PF was subsequently investigated many times by law enforcement (from the very beginning - the opening of PF's first biz mail box in 1991), because of the legal questions (Psilocybian mushrooms contain the illegal schedule one hallucinogenic drug psilocin). But PF remained on line and in business because magic mushroom spores are not illegal (federally) in any way. Also, the syringes had long BLUNT TIP heavy gauge needles (no medical use), making the syringes legal. In fact, those kinds of syringes and needles are sold as computer printer ink cartridge refilling devices. But on the morning of February 18 2003, PF came to an end by a violent raid on his house by the D.E.A.
There are several pieces of info revealing that magic mushroom spores are legal. One bit of info is from a police report from KALISPELL MONTANA that was in the DISCOVERY (police investigation documents supplied to the defense by the US Attorneys office) of the case against PF. The report is dated 5/25/2002 and was written up by Detective Troy Holt of the Kalispell police dept. It begins with "R/P states an unknown male dropped off a package on her porch and it was not the postman. Would like someone to check it out. K15 took possession of the package and brought to KPD". The syringe box was from me and it was stamped with my web address. The cops checked that out and quickly found out what the syringes were all about. There was no mystery as to what they were and what they were for. After questioning the parties involved and doing what investigations were warranted, the report ends with this very important last sentence - UPON MY DISCOVERY THAT NEITHER MONTANA STATE OR FEDERAL LAW PROHIBITS THE POSSESSION, SALE OR DISTRIBUTION OF PSILOCYBIN MUSHROOM SPORES, THIS CASE WAS CLOSED.
Without the PF TEK, the spore selling would not be considered a target by the feds. For several decades previous to my experience with the D.E.A, magic mushroom spores were ignored by the laws of the USA. So the legal anomaly is that in the drug wars of today, legal spores plus a legal book equals a "conspiracy to distribute an illegal schedule one hallucinogen, psilocin". So in my opinion, that was the weakness in the feds case against me as far as count one - the CONSPIRACY to distribute an illegal drug and that is why they pleaded me out immediately after my arrest. And according to assistant US attorney DOUGLAS WHALLEY ESQ. of the Western Washington US attorneys office, said on a KING 5 T.V. newscast at 11 P.M. February 18, 2003 the night of my bust (in the morning at my home) - "It's equivalent of selling somebody the ingredients of methamphetamine and telling them how to mix it up and getting paid for it - you'd be guilty of conspiring to distribute methamphetamine." He choose an illegal drug that is the scourge of America to compare my magic mushroom growing tek to. The "ingredients" for my tek is brown rice powder, vermiculite and water. Was he right in that comparison? If so, why haven't the Feds raided and busted the myriads of spore sellers and even magic mushroom grow kit sellers that are going stronger today than before my bust? It was as if they just wanted to see what I had hidden away, and when they found out that I had nothing "hidden away", they pleaded me out of the original charges and let me plead guilty to growing a few illegal mushrooms. But as can be seen in the plea agreement, I had to admit being a psilocybin drug trafficker and that is where they applied the forfeiture laws to my case and took a small fortune from me and my wife.
The threatened "drug paraphernalia" charge concerning the spores in one of the letters to my lawyer from the US attorneys office obviously was a weak charge also, because they certainly would have done that. They did not proceed with that because they must have felt that the paraphernalia charge concerning the spores, if conviction was accomplished, could have been overturned at least on appeal. Spores are a living organism, and would not be considered paraphernalia. The seeds of Marijuana, and Peyote and of all the other schedule one drug plants are included in the statutes of illegality, but spores of psilocybian mushrooms are not mentioned as well as the mushrooms by species which there are at least a hundred known. Psilocin suffices for the illegality. When magic mushrooms are tested in the lab, they register psilocin content which then makes the mushrooms themselves schedule one - the most illegal drug category.
And to prove the "weakness" of the major impact of the indictment - count one - the "conspiracy to distribute" is the fact that the feds could not confiscate my web site domain name - www.fanaticus.com. When I got out of jail, I checked my site on a library computer (the D.E.A. took my computers) and there it was - with syringes for sale! And I still own my domain name - FANATICUS.COM. That must be the first amendment of the Bill of Rights (US constitution) in action.
With competent legal counsel (Seattle lawyer - Barry Flegenheimer Esq.), I (PF) survived (did not go to prison). I got a felony conviction - served 6 months with HOME DETENTION (wore an ankle bracelet like Martha Stewart). I paid a big forfeiture (but got more than that back - which was extremely "good" according to all the lawyers I spoke with). My wife received a simple misdemeanor drug possession charge and my two other co-defendants were dismissed of the charges (all in accordance with the plea agreement).
The whole psychedelic magic mushroom scene that I started back in 1991 (spore syringes and the PF TEK) is going on stronger and bigger than ever as shown by the following, and all of this is just a scratch on the surface. So after all is said and done, I am responsible for the greatest proliferation of the magic mushrooms in the history of the human race.
A search on GOOGLE for "pf tek" brings up plenty of hits -
Typing in "PF TEK" in the search engine at YAHOO finds myriad's of hits from all over the world -
Also, searching with GOOGLE and YAHOO or any other search engine using the words and names PSYLOCYBE FANATICUS or ROBERT MCPHERSON SPORES will bring up myriad's of web pages and articles from around the world about the magic mushroom legendary status of Psylocybe Fanaticus, the PF TEK and Robert McPherson (the real name of Psylocybe Fanaticus).
A mirror site for the late great FANATICUS.COM (as it was - but not actually totally complete, but pretty good);
MYCOTOPIA'S REPRINT OF THE ESSENTIAL PF TEK
MYCOTOPIA'S so called SIMPLE CUBENSIS GROWING GUIDE
Another MYCOTOPIA "Simple" PF guide
A Holland site with the PF TEK in 12 LANGUAGES
The PF TEK copied at "MYCOTOPIA", one of the biggest interactive magic mushroom sites on the net -
The PF TEK in Holland at the "amazing nature" WEB site -
the PF TEK in BOOK book form, unauthorized (copyright infringement) from Holland -
The Magic Mushroom growers guide (MMGG - copy version of the PF TEK) at the shroomery with TESTIMONIALS
The PF TEK at EROWID.ORG web site -
The MMGG PF TEK copy at EROWID.ORG -
The PF TEK INVITRO at the MYCOTOPIA.NET web site -
The PF TEK featured at the NOOK.ORG web site -
The PF TEK at the SPORE LAB (Canada Spore seller) -
Canadian site copy of the old PF WEB site at www.fanaticus.com with excellent articles by PF -
A simplified version of the PF TEK at the SHROOMERY - one the biggest magic shroom interactive web sites in the world -
The Magic Mushrooms Grower's Guide (unauthorized - copyright infringement) of the PF TEK at the SHROOMERY
A PF TEK simplified version from HOLLAND
A huge THREAD about the PF TEK and the confusion created by the myriad's of opinions and variations - supposedly great for "newbies" but it works the opposite - creating confusion out of simplicity - stick with the PF'S official PF TEK - no confusion there.
A photo EXPOSE of one of PF's early PF TEK books at MYCOTOPIA -
mycotopias surmise that the basic PF TEK formula is unimprovable UNIMPROVABLE (perfect as the professor originally wrote it) -
THE DAILY WORLD (Aberdeen Washington Newspaper) - Wednesday, February 19, 2003 ... (cut to last few paragraphs - a witness describes events) ... "It all started (Monday) night", a Lake Quinault-area business owner said this morning. "I seen helicopters, all of these Federal vehicles". "Then they all met up here at the Forest Service (Tuesday) morning at 6". "McPherson was a regular at the business owner's shop", the man said. "I knew him for three of four years, and knew he was in the internet business - but not the mushroom thing". (end of article)
Time and place - 7:30 a.m. Tuesday February 18 2003 - 630 North Shore Road - Lake Quinault Rain Forest.
BANG BANG - I awoke from sleep and jumped up off the couch I was reclining on. I was fully dressed in my usual garb; sweat pants, comfy flannel shirt and socks. Then another loud BANG BANG. I looked over at the front door of the living room about 12 feet away and it was shaking violently. As I came to consciousness I had several thoughts race through my mind faster than the speed of light, as if I had several consecutive thoughts occur at once. The first thought was that I was dreaming, but that faded fast. Then I thought there was a madman banging at my front door trying to get in, and I immediately thought to grab my tonfa (martial arts weapon) that I kept near me were I would crash, but then I saw black helmets through the small window view at the top of the door and as I glanced out one of the windows in the front, I saw a couple of official looking guys with their arms folded across their chests standing on the road watching. I then knew instantly that they were the cops. Again - BANG BANG, the door shuddered and as I ran over to the door to open it, I thought to myself, "isn't this rather extreme, I mean, for it all to end this way, this violence is a bit un-called for, don't you think (I thought to myself)". Right before the next BANG, I opened the door just in time to keep it from crashing open with the lock mechanism ripping out of the door frame.
So I open the door and there they were, several men dressed in black, with helmets, shields, assault rifles, the guy in front dropping the battering ram to the ground, and in big yellow letters on their uniforms - D.E.A. The next thing I heard was, "get on the floor, NOW"! As I complied, the voice screamed at me again, "get DOWN, put your hands behind your back"! I got down as fast as I could in the narrow space between me, the door, and the forward thrusting black uniforms, shields, and big guns. As the well shined black boots and neat uniforms streamed by, someone handcuffed me. I felt his knee on my back, but he put no pressure. Again someone yelled, "police, search warrant, police"! Through the house they went, yelling with crashing sounds and more banging and kicking open frail little bedroom doors punctuated with a loud voice, "clear"!. I thanked whatever god might exist, because my wife was not upstairs in her bedroom, she was in the Bahamas on a vacation junket with her daughter (an ex employee of PF, who wisely quit a few years earlier). But her daughter just had been here at the house, and a couple of days earlier she and her mom had left for Seatac Airport for a couple of weeks of fun, sun, sand and surf (which ended abruptly when they got the bad news). My wife's daughter would have been in the second upstairs bedroom. I am sure those DEA men would have dragged them both out of bed if they hadn't of got up because of the chaos and noise that engulfed the house. But, no such thing happened. Me and the cats were the only people in the house, and to me, it is one of the great "miracles" of my life. I can't be more serious about it. The raid was a real bitch. It was like the end of the world happened.
As I lay there on the floor, the realization swept in, and I knew my life had just changed. But I couldn't believe it would be in such a violent way. I expected to eventually get into trouble selling magic shroom spores. I was getting really famous and selling almost three thousand syringes per month with all of the usual idiotic nonsense from the usual percentage of morons who order (boxes coming back - undeliverable). But I had no idea it would be a full blown DEA raid with automatic weapons and a swat team. I thought I would just be visited by a couple of cop cars and agents with a search warrant and I would make an end. But not this way, it was as if I was an armed terrorist, or I was a wanted rapist murderer, or that I was a suspect in some kind of cop killing or armed bank robbery.
So I just remained calm and laid there on the floor, what could I do? After a couple of minutes of mayhem, the house was pronounced "clear"! The DEA swat team all came back down the stairs and proceeded to go down to the garage (daylight basement and outside). After about 10 minutes, a couple of plain clothes detectives, checked out the fat living room armchair (looked behind the cushions to check for weapons) that was near the front door, lifted me up off the floor, and placed me in the chair.
Then the main man came in - the leader of the DEA team. They led me over to the dining room table and seated me down. The special agent DEA man then sat down across from me, placed a tape recorder on the table, and then read me my rights - you know how it goes - "you have the right to remain silent, you have the right to an attorney, anything you say can be used against you in a court of law" --- etc. Then the agent looks at me and says, "Robert, this is serious, you are in big time trouble". Yeah, no shit (I thought). Then he surprises me by telling me that if I give them information that they can use, it can be a lot better for me. I suppose they were asking me if I knew of any weed gro-ops, meth labs or stuff going on in the area. The DEA men were congregating around the living room looking at me, and I said, "I don't know nothin' about what's going on around here, I hardly know anyone, and if I did, I wouldn't tell you shit",
Then the agent in charge, began his probes. He said they were at that moment raiding Judy's house (my sister in law) as well as her childhood family brothers' house (Steve). That scared me. Judy is almost an invalid and suffers from severe asthma and osteoporosis. She is very weak and frail and I kind of freaked out. Then I told the agent that I know the score on these drug raids, and the advice that lawyers and various publications say about what to do in the event of a raid is to - "SHUT THE FUCK UP AND DON'T SAY SHIT UNTIL YOU SEE A LAWYER". Well, I figured that they know a lot already, and if I just tell them what they already know and are ready to prove in court, maybe they won't arrest Judy. So I told the agent I was going to talk in order that they don't have to arrest Judy (hopefully). He didn't give me any confirmation that he would not arrest her.
So then I talked and told them that I was the MAN that they want, the leader, the PF business owner and that the few shrooms that they found upstairs were the source of my spores and that they were magic mushrooms etc. etc. I was out in the open anyway, with income taxes paid every year, the web site, the whole deal. What was I hiding? Nothing.
Then in comes a chick cop and her drug dog. I just told the chick cop that my weed was under the coffee table and her dog was jumping around it anyway. So she pulled out my jars of weed and in one jar was that special once every 6 months weed - you know - primo shit. She obviously knew what she was doing because as she took the jar out of the coffee table shelf, she looked at it, looked at the agent in charge sitting at the dining room table with me, pointed at the jar, nodded her head and rolled her eyes as if to say, "this is the good stuff". And then I complained, "that's my medical weed". And then one of the cops asked, "do you have a prescription"? I answered, "If I did, you wouldn't give a shit anyway". He grinned.
Meanwhile, my older cat (Piss Head) escaped out of the house through one of the open doors, but my younger cat (Cheat) appeared, and the drug dog barked at him. The Chick cop controlled her dog and then Cheat ran like mad through the DEA guys (who jumped) and out the back opened door. I felt really bad because of the ordeal that my two cats were going to go through. But one of the detectives went next door with a house key and gave it to my neighbor (a really nice school teacher) and he said that she said she would look out for them, (and she did - even though Cheat disappeared for several days).
The special agent in charge asks me another question, "where's the liqueur"? Damn, he knows about that (I thought!) This "liqueur" in question was a psilocybin extract technique that was a part of the PF TEK at FANATICUS.COM and I had a very interesting photo of a couple of glass containers with the liqueur and the psylocibin. So I told him - "in the freezer, behind the turkey". He got it out and put it on the counter. (What was unusual, was that when me and my wife finally got home about 10 days later, there the liqueur was, still on the counter - they didn't bother to take it - as if to leave me a gift)! I guess they had everything they could want (photos of my little grow op - and several grams of dried shrooms that they found in a waste basket, and scads of evidence of my operation) so the magic mushroom liqueur wouldn't have made any difference in the case. Plus, the containers weren't tight enough to keep them sealed and the liqueur would have leaked all over. And also, I told the agent that I really didn't have a clue exactly how good it is or what's actually in it. I was planning to test it on myself, but those plans came to an abrupt end, because when my wife and I got home, I was so bummed out that I was in no mood to try it and go on a trip. And plus, I had no idea if psilocin can be detected in a drug test (probably not, but I was tested constantly for drugs and booze). So because of those two reasons, I emptied the liqueur out on the lawn. But the consistency of the whitish crystals in the ethanol was interesting - hard and not sticky, separable and loose with a surprising weight to it. I suppose the agent was pleased that I just fessed it up so that he just left it there. Those guys knew everything, even about the psilocybin crystal liqueur that I consider to be one of the really great entheogenic sacred drug discoveries of all time. (See "The Crystals of the Gods" at the online PF TEK at http://www.fanaticus).
So then the special agent says that they are going to take me to jail up to Seattle. Then a couple of big trucks with trailers pull up to the house and they begin to load my pickup truck and my wife's Honda recreational vehicle. I couldn't believe it, what a pain in the ass, they were taking our cars! It wasn't that they were Mercedes, or Jaguars, or Rolls Royce's. They were just low echelon everyday cars with no big value, but just the same, those ass holes were taking them which means that if I was to get out of jail, we would really be stuck because I and my wife live way out here in the boonies. At least the agent in charge said they were leaving Judy's car.
Meanwhile, over at Steve's house, he wasn't there. Steve was on his way to a vacation in San Francisco. The cops checked out his computer and discovered his itinerary and went to the motel were he was staying and arrested him there and got his truck. Those cops are really efficient. When they act, there is nothing they don't know, it's fucking amazing! On the TV newscast that night, it was Steve who was on TV being taken in handcuffs into the Seattle Federal Courthouse.
Amidst all of the hubbub, as I was sitting there at the dining room table, there were two DEA guys standing in the middle of the living room watching me. DEA man number one was a little shorter than DEA man number two. DEA man number two was sort of glaring at me and he looked like he had been in a fight, because his lip had a scab on it. On the wall, there were photos of my Stonehenge stuff, and DEA man number one asked me, "what's that all about"? So I told him that to put it simply, it was just a vision representing high authority - the Hierarchy. And then I asked him, "do you see that path way that is lit up with the light coming from the out way"? "And do you see that gateway and those two megaliths standing there guarding"? DEA man number one says, "Yeah". So then I answered, "to put it very simply, ass holes can't pass thru the guardians to the avenue of the light and beyond". Then DEA man number one turns and says to DEA man number two, "Well I guess that leaves you out". DEA man number two turns and glowers at me as if he is just waiting for me to do something so he can kick my ass. I guess DEA man number one knows something about life.
The DEA squad was gathered in the living room standing around and I could sort of sense that they were wondering - why the big deal (?). There was no big grow op, or weed garden, or meth lab, or guns or anything other than a couple of shrooms growing in a terrarium. So I said, "Dee Eee fucking AA"! One of them answered me, "in person - the real deal". The DEA men were impressed with the view out the back of my house. They had to open all the windows because the air in the house reeked of that super skunk weed I smoked before I crashed on the couch the night before. Then one of them noticed that the house seemed to be leaning towards the lake. The floor can be detected to be slanting and also, the sliding glass door has an obvious closing problem in that it doesn't shut tight at the bottom because of the lean. One of the DEA men made a comment that the house is falling into the lake (actually not, the house has been stable for decades), and I just said, "who cares, you are going to take the house anyway". But in the end, I kept the house, glory be!
As I sat there waiting for things to get finished up around the house, another DEA man sat near me and started some kind of bullshit philosophy thing about it all being a "dream". I sort of engaged him, but then I got pissed off and shrugged him off. "LIFE IS NOT A DREAM", I said.
The DEA special agent in charge turned out to be a pretty good guy, in that he tried to do what he could do to make it "easy" (relatively speaking) on me. He started to speed things up because I realized later that he wanted to get me before the judge in the afternoon, so that I wouldn't have to be taken to the Pierce county jail (an absolute hell hole) because I would have to stay there to catch the Judge the next day. The special agent knew that if I saw the Judge in time, I would go to the Federal Detention Center at Seatac, a better place in comparison and I wouldn't be shocked with that county lockup. They next took the handcuffs off of me and fingerprinted me. The agents then put the handcuffs back on me and then did a total chain up. This was a foreshadow of what was to come. They just don't put handcuffs on you anymore, they chain you up so you can't run or kick. They make you very very safe, no matter what kind of bad ass you think you are. Then they had to process me further so they took me up to the North Shore Ranger Station (a tourist place and ranger station combined) for more processing. There was a fax machine there. So as I was sitting there in the pleasant North Shore Ranger Station, an old cedar wooden building next to a tourist type trail the goes into the Rain Forest (The Maple Glade Trail), they bring in Judy, all chained up. I got depressed. Judy told me that she was't in bed when the feds came driving up her driveway. She sensed something evil was coming her way but in the end, the woman is a class act. She has some serious intuition. She lets them in and they start their routine raid stuff. She protests at one point and one of the agents pushed her down onto her couch and told her to shut up and not to move. She told me that it hurt her a little bit. And that is because she is extremely frail, but she was all right and they respected her. And when they took her to the Ranger Station, they made sure she had her medications (Oxycontin, Vicodin, Morphine and all of that good stuff that she has by prescription
But the special agent then told me, that they were not going to take her to jail and that she was going to be released with a date with the judge. I thanked him and began to feel a lot better. At the North Shore Ranger station, Instead of DEA men watching me, there was a couple of fully armed (more armed than usual) Olympic National Park Forest Rangers guarding me as the special DEA agent in charge and his detectives were faxing stuff. Then I said to the two rangers, "you know, right out that window", startled, because of my address to them, they looked out the window to the green grassed deer field out in back, I told them, "when the first rains hit at the end of summer around September, there are thousands of Psilocybe Semilanceata growing". They didn't really know what I was talking about, but I guess they eventually figured out what I told them, and it was true. I have watched that field for years in amazement as the magic lib caps appear like clock work at the very first rains, even if it has been dry. But I only look and don't pick. I hate ass holes who when they find some magic shrooms, pick them all. If you are not going to eat any, leave them be so that they can spread their glorious spores into the wind and proliferate. That's respect for nature. Selling them as a drug is not profitable, because people don't like buying shrooms, they prefer them for free, especially here in the Pacific Northwest where they grow and if one runs into them, they are numerous and as one picks them, more seem to pop out of nowhere.
So they unchain Judy, and she wishes me goodbye and walks free. That improved my mood. Then off we go. The DEA agent in charge puts me in his car, a smallish gold colored thing. As they put me in the front seat, I asked him, "what's with this piece of shit car"? "I thought you feds can have any car you want - like a Mercedes or hot muscle cars that you get from drug dealers". The special agent said, "We like to keep a low profile".
So as we were exiting and on our way, I looked at the special agent and was quite amazed at how young he looked. I asked him, "compared to all of those detectives and other agents, aren't you kind of young to be the leader"? Then he looked at me and asked me to guess his age. I looked at him and said, "31". I guessed right.
As we journeyed to the Puget Sound area, we were followed by a large dark utility vehicle with tinted windows (fed) and we drove pretty fast, because the special agent in charge wanted to get me to the courthouse in time to be processed and then sent to the much better place - the Federal Detention Center at Seatac instead of spending overnight in the Pierce County hell hole that is near the Tacoma Federal Courthouse (by the way, the Tacoma Federal Courthouse used to be the old Tacoma central train station - quit impressive).
As we hit the highway linking Aberdeen to Olympia, that is cop alley. The staters are constantly giving speeding tickets. I warned the special agent about them, and he told me that he respects what they do, and I agreed. Then the communications radio linking the two fed vehicles started talking, "you got one on you, he's going to stop you". And behind us, the blue flashing lights of a stater was coming up fast. We pull over and the fed vehicle following us pulls over to the side of the highway in wait (far back). The state cop walks up to us and because he heard the radio chatter between the two fed vehicles he leans into the window on my side, and says, "well what do we have here"? Secret agent man then whips out a very impressive looking gold badge. The stater looks back and scopes out the trailing vehicle which had parked in wait, and my chains and then says, "you need to slow down, there are plenty more of us (staters) out here". Off we go, and start speeding again but with more alertness for the staters. I would warn secret agent man about certain stretches of the road where the staters would be hiding around curves, and he would momentarily slow down.
