bear:)
“plan on using” is obvious, but there is no defense in court when the plant material is taken to a lab and analyzed for activity. The law says that ANYTHING containing one of the proscribed substances is the same as the substance itself, and the courts consider simple possession to be evidence of intended use. You can't win, and neither can the US Constitution if this keeps up. So basically all those “safe, legal to grow plants” are actually very illegal indeed.
I am sorry to burst your “bubble of safety”, but it is the truth. Virola resin contains DMT, DMT is illegal, therefore virola resin is illegal. You can buy San Pedro cactus in most plant stores around the US, but it has as much mescaline per dried gram as peyote, and if you were taken into court with it you could be found guilty of possession of an illegal substance (mescaline), believe it or not. You cannot find any legal shelter from this approach (clever bastards), and that is what I am driving at with my words on the need to change the laws.
Be sure to make careful consideration of the graft money effect on keeping these laws on the books, as noted in another of my essays. It may be necessary to change the relationship of money in politics first, before the laws can be changed. I think that you are sincere in your attempt to stay on the “right” side of the law, but you can't actually succeed. If they find any of your precious “legal” entheogenic plants on your property, you are in deep shit if they want to persecute you. All these plants have had their active ingredients listed. There is a whole office of people in the DEA whose sole function is to find and list them as they turn up in the literature. Ask Sasha if you don't believe me.
(ED:)
Intent is one-third of the law. Do you possess a substance? Is the substance what it is claimed to be? Did you intend to use it for illegal purposes? You are correct, it is a lot easier for them to prove you intended to use a plant or substance than it is to prove you DIDN'T intend to use it. And yes, if they had a reason, I'm sure they could come up with enough for a conviction. But---recently a man on the Usenet posted letters (and scanned images of the actual letters) which he had sent the state attorney, local police, etc. concerning his own possession of San Pedro cacti. They told him it was perfectly legal to possess, and that they were aware that it contained contraband material. So, yes, we're all worried that some day soon the law will come down on the Entheogen community...that's part of why it's so important for people to have access to ezines like Entheogen Dot. We try to stay informed about the law, and those of us who are politically active try to change the bad laws. I don't think anyone here is foolish enough to believe that the government is ignorant about plant entheogens.
Let's move on...say that LSD is legal, we have experienced bliss, know who we are, where we come from, why we're here...what do we do now? How can we help our fellow man to achieve a similar state of mind? i.e. How can the majority of citizens continue to support draconian laws and punishments for moral offences?
(Bear:)
If you continue to state your case in a fashion like: “we don't want to recommend that you actually break any laws,” you are not standing up and stating your real belief that these laws are unconstitutional and are an undemocratic invasion of privacy and personal liberty. We must be invariably opposed to these laws which create a vast and dangerous black market which threatens the very basis of democracy everywhere in the world, through its massive ability to corrupt.
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