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Tag: psilocybin mushrooms

  • Dutch smartshops take legal action against ban on magic mushrooms

    This is a follow-up article on “Netherlands to ban ‘magic’ mushrooms starting December 1“.

    Amsterdam, Saturday 8th November 2008

    The Association of Smartshopowners has been surprised and is disappointed about the decision of the government of last Friday to implement the intended ban on magic mushrooms as from December 1st. The Association will take legal action.

    The Association condemns the decision of the Government since both Ministers of Justice and of Public Health refuse to listen to the stream of warnings from the experts, scientists and from the Association. The warnings consistently refer to the increased dangers of unwanted side effects of such a ban. The Association was in regular discussions with the Government over the past ten years in order to properly regulate the market for hallucinogenic mushrooms and pleaded consistently for proper regulation rather than banning the ‘shrooms’. The Association deplores that, by the decision of the government, further co-operation is made impossible and that her members and their customers are facing an accomplished fact in a rather raw manner.

    The Dutch Opiumwet (druglaw) requires that there must be a proof of damage to the public health and the community at large. Against a yearly turnover of some 1,5 million portions of magic mushrooms there is only a very small amount of incidents. Moreover, these incidents cannot be traced back to the exclusive use of ‘shrooms’. There has been no scientific investigation of such incidents nor has there been any toxicological examination. The Minister ignores the clear advice of his own advisory body (CAM) and bases his decision on unfounded assumptions and takes his own suppositions for granted.

    The members of the Association are feeling highly derogated by this decision and by the clearly unreasonable attitude of the Minister.

    A general ban on the sale of shrooms will inevitably lead to the closure of many smartshops whilst the remaining shops will incur a sizable financial loss. This aspect was hardly discussed in the parliamentary discussions about the proposed ban.

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  • Netherlands to ban ‘magic’ mushrooms starting December 1

    Dutch Christian Democrat minister of Public Health, Ab Klink, has announced the ban of selling and growing ‘magic mushrooms’, or shrooms, will take place on December 1. This knee-jerk reaction follows a media and political hype caused last year by the suicide of a 17-year old French tourist who was said to be under the influence of mushrooms at that time. It was also her second suicide attempt.

    Politicians got riled up as the media started covering every mushroom mishap in Amsterdam. Since nobody really stopped campaigning since the last government was formed – as they’re doomed to fail – they saw this as a good chance to speak up, speak out and win votes. At the cost of liberty and sanity.

    Ab Klink, minister of Public Health, previously asked the Coördinationpoint for the Assessment and Monitoring of new drugs (CAM) to research illegalizing shrooms. They concluded that these are the risks involving mushrooms:

    • Health of the individual: no risk.
    • Public health / society: minimal risk.
    • Public order / safety: minimal risk.
    • Criminal involvement: no risk.

    The CAM advised against a ban on mushrooms for the following reasons:

    • The smartshops selling the mushrooms might replace them by substances which carry more risk;
    • It will lead to shrooms being sold in tablet-form, like XTC pills;
    • Users would pick mushrooms in nature, which could lead to serious problems if they mistake the wrong type of mushrooms for the ones they are looking for;
    • Users might switch to other drugs, which might be more interesting from a criminal perspective and possibly carry more risk for usage… Leading to more danger to the public;
    • The banning of mushrooms is a rather tough sanction given the current problems its causing;
    • Maintaining a ban would bring costs.

    What did Ab Klink do? Ban them! Of course. The CAM was surprised as this is the first time a minister has ignored the advice of this advice organ. Minister Klink is obviously tripping. Or maybe he’d like to see the Bible as our lawbook?

    Dutch ‘smartshops’ that sell magic mushrooms and other legal mind-altering substances are taking this to court. For updates on this matter you can follow Dutch blog Red De Paddo (Save The Shroom).

    Recently a Christian Democrat politician called for the closing of all coffeeshops in Holland and illegalizing cannabis. In a follow-up poll, Dutch citizens expressed their opinions about the Dutch policy regarding drugs. 36% want coffeeshops illegalized, but 34% wants to see them completely legalized. Coffeeshops in Holland are currently in a grey area, more can be read about this in the article below or on Wikipedia. In short the sale of softdrugs is legal in Holland, but supplying coffeeshops of them is not.

    Last year I wrote about the pending mushroom ban in several articles, one of which is reposted below, the others can be found via these links:

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    Below a repost of my article “Dutch government to ban cultural identity“. (more…)

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