I think we wound up at the Seattle Federal Courthouse, but I am not sure. I was taken to a holding cell and then led out into the courtroom. There was the DEA agent in charge and the assistant US attorney looking satisfied for their days work. And there was Steve, one of my employees who was arrested at a motel he was staying in getting ready to go to San Fran on a vacation. So we were questioned and the judge asked me what my salary was. Then I just told him I was making somewhere around 30 grand a month. In retrospect, I shouldn't have said that because it was in every newspaper and TV newscast. But in one newspaper, an FBI guy was quoted as saying that my income confession sounded right (they watched my bank accounts as well as my spore gang activities). The public defender shook my shoulder as if to tell me to not talk. I was startled but he seemed to think things were going to work out OK. That Public Defender was a strange man with an odd reputation. But I remember him and I would like to meet him one day but I don't recall his name, but I know I can find out, because it is all in the record. The Judge was a magistrate judge. He must have already known what the score was. It was all set up. So Steve gets a Public Defender and I don't. Then we get carted off to the F.D.C.
So there was me and Steve in the incarceration unit at the FDC. We were sitting there, totally out of our minds, and at the table was sitting a fairly interesting character. He could be great "bad guy" actor. He looked the part - fairly big and "Italian" looking. He turned out to be a three time loser bank robber. As we sat there looking pathetic, he asked us what we were in for. I told him "conspiracy to manufacture psilocin". Then I said we hope to be released on friday when we appear before the judge who will determine if we can be released (detention hearing). He laughed loudly. He said that prisoners in on a federal drug conspiracy charge don't ever get out, and that we would surely remain in custody until our trial. Jesus! That really put the damper on any hope we had. So we just sat around stunned and scared. The real horror of it was that when you get put into Federal detention, you can't call anyone - no communication with anyone, except a lawyer. My partner Steve had a court appointed lawyer at the time, but since I was so "rich", I had none and it was up to me to get one.
A really wonderful thing was that my wife was not home when the raid went down. I was totally grateful to providence that she wasn't there to experience the incredible violence of the raid. So she was missing - out of the country on a vacation in the Bahamas. Plus, my stepdaughter (named in the affidavits but not in the indictment) was with her. They both could have been at the house when the raid went down also. My wife and her daughter missed it by a couple of days. It still seems like a "miracle".
Around 11 that first night in the FDC, there was a lead news story about me and my shroom business on KING TV (channel 5). It was nearing lock down time and I was standing around in the FDC, and some guys on the top balcony yelled down to me, "hey, are you the mushroom man"? I looked around and said, "you mean me"? They replied with "yeah, you"! "You were just on TV"! So then my magic mushroom notoriety spread around the FDC and everybody started to tell me about their Shroom experiences.
The TV newscast they were referring to was a channel 5 KING TV (Seattle) broadcast on tuesday, february 18 at 11:00 pm, the next morning on the 19th at 6:00 am and KOMO channel 4 on the 19th at 5:00 pm. I have the KING 5 video and made a transcript of the report. As the newscast came on, the story was a headline, first up. The newscast opened up with the anchors sitting there with this report: "Federal agents bust a local company selling magic mushrooms over the internet. Tonight, 2 men are behind bars as the KING 5 investigators uncover just how the operation ran. Kriss Engals has been tracking the company for weeks now and joins live with this KING 5 exclusive - KRISS: Jean and Dennis this company is called Fanaticus and this is what they sell (holding up 3 PF syringes): each of these syringes is filled with mushroom spores and according to Federal authorities here at the courthouse today, with these and a little know how, just about anyone can grow potent psychedelic mushrooms. Only KING 5 is there as drug agents bring in one of two men (Steve) suspected of putting a high tech twist on the sale of an old time drug. Agents say the men operated out of a home near Quinault lake, the remote rain forest country of the Olympic peninsula, the perfect climate for growing shrooms. Authorities said they first heard about Fanaticus, the web site the men allegedly operate and phone calls coming in across the country. DOUG WHALLEY - US assistant attorney - ".. and from parents of children who sent away and received syringes containing mushroom spores"... (back to the newsman) - The KING 5 investigators obtained these syringes from Fanaticus. A close look shows the tiny black spores floating in a solution. Prosecutors say the spores themselves are not illegal - they don't contain the hallucinogenic properties of a full grown mushroom, but the web site contains specific instructions on how to inject the spores into a jar and grow a potent magic mushroom (one of the photos of PF shrooms on a cake from the web site appears on screen). DOUG WHALLEY - US assistant attorney on screen again - "...It's equivalent to someone selling the ingredients of meth amphetamine and telling how to mix it up and getting paid for it. You'd be guilty of conspiring to distribute Meth Amphetamine". (back to the reporter) - At ten dollars a syringe, it appears the suspects world wide sales were making them rich. At his court hearing today, suspected ring leader Robert McPherson admitted earning $30,000 a month and authorities say his only source of income comes from his thriving mail order mushrooms. The D.E.A., the postal inspector and the US Attorneys office have been investigating Fanaticus for years now. They actually took some of the spores and grew in a D.E.A. lab a mushroom just to see if the process works, and they found out it does. I'm Kriss Engells reporting live in Seattle." end news story.
COMMENTS: As can be read, the news story was full of inaccuracies. The first glaring one was at the top - "Federal agents bust a local company selling magic mushrooms over the internet". I never sold magic mushroom over the internet. The second poor excuse for journalism was this statement - "Agents say the men operated out of a home near Quinault lake, the remote rain forest country of the Olympic peninsula, the perfect climate for growing shrooms". The PF TEK is not for outside growing. The third statement was from the US attorney who head up the investigation - DOUG WHALLEY - US assistant attorney on screen again - "...It's equivalent to someone selling the ingredients of meth amphetamine and telling how to mix it up and getting paid for it - you'd be guilty of conspiring to distribute Meth Amphetamine". That is typical of the Feds and their twisting of the facts (comparing magic mushrooms to methamphetimine - scare tactics). Another bit of bad reporting was this statement from the newscaster - "and authorities say his only source of income comes from his thriving mail order mushrooms". There it is again, the insinuation that I sold mushrooms by mail order. So I say with metaphysical certitude - the media blows.
The next day came and I had the presence of mind to call a lawyer. There were phones in the FDC and you could only call a lawyer. I checked out the Seattle Tacoma yellow pages (totally tattered) and saw a big ad for a famous local lawyer who specialized in Drug crimes. I called him and was put immediately through to him. He told me he had just got out of the hospital with some serious health problems but immediately recommended a lawyer friend of his. I have been given permission to mention him by name. I have learned to do nothing in my situation without his go ahead. His name is Barry Flegenheimer of Seattle Washington. So I called him right away, and again, a secretary put me right through to him. I told him who I was and what I was in for. So he said he would be down to see me. It was in the afternoon and I heard a CO (corrections officer) yell out "MCPHERSON"! I jumped to and they took me down to the meeting rooms (after a strip search). I entered the room and there was BARRY. He had a law book open and was pointing to the PSILOCIN statute. He began by saying it was a felony. Then I began babbling about only selling spores, and all of that. But he would not respond to any of that. I remember the old DRAGNET TV series in which Sgt. Joe Friday would always say "just the facts, ma'am, just the facts". That was Barry. He understood the Federal Sentencing Guidelines and what it says about magic shrooms and psilocin. It was there in black and white - no mystery to him. I started babbling about one gram equals one gram (based on info I got from Richard Glen Boire's book - "SACRED MUSHROOMS AND THE LAW - to be reviewed later on). Then I began my education on what I had gotten myself into. The fact that Barry took himself away from his busy schedule to come right down to the FDC to see me, foreshadowed what a great job he would do for me (downtown Seattle to downtown Tacoma - an annoying half hour drive if the traffic is not screwed). On the drive down to Tacoma to see me, I'm sure Barry was becoming intrigued, because no one in history had ever been busted for running a magic mushroom spore business in which the spores are actually not illegal.
So friday comes around, the day of my detention hearing. I was with a group of prisoners being prepared (chained up) to be taken to the court house and I saw Steve (my codefendant) in a holding cell by himself. He had his normal clothes on. He was being released without going to the detention hearing. After the initial arrests, Steve went out of contact with me, my wife and Judy. According to the conspiracy charges, we were not supposed to talk to each other before the trial. Of course we stayed in contact (very carefully - only when needed for life purposes) with Judy because Judy is my wife's sister and we look out for her. But I do have to say that Judy's lawyer was clueless and never grasped the depth of the case. It was my wife and I and our lawyers that got Judy and Steve dismissed. But Steve was really pissed off. I guess I don't blame him, but I did warn him about the risk of the spore biz. When the charges were dismissed on him (and Judy) when me and my wife pled guilty, he moved to Seattle and he doesn't talk to us anymore. The one thing that really had me worried was if we went to trial, it would have been very messy. I am positive that Judy's and Steve's lawyers would have advised them to go against us for their sakes. That had me wanting to not go to trial. My wife was very willing to go to trial and fight but she went along with my desire not to go to trial and go with a plea agreement. It appeared that we were going to come out OK, intact with something and me not going to prison.
When I went before the Judge, he was concerned that my wife was missing, so they didn't let me out. Barry just got a continuance for the next wednesday and began searching for my wife. They finally hooked up when my wife was alerted to my situation from a phone call to her sister Judy. She immediately came back and her daughter went back to New York. I am sure there was a lot of crying going on with them. She was there on Wednesday for my second detention hearing. She turned her self in and was booked and released already. The Judge on seeing her in the courtroom, decided I could get out on pretrial release bond. That particular Judge was the one who presided over the grand jury decision to issue the search warrant and warrant for my arrest. He presided over all of my pretrial hearings, and he is known as a tough judge. He does not like "drug addicts". I guess they all don't. That's a no brainer. The cops found 2 ounces of weed at my house. So I get taken back to the FDC for release and it involved the usual strip searches and forms to be signed. I got my cloths back and the CO lead me out of the FDC into the light of the world. I was so happy I can't even attempt to describe it. And that was after 8 days in the FDC. I lost a lot of weight. So there was my wife and a chick friend of hers driving up and I was gone. My wife's chick friend had some vodka spiked apricot juice. I didn't know it was spiked, but it did have a funny taste. I got nice and mellow. We had to stick around for a couple of days and check in at the pretrial services where I met my pretrial release officer and got my first drug test with a list of things I had to do to stay out of jail. Being on pretrial release is no picnic, because one can easily be reincarcerated if one doesn't do as ordered (it happened once - described later herein under the title "The Big Scare"). I got real careful after that. I remember being told that being on probation was far worse than being on pretrial release. Not so. Pretrial release, in my case, was a real nightmare. For instance, it was only two weeks after I got out of jail, when the pretrial release supervisor and his assistant came to our house and he stood there in the middle of the living room and said, "Robert, we know you are smoking marijuana". I was flabbergasted. I asked him what made him think that. He said it was because after two weeks, I still had a marijuana positive U.A. (drug test). His position on that, was if one didn't get clear of THCC in the U.A. drug test after two weeks, that means one is smoking pot. Wrong. (more on this later in "THE BIG SCARE"). After my sentence was handed down, I got assigned a Probation Officer. The man was a very reasonable guy and he didn't try to make our lives hell, but actually tried to help and I did enjoy the talk sessions when he would stop by. I don't remember anything we discussed but it was just basic small talk and social pleasantries.
On the way home, my wife and I stopped at our favorite Mexican food restaurant, had a nice meal and I had a couple of margaritas (my wife was driving). Given the circumstances, I felt pretty damn good. My wife and I were pretty apprehensive about what we would find when we arrived home. We were correct - the place was a shambles. But there to greet us was our two beloved cats, totally freaked out. Our neighbor took care of them. They were allowed outside because they are outside type cats, but they were there in the house to greet us. They were nervous for days afterwards. The raid scared the hell out of them, and the drug dog didn't help much either. Our front door still has the bash marks on it from the DEA swat teams' battering ram. But the next day, we put the house back in order and after vacuuming, it looked like nothing had ever happened, except for the bash marks on the front door and its' loose locking mechanism (I opened the door just before it would have come crashing in - and of course you know the story - "get on the floor, now - put your hands behind your back"! --- without any protest, I complied as fast as I could and an upstairs bedroom's door frame is still busted (the bedroom my wife's daughter would have been in).
When we were raided on Tuesday, February 18 2003, the next day the story was all over the media.
Investigators: Magic mushrooms via the Web
Federal agents have raided an Olympic Peninsula operation that sold spores to grow magic mushrooms, fungi that produce an illegal high, over the Internet.
The company, Fanaticus, sold syringes filled with spores in solution along with instructions that enabled just about anyone, including the Drug Enforcement Administration to grow mushrooms containing hallucinogenic psilocybin and psilocyn, federal prosecutors allege. Such fungi grow wild in the Northwest.
After yesterdays raid, Robert William McPherson of Amanda Park and Steven Coggin of Neilton were charged in U.S. District Court with conspiracy to manufacture and distribute the hallucinogens, and with manufacturing psilocyn.
According to charging papers, the men operated out of a home near Lake Quinault in the rain forest country of the Olympic Peninsula, a perfect climate for mushrooms.
Prosecutors say the spores themselves are not illegal, because they don't contain the hallucinogenic properties of a full-grown mushroom.
But the Web site provides instruction on how to inject the spores into a jar and grow the mushrooms.
"It's the equivalent of selling somebody the ingredients to make meth and telling them how to mix it up, and getting paid for it. You'd be guilty of conspiring to distribute meth amphetamine", said Assistant U.S. Attorney Doug Whalley.
At $10 per syringe and $5 per instruction booklet, it appears the suspects' worldwide sales were making them rich.
At a court hearing yesterday, McPherson said he earns $30,000 per month. Authorities say his only source of income was his thriving mail-order mushroom business.
The DEA and the postal inspector's office have been investigating Fanaticus for years. In charging papers, DEA Agent Daniel P. Mancano describes ordering the materials and planting some of the spores in a DEA lab to make sure the process worked.
The investigation was launched in 1999 by those agencies and the National Park Service after ads for Psilocybe Fanaticus appeared on the Internet and in High Times magazine.
The main thrust of every newspaper story and coverage was this - "UP TO 20 YEARS IN PRISON". The "up to but not more than 20 years in prison" is in the indictment and it has to do with the maximum penalty one can get from trafficking in Psilocybin mushrooms (felony level 38). This felony level 38 is defined as manufacturing 300 grams or more of LSD (or the equivalent amount of other schedule 1 or 2 Hallucinogens). And since the Federal Sentencing Guidelines give psilocyn a value of 200 times that of LSD, that comes out to 60,000 grams (60 Kilos) of psilocybin (the pure drug). Since 10 mg of psilocybin equals one dose, there are 6 million doses in 60 kilos of psilocybin. The FSG (federal sentencing guidelines) gives 5 grams of dried shrooms as being one dose (or trip) so that turns out to be 30 million grams of shrooms, or 30,000 kilos or 66,000 lb. of dried shrooms. So if one had 30,000 kilos (66,000 pounds) or more of dried shrooms, one can be eligible for 20 years in prison (minimum sentence for felony level 38). That is a lot of shrooms. They caught me with 11.4 grams which is an automatic level 12 (10 to 16 months) which can be readjusted up or down considering the facts of the case and what the prosecution wants to do (which they reduced in my favor). There is a complete breakdown of all of this in the article - "Magic mushrooms and the law" (can be seen at www.fanaticus.com).
And after all of that hubbub in the media and all the baloney about "20" fucking years, there were no reporters or media anywhere around the huge courtroom at the Tacoma Federal courthouse on the day of my sentencing hearing (8 months after my arrest). There was no TV report about my sentence, no newspaper report - not even in the local yokel DAILY WORLD newspaper which covers Lake Quinault. There was complete silence. I guess when the results of the case is not up to "expectations" the media blows off. Yeah, as I said before, they just blow.
So now it is over. It had been a rough 8 months (pretrial period), but my lawyer took us through it with expert advice through his many years of experience in the Federal court system. Without his negotiations with the US attorneys office, I am sure I would have gotten prison time with TOTAL forfeiture.
Professor Fanaticus
Now in retrospect, I need to take back all that I have said about my lawyers and the US attorneys office. When I first wrote this, what I was doing was "blogging". Back then in 2003, the word "blogg" didn't seem to exist. It means - WEB LOG, kind of a daily diary of opinion relating to law, the news et. I was writing all of this just to express myself and keep this weird experience in the public eye as much as I could - reason? I am not sure. But one reason might have been the effort to get into some kind of favorable position with the Prosecution (US attorneys office) by sort of "entertaining" them without implicating myself any further. And it sort of worked. In the article "The Big Scare", I remember my Lawyer and the US assistant attorney in charge of my case joking together in court about what I said in this document regarding what my lawyer said about the US assistant attorney being "well educated". About 1/2 hour later I was released from custody after it was explained what I was doing with my "going out of business sale" (as the US assistant attorney remarked to my lawyer - in jest also) and the business with my positive drug test for marijuana occurring at the wrong time (and later analyzed by Gas Chromatography -mass spectrometry as a false positive - cause unknown). See the section "THE BIG SCARE" for the story of my surprise arrest and overnight stay in the Pierce County Hell Hole.
Now I want to basically want take all I have remarked about the lawyers back. As far as the US attorneys office, they represent the US government department of justice. When the indictment came down, the WWW.FANATICUS.COM web site, HIGH TIMES MAGAZINE ADVERTISEMENTS and PF spore business was the target, ground zero - count one of the indictment - CONSPIRACY TO DISTRIBUTE PSILOCIN. The second count was MANUFACTURING PSILOCIN. Two weeks after I got of jail (my initial arrest), we got a letter from the US attorneys office offering us a quick end to the case. The letter said that if I pleaded guilty to count two, they would drop count one. My wife and I rejoiced because count one was where the huge forfeiture came in. But when we called my lawyer, he said the forfeiture was still the issue, because that was the price to be paid to end the case in good time and he said the US attorney's office "wanted everything". Well, after I let loose a big swear word in protest, my lawyer said that this is where we were going to start negotiating because that is the way it was done - I give them something and they give me back something - kind of like back and forth trading sessions until all parties are "satisfied". So eventually I forked over about 1/3 of my assets (worth about $300,000) and I got to keep about a half a million. All the lawyers and a judge friend of mine said I got an unusually good plea offer and that the best thing I could do was jump and take it with plenty of appreciation. So we did, and after the sentencing hearing, we still had a bunch of good stuff to our name and we were not destitute and homeless after all. My probation officer always tries to remind me, "Robert, in your case, crime paid". Well big deal! With my so called "illegal business" (see the sentencing hearing transcript) being apparently not "illegal" - (spore selling in High Times Magazine still going on and bigger than ever on the Web) - it is as if I am one of those people who has been "mugged" by the US government.
Now this is why I want to amend this section. When I talk about the case and the magic shrooms to our lawyers, they don't say much of anything. And basically it is because they don't know hardly anything about the subject matter. They hardly even knew what Magic Mushrooms were before this whole affair (accept that they were against the law). They didn't know the history and the metaphysics of the magic shrooms or the concept of them being a sacrament of an ancient way of life. My lawyer just basically accepted that I broke the law and that selling spores was a part of that breaking of the law. Every lawyer I talked to about this had no opinion at all. It was if I could get no really good legal council or representation because knowledge of my realm of activity is automatically out of the range of people involved in the pedantic study of law. The Magic Mushrooms and "the written law" are very different. The Magic Mushrooms are the "unwritten law" and are the keys to the "unknown universe", things that law inclined people never allow themselves to think about because of the absence of known facts and certainty.
So, I had lousy representation. To get the "right" kind of representation was out of my reach even if it exists somewhere out there in lawyer land which I don't think actually does. What I needed was a person and lawyer who was experienced with the Mushrooms and regarded them with high respect and knowledge and who could thunder from the podium with blazing speech and rhetoric to make the jury realize what was going on and that legal spores plus a legal book DOES NOT EQUAL AN ILLEGAL BUSINESS and that the only proper end to count one was that the jury could nullify the charge and refuse to accept that selling legal spores and a book is NOT A CRIME as the government claimed.
In the very beginning of my encounter with the DEA, I would spend hours mulling over ideas about my defense in court that I thought was going to happen (the Trial). And it was the idea of freedom of speech and freedom to teach and the fact that the spores were not illegal and that I had been doing it out in the open for 12 years that could have been the heart of my defense (a constitutional argument). I thought something was really unfair and un-American about the government's action against PF, and I really racked my brain in trying to figure out great arguments that would sound excellent in a Trial before the jury. But as my Probation officer said to me, "all the government would of had to of done was to bring in some mother wailing about her child who got some "evil" syringes and a book on how to grow "evil" mushrooms and I would be a piece of well done toast". My lawyer insinuated that also early on - about the typical juries. And of course I mulled over how to do the selection of the jury by just asking if the prospective jurist knew what Magic Mushrooms were and that they grew naturally all over this area of the country - the Pacific Northwest and that they were acknowledged by science as an ancient sacrament in an ancient way of life. My lawyer didn't say anything positive about those arguments. I guess he was just very sure the case would never go to trial and his job was damage control and to make the forfeiture as less painful as possible and to keep me out of doing prison time. I guess I can end with a statement that he basically did that - he accomplished his mission. But loosing those properties and a fairly large pile of cash isn't what I would call a "great" end. But then I keep hearing in the mists of my memories what the magistrate judge (the judge who oversaw the beginning of my case) would keep saying in court hearings when it was suggested that the punishment for my "crime" was not a prison sentence, ---"20 years"!!!!
For Immediate Release
United States Attorney John McKay, Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) Special-Agent-In-Charge John Bott, National Park Service (NPS) Acting Chief Ranger Tim Simonds, and United States Postal Inspection Service (USPIS) Acting Inspector-in-Charge William P. Atkins announce today the Indictment of four Washington State residents for manufacturing and conspiring to manufacture psilocyn, a controlled substance, commonly found in hallucinogenic mushrooms. The Indictment in this case, returned by a Federal Grand Jury on February 22, 2003, charges ROBERT WILLIAM McPHERSON, age 56, the owner of Psylocybe Fanaticus, and his wife, MARGARET M. McPHERSON, age 48, both of Amanda Park, Washington; STEPHEN COGGIN, age 51, of Neilton, Washington; and JUDITH CHRISTINE KREIGH, age 47, of Amanda Park, Washington, with conspiracy to distribute psilocyn and the manufacture of psilocyn in Western Washington. The charges carry a maximum sentence of twenty years' imprisonment.
According to court records, the investigation of ROBERT McPHERSON and Psylocybe Fanaticus was prompted in September 1999, when law enforcement agents around the country received calls from concerned parents whose children had received packages from Psylocybe Fanaticus. Those packages contained syringes and instructions on how to grow hallucinogenic mushrooms. Psylocybe Fanaticus is a mail order business that sells hallucinogenic mushroom spores. ROBERT McPHERSON operated a web site on the internet, WWW.FANATICUS.COM , and advertised in the High Times magazine to promote the sale of hallucinogenic mushroom spores. The web site provides instructions on cultivating mushroom spores to manufacture a hallucinogenic strain of mushrooms. Psylocybe Fanaticus's web site and advertisement in High Times magazine state that the mushrooms grown with the spores will be magic mushrooms. The web site also provides a first person description of the mental disorientation and physical sickness that results from eating hallucinogenic mushrooms.
Through the course of this investigation, agents learned that STEPHEN COGGIN and JUDITH KREIGH were employees of ROBERT McPHERSON and Psylocybe Fanaticus. STEPHEN COGGIN was responsible for picking up mail at a Post Office box in Seattle, Washington, addressed to Psylocybe Fanaticus. COGGIN lived at a residence in Neilton, Washington, owned by the McPHERSONs. Incoming mail addressed to Psylocybe Fanaticus was also received at a Post Office box in Amanda Park, Washington, where it was picked up by ROBERT McPHERSON and JUDITH KREIGH. ROBERT McPHERSON, JUDITH KREIGH, and STEPHEN COGGIN were also sending out packages on a daily basis at the Post Office in Amanda Park. Law enforcement agents believe that the packages contained hallucinogenic mushroom spores and material to grow them and were sent in response to orders placed with Psylocybe Fanaticus.
On July 17, 2000, the DEA, utilizing an undercover return address, placed an order for mushroom spores through Psylocybe Fanaticus's Post Office box address at Amanda Park. On July 31, 2000, the DEA received a package containing five plastic syringes each containing clear liquid with small particles (spores) floating within the liquid. The package also contained two books on cultivating "magic mushrooms" with the contents in the syringes. In February 2001, the DEA sent another order to Psylocybe Fanaticus and received another two syringes with spores in a liquid substance. The spores were grown according to the books which accompanied the syringes and instructions on the WWW.FANATICUS.COM web site and the agent was able to produce several crops of mushrooms. The DEA laboratory confirmed the presence of psilocyn, a Schedule I controlled substance, in the mushrooms.
ROBERT McPHERSON was arrested on February 18, 2003, at his Amanda Park residence when agents executed a search warrant. Inside the residence was a mushroom growing operation with live mushrooms. After being advised of his constitutional rights, ROBERT McPHERSON admitted that he was growing the mushrooms for his mushroom spore business. On February 21, 2003, United States Magistrate Judge J. Kelley Arnold ordered ROBERT McPHERSON permanently detained pending trial. The arraignment of ROBERT McPHERSON on the Indictment is scheduled for March 5, 2003, before Magistrate Judge Arnold.
STEPHEN COGGIN's Neilton, Washington, residence was also searched on February 18, 2003. COGGIN was not present during the search, but was subsequently arrested. Agents found supplies of syringes and other mushroom growing equipment sent out by Psylocybe Fanaticus to customers to grow hallucinogenic mushrooms. COGGIN was arraigned on the Indictment on February 21, 2003. He was released on bond pending trial. A trial date for COGGIN is scheduled for April 21, 2003, before United States District Court Judge Robert J. Bryan.
The arraignment of JUDITH KREIGH and MARGARET McPHERSON is scheduled for Thursday, February 27, 2003, at 12:00 p.m., before United States Magistrate Judge Arnold at the Union Station Courthouse in Tacoma, Washington.
The Indictment is based on a joint investigation by agents and investigators from the Drug Enforcement Administration in Seattle, National Park Service, and the United States Postal Inspection Service.
Members of the public are reminded that an Indictment contains only a charge. The defendants are presumed innocent of the charge and it will be the government's burden to prove a defendant's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt at trial.
For further information, please contact John Hartingh, Executive Assistant United States Attorney, at (206) 553-4110; Doug Whalley, Assistant United States Attorney, at (206) 553-4882; or Ye-Ting Woo, Assistant United States Attorney, at (206) 553-2268.
In the court and US attorney documents - the charges and the USC (United States Code) that were listed are spelled out like this: Schedule 1, Title 21, USC, Section 812. The following is from the USC statutes.
21 USC Sec. 812 01/22/02
TITLE 21 - FOOD AND DRUGS CHAPTER 13 - DRUG ABUSE PREVENTION AND CONTROL SUBCHAPTER I - CONTROL AND ENFORCEMENT Part B - Authority To Control; Standards and Schedules
Sec. 812. Schedules of controlled substances
STATUTE-
(a) Establishment There are established five schedules of controlled substances, to be known as schedules I, II, III, IV, and V. Such schedules shall initially consist of the substances listed in this section. The schedules established by this section shall be updated and republished on a semiannual basis during the two-year period beginning one year after October 27, 1970, and shall be updated and republished on an annual basis thereafter.
(b) Placement on schedules; findings required Except where control is required by United States obligations under an international treaty, convention, or protocol, in effect on October 27, 1970, and except in the case of an immediate precursor, a drug or other substance may not be placed in any schedule unless the findings required for such schedule are made with respect to such drug or other substance. The findings required for each of the schedules are as follows:
(1) Schedule I. -
(A) The drug or other substance has a high potential for abuse.
(B) The drug or other substance has no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States.
(C) There is a lack of accepted safety for use of the drug or other substance under medical supervision.
SCHEDULE I
(c) Unless specifically excepted or unless listed in another schedule, any material, compound, mixture, or preparation, which contains any quantity of the following hallucinogenic substances, or which contains any of their salts, isomers, and salts of isomers whenever the existence of such salts, isomers, and salts of isomers is possible within the specific chemical designation:
1. AET (Alpha-ethyltryptamine) 7249
This drug is a stimulant produced by the Upjohn Pharmaceutical Company. After it was discontinued by them, it was added to the Schedule 1 drug list on 12 September 1994.
2. DMA (4-Bromo-2,5-dimethoxy-amphetimine) 7391 - Added to the Schedule 1 list on 21 September 1973
3. 2C-B or NEXUS (4-Bromo-2,5-dimethoxyphenethylamine) 7392 - Added to the Schedule 1 list on 6 January 1994
4. DMA (2,5-Dimethoxyamphetamine) 7396
5. DOET (2,5-Dimethoxy-4-ethylamphetamine) 7399 - Added to the Schedule 1 list on 16 February 1973
6. PMA (4-Methoxyamphetamine) 7411 - Added to the Schedule 1 list on 21 September 1973
7. MMDA (5-Methoxy-3,4-methylenedioxyamphetamine) 7401
8. STP (4-Methyl-2,5-dimethyoxyamphetamine 7395
9. MDA (3,4-Methylenedioxyamphetamine) 7400
10. MDMA (3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine) 7405 - added to the Schedule 1 list officially on 23 March 1988
11. MDE or MDEA (3,4-Methylenedioxy-N-ethylamphetamine) 7404 - added to the Schedule 1 list on 13 April 1989
12. MDA (N-Hydroxy-3,4-methylenedioxyamphetamine) 7402 - Added to the Schedule 1 list on 13 October 1988
13. TMA (3,4,5-Trimethoxy amphetamine) 7390
14. BUFOTENINE
15. DET (Diethyltryptamine)
16. DMT (Dimethyltryptamine)
17. IBOGAINE (A plant called Tabernanthe iboga)
18. LSD (Lysergic acid diethylamide) 7315
19. Marihuana - Cannabis sativa
20. MESCALINE 7381
21. Parahexyl 7374
22. PEYOTE 7415 Meaning all parts of the plant presently classified botanically as Lophophora williamsii. This is one of four plants that are listed in the Federal Drug Law with probable correctness. The other three are Cannabis Sativa (marihuana), Papaver somniferum (opium) and Erythroxylon coca (coca). The Tabernanthe iboga (#17 above) and Catha edulis (associated with Cathinone, Schedule 1 stimulants) are controversial. Peyote is also the sacrament of an approved religion. Sec. 1307.31 exempts peyote from control when used in bona fide religious activities by the Native American Church, which is primarily made up of American Indians. However, persons who manufacture or distribute peyote to the Native American Church must register with DEA and otherwise comply with the regulations.
23. N-Ethyl-3-piperidyl benzilate 7482
25. PSILOCYBIN 7437
26. PSILOCYN
27. THC (Tetrahydrocannabinol) - The isomer, dronabinol or Marinol, in sesame oil in a soft gelatin capsule, is an FDA approved product, and on July 2 1999 was listed as Schedule 3.
28. PCE (phencyclidine) 7455 (analogues of PCE are PCP and TCP all schedule one.)
AS WRITTEN IN THE INDICTIMENT AND CHARGES -
Title 21 United States Code (USC)
Part D -- Offenses and Penalties
Section 841. Prohibited Acts A
Unlawful acts
(a) Except as authorized by this subchapter, it shall be unlawful for any person knowingly or intentionally --
(1) to manufacture, distribute, or dispense, or possess with intent to manufacture, distribute, or dispense, a controlled substance; or
Penalties
(b) Except as otherwise provided in section 859, 860, or 861 of this title, any person who violates subsection (a) of this section shall be sentenced as follows:
(1)(A) In the case of a violation of subsection (a) of this section involving --
(C) In the case of a controlled substance in schedule I or II , or 1 gram of flunitrazepam, except as provided in subparagraphs (A), (B), and (D), such person shall be sentenced to a term of imprisonment of not more than 20 years and if death or serious bodily injury results from the use of such substance shall be sentenced to a term of imprisonment of not less than twenty years or more than life, a fine not to exceed the greater of that authorized in accordance with the provisions of Title 18, or $1,000,000 if the defendant is an individual or $5,000,000 if the defendant is other than an individual, or both. If any person commits such a violation after one or more prior convictions for an offense punishable under this paragraph, or for a felony under any other provision of this subchapter or subchapter II of this chapter or other law of a State, the United States or a foreign country relating to narcotic drugs, marihuana, or depressant or stimulant substances, have become final, such person shall be sentenced to a term of imprisonment of not more than 30 years and if death or serious bodily injury results from the use of such substance shall be sentenced to life imprisonment, a fine not to exceed the greater of twice that authorized in accordance with the provisions of Title 18, or $2,000,000 if the defendant is an individual or $10,000,000 if the defendant is other than an individual, or both. Any sentence imposing a term of imprisonment under this paragraph shall, in the absence of such a prior conviction, impose a term of supervised release of at least 3 years in addition to such term of imprisonment and shall, if there was such a prior conviction, impose a term of supervised release of at least 6 years in addition to such term of imprisonment. Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the court shall not place on probation or suspend the sentence of any person sentenced under the provisions of this subparagraph which provide for a mandatory term of imprisonment if death or serious bodily injury results, nor shall a person so sentenced be eligible for parole during the term of such a sentence.
Title 21 United States Code (USC)
Controlled Substances Act - Section 846. Attempt and Conspiracy
Any person who attempts or conspires to commit any offense defined in this subchapter shall be subject to the same penalties as those prescribed for the offense, the commission of which was the object of the attempt or conspiracy.
U.S. Code : Title 18 : Section 2
U.S. Code as of: 01/06/03
Section 2. Principals
(a) Whoever commits an offense against the United States or aids, abets, counsels, commands, induces or procures its commission, is punishable as a principal.
(b) Whoever willfully causes an act to be done which if directly performed by him or another would be an offense against the United States, is punishable as a principal.
Title 21 United States Code (USC)
Section 853. Criminal Forfeitures
Property subject to criminal forfeiture
(a) Any person convicted of a violation of this subchapter or subchapter II of this chapter punishable by imprisonment for more than one year shall forfeit to the United States, irrespective of any provision of State law --
(1) any property constituting, or derived from, any proceeds the person obtained, directly or indirectly, as the result of such violation;
(2) any of the person's property used, or intended to be used, in any manner or part, to commit, or to facilitate the commission of, such violation; and
(3) in the case of a person convicted of engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise in violation of section 848 of this title, the person shall forfeit, in addition to any property described in paragraph (1) or (2), any of his interest in, claims against, and property or contractual rights affording a source of control over, the continuing criminal enterprise.
The court, in imposing sentence on such person, shall order, in addition to any other sentence imposed pursuant to this subchapter or subchapter II of this chapter, that the person forfeit to the United States all property described in this subsection. In lieu of a fine otherwise authorized by this part, a defendant who derives profits or other proceeds from an offense may be fined not more than twice the gross profits or other proceeds.
Meaning of term "property"
(b) Property subject to criminal forfeiture under this section includes --
(1) real property, including things growing on, affixed to, and found in land; and
(2) tangible and intangible personal property, including rights, privileges, interests, claims, and securities.
Third party transfers
(c) All right, title, and interest in property described in subsection (a) of this section vests in the United States upon the commission of the act giving rise to forfeiture under this section. Any such property that is subsequently transferred to a person other than the defendant may be the subject of a special verdict of forfeiture and thereafter shall be ordered forfeited to the United States, unless the transferee establishes in a hearing pursuant to subsection (n) of this section that he is a bona fide purchaser for value of such property who at the time of purchase was reasonably without cause to believe that the property was subject to forfeiture under this section.
(p) If any of the property described in subsection (a) of this section, as a result of any act or omission of the defendant
(1) cannot be located upon the exercise of due diligence;
(2) has been transferred or sold to, or deposited with, a third party;
(3) has been placed beyond the jurisdiction of the court;
(4) has been substantially diminished in value; or
(5) has been commingled with other property which cannot be divided without difficulty; the court shall order the forfeiture of any other property of the defendant up to the value of any property described in paragraphs (1) through (5).
United States Attorney John McKay announced that on August 13, 2003, ROBERT W. McPHERSON, date of birth, August 18, 1946, and his wife MARGARET M. McPHERSON, date of birth December 24, 1954, both of Amanda Park, Grays Harbor County, Washington, entered guilty pleas in Tacoma to charges related to their February 20, 2003, indictment for growing hallucinogenic mushrooms and selling mushroom spores over the internet. Both defendants entered their guilty pleas before United States Magistrate Judge Karen Strombom.
According to court records, the investigation of ROBERT McPHERSON was started in 1999 when law enforcement agencies around the country received calls from concerned parents whose children had received packages from a company called Psylocybe Fanaticus, operated by ROBERT McPHERSON. Those packages contained syringes with mushroom spores, and instructions on how to grow hallucinogenic mushrooms. McPHERSON operated a web site to promote the sale of the hallucinogenic mushroom spores. The web site also provided a first-person description of the mental disorientation and physical sickness that results from eating hallucinogenic mushrooms. On February 18, 2003, federal agents searched the residence of ROBERT and MARGARET McPHERSON in Amanda Park, and seized mushrooms containing psilocin, a controlled substance.
ROBERT McPHERSON pleaded guilty to the felony offense of manufacturing (growing) mushrooms containing psilocin. MARGARET McPHERSON pleaded guilty to possession of psilocin, a Class A Misdemeanor.
According to court documents filed as part of the guilty pleas, ROBERT McPHERSON acknowledged that he knew that the mushrooms in his house were hallucinogenic mushrooms, containing an illegal controlled substance. He also admitted that he sold mushroom spores that were intended to grow into hallucinogenic mushrooms.
MARGARET McPHERSON admitted in court documents that she assisted her husband in raising the mushrooms, and that she knew the mushrooms contained an illegal controlled substance.
Court records reflect that as part of their guilty pleas, ROBERT and MARGARET McPHERSON agreed to forfeit property used to commit or to facilitate the commission of the charged offenses, and property derived from proceeds they obtained as the result of the offenses, including the following:
* A residence and real property on North Shore Road, Amanda Park, Washington.
Sentencing is scheduled for October 31, 2003, at 9:30 a.m. before United States District Judge Robert J. Bryan. ROBERT McPHERSON'S offense carries a penalty of up to 20 years in prison, a fine not to exceed $1,000,000, a term of supervised release of five years, and a Special Assessment of $100.
MARGARET McPHERSON'S offense carries a penalty of imprisonment for not more than one year, a fine not to exceed $200,000, a period of supervised release of one year, a period of probation of up to five years, and a Special Assessment of $25.
The investigation was a joint effort of the Drug Enforcement Administration, the National Park Service, and the United States Postal Inspection Service.
For further information, please contact John Hartingh, Executive Assistant United States Attorney, at (206) 553-4110, or Douglas Whalley, Assistant United States Attorney, at (206) 553-4882; or Ye-Ting Woo, Assistant United States Attorney, at (206) 553-2268.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
V.
ROBERT MCPHERSON,
The United States of America, by and through John McKay, United States Attorney for the Western District of Washington, and Douglas B. Whalley and Ye-Ting Woo, Assistant United States Attorneys, Defendant Robert McPherson, and his attorney, Barry Flegenheimer, enter into the following Plea Agreement pursuant to Rule 11(e), Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure:
1. Charges Defendant has been advised of his right to be tried before a jury, and he agrees to waive that right and to inter a plea of guilty to Count Two of the Indictment, charging manufacture of psilocin, a violation of Title 21, United States Code, Sections 84(a)(1), 841(b)(1)(C) and 846, and Title 18, United States Code, Section 2. Defendant understands that the statutory penalty is a term of imprisonment of not more than 20 years, a fine not to exceed $1,000,000, a term of supervised release of five years, and a Special Assessment of $100.
Defendant agrees that the penalty assessments shall be paid at or before the time of sentencing. Defendant understands that by pleading guilty to a felony drug offense, he will become ineligible for certain food stamp and social security benefits under 21 U.S.C. & 862a.
Defendant agrees that any monetary penalty the Court imposes, including the special assessment, fine, costs or restitution, is due and payable immediately, and further agrees to submit a completed Financial Statement of Debtor form as requested by the United States Attorney's Office.
Defendant understands that supervised release is a period of time following imprisonment during which he will be subject to certain restrictions and requirements. Defendant further understands that if supervised release is imposed and he violates one or more of its conditions, he could be returned to prison for all or part of the term of supervised release that was originally imposed. This could result in Defendant serving a total term of imprisonment greater that the statutory maximum stated above.
2. Elements of the Offenses Defendant understands that, if a trial were held, the Government must prove beyond a reasonable doubt, as to Count Two, the following:
(1) During the period charged, Defendant intentionally manufactured (grew) mushrooms containing psilocin.
(2) Defendant knew the mushrooms contained psilocin, or some other controlled substance.
3. Statement of Facts The parties agree on the following facts for the purpose of the Plea Agreement and for calculation of the applicable Sentencing Guideline range:
a. From September 1999 to February 2003, the internet site www.fanaticus.com, operated by Defendant, advertised the sale of material designed to grow hallucinogenic mushrooms from spores. Defendant also advertised in High Times Magazine, a magazine popular with illegal drug users. The advertisements contained descriptive materials indicating that the material would produce illegal hallucinogenic mushrooms.
b. The material sold by Defendant consisted of plastic syringes with spore from hallucinogenic mushrooms (mushrooms containing psilocin) suspended in a liquid, along with books describing how to grow hallucinogenic mushrooms. Defendant raised hallucinogenic mushrooms containing psilocin to produce the spores. The material allowed customers to grow hallucinogenic mushrooms containing psilocin.
c. On February 18, 2003, federal agents searched Defendant's residence in Amanda Park and seized mushrooms being grown by Defendant. After being advised of his rights, Defendant stated that from 1991 to 2003 he sold mushroom spores intended to contain hallucinogenic mushrooms. He acknowledged that the mushrooms in his house were hallucinogenic mushrooms that produced the spores he sold.
d. The mushrooms, weighing 11.4 grams, were analyzed by chemists at the DEA Western Regional Laboratory and found to contain psilocin.
4. Rights Waived by Pleading Guilty Defendant understands that, by pleading guilty, he knowingly and voluntarily waives the following rights:
a. The right to plead not guilty, and to persist in a plea of not guilty;
b. The right to a speedy and public trial before a jury of Defendant's peers;
c. The right to the effective assistance of counsel at trial, including, if Defendant could not afford an attorney, the right to have the Court appoint one for Defendant;
d. The right to be presumed innocent until guilt has been established at trial, beyond a reasonable doubt;
e. The right to confront or subpoena witnesses to appear on Defendant's behalf at trial;
f. The right to compel of subpoena witnesses to appear on Defendant's behalf at trial;
g. The right to testify or to remain at trial, at which trial such silence could not be used against Defendant; and
h. The right to appeal the finding of guilt or any pretrial rulings.
5. Applicability of Sentencing Guidelines and Court's Independent Role Defendant understands and acknowledges the following:
a. The United States Sentencing Guidelines, promulgated by the United States Sentencing Commission, are applicable to this case;
b. The Court may impose any sentence authorized by law, including a sentence that, under some circumstances, departs from any applicable Sentencing Guidelines range up to the maximum term authorized by law;
d. The Court is not bound by any recommendation regarding the sentence to be imposed, or by any calculation or estimation of the Sentencing Guidelines range offered by the parties, or by the United States Probation Department; and
e. Defendant may not withdraw a guilty plea solely because of the sentence imposed by the Court.
6. Acceptance of Responsibility The United States acknowledges that if Defendant qualifies for an acceptance of responsibility adjustment pursuant to USSG & 3 E1.1(a), and if the offense level is sixteen (16) or greater, Defendants total offense level should be decreased by three (3) levels pursuant to USSG && 3E1.1(a) and (b), because Defendant has assisted the United States by timely notifying the authorities of his intention to plead guilty, thereby permitting the United States to avoid preparing for trial and permitting the Court to allocate its resources efficiently.
7. Restitution No restitution is involved in this case.
8. Non-Prosecution of Additional Offenses As part of this Plea Agreement, the United States Attorney's Office for the Western District of Washington agrees to move to dismiss the remaining counts of the Indictment at the time of sentencing, as to Defendant, and not to prosecute Defendant for any additional offenses known to it as of the time of the Agreement that are based upon evidence it its possession at this time, or that arise out of the conduct giving rise to this investigation. In this regard, Defendant recognizes that the United States has agreed not ot prosecute all of the criminal charges that the evidence establishes were committed by Defendant solely because of the promises made by Defendant in this Agreement. Defendant acknowledges and agrees, however, that for purposes of preparing the Pre sentence Report, the United States Attorney's Office will provide the United States Probation Office with evidence of all relevant conduct committed by Defendant.
Defendant agrees and acknowledges that any charges to be dismissed before or at the time of sentencing were substantially justified in light of the evidence available to the United States, were not vexatious, frivolous or taken in bad faith, and do not provide Defendant with a basis for any future claims under the "Hyde Amendment," Pub. L. No. 105-119 (1997).
9. Government's Recommendation The government agrees to recommend the low end of the sentencing guidelines range, including home detention if Defendant is eligible. The government agrees not to recommend an enhancement role in the offenses.
10. Forfeiture Defendant agrees to forfeit to the United States immediately all of her right, title, and interest in the following property, real and personal, that was used, or intended to be used, in any manner or part, to commit or to facilitate the commission of the charged offenses, and any property constituting, or derived from, any proceeds Defendant obtained, directly or indirectly, as the result of such offenses, that are subject to forfeiture pursuant to 21 U.S.C. & 853:
1. The residence and real property at 469 North Shore Road, Amanda Park, Washington.
2. The real property at 26 lakeview Drive, Amanda Park, Washington.
3. The residence and real property at 4880 Pacific Avenue, Moclips, Washington.
4. Bank of America account #2321917, for Psylocybe Fanaticus, in the amount of $60,220.
5. Bank of America account #57423832, for Margaret McPherson, in the amount of $14,898.50, constituting one-half of the funds.
6. Postage stamps worth $1,915.66, found at 469 North Shore Road, Amanda Park.
7. $1,252 in cash found at Defendant's residence.
Defendant agrees that each of the listed assets is the proceeds of unlawful drug trafficking or was used or intended to be used to facilitate unlawful drug trafficking as set forth in Count 1 of the Indictment.
Defendant agrees to fully assist the United States in the forfeiture of the listed assets and to take whatever steps are necessary to pass clear title to the United States, including but not limited to: surrendering title and executing any documents necessary to effectuate such forfeiture; assisting in bringing any assets located outside of the United States within the jurisdiction of the United States; and taking whatever steps are necessary to ensure that assets subject to forfeiture are not sold, disbursed, wasted, hidden, or otherwise made unavailable for forfeiture. Defendant agrees not to file a claim to any of the listed property in any civil forfeiture proceeding, administrative or judicial, which may be initiated.
Defendant also agrees that if any firearms or illegal contraband were seized by any law enforcement agency from the possession of Defendant, or that were in the direct or indirect control of Defendant, then he consents to the administrative forfeiture, official use and/or destruction of said firearms or contraband by any law enforcement agency involved in the seizure of these items.
11. Ultimate Sentence Defendant acknowledges that no one has promised or guaranteed what sentence the Court will impose.
12. Statute of Limitations In the event that this agreement is not accepted by the Court for any reason, or Defendant has breached any of the terms of the Plea Agreement, the statute of limitations shall be deemed to have been tolled from the date of the Plea Agreement to: (1) 30 days following the date of non-acceptance of the Plea Agreement by the Court; or (2) 30 days following the date on which a breach of the Plea Agreement by Defendant is discovered by the United States Attorney's office.
13. Post-Plea Conduct Defendant understands that the terms of this Plea Agreement apply only to conduct that occurred prior to the execution of this Agreement. If, after the date of this Agreement, Defendant should engage in conduct that would warrant an increase in Defendant's adjusted offense level or justify an upward departure under the Sentencing Guidelines (examples of which include, but are not limited to: obstruction of justice, failure to appear for a court proceeding, criminal conduct while pending sentencing, and false statements to law enforcement agents, the probation officer or Court), the United States is free under this Agreement to seek a sentencing enhancement or upward departure based on that conduct.
14. Voluntariness of Plea Defendant acknowledges that he has entered into this Plea Agreement freely and voluntarily, and that no threats or promises, other than the promises contained in the Plea Agreement, were made to induce Defendant to enter this plea of guilty.
15. Completeness of Agreement The United States and Defendant acknowledge that these terms constitute the entire Plea Agreement between the parties. This Agreement only binds the United States Attorney's Office for the Western District of Washington. It does not bind any other United States Attorney's Office or any other agency of the United States, or any state or local prosecutor.
DATED this 5th day of August, 2003
ROBERT McPHERSON
BARRY FLEGENHEIMER
DOUGLAS B. WHALLEY
YE-TING WOO
Plea Agreement/Mcpherson/CR02-72Z-8
page 1
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT WESTERN DISTRICT OF WASHINGTON AT TACOMA
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA PLAINTIFF
VS.
ROBERT McPHERSON, and, MARGARET McPHERSON, Defendants.
Docket no. CRO3-5155RJB TACOMA, WASHINGTON October 31, 2003
TRANSCRIPT OF SENTENCING PROCEEDINGS BEFORE THE HONORABLE ROBERT J. BRYAN
APPEARANCES: For the Plaintiff:
For Robert McPherson:
For Margaret McPherson:
Probation Department: DONALD MOON
Court Reporter: Terri Hendrix Union Station Courthouse,
Proceedings recorded by mechanical stenography, transcript produced by
Reporter on computer.
page 2
1. FRIDAY, OCTOBER 31, 2003 - 9:30 A.M.
AO 245B (Rev. 3/01) Judgement in a Criminal Case
DEFENDANT: ROBERT WILLIAM MCPHERSON
Upon release from imprisonment, the defendant shall be on supervised release for a term - 3 years
The defendant shall report to the probation office in the district to which the defendant is released within 72 hours of release from the custody of the Bureau of Prisons.
The defendant shall not commit another Federal, state or local crime.
The defendant shall not illegally possess a controlled substance.
For offenses committed on or after September 13, 1994:
The defendant shall refrain from any use of a controlled substance. The defendant shall submit to one drug test within 15 days of release from imprisonment and at least two periodic drug tests thereafter.
The defendant shall not possess a firearm, destructive device, or any other dangerous weapon.
If this judgement imposes a fine or a restitution obligation, it shall be a condition of supervised release that the defendant pay any such fine or restitution that remains umpaid at the commencement of the term of supervised release in accordance with the Schedule of Payments set forth in the Criminal Monetary Penalities sheet of this judgement.
The defendant shall comply with the standard conditions that have been adopted by this court (set forth below). The defendant shall also comply with the additional conditions of the attached page.
1. The defendant shall not leave the judicial district without the permissions of the court or probation officer;
2. The defendant shall report to the probation officer and shall submit a truthful and complete written report within the first five days of each month;
3. The defendant shall answer truthfully all inquiries by the probation officer and follow the instructions of the probation officer;
4. The defendant shall support his or her dependants and meet other family responsibilities;
5. The defendant shall work regularly at a lawful occupation, unless excused by the probation officer for schooling, training, or other acceptable reasons;
6. The defendant shall notify the probation officer at least ten days prior to any change in residence or employment;
7. The defendant shall refrain from excessive use of alcohol and shall not purchase, possess, use, distribute, or administer any controlled substance or and paraphernalia related to any controlled substances, except as prescribed by a physician;
8. The defendant shall not frequent places where controlled substances are illegally sold, used, distributed, or administered;
9. The defendant shall not associate with any persons engaged in criminal activity and shall not associate with any person convicted of a felony, unless granted permission to do so by the probation officer;
10. The defendant shall permit a probation officer to visit him or her at any time at home or elsewhere and shall permit confiscation of any contraband observed in plain view of the probation officer;
11. The defendant shall notify the probation officer within seventy-two hours of being arrested or questioned by a law enforcement officer;
12. The defendant shall not enter into any agreement to act as an informer or a special agent of a law enforcement agency without the permission of the court;
13. As directed by the probation officer, the defendant shall notify third parites of risks that may be occasioned by the defendant's criminal record or personal history or characteristics and shall permit the probation officer to make such notifications and to confirm the defendant's compliance with such notification requirement.
The defendant shall sumit to mandatory drug testing pursuant to 18 U.S.C. & 3563(a)(5) and 18 U.S.C. & 3583(d).
The defendant shall participate as instructed by his U.S. Probation Officer in a program appoved by the probation office for treatment of narcotic addiction, drug dependency or substance abuse, which may include to determine if the defendant has reverted to the use of drugs or alcohol. The defendant shall also abstain from the use of alcohol and/or other intoxicants during the term of supervision.
The defendant shall submit to a search of his person, residence, office, property, storage unit, or vehicle conducted in a reasonable manner and at a reasonable time by a probation officer.
The defendant shall provide his probation officer with access to any requested financial information, including authorization to conduct credit checks and obtain copies of defendant's Federal Income Tax Returns.
THE DEFENDANT SHALL SERVE 6 MONTHS ON ELECTRONIC HOME MONITORING IN LIEU OF IMPRISONMENT
On October 31, my Wife and I went to our sentencing hearing at the Tacoma Federal courthouse. I was sentenced to 6 months home detention and 3 years probation. My wife was sentenced to 3 years probation. My sentence was based on the federal sentencing
guidelines concerning drug felonies. I was calculated at a level 10 felony - zone B which
provides as a low range sentence - 6 months home detention. My wife got the minimum for psilocin
(magic shroom) possession. She doesn't have to be drug tested. As far as myself, I have to stay clean
and do periodic drug tests for at least one year.
The details of my sentence was based on the plea agreement my wife and our lawyers signed on August 15 2003 in Federal court with the US attorneys office. To get count one dropped (the conspiracy to distribute), we forfeited 3 real estate properties and a $75,000 bank account (PF business account).
We paid a fine of $125 for the court cost, but no fine for the sentence, which was
a good thing. The forfeitures satisfied that. Plus, we keep our Olympic
Park rain forest house (which became my "prison" during my house detention for 6 months). And a really good thing was that they dismissed the charges against
my two other co-defendants (my wife's sister, Judy and their childhood "brother" (Steve).
The reason
I got a low range sentence and a dismissal of two co-defendants was because the US attorney said that I cooperated with them from the day of the
raid by taking the heat, that I admitted to them that I was the "man" and I was truthful and didn't hide anything. Also, I had a very small gro op in my house and they found 11.4 grams
of dried shrooms in a waste basket (which included a couple of small shrooms growing in a terrarium in a closet). The DEA was surprised at how small my gro-op was. ("Miniscule" was the
word they used in hearings to describe what they found). But a gro-op is a gro-op, and any shroom gro-op no
matter how small, is an automatic level 12 drug felony. I got a level 10 by pleading
guilty with 2 points off for acceptance of responsibility. The plea agreement also said that I would not get any enhancements of the felony level. Probation (they work for the Judge) wanted me to get an "enhancement" of 4 felony levels added because that is what happens to "leaders" of conspiracies. And since I am the leader of the PF spore biz gang, that would be me. So if that would have happened, which very well would have (without the plea agreement), I would definitely have gotten a level 16 which is 21 to 27 months. But my lawyer successfully disengaged that one.
But if we went to trial, the worst nightmare was presented to us by the US attorneys when they threatened to ask the court to calculate the amount of shrooms that could have been cultivated from the amount of "packets" I sold over the years (at least over 100,000 syringes - the "conspiracy"). And the prosecutions evidence would be the example of shrooms that the DEA grew in their lab with my syringes. I saw the photos, and they did a good job, even though they were newbies. They used an aquarium, plant light and the PF TEK as written. The PF TEK was the actual reason for this whole affair, it works all the time as long as the spore syringe is good. And so when the evidence against PF is added up - I (we) didn't have a chance.
1. The High Times ad
2. The PF web site
3. The years and success of PF as a business (bank accounts and income tax reports).
4. The spore syringes which the DEA ordered and by following the PF TEK - grew shrooms.
5. A slew of idiotic cases ("related" cases) from around the country involving absolute morons with shrooms that they did or did not get from using my PF TEK and syringes (which they had) - (all the most sickening bunch of ass holes you could possibly not ever think could exist - blamed on PF) - described in the DISCOVERY (police investigation reports that the prosecution gives to the defense counsels). Secrets so fucking stupid, I will never reveal. I have to accept that a whole lot of complete jerks were my customers.
6. And then there are the returned order boxes by the hundreds and hundreds, and what is worse, the many "victims" who got a box of syringes that they didn't order. They didn't know what they were and got frightened and called the police. There were untold police and postal inspector investigations on that. When I sent out my boxes of syringes, I would cut out the "customers" hand or typewritten address from their order letter and tape it on the box. There were never any typos on my end. But the chaos was considerable.
7. The tiny gro-op in my house the DEA found (that was the big one - the one that really counted and what got me my felony and sentence).
8. the amazing surveillance the Feds did on us for several years (including the installation of a camera at the Seattle post office especially for us) and other evidence such as FINGER PRINTS on the syringes, mailer boxes and money orders - ect.
The Feds didn't take my domain name - FANATICUS.COM (but actually, what does that matter? - the name has lost its meaning). But for them to not seize it is kind of a mystery, but I think I know why. The site was strictly for information. The First Amendment of the US constitution protects that. If I would have done some kind of credit card thing or pay pal - yeah, I would have lost my domain name. I think that is why the Feds confiscated Tommy Chongs domain names for his glass ware (paraphernalia) business.
The Feds gave me back some money, and I was able to keep three houses.
The Feds returned my Chevy S-10 pickup and my wife's Honda CRV (chick recreational vehicle).
There were some very interesting statements by the Judge. He referred to our forfeitures 3 times as "SUBSTANTIAL" and a fourth time as "VERY LARGE". He could have meant, EXCESSIVE. And then twice, he actually asked me about the shrooms, and what they do for a person. That is very unusual, because no Judge is going to ask a defendant what his drugs "DOES FOR HIM". To a Judge, illegal drugs are worthless, a harm to society, a scourge. But this judge asked me those questions and that doesn't happen in court.
Then the Judge really says something unusual and that is how he ended the proceedings with "AND AS THE OLD SAYING GOES, GO AND SIN NO MORE". I get the feeling that the Judge was really with me but was just doing what he does, administer the law.
In my case, when the investigators (the US attorneys office, the DEA, the US postal service and the Olympic national park authorities) decided to go forward, they presented their information to a Tacoma Federal Court Grand Jury. With a Grand Jury, the jury is not presented with any evidence from the defense, because there is no defense. It is all up to the government to prove its' case viable.
They had plenty of juicy stuff to present to the members of the jury, including nice photos from the DEA mans investigative PF style grow experiment he did. I think he used the PF strain - they were fat in the photos. I guess the government showed the jury how "unique" I was. They definitely didn't show them that the spores and lots of different books had been marketed for at least a quarter of a century with no legal problems ever or that magic mushroom spores are nowhere mentioned in the federal law. I guess they were made to believe that PF was unique and the first. It is true, PF invented the best Cubie cultivation technique in history and pioneered spore syringes, but still, there was nothing illegal about spores and a book. So without any information to the contrary, the feds convinced the jury to vote for an indictment. And then a few days later, the fed court magistrate judge signed the search warrants and off the DEA went on their fun little excursion into the deep dark dank forbidding rain forest domain of the evil sorcerer, Professor PF, soon to be handcuffed and carted off to jail.
Amongst the affidavits presented to the Grand Jury was one from the Postal Inspector of the western district of Washington. It is dated September 30 2002. That was when the DEA came up to Lake Quinault and did some preliminary surveilances before the raid. Several years before the date on the Postal Inspector affidavit, the DEA had investigated my syringes and PF TEK. Postal Inspectors around the country had been getting boxes of syringes and there were lots of investigations on the syringes and they were tested and no controlled substances were found (psilocin). The postal inspector was working with the DEA (they are Feds too).
Here is a quote from the affidavit. 10. BASED ON THE FACTS SET FORTH IN THIS AFFIDAVIT, I BELIEVE THERE IS
PROBABLE CAUSE TO BELIEVE THAT THE SUBJECT MAILINGS CONTAIN CONTROLLED SUBSTANCES. IT IS MY BELIEF THESE PACKAGES WERE PLACED IN THE MAIL IN VIOLATION OF TITLE 21, UNITED STATES CODE, SECTION 846, CONSPIRACY TO MANUFACTURE A CONTROLLED SUBSTANCE; AND TITLE 21, UNITED STATES CODE, SECTION 841 (a) (1), POSSESSION AND ATTEMPTED POSSESSION OF A CONTROLLED SUBSTANCE WITH THE INTENT TO DISTRIBUTE. I BELIEVE THERE IS PROBABLE CAUSE FOR THE ISSUANCE OF A WARRANT DIRECTING THE SEARCH OF THE SUBJECT MAILING FOR THE ITEMS LISTED ABOVE, WHICH ARE EVIDENCE OF THE COMMISSION OF A CRIMINAL OFFENSE, CONTRABAND, AND PROPERTY DESIGNED OR INTENDED FOR USE AS THE MEANS OF COMMITTING A CRIMINAL OFFENSE.
Now if one wants to think "conspiracy", I BELIEVE THERE IS PROBABLE CAUSE TO BELIEVE THAT THE SUBJECT MAILINGS CONTAIN CONTROLLED SUBSTANCES. -- There it is, in black and white, just in time for the Grand Jury to aprove the search warrant and for the Judge to sign. Even the US attorneys office didn't say that the syringes were illegal but for some reason, the Postal Inspector that gave that affidavit said that he "believed" that the syringes contained contraband (psilocybin). That is the biggest bunch of bull shit I can imagine, and that is after 12 years of PF's operation and many investigations on the syringes by various postal inspectors and police who found the syringes in the boxes, with follow up forensic tests and investigations of the spore solutions in search of drugs. Even the syringes themselves were not illegaI. They all always had blunt tipped type needles that could not be used to deliver drugs intravenously. They were industrial type needles. Those particular needles (plus syringes of various sizes) are used in computer printer head ink replenishment products and are sold on the internet or in computer magazines. I suppose the reason for the affidavit from the postal inspector about being "suspicious" of contraband syringes, was that the feds were doing absolutely everything they could muster to make their case against me unbreakable. If some aspect went down as non-admissable, there would be plenty of other stuff to throw at me. There is an old joke about making a big deal about something and it goes - "Don't make a federal case out of it, dude"! I finally know what the joke means.
After I got out of jail and got a lawyer, we then began the brain storming and planning for my defense. One thing I really learned that when one isn't a lawyer, anything one might come up with usually can be shot down by any experienced lawyer in a couple of seconds, no matter how much one may believe in the idea. The first thing I went to was the constitution of the USA. The fourth amendment of the US constitution reads;
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
It is well known that in a drug raid with a search warrant, that the cops have to "KNOCK AND ANNOUNCE". Then, if there is no answer from within the residence, the cops can bash the door down. This rule is violated all the time by the police, and if the defendant complains in court, my lawyer told me that it is very common for the police to just lie about it. The only way one can fight a raid where there is a failure of the police to "knock and announce" is to get testimony from one of the cops that took part in the raid. But that is near impossible and just doesn't happen.
When I was raided by the DEA on february 18 2003, I awoke to the door being bashed. I know that they did not "knock and announce". I even made a video tape of the front outside of the house to show my lawyer but he didn't even want to see it, because he knew it was futile. It was the DEA raiders word against mine. This is what the video tape shows; The front of my house is right on the road and there is a tall laurel hedge in front of most of the house. But when one comes into the front to the front door, it is very easy to see into the living room. At the front door is a window at the top of the door. Any 6 foot tall person can stand on tip toe and get a clear view of the entire living room including the couch I was sleeping on. In other words, I was sleeping in full unobstructed view. Next, one takes a few steps to the left and there are the front bay windows. Because of the laurel bush, I don't leave the curtains down, I always leave them up for the natural light that I enjoy. At those front windows, the living room is fully revealed including the couch and anyone sleeping on it. Next, at the front door, one goes right about 3 steps and then turns left around the corner. There is another window with another full view of the living room and a total side view of the couch and me on it. Then one continues a few steps, walks up a couple of steps onto the back view porch deck and before one gets to the corner of the house that faces the lake and forest, one comes to the double glass sliding door. Again, because of the privacy of the house situation, I never have the curtains closed, because that is where the main natural light comes from. At that sliding glass door, one can see the back of my head (balding) reclining on the couch, and the stairway going up to the second floor of the house. Continuing around the corner of the house to the back one finds a large window with a total view of the lake and forest and likewise a total view into the living room.
The point is, is that I was on the couch in complete and easy view of anyone that came to my house that morning of February 18. To get me up, a simple knock at the door would have done the trip. Or, rapping on the glass window with the edge of a coin would have got me up right off the bat, even if I was sleeping heavy. I am not a heavy sleeper and any noticeable noise in the house can usually awaken me. I woke up to no such knocking or rapping at the window, but I woke up to the door being bashed. I am positive they did not knock and announce. My lawyer said that the cops could easily just say I didn't get up when they knocked. But I know that I was about 12 feet from the front door, and any knocking on it would have gotten me up.
I was talking to a lawyer with the ACLU and told her about that, and she said that the DEA cops could always say that they suspected that I had a weapon under the couch and that I was prepared to whip it out and kill them. She asked me if that was actually possible and I said "sure, I could have had a gun hidden from view under the couch, but I didn't". But I got her point.
So I wanted to really bring that up as part of my defense to show that the raid was illegal and violated my constitutional rights. All of the lawyers I talked to said to not bother, because it would be a fruitless path to go. But then, I realized something just recently that I didn't really think about then. I have kung fu weaponry around my house. In fact, right above my head where I was sleeping on the couch, on the wall within easy reach, was a metal tonfa. That is a marshall arts weapon that the cops now all use. It is a club with a side handle and it is great for in close self defense, defense against a knife attack and can yield a serious brain crushing blow to any attackers head. So what I know now, is that my lawyer was right without even knowing about that tonfa on the wall. The DEA cops saw it and the leader just said, "BASH the door in, he's armed". And they were right, I was armed. But, they had automatic rifles that outgunned my feeble little defense by light years. So in any case, I had no defense against their failure to "knock and announce". But still, that tonfa is nothing compared to the fire power the cops had and they had me in total view before they even came up to the door. I guess after traveling to Lake Quinault from Seattle and staying at the Quinalt South Shore ranger station facilities for the night, they were ready for action, and a good door bashing with automatic weapons drawn was the order for the day, no matter how obvious it was that the resident and target of the raid was a peaceful guy. The DEA swat team and leaders knew damn well that I was not a dangerous threat in any way. What a bunch of fucking ass holes. Case closed.
Then my next brainstorm was something that everybody knows, and that was the first amendment of the US constitution and the guarantee of freedom of speech and the right to publish.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
It has been said by many observers of my case, that to take spores that are not illegal, and then add a book that is protected by the first amendment right to publish to come out as illegal or a crime, is bad math. In other words, legal spores plus a legal book equals an illegal act. The governments position was that I "conspired" with my customers to produce an illegal substance - psilocin. So what that really means, was that my teaching from my book was the "conspiracy". Even my probation officer says that I was operating in a "gray area". But I was thinking that's really true, that I was teaching my customers how to break the law. But they are the ones that were doing it and not me (excluding my illegal grow op - but my grow op was not what I was marketing around the world). I was teaching my customers how to produce the illegal drug psilocin, but wasn't that their responsibility? I am the teacher, and my customer (students) can do whatever they want with the knowledge that I teach them. To blame the teacher for the students crimes to me is not what the first amendment can allow especially when it comes to spores that are legal and a book that is legal. The "conspiracy" charge was the heart of the governments case against me, but they did drop it almost immediately (for a big charge - the forfeiture). I will always believe that I was in the right and the US government did wrong, but what can I do? I don't have the time or the money to make something out of it, other than writing this and trying to tell the world about how the US government violated my first amendment rights through power and bullying. And now since it is all over, there is nothing I can do. I signed their crappy contract which exonerates them from any wrong doing and solidly puts the blame on me.
So it seemed to me, that since I live in the USA, and my business was "gray area", it would be the job of the US government to close the "loophole" that I was jumping through. I have always believed that the USA was a country that gave its citizens the greatest freedom in history, but lately, I think it's going downhill. To me, one of the real hallmarks of "freedom" is the ability to "stretch" the rules a bit. Stretching the rules is something that all artists do. Even the 18th century German composer Mozart's father would complain that Wolfgang's music wasn't "quite right". What daddy Mozart was missing, was that young Wolfgang was creating new rules. That is art. And I would also include freedom as art. But no, the US government has embarked on the doctrines of "zero tolerance". And instead of giving me the benefit of the doubt, and closing the loophole I was jumping through (spores are not against the federal law), they just slammed me and through the power of their bullying, they knew they could stop me the easy way, without passing any new laws or going through a legislative process. Closing of the "loophole" would be to make the spores federally illegal just as the states of California and Georgia have done.
I believe that the government knew that their case had a weakness. That is why they offered me the plea agreement to drop count one, the "conspiracy to distribute" (even though it cost me three properties and a couple of bank accounts to do just that - it was expensive - but, the best "justice" money can buy, praise the lord). In my opinion, the government knew I could put up a good fight and possibly win, but they also knew that it would cost me everything in legal fees and years to do it going from one court to another all the way to the United States Supreme court. That is a slow and tedious process, and I don't have the inclination or the time to go through it. I want to live my life. So the government gave me a decent plea agreement, gave me back 3 properties, 2 cars and money, went easy on my wife, dismissed the charges on my other two codefendants, and gave me a drug felony that will follow me the rest of my life. In my case, I could really care less. Being a felon means nothing to me. And, the US attorney in charge of my case, told me that all they really wanted was for me to get a felony which could then be used to (presumably) prosecute other people that would want to do what I did (and are doing it in droves now across the USA - lots of PF copycats out there - no one getting arrested). But supposedly, the government has their precedent.
In brainstorming my case, my lawyer thought of something that has a precedent. He told me about the time during prohibition and bootleg manufacture of ethanol (moonshine), where sugar was the main ingredient in the manufacture of the bootleg alcohol. There is a similarity in that at that time, alcohol was the contraband, and legal sugar was the main ingredient for its production which is similar to my case in which psilocybin is the illegal contraband and the spores are the legal "precursor". But even in my case, spores are just the beginning of a long growing process involving many items such as jars, brown rice powder, vermiculite and such, where as sugar goes right into the brew with a more immediate effect at producing the contraband alcohol (sugar, plus water, plus heat, plus distillation = moonshine). And of course, the sugar producers and sellers were never indicted for conspiracy to produce contraband alcohol.
Then I got some ideas about similar "conspiracy" concepts. The second amendment of the constitution guarantees the right to own guns. I am sure there are plenty of murderers and assassins that bought their weapons legally at a gun shop, practiced target shooting at a man shaped target at the gun shop's target practice range, and bought books on how to kill people and then went out and committed the murder. But of course, the gun producers are never indicted for conspiracy to commit murder even though, without their guns for sale, it would be much more difficult to murder someone.
Another "conspiracy" of blame would be liquor producers. I got this off the net: Alcohol-related motor vehicle crashes kill someone every 31 minutes and nonfatally injure someone every two minutes (NHTSA 2004a). During 2003, 17,013 people in the U.S. died in alcohol-related motor vehicle crashes, representing 40% of all traffic-related deaths (NHTSA 2004a). And of course, liquor is legal and the liquor producers are never indicted for conspiracy for mass slaughter on the highways.
And then there is the latest contradiction. It is on record how terrorists from several Arab Middle Eastern countries conspired and pulled off a real "masterpiece" of mass murder in New York City on September 11th, 2001 by flying jet airliners into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in Washington D.C. Many of the terrorists trained in Florida at flight schools in airliner simulators. They learned enough to pull it all off, but of course, the teachers at the flight schools were not charged with anything, (and rightly so). But without their training, the terrorists would never have learned how to fly the jets well enough to pull off their plot. But in my case, I taught people how to grow magic mushrooms with legal spores, and I got arrested and prosecuted.
And then there are the tobacco producers and cigarette makers. Tobacco products are one of the biggest threats to health there is, and thousands of deaths every year are caused by them. Of course, the cigarette makers are sued big time and loose big time, but the tobacco farmers are not touched. Without the tobacco farmers there would be no cigarettes and the associated health disaster inflicting the world. But nevertheless, the cigarette manufacturers and tobacco farmers go their merry way. These examples are just what I consider to be huge inconsistencies in the law "of blame". And it comes down to an inquisitional persecution of the mushrooms and the master that created a new way for them to do their magic.
When this all began, I had a dream. My dream was to be rescued by a fire breathing lawyer, just out of a good law school, with no reputation or connections to worry about and who knew about the shrooms. One who had experienced the wonder of them and received revelations about life and death from them - one who worshipped them as I and one who had the knowledge of the shamans. But as far as lawyers go, that is really impossible. I wished I had a lawyer who was furious about my case and wanted to dedicate himself solely to fighting for me and my people in trial and making the jury realize that the government was wrong. But no such lawyer exists. I also dreamed of defending myself in court and when I told my lawyer about that, he sat back, and said that if i wanted to be a martyr, he would be there and do his best, but if I didn't want to be a martyr, let him handle it. My lawyer really knew nothing about the mushrooms and basically thought them just to be another escape drug. But he did know the law and how it works and what happens in court and trial. My dreams of a metaphysical defense vaporized quickly, and I just went along with the program for damage control, which resulted in me not going to jail. So I guess I am OK with it all, but still, I can still see myself thundering from the podium, and making the jury cry foul and coming to my rescue and proclaiming me innocent of the count one - CONSPIRACY charge. That is were my big fat 300 grand forfeiture went, that was the payment to have that count one dropped, and that count one would have sent me to prison for a while, as well as a worse forfeiture, like possibly everything I own. I would've gotten out of jail with no wife, no property, no money, no nothing - just a very bad attitude and memories of jail time (by the way, easily committing suicide in jail is impossible to do). So I went the way of my lawyer, and every other lawyer I talked to and pled out and accepted the deal. Every lawyer I have talked with about it said I did really well, considering. You know, in trial, the government would have screamed, "THE CHILDREN"! My probation officer said that is what would have really done me in. But of course in the sentencing hearing, there is no mention of the so called "CHILDREN". Even if I could have been successful in a trial and defeated count one, I would still get a guilty verdict about my little grow op - and I would have done 10 to 16 months in the joint. I was guilty of that and they got the goods on that, no question about it.
In retrospect, what I should have done when I began my spore biz, is that I should have just sold spores in syringe form with a simple culturing tek. The tek would have been a half pint wide mouth jar with any kind of precooked grain (wheat, rye, millet, brown rice, rye grass seed, bird seed) with my original and effective dry vermiculite toping which effectively keeps contaminants out of the grain, making for perfect cultures. Then I would have just suggested to use the grain either as spawn for compost or to case the grain the way it has always been done and well established since the beginning of magic mushroom growing.
But that would not have created the huge success that PF became. It was the PF TEK which created the success. It is the growing technique that is the winner. But without a doubt, I would not have made all that money because without the PF TEK, growing magic mushrooms is fraught with problems and contaminations and failures. It is very tricky to grow magic mushrooms the old way (cased grains or compost). What got me into big time trouble was the world wide pandemic that the PF TEK and my syringes created. That got eye of the Feds. The PF TEK works to well. It is awesome to say the least. So in the end, it's obvious that the PF TEK was the focus, the cause and reason for the Feds to come down on me. And that is what my complaint is. The first amendment of the US constitution guarantees the right to freedom of speech and to publish. Without the PF TEK, there would have been no attraction to me from the Feds, because there would have been no magic mushroom growing pandemic around the world. The Feds hammered me for my teaching. That is where I think they are the criminals.
Recently I have been mulling over a way I could have had approached becoming Psylocybe Fanaticus and selling spores and books with a "legitimate" bend to it. It's a novel idea. I should have started as a "religion". The book would use all the earmarks of religion, like the "God" of the mushrooms and using motifs of religious nature. I might have included a lot of religiosity in my first PF TEK and talked about the ancient shamanic religions that are historical and used the magic mushrooms as their entheogens or sacrament. I might have encouraged my customers to worship the gods when they tripped and seek the help of the gods. My web site might have been dripping with religious motifs and symbols and messages and even photos of the ancient mesoamerican "mushroom stone" idols that have been found and dated to thousands of years ago. I would have put some sort of religious ideology at every bend and corner of my book and web site so that it would be impossible to ignore. Then if I was to get into trouble with the law - a RELIGIOUS defense could have been done in the light of the first amendment as my right. And of course this has been done before, but it always fails. But then there is the fact that certain Southwestern American indian tribes can use and possess peyote (a sacred cactus that contains the schedule 1 hallucinogen - mescaline) for their church - "THE NATIVE AMERICAN CHURCH" - which is now recognized by law and legal for Indians of the tribe to participate. I understand that President Bill Clinton signed that law.
The "legal" aspect of it would be a 1st amendment issue - "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion". The magic (sacred) mushrooms are historically a sacrament going back thousands of years. It really is a religion. That would be my argument. I talked about my theory of the "Magic Mushroom Church" and it's potential legality to a friend of mine who happens to be a Washington state district judge (the "honorable") and he sort of laughed and said that it would have failed, because basically "your customers just got high on your mushrooms and the religious ideas wouldn't really make it in court". But the irony is, is that the magic mushrooms are a religion, and a historical one at that, every bit as true as the NATIVE AMERICAN CHURCH and their sacrament - the Peyote cactus. That is the way I feel about them. I have had what is reported in the literature as a "religious" experience. In fact, I have had several. But that is in my world and unexplainable, and it would be ignorant and futile and self defeating to try and explain or describe what I have experienced bemushroomed. It always comes out quite sophomoric in writing because the experience is indescribable. It can only be understood by first hand experience.
My biggest regret is that I didn't quit when I "felt it". That began around 1999 when the ALBINO mutant mushroom appeared in my cultures and destroyed my PF strain (but I managed to save it and learned some amazing mycological things in the process – see www.fanaticus.com for the story of the Albino mystery shroom). But when it first happened, it really spooked me. Plus, I was doing killer business and also getting back scores of syringe boxes and calls from Police and Postal Inspectors around the country. Plus, I was watching SHARON OSBORNE on TV and she said, "if things are going really good, watch out, something bad is sure to happen". I believed that for some reason. Her words still echo around my brain.
My Stepdaughter and her ex boyfriend were handling my Seattle post office stuff (mailing syringes and collecting the money). They got spooked early on. My Stepdaughter quit and moved to New York City. Her ex kept on with his Seattle duties, but likewise, he got spooked and he and his girlfriend moved to New York City where he is pursuing his music. They were very intuitive about it all. They were named in the indictment and they even had their photos taken with the Seattle post office surveillance camera installed just for them. I gave my stepdaughter the photo when she just came for a visit, and she was both amused and pissed off. Plus, right around Feb. 18 when I was arrested, a New York Narc started pursuing her and did all the usual narc things - mysteriously would show up at the local pub and engage in talk with her about PF (that was very suspicious because she did not advertise her involvement with PF). And how did he know or why would he have brought up out of the blue some bullshit about him trying to grow shrooms with that "shitty" PF TEK - especially to her? It is way to much of a coincidence. He used all the usual bywords such as "those potent little aborts". He even tried to entice her into starting a gro-op in "his" big loft (a nasty little sting attempt). And of course, he offered her the best of drugs. The real giveaway was that he had "FED" shoes, a phony Chris Robinson hippy hair style and a snappy Miami Vice style outfit - all giveaways for a narc and totally out of place for Brooklyn NY. He would encounter her on the street all the time, and she spotted him in a narc style car watching her apartment and sometimes he would be replaced by a black man in a car watching her apartment. When I did the plea agreement, they "mysteriously" went away. But she still encounters him and calls him "narc" and introduces him to friends that might be with her as the "narc". He laughs but he doesn't seem to be able to explain himself. My stepdaughter and I were immediately hip to it when the narc began his hunt, and laughed our asses off on the phone about it. What is cool about her, is that she doesn't take any bullshit. Actually, I think the narc was enamored with her since she is a babe. No narcs showed up to pull a sting on her ex boyfriend (not a babe). Most likely, the guy was an informant. Informants are the core of the drug war.
When one is released from Federal Detention it is by a RELEASE BOND. I was immediately put on drug test rotation and I was given the max - two tests a week. During the 7 month period, I gave about 55 Urine samples. Since I was a chronic weed head, my piss didn't come clear until about 6 and 1/2 weeks after the drug testing began (and that figure is based on age, weight, metabolism rate, body fat, physical activity, amount of weed smoked, how long weed was smoked, how often, how much, quality of the bud and the last time it was smoked before the UA's commenced). There is a rule with pretrial release about dirty UA's, and that is one must clear within 30 days or that is proof you are smoking weed. Check out any official site about weed UA's and there is a way to determine NON-drug usage. The THCC marijuana metabolite is divided by the creatinine urine concentration, and with non weed use, the level reduces by 1/2 every 7 to 10 days. Pretrial doesn't care about that, with the UA's it is just a matter of positive or negative. 3 weeks after my release, my pretrial release supervisor accused me of smoking weed. That freaked me out to say the least. I asked him in a meeting if my levels were going down, and he said yes, but he just follows the rules of the court, and if you get a positive, that is that.
I was written up (by pretrial) in violation for "smoking weed" because my March 28 and April 2 UA's were positive (past the 30 day mark). Within the week, they finally went clear, but I was still written up in violation. Then on April 24, I got another positive. I thought that was just the quirks of my body releasing the weed metabolite. I was written up for that too. And when that happens (getting a positive drug test), they send the sample for confirmation by GC/MS (Gas chromatography mass spectrometry) lab analysis.
I also did a "going out of business" sale by selling bottles, glass lab ware, lab knick knacks, empty syringes and PF TEK books ect from my FANATICUS.COM web site. That was a big mistake. The US attorneys office saw it (they monitored my web site) and called my lawyer and told him that was a violation. One of the conditions of my release was that I abstain from anything that had to do with my PF business. Although PF didn't sell lab ware and the lab ware I tried to sell was commonly available stuff, because "I" sold it, that was not good. My lawyer called me immediately and warned me and I promptly took it down. I remained very nervous about it. One thing to remember, is that when one is on pretrial release, do nothing without getting it clear from your lawyer. That is what lawyers are for. They know the law.
At the end of May, my wife and I went to the pretrial services office for my monthly report in (at the Tacoma Federal Courthouse). The officer motioned me in, and he pointed down a different hallway saying we are using a different office that day. I walked into the office and it had no windows and there was an empty desk and chair. I turned around and there they were - two armed US Marshals. They said, "put it down (my briefcase), you're under arrest for violating your release bond". My heart sunk to the floor. They then chained me up and took me to the Pierce County jail for the night. What a horrid place that is. It is like a mental hospital. They put me in a big cage with a lot of bunks and various really degenerated guys. It wasn't like the Federal Detention Center in Seattle were the inmates are really a bunch of "interesting bad guys" where the facility has individual rooms, private stainless steel toilets and sinks, bunk beds, closets, a big open area with TV rooms, exercise rooms, pool table, card game tables, smoking area and friendly Correctional officers. The Pierce County jail was a hell hole. So I didn't eat or drink for 24 hours. I was freaked fucking out. The US Marshals came to get me early the next morning and they greeted me with "nice place eh"? They took me back to the Federal Court house and put me in a holding cell. I was in absolute fear. I was sure I was going back to the Federal Detention center for the rest of the summer.
After a several hour wait where the fear escalated, they finally came and took me out into the court room and there is my lawyer, my wife and the US attorney. As I sat down, the US attorney had a copy of my web site and to make me hear him, he murmured something about "these petrie dishes are great for printing large shroom caps". Then I got it, they were speculating if I was selling paraphernalia having to do with my ex business. I grabbed my lawyer and frantically told him those dishes and glass stuff were easily available anywhere and could be used for any type of biology or mycology. He briefly spoke to the US attorney and the US attorney agreed (in the nick of time). By the way, I complained to my lawyer that I hated the US attorney in charge of my case. My lawyer countered with support for him and that he was a fair man, well educated, an excellent lawyer and a good friend. I still wonder about him but I have a tendency to see my lawyers point. After the sentencing hearing (several months later), I had a short chat with the US attorney and he explained to me that they were really just after getting me a felony. That is a strange statement in lieu of the fact that the prosecutors office (US government) mugged me for about $300,000 in assets (that's more than "just a felony"). He also said that they were pushing to put magic shroom spores in the paraphernalia statutes. I asked him why they just don't make the spores illegal, and he shrugged and just said he didn't know. The legal contradiction about that is that the seeds of peyote cactus (schedule one drug) and the seeds of marijuana (schedule one) are included in the drug laws as illegal as the plant itself. The magic shrooms are just as illegal (contain schedule one drug) but the spores are not. In fact, magic mushrooms in their many species are not listed as actually being illegal. But any mushroom which contains psilocybin (schedule one) is therefore illegal. Since spores contain no schedule one contraband, they are not listed anywhere in the statutes (therefore - legal).
(Back to the courtroom) - Then the Judge comes in. He let me go with a date to reappear to determine if my release bond is to be rescinded. I breathed a real sigh of relief. Then the US marshals escorted me out of the courtroom. They put me in a caged section of the elevator. I then said to them, "God Damn, that was close"! Then one of the marshals said, "by a hair, especially with this Judge" (the same U.S. Magistrate Judge who signed the search warrant when the Grand Jury decided I was illegal). They took me downstairs, opened the cage and out I went, free again. I was on the lower floor of the building (very serene - with light streaming in through the windows - no one around - I was alone). I felt like getting on my knees and thanking whatever God might exist. Then my wife appears and I was on my way home. I felt high.
The US attorney told my lawyer that if the April 24 positive drug test comes confirmed as positive, I was going back to prison. My lawyer wisely didn't tell me about that. The worry would have been severe. So it comes back a FALSE POSITIVE. Then a couple of weeks later, I get word from my lawyer that the bond hearing was canceled. That was a relief also. My lawyer did say that they arrested me and stuck me in jail basically to "scare" me. I guess my lawyer didn't think that my "going out of biz sale" would be considered a true breach of my release bond, so I guess the real deal was the positive U.A. for weed I got on April 24. But on that issue, they could have waited to see if it was a CONFIRMED positive by further testing. I remain in wonderment.
Magic mushroom spores and kits have been sold openly and advertised in such magazines as HIGH TIMES for at least 25 years. These spores are not illegal in Washington State or Federally. When I got my idea for the PF TEK and kit back in 1991, I decided to create PF and market a magic mushroom growing kit through High Times magazine in which magic mushroom growing kits had been sold previously for many years. I had no doubt that I would become successful. I just wondered how successful I would be, and I became more successful than I dreamed. And that is because of my growing technique - the PF TEK which has now become the standard - world wide - magic mushroom growing technique. All other techniques are judged in relation to it. The PF TEK is also modified like the old ways in which the fully colonized PF cakes are broken up, and put into trays and cased with many different types of soils, vermiculite, straw and such. All of the ways work superbly, far better than the old ways of using grains and compost in a like manner. To be precise, it is the PF formula (brown rice powder + vermiculite + water) that has become the E=MC2 of magic mushroom cultivation. It works better than nature itself (cow pies in the fields - the natural realm of Psilocybe Cubensis).
I have been a jazz and blues musician all of my life, turning professional at the age of 16. I consider my lifestyle definitely on the "edge". I take chances. I don't really live for the future. I live for today. I have engaged in a lifestyle that most people are afraid of which involves the complete absence of "security" and a "predictable" life. When one is a professional musician who likes to play the jazz and blues music he likes, that is practically street level survival. I have never had a real job. My music work goes from gig to gig, day to day and week to week. I never have had the certainty of a 9 to 5 work day. That is living on the edge. Becoming PF was no big step.
I knew I was taking a risk when I began my PF spore and kit business, but risk was a part of my being. To give a little hint at the "risk", in 1991 after only 2 months of business, I went to the Post Options (Seattle) business mail box center to pick up my orders, and the owner took me to the side. He told me that two Seattle Narcotics officers presented him with a warrant and they got my name and information from him. That worried me, but I kept on going because all of the other magic shroom kit entrepreneurs were still going and had been going for many years. I thought that was a routine investigation. After all, High Times Magazine is subscribed to by all the narcs. I just kept my head down. I heard nothing for many years. I considered myself "safe". But know that I never thought that I was secure. I just continued to play music and sell spore syringes. Both of those activities seemed almost the same to me - basically risky - an artist's life.
I purchased a copy of Richard Glen Boire's book "SACRED MUSHROOMS AND THE LAW". It is an interesting book, but it has an omission that turns out to be rather significant, and it concerns what I thought was my salvation in case of a bust (which I talked about at my old web site in a report about Boire's book). The omission is where the book describes dried shrooms to be considered equal to dried marijuana in the law but the book doesn't explain what that means. In other words, the book says that "one gram of dried shrooms equals one gram of marijuana" and left it at that with no explanation. So with that in mind, since my grow op was always tiny, that would mean that if I ever got in trouble for it, the charge against me would be a simple misdemeanor weed charge of less than 2 ounces. That is what I considered the risk to be. If I was to get busted, I would just accept it and quit with a minor problem with the law. But I was totally wrong because I didn't do any research for myself into the actual federal law. The one gram of weed equals one gram of shrooms is in the federal illegal drug statutes, but in the statutes, the comparison is part of an algebraic kind of calculation that has further implications. Growing magic shrooms is far more serious than growing a like amount of weed. It is a felony verses a misdemeanor. BAD NEWS! I explain what the "one gram equals one gram" is all about in the upcoming chapter - MAGIC MUSHROOMS AND THE LAW.
POWER PRODUCTS of JUNEAU ALASKA marketed magic shroom kits in High Times magazine back in 1992 or 1993. He copied what I did when I started the PF biz with pre-prepared jars (I was infuriated about that - but that is always to be expected when one does something in business that is successful and not protected by a patent). He was busted for selling his shroom kit to some cops little daughter (mail order) (I was secretly pleased). They dropped the charges against him for the shroom kits (most likely he had no shrooms at the time) but busted him for the weed he got in the mail (a second bust - he plea bargained). They dropped the shroom kit charge. That gave me some confidence of the legality question of spores sold mail order.
Then I became very successful and my reputation as PSYLOCYBE FANATICUS became international. I was so pleased with that, that I just didn't consider getting into trouble. But I am not overly bitter, and like I have always done, I just role with the punches.
The really great thing about the PF TEK, is that it actually makes the acquisition of magic shrooms safer. With the PF TEK, there is no danger of getting poisoned by a dangerous toxic mushroom that can be encountered and misidentified in a wild collection of shrooms. The infamous deadly killer look alike shroom - Galerina Autumnalis has been seen, photographed and documented growing right next to the glorious little Pacific Northwest mulch and lawn shroom - Psilocybe Stunzii. With the PF TEK, that danger is eliminated. There are reports of youngsters and even experienced shroom hunters getting seriously sickened and damaged (liver and other internal organ damage) or even killed by these extremely dangerous organisms. I think it is one of the most amazing mysteries of nature that fungi can be a delectable edible food, a medicine, an obnoxious worthless sickening thing one might try and eat, a destroyer of trees (parasitic fungi), a sapropytic decomposer that recycles dead plants and animals into food that makes life on earth possible, a poison of unparalleled lethality, and an organism that causes the human mind to experience the source of religions. So as far as I am concerned, I did a great deed in eliminating that fearful danger of mushroom poisoning that shroomers hunting for the magic realm of the shrooms can accidentally get. Plus, when the Crystal liqueur tek (tested, tried and then applauded on the net by adventurous doers of my TEKS) is added to the PF TEK, that is the greatest psychedelic discovery in history - total quality - fit for the gods - number one. Timothy Leary and all the rest need to stand humble before the mighty crystals of the gods (see the tek at http://www.fanaticus.com)
As a part of our sentences, my wife and I got 3 years probation (supervised release). I asked my probation officer what the difference was between "probation" and "supervised release". He didn't seem to know, he didn't give me a clear answer, so I guess they mean the same thing. According to what they told me, I was supposed to pay a monthly fee for my home incarceration deal, but my probation officer calls me and says that I don't have to pay for that since it was a part of my sentence. So I got my check back. That was cool. Another good thing, is that with probation under the feds, you don't pay a monthly fee like you do when you are on state run probation ($50 a month). And another good thing is that under the federal system, with charges like ours - non violent and no victims or restitution ect, a 3 year probation period can be cut to one year, as long as you don't violate the terms of probation (like committing some crime, getting a DUI or getting a dirty UA or lying on your monthly report about something important). So we just send in a monthly report about our financial situation, car situation, home situation, promises to stay of drugs and stuff. If I was to violate, I would get into trouble all depending on what it was. So that's a no brainer.
The real annoyance was my DRUG TREATMENT (I.O.P. - "intensive outpatient" brain wash sessions - 6 weeks of 3 meetings a week and 6 months of one "after care" meeting a week - to insure I don't get high anymore - yeah, right) and two weekly AA (alcoholics anonymous) attendance requirement that I went through for seven and a half months. Getting stuck with drug treatment was a rip off. After I was arrested on February 18 2003, a part of my pretrial release conditions was to have to take drug tests (U.A.'s) and stay clean. I had to take 2 a week for several months. Then for some reason, pretrial services said I had to go get "evaluated" for drug addiction. That was after I was clean for 7 months - provable by the U.A. drug tests. So I went to a drug treatment place in Aberdeen (East Side Recovery center) and was interviewed by a drug counselor. I thought that being clean for 7 months meant something. So I told her how I smoked weed since I was a teenager and when I was young, experimented with all the drugs, but gave them all up in favor of the weed. I told her that I felt I was not "addicted" to weed, because I hadn't smoked any during those 7 months - provable by the drug tests. I was perfectly OK being straight. I told her the truth. That was a big fucking mistake. Since I "liked" getting high, that meant to her that I was a drug addict. And she was given the power by pretrial services to require me to go to drug treatment. So she wrote me up and I got stuck with drug treatment. If I refused to go to drug treatment, it was back to jail with me. So I had no choice. Looking back, I should have lied to the drug conselor about my fondness for getting high. Isn't it wonderful how the government cares so much about saving us offenders from the scourge of weed? But, I have my certificates of completion and now know what the meaning of "drug treatment" is. It's all propaganda and brain washing. I think the so called "drug counselors" need treatment themselves. Now I just do two voluntary UA's a month (as of this date of January 27 2005) when ever I want and my P.O says that he will reduce that to one a month. It doesn't cost me anything but it costs the government a lot of dough (each UA costs at least $75) and I have now had over a hundred (a minimum of $7500 paid for by the government). I wound up paying $4 a drug treatment session (sliding scale) and the sessions (45 in all) actually cost $274 each time (over $12,000) - all paid for by the government. What a waste of money. It is so amazing that they don't even trust their own drug testing and threats of incarceration if you come up dirty as a way to keep you straight. So they wind spending huge amounts of money for nothing. UA's and the threat of incarceration is plenty, but they have to spend a lot more money on idiotic brain washing sessions. What is really sad, is that everyone in drug treatment was there by court order and most everyone cheated and lied about it (when you make a friend with a fellow "patient" and talk outside of treatment, we all talk about how we cheat and laugh about it). One could drink and time it all so that there would be no positive tests but weed was the only drug that couldn't be cheated with because of the long time it stays detectable in the body. UNBELIEVABLE! A far more dangerous drug (booze) to mind and body and even more dangerous to the general public (drunk driving) can be cheated with while a drug that has not been proven scientifically to destroy people can't be cheated with.
One thing that is really hard to believe is that a condition of my probation is to not drink. And I mean, nothing. Not even a brewsky. The "experts" believe that if I was to drink, that would entice me back into smoking weed. The "experts" lump all drugs and alcohol together. There is no difference among them. To the "experts", weed is just as destructive and bad as booze or heroin addiction. I had to watch propaganda videos that continually made the claim that "a drug is a drug is a drug". At one point, one of my fellow drug treatment "patients" (more like victims) asked the counselor why we had to watch those bull shit videos (and he did use the words "bull shit") and that our free wheeling discussions were far superior and helpful. I seconded the motion. At least in the drug treatment sessions, as long as you respected the counselor and refrained from excessive foul language, you could bring up anything you wanted to discuss, including any personal problems ect. I really didn't mind those sessions because drug "addicts" are usually an interesting bunch of people with rather insane stories to tell. There was a lot of laughing going on and I tried to make that happen as much as possible. I guess the reason the feds put me through drug treatment was that along with the shrooms, they found a couple of ounces of weed in my house. The indictments didn't mention the weed at all, but it is there in the documentation and I suppose that is the reason why they required drug treatment. It's par for the course.
But in retrospect, I think I know why I got screwed over with drug treatment B.S. I remember one time when I did my monthly visit to pretrial services and brought a High Times magazine and showed the supervisor the cover with Francis McDermot (the academy awards winner for the movie "FARGO") smoking a joint. I did that just to show that all weed smokers aren't degenerates. Whoops! Wrong thing to do. And of course, my second mistake was in being truthful to the drug treatment counselor that did my "evaluation". It was her single opinion that I got treatment. What an idiot I was to be truthful to her. I had no choice but to go through their lame program.
There are lawyers that consider enforced drug treatment to be unconstitutional when the treatment counselors invoke "God" in prayer. That's against the first amendment (separation of church and state) to require people to attend, which is in a way forcing the participant (unwilling) to practice some sort of religious activity (prayer to a God). I could have made a big deal about that, but I figured my option would be worse - like having to pay for some secular program which would have cost me a fortune.
The drug treatment program also required attending a "support group". So I had to go to AA (alcoholics anonymous) meetings and found them to be as worthless (as drug treatment) for the unwilling participant (complete with prayer to either Jesus, or God or some "higher power"). But I am sure I could have gone to a "secular" group but there weren't the choices that I had around town (there are lots of AA meetings in bigger towns and plenty of alcoholics to go around - hey, that rhymes). At one of the meetings I held up one of my drug treatment U.A. test cards (used) and said sarcastically, "this is my higher power".
THE FUTURE OF FANATICUS.COM
WWW.FANATICUS.COM has been given to PERFECT FUNGI EUROPE FOUNDATION hosted by THE ANTENNA FOUNDATION NEDERLAND. There it resides in its' original and complete version. The PFE site is a non-profit organization (no advertizing except free access by way of the WEB) that exists to promote the cultivation of several species of the magic mushrooms. They do sell spore syringes but only in Europe. They don't sell and ship to Canada, the USA or Australia where customs will consfiscate any "suspicious" syringes.
The United States federal laws concerning psilocybin and psilocin (magic mushrooms) are contained in the United States Federal Sentencing Guidelines.
On page 116 of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines manual (November 1, 2002), begins PART D - offenses involving drugs. The heading is 1. Unlawful Manufacturing, importing, exporting, trafficking, or possession: continuing criminal enterprise.
On page 118 of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines manual begins with the DRUG QUANTITY TABLE and is a long list of controlled substances and the amounts by weight with the associated base offense levels 6 to 38. Levels 39 - 43 are not included - these are special levels involving murder, death or serious bodily injury.
The first consideration is the SENTENCING TABLE (in months of imprisonment) along with the DRUG QUANTITY TABLE. There are 43 felony offense levels (1-43). The SENTENCING TABLE goes from offense levels 1 to 43. Levels 1 thru 8 designate 0-6 months in prison (for a 1st or 2nd offense). Level 9 is (4-10). Level 10 is (6-12). Level 11 is (8-14). Level 12 is (10-16). Level 13 is (12-18) and so forth up to level 43 (life). Levels 37 to 43 designate 20 years to life in prison - considering severity and past offenses.
Levels are added according to specific offense characteristics such as having firearms in ones possession, leadership roles ("king pin"), use of aircraft, distribution of a controlled substance into a prison and special penalties for meth amphetamine manufacturing involving environmental damage or dangers which harm people. Violence can increase the levels. Also, levels can be reduced down if the defendant gives information which results in prosecution and conviction of others involved in related crimes. The levels can be reduced by the defendant co-operating with the prosecution by pleading guilty and getting a plea bargain. (That is what happened in my case)
DRUG EQUIVALENCY TABLES
Marijuana is used as a base of comparison in that differing amounts of marijuana is used to ascertain differences in penalties concerning the drugs.
LSD is the drug used for determining hallucinogenic drug (schedule I and II) illegality levels and punishments with marijuana used as a comparison. In the drug equivalency table, 1 gram of LSD is equal to 100 kilograms (220 pounds - 100,000 grams) of marijuana. 1 gram of dried magic shrooms is equal to 1 gram of marijuana. 1 gram of wet (fresh) shrooms is equal to .1 gram of marijuana. 1 gram of peyote (dry) is equal to .5 gram of marijuana and 1 gram of mescaline is equal to 10 grams of marijuana. In addition to mushrooms and peyote is a long list of various synthetic and other hallucinogenic drugs.
At the bottom of the Drug Equivalency Table for LSD, PCP, and other schedule I and II hallucinogens (and their immediate precursors), it says -- *provided, that the minimum offense level from the Drug Quantity Table for any of these controlled substances individually, or in combination with another controlled substance, is level 12. This statement refers to the drugs that have a * (the star character). Psilocybin has the *. This is of the utmost importance, because with manufacturing psilocin (growing magic shrooms) there is no lower felony level than 12. What that clearly says, that if one was growing any amount, no mater how minuscule, that would be a level 12 - automatically. With Marijuana, that is not the case at all. Less than 250 grams of marijuana is a level 6 (which is 0 - 6 months), but a level 12 marijuana offense (2.5 Kilos to 5 Kilos) is 10 - 16 months in prison (a level 12 psilocybin offense concerning shrooms is - any amount up to 5 Kilos). And the offense level could be increased or decreased considering the special conditions. A 20 (maximum) year (240 months) prison sentence would be a 37 (210-262 months) or 38 (235-293 months) offense level.
SCHEDULE I HALLUCINOGENIC DRUGS (LEVEL 12)
For Schedule I or II hallucinogens (magic mushrooms and psilocybin - psilocin included), the hallucinogen listed for comparisons and ascertaining is LSD. It says -- Less than 50 MG of LSD (or the equivalent amount of other Schedule I or II Hallucinogens) is a level 12. In others words, if anyone had less than 50 milligrams of LSD (or the equivalent schedule I hallucinogen), that is a LEVEL 12 offense - punishable by 10 to 16 months in jail. The next level up is 14 (no 13 on this table), and the drug amount is at least 50 MG but less than 100 MG of LSD (or equivalent schedule I hallucinogen). The sentencing table gives the penalty for level 14 with 15 to 21 months jail time.
According to Albert Hoffman (the Swiss chemist who accidentally created LSD in his laboratory in 1943) in "PLANTS OF THE GODS", he says "With LSD, a dose of .05 milligrams (50 micrograms) will produce a deep hallucinogenic intoxication of some hours duration". This figure amazingly matches the Drug Enforcement Administrations standard dosage unit of LSD (.05 MG) - page 136 - Federal Sentencing Guidelines Manual.
The guidelines actually make sense after some arithmetic is performed. A level 12 felony is any amount "less than 50 milligrams of LSD" (or the equivalent amount of other schedule I or II hallucinogens).
In the Drug Equivalency Table, 1 gram of LSD is equal to 100 Kilos of weed (or 100,000 grams). 1 gram of psilocybin is equal to 500 grams of weed (a little over a pound).
When the weed equivalencies of 100,000 grams (LSD) is divided by 500 grams (psilocybin), it comes out at 200, or LSD is 200 times the value of psilocybin. 50 milligrams of LSD is equal to 10,000 milligrams of psilocybin or 200 times as strong (200 X 50 = 10,000).
There are 1 ,000,000 micrograms in a gram - 1000 milligrams in a gram - 1000 micrograms in a milligram. 1000 micrograms times 1000 milligrams is 1,000,000 micrograms - which is 1 gram.
page 132 - TYPICAL WEIGHT PER UNIT (DOSE, PILL, OR CAPSULE) TABLE.
Psilocybin, Psilocin, plus dry and wet mushrooms are given as per dose. With Psilocybin or psilocin, the dose is 10 milligrams. A "dose" of dried magic shrooms is 5 grams and the dose for a wet fresh shroom trip is 50 grams. Those figures can be debated, but they are certainly close enough for the law, and are backed up by a host of books and authority types.
The base for the LEVEL 12 felony is less than 50 MG LSD (10,000 MG of Psilocybin). To figure out exactly what 10,000 MG of Psilocybin means as far as the shrooms themselves, one divides a "dose" of psilocybin (10 MG) into the level 12 quantity for psilocybin (10,000 MG) and one gets a simple 1000 (or 1000 doses of 10 milligrams each). Since a "dose" of 10 MG equals 5 grams of dried mushrooms (or 50 gram s wet), multiply the 1000 doses times 5 grams (the equivalent amount of dried shrooms for a 10 milligram dose) and the answer is 5000 grams worth of dried shrooms, or 5 Kilograms (11 pounds). For wet shrooms (fresh) the figure comes out to 50 kilograms or 110 lbs.
So thar she blows! A level 12 magic shroom felony would be anything less than 11 pounds of dried shrooms, or 110 lbs fresh weight.
A level 38 would be the maximum one could get for growing magic mushrooms or producing the drug, pure psilocybin in a laboratory. This level is defined as manufacturing 300 grams or more of LSD (or the equivalent amount of other schedule 1 or 2 Hallucinogens). And since the Federal Sentencing Guidelines give psilocyn a value of 200 times that of LSD, that comes out to 60,000 grams (60 Kilos) of psilocybin (the pure drug). Since 10 mg of psilocybin equals one dose, there are 6 million doses in 60 kilos of psilocybin. The FSG gives 5 grams of dried shrooms as being one dose (or trip) so that turns out to be 30 million grams of shrooms, or 30,000 kilos or 66,000 lb. of dried shrooms. So if one had 30,000 kilos (66,000 pounds) or more of dried shrooms, one can be eligible for 20 years in prison (minimum sentence).
The unusual thing about these laws concerning the magic shrooms, is the severity of the minimums. For example, there is misdemeanor theft, and felony theft, misdemeanor traffic violations and felony traffic violations. There is misdemeanor drug possession and there is felony drug possession. There is misdemeanor assault violations and felony assault violations. But with the mushrooms, there are no misdemeanor charges, they are all felony. With a misdemeanor, the judge has a lot of leeway in sentencing. In many instances with a misdemeanor criminal charge, the minimum can be no jail time and no fine - just probation or community service. For instance, if one was caught with an ounce of dried magic mushrooms while driving a car, that would be a felony. A D.U.I. charge against someone drinking and driving with no prior convictions is a misdemeanor. The drug war is a devil from hell when it comes to the magic mushrooms, and the irony is that magic mushrooms in history, are known by scientists and anthropologists as a sacrament used by ancient peoples in pursuit of their visionary religions - otherwise known as Shamanism.
THE MAGIC MUSHROOM SPORES
When it comes to the spores or the mushrooms themselves, they are not listed as being illegal in the Federal Sentencing guidelines. It is the drugs, psilocin and psilocybin that are the illegality. I think that is because of the difficulty of identifying the shrooms by the correct species and the fact that there are many species. But in the guidelines, Peyote and all of its parts is given as illegal schedule 1 (as well as the drug, mescaline). Likewise for Marijuana and other natural hallucinogens.
But there are States of America that have indeed made the spores themselves illegal.
Health & Safety Code
11390. Except as otherwise authorized by law, every person who, with intent to produce a controlled substance specified in paragraph (18) or (19) of subdivision (d) of Section 11054, cultivates any spores or mycelium capable of producing mushrooms or other material which contains such a controlled substance shall be punished by imprisonment in the county jail for a period of not more than one year or in the state prison.
11391. Except as otherwise authorized by law, every person who transports, imports into this state, sells, furnishes, gives away, or offers to transport, import into this state, sell, furnish, or give away any spores or mycelium capable of producing mushrooms or other material which contain a controlled substance specified in paragraph (18) or (19) of subdivision (d) of Section 11054 for the purpose of facilitating a violation of Section 11390 shall be punished by imprisonment in the county jail for a period of not more than one year or in the state prison.
11392. Spores or mycelium capable of producing mushrooms or other material which contains psilocyn or psilocybin may be lawfully obtained and used for bona fide research, instruction, or analysis, if not in violation of federal law, and if the research, instruction, or analysis is approved by the Research Advisory Panel established pursuant to Sections 11480 and 11481.
Code Section
(a) A "dangerous drug" means any drug other than a drug contained in any schedule of Article 2 of this chapter, which, under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (52 Stat. 1040 (1938)), 21 U.S.C. Section 301, et seq., as amended, may be dispensed only upon prescription. In any civil or criminal action or other proceedings, a certification from the Food and Drug Administration of the United States Department of Health and Human Services attesting to the fact that a drug other than a drug contained in any schedule of Article 2 of this chapter involved in the action or proceeding is a dangerous drug that federal law prohibits dispensing of without a prescription pursuant to the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act shall be admissible as prima-facie proof that such drug is a "dangerous drug"
(b) In addition to subsection (a) of this Code section, a "dangerous drug" means any other drug or substance declared by the General Assembly to be a dangerous drug; to include any of the following drugs, chemicals, or substances; salts, isomers, esters, ethers, or derivatives of such drugs, chemicals, or substances which have essentially the same pharmacological action; all other salts, isomers, esters, ethers, and compounds of such drugs, chemicals, or substances unless specifically exempted and the following devices, identified as "dangerous drugs".
(627)
The federal laws for simple possession (including magic mushrooms) are under 21 USC 844(a).
21 USC Sec. 844
TITLE 21 - FOOD AND DRUGS
Sec. 844. Penalties for simple possession
-STATUTE-
(a) Unlawful acts; penalties
It shall be unlawful for any person knowingly or intentionally to possess a controlled substance unless such substance was obtained directly, or pursuant to a valid prescription or order, from a practitioner, while acting in the course of his professional practice, or except as otherwise authorized by this subchapter or subchapter II of this chapter.
It shall be unlawful for any person knowingly or intentionally to possess any list I chemical obtained pursuant to or under authority of a registration issued to that person under section 823 of this title or section 958 of this title if that registration has been revoked or suspended, if that registration has expired, or if the registrant has ceased to do business in the manner contemplated by his registration.
Any person who violates this subsection may be sentenced to a term of imprisonment of not more than 1 year, and shall be fined a minimum of $1,000, or both, except that if he commits such offense after a prior conviction under this subchapter or subchapter II of this chapter, or a prior conviction for any drug, narcotic, or chemical offense chargeable under the law of any State, has become final, he shall be sentenced to a term of imprisonment for not less than 15 days but not more than 2 years, and shall be fined a minimum of $2,500, except, further, that if he commits such offense after two or more prior convictions under this subchapter or subchapter II of this chapter, or two or more prior convictions f or any drug, narcotic, or chemical offense chargeable under the law of any State, or a combination of two or more such offenses have become final, he shall be sentenced to a term of imprisonment for not less than 90 days but not more than 3 years, and shall be fined a minimum of $5,000.
Here is where chaos reigns. Every state is different and some states are incredibly different. As an example, a first offense with simple possession, the state with the least penalty is Wisconsin, (0 - 30 days jail time / $500 fine). The worst penalty is in Colorado, (4 to 16 years jail time / $750,000 fine). With a first offense Sale/manufacturing charge the state with the least penalty is New Mexico, (0 to 3 years jail time / $5000 fine). The worst state is good old Texas, (5 years to life / $250,000 fine). The US federal law is actually easier than the easiest state (New Mexico). With simple possession, the penalties are always easier and Judges have a good leeway to judge.
The following reports I got off the web. They are two newspaper web releases that concern two magic mushroom busts done in two different States, one in Nineveh Indiana and the other in Unicoi Tennessee. I showed them to my lawyer and he said that it represented the chaos in the laws and the disparity that can happen in different courts and different trials concerning the same crime. He was fairly aghast at the incredibly unfair sentences these two got. And when one considers my crime (a Federal crime as opposed to the State charges that these are), it seems that I got off really easy. Under the Federal Sentencing guidlines, growing 11 pounds (dried) or less is 10 to 18 months incarceration. But these two got much more than that.
The Indiana Court of Appeals has upheld the conviction of a Nineveh drug dealer who was growing illegal psychedelic mushrooms in his home.
A search warrant that incorrectly listed David T. Creekmore's home address was not enough reason to throw out Creekmore's conviction, the court found. Creekmore was convicted of dealing in a controlled substance and possessing more than 30 grams of marijuana.
The charges stemmed from a warrant search of Creekmore's house in Nineveh, where detectives found an indoor-growing operation to cultivate psilocybin mushrooms. Such mushrooms have hallucinogenic properties similar to LSD; possessing or growing them is a crime.
The case began when an informant, facing his own drug charges, told a Morgan County sheriff's detective that Creekmore was an illegal-mushroom dealer known locally as "Dirty Dave". That led sheriff's detectives from Morgan and Johnson counties to request a search warrant for Creekmore's house in Nineveh. Though the Morgan County detective knew where to find the house (near the intersection of county roads 775S and 100E), confusion over the road names led twice to incorrect addresses being listed on the search warrant: first for 775W and 100N (which don't intersect in Nineveh) and then for 775N and 100W (which meet in Greenwood, not in Nineveh).
A Morgan County judge signed the warrant, and Creekmore's house was searched on March 2, 2001. In a spare bedroom, detectives reportedly found four large plastic buckets outfitted with fluorescent lights and water lines, with mushrooms growing inside. Creekmore reportedly told detectives that he could harvest mushrooms every 30 days.
Detectives found more than four ounces of dried psilocybin mushrooms, with a street value of about $200 per ounce. They also found marijuana; and Creekmore was arrested.
Creekmore's defense had contended that under the Fourth Amendment, the bad address on the search warrant made it an illegal search and seizure. Therefore, under what's known as the exclusionary rule, the evidence seized in the search, including the marijuana and the illegal mushrooms Creekmore was cultivating, should have been suppressed, the defense asserted. If the evidence of Creekmore's drug-dealing had been ruled inadmissible, the prosecution's case against Creekmore would have fallen apart. But Judge Kevin Barton had denied Creekmore's motion to suppress, and the evidence was allowed in.
At a bench trial with no jury in Johnson Superior Court 1 in March 2003, Creekmore was found guilty of dealing in a controlled substance, a Class B felony, and possession of marijuana over 30 grams, a Class D felony. He was acquitted of a second count of dealing. Barton sentenced Creekmore to nine years in prison, followed by six on probation.
Creekmore appealed his conviction and sentence, arguing that the search warrant was invalid. He also maintained the informant was not credible and therefore no probable cause existed to issue the warrant. His defense asked the appeals court to overturn his conviction and order a new trial.
A three-judge panel of the Indiana Court of Appeals issued its 12-page decision in late December. In a unanimous ruling, the appellate judges affirmed the conviction, finding in favor of Johnson County prosecutors and against Creekmore.
"Improper road designations did not make the warrant invalid because the warrant sufficiently described the place to be searched" the decision said. "Accordingly, the trial court did not err when (Barton) denied Creekmore's motion to suppress". That means Creekmore's conviction is not overturned, and he does not get out of prison.
"This is the kind of technicality that does not require a judge to let an obviously guilty criminal walk free", Johnson County Prosecutor Lance Hamner said. "Judge Barton ruled correctly, and the court of appeals recognized this".
The appeals court's decision on Creekmore now becomes a legal precedent and could be cited as case law in future cases.
Mushrooms containing psilocybin typically are eaten to alter mood and perception in a manner similar to LSD. Commonly known as "shrooms" among substance abusers, such mushrooms were used for centuries by American Indian cultures before gaining popularity with the 1960s drug counterculture.
Creekmore's arrest in March 2001 was the first time in at least 12 years that Johnson County sheriff's detectives had seen an indoor mushroom-growing operation.
ROGERSVILLE (AP) -- A Hawkins County judge has sentenced a teen to eight years in prison for selling psychedelic mushrooms.
Eighteen-year-old Michael Lee Long of Unicoi pleaded guilty to lesser charges of possession and intent to deliver.
Long will be eligible for parole after serving a third of his sentence.
Assistant District Attorney Doug Godbee says psychedelic drug arrests are unusual in Hawkins County.
But Godbee says the sentence imposed Monday should caution potential dealers that punishment is stiff.
(d) Drug paraphernalia defined
The term "drug paraphernalia" means any equipment, product, or material of any kind which is primarily intended or designed for use in manufacturing, compounding, converting, concealing, producing, processing, preparing, injecting, ingesting, inhaling, or otherwise introducing into the human body a controlled substance, possession of which is unlawful under this subchapter.
(e) Matters considered in determination of what constitutes drug paraphernalia
In determining whether an item constitutes drug paraphernalia, in addition to all other logically relevant factors, the following may be considered:
(1) Instructions, oral or written, provided with the item concerning it use;
Magic mushroom spores can be considered drug paraphernalia because of the "instructions". Interestingly, there is a historical antecedent for written "instructions" making something illegal and it comes from the Spanish Inquisition.
The Spanish Inquisition of the Roman Catholic Church began in 1252 A.D. For violating orthodox church doctrines, on admission or conviction of guilt, a person could be sentenced publicly to any of a wide variety of penalties, ranging from simple prayer and fasting to confiscation of property and imprisonment to death by hanging or the infamous burning at the stake.
In 1543 A.D. the Holy Office of the Roman Catholic Church decreed that no book might be printed or sold without permission. Lists of banned books were drawn up, and the first general "INDEX LIBRORUM PROHIBITORUM" (Index of Forbidden Books) was issued in 1559 A.D.
One example of books on the list are the works of Italian Monk and astronomer, Geodano Bruno. He wrote that the stars were like our sun, and they had planets revolving around them and they had life. He taught and published writings in which he said there was life on other worlds. After 7 years in an inquisition prison and being begged by the authorities to recant, they burned him at the stake - alive. Victims were usually strangeled first and then their bodies burned. But they burned Geodano alive (1600 A.D.). I'm sure glad I didn't live back then, but maybe I did in another life.
Confiscation of property was one of the less horrible punishments of the inquisition. Forfeiture is what they call it today and I got a lot of that.
Amendment IV of the US Constitution - The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
When I was first arrested, I witnessed a shocking violation of my 4rth amendment right "unreasonable --- seizures". It is known by most people, that in the USA, when one is charged with a crime, one is innocent until proven guilty. In my case, I was guilty until proven guilty. As I sat at the dinning room table surrounded by the DEA on that morning of February 18 2003, I watched the Feds pull up two large trucks and load my pick up truck and wifes car into them. Plus, they put liens on all my properties (5 houses and a lake lot) and two bank accounts and took any money they found laying around (thousands of dollars in cash at 3 houses - of which we got back none - including Judy and Steve in which the charges against them were dismissed when me and my wife plead guilty in court). We were mugged by the feds. The constitution's Bill of Rights is null and void in the Drug War. We were guilty before proven guilty and that was really the case during pretrial release. God damn, those pretrial people are fascists. Me and my wife were treated pretty poorly, with continual suspicions being levied against us.
Amendment VIII of the US Constitution - Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.
I suppose the liens and confiscated cars and bank accounts could account for "Excessive bail" to be sure. But what really infuriates me, is that US probation (they work for the judge) in their presentencing report, wanted me to do prison time (because of the seriousness of my "illegal" business and to get an enhancement of my felony level because I was the "leader" of the PF spore "conspiracy"). But probation went far beyond that.
As can be read in the Professor's sentencing hearing transcript, probation wanted to put my wife into mental health treatment (insinuating that my wife was mentally ill). There were arguments about my wife being on Paxil (mood elevating drug for depression). My wife was going through menapause and I can attest to the fact, it was really scary (for both her and me). Any husband that goes through being with his wife who is experiencing the menapause change knows what I am talking about. Divorce is always a good option in that case, but I hung in there and everything is groovey now. But probation wanted to put her in mental therapy which would have been a real downer for her (making her menapause much worse) and cause her a lot of difficulty driving back and forth to Aberdeen (an hours drive south and an hours drive back north) and then being around a bunch of suppossedly mentally ill people. I am sure that would have made my drug treatment brain washing sessions and goony AA meetings seem like a walk in the park in comparison. But my wife's lawyer and the good judgement of the Judge put that bull shit in its place. That would have been cruel punishment for her and she would have probably done something really insane, like have a car crash or drinking herself into the hospital. I still despise those probation fascists for attacking my wife like that. Yeah, I consider it an attack on her personally.
I have discussed or tried to discuss some of the things I will do here with my lawyer, but he really is not interested in these things. What I am thinking is the metaphysics of Justice. In this world of ours, Justice is a myth. My lawyer is a very conservative man, who does not need or want to question the law. He works in the system and sees no need to question the system. He basically does damage control and he is good at that. Then I tried to discuss these things with my wife's lawyer and she was the same.
The first issue is really a strange one. As you can see, the government (US attorney) said many times in the hearing (the sentencing transcript) that my business was "ILLEGAL". My "business" was not dealing drugs or selling mushrooms. My "business" was selling the spores of the mushrooms and teaching cultivation technique (PF TEK). Count one of the original indictment was conspiracy to distribute psilocin. About 3 weeks after my arrest, the government (US Attorneys office) began offering me to plead out of count one and plead guilty to count two (Manufacturing psilocin) - of which I was clearly guilty. I grew shrooms - although my grow op was tiny, and no matter how small it was (they found a handful of dried shrooms from a waste basket and found a couple of shrooms growing from a cake in a terrarium - 11.4 dried grams in all), that was illegal. I thought that growing a tiny amount of shrooms would be my salvation in case of a bust. And like I thought, that actually did come into play because the US attorney made that a serious point (my very small gro-op) in the governments suggestion in the plea agreement that I get the low range of the sentencing scale for my calculated felony level (level 10). I felt it was rather inevitable that I would get in trouble, but I really liked all that money I was making and I felt rather justified because I worshipped the magic shrooms and still think they are the "food of the gods" (Teonanactl). Even if the government thinks I am a criminal, the gods regard me highly. I was their highly paid servant, I still believe.
I talked to a legal scholar from California a few times and he told me that the only reason the government offered me a plea out of the first count (conspiracy to distribute psilocin) was because the government thought that to be a weak charge, defeatable in a trial. But I talked to several lawyers in the course of events and every one of them said without any equivocation, "DON'T GO TO TRIAL", "Try to get a plea agreement". When the government offers the defendant a plea agreement, it is not because they are "nice guys" or because they like the defendant, but because they think it to be the best interest of the prosecution in the event of a trial. So I took the plea but it cost me about $300,000 in properties and money. At the time, I was worth nearly a million bucks in properties and bank accounts. My probation officer was visiting me a while back and said that he did think that I was operating in a "gray area" (the spore biz). He doesn't regard me as much of a criminal at all. He supervises bank robbers, serious drug dealers and such. He just thinks I went to far with the spores and teaching the world the PF TEK. Then he looked at me and said, "you know Robert, in your case, it seems that crime paid", as he sat surveying my pleasant environs and pretty good state of mind. Then I said, "Oh man, I was hoping you wouldn't bring that up, because I been thinking that for months".
Getting back to the governments position that my biz of spore selling was illegal, brings up a big question. If selling spores is that "illegal", why has there been no busts of people selling spores or syringes since my arrest? There are more people than ever, especially on the web. If spores of magic mushrooms were illegal to sell, it would be easy for the feds to order a spore syringe, culture the spores on agar, and then do what is called a LIQUID CHROMATOGRAPHY MASS SPECTROMETRY test on the mycelium. This is a better test than the standard GAS CHROMATOGRAPHY MASS SPECTROMETRY (GC/MS) used to identify hallucinogenic agents. That would be an easy bust. The cops wouldn't even need a few shrooms. All they would need is the mycelium they would get from a spore syringe or use the spore syringe with the PF TEK (which has become the designated magic shroom growing tek for forensic science) and grow magic shrooms to show intent, and then they have it and can raid and convict and bring down the whole magic spore scene. But that is not happening. I asked my wife's lawyer about that, and in her normal non metaphysical way said, "well, they started a war on terror and don't have the time". HUH? (Me)
The U.S. Attorney General has determined that the publication of this periodical is necessary in the transaction of the public business required by the Department of Justice. Information, instructions, and disclaimers are published in the January issues.
VOL. XXXVI, NO. 7
MAIL-ORDER PSILOCYBIN MUSHROOM SPORES IN GREAT FALLS, MONTANA
The DEA Western Laboratory (San Francisco, California) recently received a submission of three standard design, plastic, 12 milliliter syringes containing a clear liquid with very small black specks suspended in the solution, suspected to be aqueous suspensions of psilocybin mushroom spores. The exhibits were seized by the Postal Inspector in Great Falls, Montana. Each syringe had a piece of colored tape wrapped around it; one red, one white, and one blue. Each tape had a different alphanumeric code written on it, the meaning of which was not intuitively obvious. For prosecution purposes (attempt to manufacture psilocybin and/or psilocin, controlled substances), it was necessary to show both that the spores were viable (would grow mushrooms), and that the mushrooms grown from the spores contained psilocybin and/or psilocin.
Visual examination of a drop of the liquid at 750x magnification revealed thousands of brownish colored, semi-transparent, oval shaped spores. Each solution was used to inoculate four different growth media: Potato, dextrose, yeast agar (PDY), dog food agar (DFA), malt extract agar (MEA), and brown rice powder and vermiculite. The basic procedures followed those provided in: Gross ST. Detecting psychoactive drugs in the developmental stages of mushrooms. Journal of Forensic Sciences 2000;45(3):527. [Further details not provided in accordance with Bulletin policy.] Mycelium growth was obtained with two of the syringes; analysis of samples of the mycelium by GC/MS and GC/IRD confirmed psilocin (see: Casale JF. An aqueous-organic extraction method for the isolation and identification of psilocin from hallucinogenic mushrooms. Journal of Forensic Sciences 1985;30(1):247). Transfer of the mycelium to a grow chamber resulted in mushroom growth (see photo), and analysis of the dried mushrooms confirmed psilocin. This was the first submission of this type to the Western Laboratory.
MY COMMENTS
FIrst of all, those syringes were not from me. I never sold 12cc syringes (Monojet brand - cheap) with red tape. My syringes were always 10cc (B.D. brand - the best) with white tape securing the needle.
As can be seen in the photo, the D.E.A. now uses the PF TEK (cakes with vermiculite) to test spore syringes. "The basic procedures followed those provided in: Gross ST. Detecting psychoactive drugs in the developmental stages of mushrooms. Journal of Forensic Sciences 2000;45(3):527". In that forensic experiment, they used my syringes and PF TEK (see FBI investigates).
This quote from the D.E.A. microgram article is very important - "For prosecution purposes (attempt to manufacture psilocybin and/or psilocin, controlled substances), it was necessary to show both that the spores were viable (would grow mushrooms), and that the mushrooms grown from the spores contained psilocybin and/or psilocin". First of all, there was no arrest on those syringes. So all I can say, is that the D.E.A. is probably planning something, like maybe - "OPERATION SPORE DROP" where they will in a concerted fashion, perform a sting round up of all of the people selling viable cubensis spore syringes in the USA. But it has been quite a while since my conviction and the publishing of the D.E.A. article on the Montana spore syringes. So the future is still waiting on this. Or maybe, the D.E.A. can't do anything without more laws being very specific about spore syringes. Right now, there are no federal laws against spores.
The issue with the legality of the spores has another big question from me. In the 2000 May issue of the JOURNAL OF FORENSIC SCIENCES is a report entitled DETECTING PSYCHOACTIVE DRUGS IN THE DEVELOPMENTAL STAGES OF MUSHROOMS. It is by Susan T Gross, B.A. - Forensic Scientist, Minnesota Forensic Science Laboratory, 1246 University Ave. St.Paul, Minnesota. And most importantly this sentence follows - This project was supported by the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI). Minneapolis Field Office. Received 26 Feb. 1999: and in revised form 12 May 1999: accepted 23 Aug. 1999.
An important point to mention is that the FBI's intent of the investigation was not to investigate ME personally, but rather my PF TEK and what it does. After all, the PF TEK became a major phenomenon in the under ground world of psychedelia and it was essentially about breaking the law - "growing schedule one illegal mushrooms - psilocybin". So it became the FBI's job to find out what it was all about, and the best way they could do that was by getting my spore syringes and trying out the PF TEK in their forensic science lab to see for themselves.
On page 2 it begins with the "METHODS". QUOTE - The spores used in this experiment were obtained legally through an advertisement in High Times Magazine from Psylocybe Fanaticus (PFTEK Seattle WA.) The spores were received in 10ml syringes in an aqueous solution. --- Directions for preparing the growing media were received with the spores. The important point that I am making is that in the report, the author said that the spores (PF SYRINGES) they used for the research and investigation was purchased LEGALLY from Psylocybe Fanaticus, Seattle Washington and that the instructions for cultivation came with the spores (THE PF TEK BOOKLET). If distributing magic mushroom spores along with the PF TEK was illegal (according to the Feb 23 2003 federal indictment against PF), why did the FBI refer to them as "PURCHASED LEGALLY"?
Of course I reviewed this thoroughly with my lawyer but he said it didn't matter and I guess he was correct, because I did not get prosecuted or sentenced in regard to my spore business, although that was the whole point of the governments (D.E.A.) raid and my arrest and indictment because clearly in the beginning, PF (me) and his people were charged with conspiracy to distribute a schedule one hallucinogenic drug by the US government dept. of Justice (count one of the indictment). PF (me) did 8 days at the Federal Detention Center at Sea-Tac (south of Seattle) right after the raid and was released. Before PF was released from jail, the US attorneys office in Seattle began the process of Plea bargaining PF out of the count one conspiracy charges (a serious federal offense). The "conspiracy" was the PF spore business (spore syringes) and PF's teaching (the PF TEK info) the world how to use the spores to grow magic mushrooms that contained the illegal schedule one hallucinogen, psilocin.
Susan T Gross, B.A. REFERENCE: Gross ST. Detecting psychoactive drugs in the developmental stages
of mushrooms. J Forensic Sci 2000;45(3):527-537.
ABSTRACT: The following questions regarding the detection of psychoactive
drugs in mushrooms are addressed: At what stage of the mushroom development can
the psychoactive drugs psilocyn and psilocybin be identified, and what effect
does light have on the growth of these mushrooms. To answer these questions.
Psilocybe cyanescens Wakefield mushrooms were grown from their spores in a
controlled setting. At various times of their development, samples were taken
and analyzed for psilocyn and psilocybin. Knowing what stage of development the
psychoactive drugs can be identified may be useful to law enforcement personnel
and forensic chemists. Methanolic extracts of various samples were analyzed by
TLC and by GC/MS. It was determined that the mycelium knot stage of the mushroom
was the earliest stage at which the psychoactive drugs could be detected. It was
observed that light affected the time of development and the appearance of these
mushrooms.
KEYWORDS: forensic science. psilocyn. psilocybin. psychotropic mushrooms
Law enforcement agencies in Minnesota are beginning to see an increased
number of mushroom growing operations. Knowing what stage of development the
psychoactive drugs can be identitied may be useful to law enforcement personnel
and forensic chemists. This information is important because in the state of
Minnesota it is illegal to possess any material, compound, mixture or
preparation which contain any quantity of psilocyn and/or psilocybin (I).
The word mushroom is a general term used to describe the relatively large and
fleshy fruiting bodies of fungi, particularly all gill fungi. They are fungi
that differ from plants in that these lack roots,stems, leaves, flowers, seeds
and chlorophyll. Since mushrooms lack chlorophyll, they depend upon their
surrounding medium for their nutrients. The vegetative portion of the fungus
accumulates a reserve of food from the immediate surroundings in order to
develop fruiting bodies (2-3).
Fungi are categorized as follows: kingdom, phylum, class, order, family,
genus, and species. Mushrooms containing psychotropic drugs are classified in
the kingdom Mycota, the phylum Basidiomycota, the class Hymenomycetes, and the
order Agaricales. There are four families of mushrooms, Strophariaceae,
Bolbitiaceae, Coprinaceae, and Cortinariaceae, that contain psilocybin,
psilocyn, or related alkalojds with an indolic nucleus. The genus and species of
Psilocybe mushrooms that were grown were identified as Psilocybe cyanescens. The
pleurocystidia sizes noted in the keys describing the Psilocybe cyanescens
mushroom varied slightly from the mushrooms grown. This may indicate a variant
of this species (communication with Dr. David McLaughlin, Plant Biology
Department, University of Minnesota) (2,4,5-8).
The four stages making up the life cycle of a mushroom are the spores, the
mycelium, the primordia, and the mature fruit. The spores are the reproductive
cells or "seeds" of the fungi (Fig. I - photo of spores under magnification).
Germination of the spores takes place
when a suitable substrate and correct environmental conditions are present.
These spores grow outward seeking nutrients and branch out forming a complex
"cob-like" system. This "cob-Iike" system is the vegetative portion of the
fungus which is called the mycelium (Fig. 2 - photo of mycelium spreading in
PF jar). The mycelium absorbs water and
nutrients from the substrate which is used in the production of the fruiting
bodies. The ability of a fungus to begin fruiting is affected by genetic
competence and various environmental factors including moisture, temperature,
light, and aeration. The formation and growth of the fruiting bodies is known as
primordia and has been referred to as "mycelium knots" and "pinheads." The
"mycelium knot" is referring to the initial fruiting body that is formed when
the mycelium clumps together and seems to form a "knot" (Fig. 3 - photo of
birthed PF cake and pins). This knot
eventually grows into the 'pinhead,' a plump growth, yellow in color and with a
brown tip (Fig. 4 - photo of invitro primordia in PF jar).
The fruit is considered mature when it is able to disperse
spores and begin this life cycle over again (Figs. 5-6 - photos of
mature PF race shrooms on cakes) (2,9).
The spores used in this experiment were obtained legally through an
advertisement in High Times Magazine from Psylocybe
Fanaticus (PFTek Seattle,
WA). The spores were received in 10 mL syringes in an aqueous solution. The
spore solutions were each viewed using a 1250X-magnification microscope. Directions for preparing the growing media were received with the spores.
Supplies used for the growing media were half-pint wide-mouth jars (KerrGroup,
Inc. Jackson, TN), horticultural vermiculite (Schultz, St. Louis MO), brown rice
powder and distilled water. The canning lids were prepared before the mixture
was added to the jars. The rubber sealing edge of the canning lids were turned
upwards and four holes were punched symmetrically around the outer edge. A
mixture of one fourth cup brown rice powder, one half cup vermiculite and one
fourth cup distilled water was prepared for each half pint jar. This mixture was
placed into the jars and covered with dry vermiculite. The lids were screwed on
tightly and aluminum foil was used to cover the lid to prevent additional water
from entering the jars during sterilization.
Since growing media is susceptible to contamination, the top layer of dry
vermiculite was used to keep airborne contaminants from the wet substrate and
absorb and regulate moisture transpiration and condensation (10). The jars with
the growing media mixture were sterilized at 120°C for 20 minutes. The jars were
cooled before inoculation. Contamination was detectable through various colors
from pastels to black. The growing media that became contaminated was observed
but was not analyzed.
Eight jars per week were inoculated with I0 mL of spore solution. This was
done for 9 weeks for a total of 72 inoculations. In addition to the eight jars
inoculated per week, one jar per week was not inoculated and was used as a
control blank. During the first four weeks, all samples were allowed to grow
under indirect light. The last five weeks, half of the samples were allowed to
grow under indirect light while the other half were kept in the dark. The jars
kept in the dark were exposed to light only when samples were taken. Each jar
was covered with parafilm after inoculation to keep airborne contaminates from
the substrate.
The samples were transferred to terrariums after the pinheads became came too
large for the Jars they were growing in. Two different terrariums were used for
this experiment. The first one consisted of a styrofoam cooler with a piece of
plexiglas inside of it. The second terrarium consisted of a 2-1iter pop bottle
with the middle portion cut out. To maintain a high level of humidity, both
terrariums were sprayed with distilled water two to four times a day. Fanning
the chamber with the lids two to four times a day also kept the terrariums well
ventilated.
The growth and colonization was monitored for the samples grown under
indirect light. The mycelium was sampled 13 days after inoculation. Samples were
also taken from each jar at various stages of growth of the mycelium, primordia
and the mature fruit. The growth of the mycelium, primordia and the mature fruit
was monitored and compared for the samples grown under indirect light and in the
dark simultaneously.
Samples were allowed to soak in methanol overnight. The methanol was decanted
into a shell vial which was then condensed to near dryness (
TLC was carried out on 5 X 10 cm silica gel plates (Analtech Newar, DE).
Psilocyn (Alltech State College, PA) and psilocybin (Alltech State College, PA)
standards were spotted on each plate along with the sample extracts. The plates
were developed to 6 cm at room temperature in a covered development tank with a
9: I chloroform/methanol solution. A beaker containing 3 mL of ammonium
hydroxide was placed in the tank to assist in development. The plate was dried
with low heat and visualized with a paradimethylarninobenzaldehyde (p-DMAB)
spray reagent. (The p- DMAB reagent consisted of 2 9 of p-DMAB in 50 mL of
ethanol and 50 mL of hydrochloric acid.) The relative Rr value of psilocybin is
0.00 and the relative Rr value of psilocyn is 0.85.
The lower limit of detection was determined by serial dilutions of the
psilocyn standard and spotting/developing it until the spot associated with the
standard was not seen. The lower limit of detection for the TLC method was
determined to be approximately 0.03 mg/mL.
The Hewlett Packard gas chromatograph 5890 Series II interfaced with the
Hewlett Packard 5970 series mass selective detector (MSD) and the Hewlett
Packard GI800A gas chromatograph detector system (GCD) were used for the
detection of the analytes. These two instruments are equivalent and samples were
run on specific instruments depending upon their availability. An HP-1 12 m
column (film thickness 0.33 um, column id 0.2 mm) was used for the gas
chromatography (GC). The parameters for the GCD were as follows: injection port
250°C and detector temperature 280°C. Method SCAN70-Low mass 35, high mass 425,
initial temperature 70°C, ramp rate 25°C/min and final temperature 300°C hold
for 3.0 minutes. The parameters for the MSD were as follows: injection port
265°C and detector temperature 280°C. Method SCN90-Low mass 35, high mass 400,
initial temperature 90°C, ramp rate 25°C/min, and final temperature 300°C hold
for 4.0 minutes. Sample volume was approximately 3 uL with the split ratio of
30:1.
The lower limit of detection for both instruments was determined by serial
dilutions of the psilocyn standard and analyzing it until a peak at the correct
retention time containing the prominent ions 44, 58, 77, 159, and 204 was not
detected. The lower limit of detection was determined to be approximately 0.1
mg/mL for both instruments.
Identifcation of the mushrooms grown in this project was made by examination
of the spores, fruiting bodies and the mature mushroom. Spores were examined for
their color, shape, and size. The spores were purple to brown in color and
elliptical to oblong elliptical in shape. They ranged in size from 6.7-8.2 um by
12.6-15.0 um. The fruiting bodies were examined mainly for color. The mature
mushroom was examined for shape, size, color, texture, gill characteristics, and
general appearance.
The original spore solutions were analyzed by TLC and by GC/MS. No psilocyn
or psilocybin were detected in any of the spore solutions.
Mycelium growth was observed from 4 to 6 days. Fruiting bodies were observed
from 24 to 48 days. The average amount of time for the primordia to appear was
32 days. Samples of mycelium were taken after 13 days of growth, 20 days of
growth, and at various other days of growth. A total of 29 samples of the white
mycelium growth were analyzed. No psilocyn or psilocybin was detected in any of
these 29 samples. Nine of the 29 samples were confirmed by GCIMS, and again no
psilocyn was detected.
Samples were analyzed after the first sign of growth of mycelium knots. A
total of 22 mycelium knot samples were analyzed by TLC. Samples were considered
to be consistent with a standard if their relative Rr value and their color
matched the standard also spotted on the plate. Samples were considered to
indicate a standard if their relative Rr value matched the standard but the
color was not as dark as the standard spotted. Of the 22 mycelium knot samples,
17 were consistent with psilocyn. Of these 17 samples, 8 were also consistent
with psilocybin and I indicated there was psilocybin in the sample. Four samples
were consistent with the psilocybin standard spotted on the TLC plate, and one
of these samples also indicated there was psilocyn in the sample. There was no
psychoactive drugs detected in one of the samples.
Samples were analyzed after the first pinheads of the fruiting bodies were
observed. A total of 25 samples of the pinheads were analyzed by TLC. All 25
samples were with the psilocyn standard spotted on the TLC plate. Of these 25
samples, 3 were also consistent with the psilocybin standard spotted and 3
indicated there was psilocybin in the sample (Table I).
The 22 mycelium knot samples were also analyzed by GC/MS. In the inlet system
of the gas chromatograph, thermal dephosphorylation of psilocybin occurs. As a
result of this degredation of psilocybin to psilocyn, one is unable to
differentiate the two by GC/MS. With this inability to differentiate psilocyn
and psilocybin, it is unknown if the starting material contains psilocyn,
psilocybin, or a mixture of both drugs. For this project, only a psilocyn
standard was analyzed by GC/MS (Figs. 7-9). Samples were considered to be
consistent with psilocyn if their retention time and mass spectral fragmentation
pattern matched that of the psilocyn standard. Samples were considered to
indicate psilocyn if their retention time was consistent with the psilocyn
standard and contained the prominent ions, but were lacking ions in the total
fragmentation pattern. Of these 22 mycelium knot samples, 12 were consistent
with the psilocyn standard. Seven samples were found to indicate psilocyn, and
there were three samples where psilocyn was not detected.
The 25 "pinhead" samples were also analyzed by GC/MS. Of these 25 samples, 19
were consistent with the retention time and mass spectral fragmentation pattern
as psilocyn. Three samples were found to indicate psilocyn and psilocyn was not
detected in 3 samples (Table 2).
Samples of the mature mushroom were also analyzed. Eleven samples were
analyzed by TLC and by GC/MS. All eleven samples were consistent with the
psilocyn standard spotted on the TLC plate. Of these 11 samples, 2 also
indicated psilocybin in the sample. All 11 samples analyzed on the GC/MS were
consistent with the psilocyn standard (Figs. 10-12).
There were some noticeable differences in the samples grown under indirect
light versus the samples grown in the dark. All samples started to show mycelium
growth at 4 days. The first signs of fruiting bodies were observed to be from 19
to 25 days in the samples that were grown under indirect light with the average
being 21 days. The first signs of fruiting bodies were observed from 23 to 45
days for the samples that were grown in the dark, with the average being 26
days. The samples that were grown under indirect light had primordia which grew
faster and larger. They were plump, yellow in color with brown tips. The samples
that were grown in the dark had small white primordia that were skinny and long.
The coloring was off-white with only a few having dark brown tips. The mushrooms
that were grown under indirect light had thick stipes with yellowish to chestnut
colored caps. The mushrooms that were grown in the dark had lighter stipes that
were much skinnier than the mushrooms grown in the light. The caps of the
mushrooms grown in the dark were also lighter in color than the mushrooms grown
under indirect light. Psilocyn and/or psilocybin was detected in the mycelium
knots, the pinheads and the mature mushrooms of all samples grown either in the
dark or the light.
The psychoactive drugs psilocyn and psilocybin were not detected in the
mycelium, the earliest stage of development of the mushroom. These drugs were
identified in the mycelium knots, the earliest stages of the fruiting body of
the mushroom.
Light affects the growth of the Psilocybe cyanescens mushroom. This affect is
apparent in the time of development and the appearance of the mushroom. Light
affected the color and size of both the fruiting bodies and the mature mushroom.
Light did not affect the presence of psilocyn or psilocybin in the early stages
of the primordia or the mature mushrooms, nor did it affect the ability to
detect these psychotropic drugs. It appears that the Psilocybe cyanescens
mushrooms are not photosynthetic, but are photosensitive.
The author wishes to acknowledge Dr. David McLaughlin, Plant Biology
Department, University of Minnesota for his time and assistance in identifying
the mushroom, and his explanations about the classifIcations of fungi and the
development of the mushroom. This project was supported by the Federal Bureau of
Investigation, Minneapolis Office which generously provided the supplies.
I. Minnesota Statues Chapter 152.02. Schedules of conlrolled substances;
Subdivision 2, Schedule 1. The following ilems are listed in Schedule I:(3) Any
material, compound, mixture or preparation which contains any quantity of the
following hallucinogenic substances, their salts, isomers and salts of isomers,
unless specifically excepted, whenever the existence of such salts, isomers, and
salts of isomers is possible within the specific chemical designation:
3,4-methylenedioxyamphetamine; 4-bromo-2,5-dimethoxyamphetamine;
2.5-dimethoxyamphetamine; 4-methoxyamphetamine; 5-methoxy-3,
4-methylenedioxyamphelamine; Bufotenine; Diethyltryptamine; Dimethyltryptamine:
3,4,5-trimethoxyamphetamine; 4-methyl-2.5-dimethoxyamphetamine; 4 Ibogaine;
Lysergic acid diethylamide; Marijuana; Mescaline; N-ethyl-3-piperidyl benzilate;
N-methyl-3-piperidyl benzilate; Psilocybin; Psilocyn; Tetrahydrocannabinols;
1-(1-(2-thienyl) cyclyohexyl) piperidine; N-ethyl-I-phenyl-cyclohexylamine;
1-(I-phenylcyclohexyl) pyrrolidine.
2. Kaul TN. Introduction to mushroom science. Enfield, New Hampshire: Science
Publishers, Inc., 1997.
3. McKnight KH and McKnight VB. A field guide to mushrooms. Boston: Houghton
Miffiin Company, 1987.
4. Rumack BH and Salzman E. Mushroom poisoning: diagnosis and treatment. West
Palm Beach, Florida: CRC Press, Inc., 1978.
5. Ammirati JF, Traquair JA. and Horgen PA. Poisonous mushrooms of the
Northern United Stales and Canada. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press,
1985.
6. Guzman G. The genus Psilocybe. Nova Hedwigia: Beih, 1983;74:1-439.
7. Guzman G. Supplement to the monograph of the genus Psilocybe. In: Petrini
O and Horak E, eds., Taxonomic monographs of Agaricales. Bibliotheca Mycologica
1995;159:91-141.
8. Singer R and Smith AH. Mycological investigations on teonanacatl, the
Mexican hallucinogenic mushroom: Part II. A taxonomic monograph of Psilocybe,
section Caerulescentes. Mycologia 1958;50:262-303.
9. Starnets P and Chilton JS. The mushroom cultivator. Olympia, Washington:
Agarikon Press, 1983.
10. Psylocybe
Fanaticus
(PFtek), 1996.
FIG. 1 - microscope photo of spores
There are several interesting points In the first article, "Detecting
Psychoactive Drugs in the Developmental Stages of Mushrooms".
1. The article was the result of a full FBI investigation of PF in 1998. What
saved PF was this; "The original spore solutions were analyzed by TLC and by
GC/MS. No psilocyn or psilocybin were detected in any of the spore solutions."
If these drugs would have been detected, PF would certainly be history and the
new spore syringe phenom would be over.
2. The article gave PF credit for the source of the spores, "The spores used
in this experiment were obtained legally through an advertisement in High Times
Magazine from Psylocybe Fanaticus (PFTek Seattle, WA)". This is quite amazing
because the FBI did not have to give any credit for this research, but they did.
Most likely, it was because a lot of money was invested for the research and
they achieved valid results. They even spelled Psylocybe Fanaticus correctly
incorrect with a Y, and not an I. Also, the FBI performed the PF TEK exactly as
written (credit given in the references section and footnotes) and because they
followed the PF TEK, even they were able to get a first time success, making
their research project and money spent, successful.
3. The paper identified the shroom grown (PF race) as a Psilocybe Cyanescens.
Everyone knows that the PF race is Psilocybe Cubensis and not Psilocybe
Cyanescens. Why then identify it as a wrong specie? The clue is here, "The genus
and species of Psilocybe mushrooms that were grown were identified as Psilocybe
cyanescens. The pleurocystidia sizes noted in the keys describing the Psilocybe
cyanescens mushroom varied slightly from the mushrooms grown. This may indicate
a variant of this species (communication with Dr. David McLaughlin, Plant
Biology Department, University of Minnesota) (2,4,5-8). " For the last few years,
PF has taught the concept of "spore race". What the scientists did was to ignore
what PF said about the identity of the shroom and went to the books and keys to
do an objective ID, and what they obviously saw was that the PF race shroom
looks more like a Psilocybe Cyanescens than a Psilocybe Cubensis. They refer to
it as a "variant of the species". This is more vindication of PF's new concept
of spore race as opposed to the common designation - "strain", which falls short
of describing these various races that do not mate, but stay unique and
separate.
4. They found no drugs in the young mycelium. This is very surpising, because
after ingestion of "tea" made from boiling down mycelium engulfed grain, a
slight "psilocybian buzz" can be felt for a brief time. The answer is that the
lab equipment could not detect an amount of psilocybin that the human psyche
can!
When all of this started, I had a very serious suspicion that I was actually informed on by a friend who wound up in the Federal Detention Center at Seatac by being busted with several bags of weed (possession with intent to distribute). What happened to him was that after doing 10 days in jail, he was released with a 10 dollar fine, no probation, no charges, no record and no required drug treatment (a must in cases like that) and U.A.'s. Here is the list of suspicions that indicate I was ratted on.
1. As revealed in my case DISCOVERY, when I opened my Post office box out here at the forest (in 1998), they began watching me. Every time a ranger would go by, they would take note on what they would see happening at my house, which was basically nothing. But they would document any vehicles parked in front.
2. For example, I had a friend musician visit me once and stayed overnight and he had an old Ford econoline van. That Ford van's prescence in my driveway was reported by the park rangers (in the discovery).
3. When I moved out here, I made friends with two guys. Let me refer to them as Dad and Son. We liked to smoke weed and they always had some for sale of which I would always buy from them. They were here a lot. They always parked their pickup truck in front. That truck was never mentioned in the Discovery. I looked for it and it just wasn't there. That is very strange because of all the visiting vehicles that were here and listed in the discovery, that truck was here the most - number one.
4. The Dad got busted a few years ago with weed plants growing on his property. He was put on a drug deferment thing and he had to stay straight for two years. Me and the son would be smoking and dad would have to stay straight. Then finally, after two years passed, Dad could smoke weed again. But he had that conviction of weed growing.
5. In Late summer of 2002, The dad and son were up at LAKE CRESCENT (Olympic national park) and they were parked and smoking a joint. They were busted by Park Rangers. They got dad and son with several ounces of bagged weed. (intent to distribute I would guess).
9. A couple of weeks after their bust, I was visited by dad and son. Dad had his truck, the son had a great bag of primo weed and we were all smoking. In fact, I bought that great weed and when I was raided, it was that very bag that the D.E.A. got, and even they knew that is was primo skunk bud. The son said he just got out of the Federal Detention center at SEA TAC. He did 10 days. The Dad had no charges against him and the son was free and clear, with a $10 fine, no probation, no charges, no drug treatment, no drug testing and free to do his usual thing - deal drugs and do odd jobs. They really are two decent guys, but they don't come over anymore and I don't invite them, and I try to avoid them.
10. A few months after that, here comes the DEA.
It all adds up that the son ratted on me when he was in jail. One doesn't get off easy like that when caught by the feds (Park Rangers) with several bags of weed. He should have gotten at least a federal probation rap and drug testing, AT LEAST! When I told the story to my probation officer, without batting an eyelid, he said, "absolutely, your suspicions are well founded". "That kind of thing happens all the time".
So what it means, if that is true, is that the information given to the feds by the son in jail, was all they needed to do their raid on me. The lead up investigations were really not enough to get a search warrant, but information from someone under arrest and in jail who becomes an informant, is all cops need to pull of a raid. Informants are the heart of the drug war. Without informants, the cops have to SEE the drugs - like sales and trafficking observed by the cops. And in my case, they spent several months preparing for the raid, because that is what the Feds do. It was important for them to get a good search warrant and really get the goods so they could slam me and stop what I was doing - hence the few months between the sons information and the raid.
So I talked to my lawyers and my probation officer about the informant thing. My probation officer said I could never get any info about the C.I. (case informant) from the US attorneys office or D.E.A. My wife's lawyer told me to try and get the information by sending a request to the US Justice dept. It is called FOI PA - "freedom of information privacy act". And amazingly, they answered my letters. But unfortunately, because the information involved a third party (the ratt), I was denied any info from the Office of the US Attorneys - Washington D.C. So it will have to remain my profound suspicion.
And last of all, I was not raided because of my small shroom grow, but because of my so called "illegal" spore biz. To know how a drug raid is pulled off, all one needs to do is watch "COPS" on T.V. (my favorite T.V. show) and how they do it. First they do surveillance and see the trafficking and drug selling. Then they do buys with marked money. That gives them the evidence they need for a search warrant and then they go in and make the arrests. The cops never saw my little grow op and just because I sold spores, doesn't mean I had to have a grow op. But an informant will get the search warrant right off the bat. I have been watched by the cops since I opened my spore biz back in 1991. I know that for an absolute fact, but there never was a raid, because the spores are really not illegal (at least so far) and only a handful of people have ever seen my tiny grow op - I kept that very under wraps.
Most of the drugs listed in the Schedule 1 hallucinogens, are synthetic laboratory drugs. But some of them are the plants (although the alkaloid hallucinogenic molecules can be synthesized in the lab also).
OKLAHOMA DAILY Nation/World
Peyote may have medicinal benefits
- Experts are debating the benefits, risks of hallucinogenic drugs.
Faye Flam - Knight-Ridder Tribune - December 04, 2003
(I got this report off the net and edited it down to the pertinent information).
PHILADELPHIA -- Long before Timothy Leary and Ken Kesey and the counterculture generation discovered hallucinogenic drugs, the Indians of western Mexico were using peyote to commune with their gods.
Anthropologist Peter T. Furst, who spent 30 years among the Huichol people, says that Indian shamans have been using hallucinogenic plants as a doorway to the divine for thousands of years, likely following a tradition carried by their ancestors over the Bering Strait.
And now, some U.S. scientists are exploring how these substances might be used by doctors to battle anxiety, mental illness and alcoholism.
"These compounds hold tremendous potential for helping us understand how the brain functions, and they have untapped potential for healing," said Charles Grob, a psychiatry professor at UCLA Medical School.
Some early studies suggest that LSD can ease the sense of dread that people feel when they are dying. "There were some very interesting and promising results," said Grob. He recently secured approval from the Food and Drug Administration to continue this line of inquiry using the milder drug psilocybin, the active ingredient in hallucinogenic mushrooms. (my comment - not true. Psilocybin is many times more potent than peyote by weight, and to trip heavy, far less shrooms in weight are taken in comparison to the peyote. The magic shroom trip is every bit as powerful as the mescaline containing peyote. In fact, peyote people think that magic shroom shamans are witch doctors. Peyote shamans don't employ the mushrooms, which to me, is very odd. The shrooms could be used just like the Peyote and also, with the PF TEK, their shroom supply would never run out, like peyote can since it has to be hunted for in the desert, harvested and brought out). end comment
Archaeological finds in Texas show remnants of peyote that date back around 7,000 years. Even earlier finds show a hallucinogenic seed associated with remains of giant mastodons and other Pleistocene animals that go back at least 10,000 years.
Furst said he believed it was likely the Huichol and other tribes brought a tradition of hallucinogen use from Siberia before they entered the Americas more than 15,000 years ago.
Others see evidence for shamanism in early Europe. "Shamanism emerged at least 40,000 years ago and is reflected in Paleolithic rock art," said Michael Winkelman, an anthropologist from Arizona State University. "Not all societies depended on hallucinogenic plants but where they found them, people built up institutions around these substances," he said. "They are seen as a source of divine inspiration".
When the Spanish invaded Mexico, they labeled peyote the "diabolic root," Furst said, and tried to stamp out its use. In the 1960s, peyote achieved a cult following. After a long legal battle, Furst said, peyote was legalized in 1994 in the United States for members of certain American Indian religions.
Arizona's Winkelman said he believes there is something in human biology that makes us want to reach for such altered states.
People use the term hallucinogen loosely to apply to many mind-altering drugs, but peyote belongs to a small family that shares similar modes of action on the brain. They include psilocybin, LSD and morning glory seeds.
Studies like the Good Friday Experiment ended after psilocybin and other hallucinogens were made illegal in the late 1960s and early '70s, but a handful of scientists today are looking at ways these types of drugs might help people.
John Halpern, associate director of substance abuse research at Harvard University and McLean Hospital, is investigating the possibility that peyote prevents alcoholism in American Indians. end quotes
When the law about the mushrooms says, "Manufacturing psilocin", that word "manufacturing" seems to me a way that the drug warriors use to make it all seem so bad. "Manufacturing" conjures up visions of smoke stacks, fire and brimstone, factories, environmental contamination, railroad cars full of coal and ore, laboratories, bubbling refluxers and all of that. One can certainly "manufacture" meth or LSD. That is done by mixing chemicals the right way. But when one grows mushrooms and they say that it is "manufacturing" a drug, they are really wrong about that. It is the mushrooms that "manufacture" the alkaloid. They do it by biotransformation. I just grow them, and nature does the work. I allow the mushrooms to live, but as far as actually making the drug, the mushrooms do it.
The drug war and the so called drug menace is a modern development and it has its' roots in racism, the advent of modern chemistry, chemicals and new synthetic drugs that are not of plant or natural origin, but created by science. If all of the plants were declared legal, the synthetic drugs would die off and go extinct and the addicts of the synthetic drugs or dangerous concentrated forms of the natural drug plants (heroin and cocaine) would decrease in number and then they could be treated as a health issue. That idea is called "harm reduction". But the governments of this world love harm increasement.
The drug war could be ended by easily just declaring all plants legal, and the end of the drug war would ratchet down all the violence and death about it. So instead of a potentially dangerous powder such as cocaine, the leaf would be legal. Leaf coca has been used for centuries by the peoples of the South American Andean mountains. There is even evidence and proof of its' use by the people that created the awe inspiring civilization of Tiwanaku. These are some excerpts from the National Geographic Magazine - June 2002 issue about the research and archaeology that has been going on in that region.
The form of the schedule one plant derived drugs is in two forms, the plant and the chemical. With magic shrooms, the chemical is an alkaloid named Psilocybin which was named by its' discoverer, the first person to isolate it and synthesize it, the creator of LSD, Dr. Albert Hoffman. It would seem to me that the two forms could be seperate in the law. The pure chemical is indeed a manufactured chemical, done by chemistry in a laboratory. The original form of the drug is made by nature or bio-synthesized by the mushroom itself. So logically (and that would exclude the Government that has no brain) the two forms could be controlled in two ways. One way would be to make pure synthetic psilocybin and psilocin the schedule one drug. The other way would be to put the magic mushrooms in another less severe class which could be for possession and cultivation, a misdemeaner instead of a felony infraction.
Excerpts from NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE –
page 116 - "Researcher Alexei Vranich believes the Pumapunku served as Tiwanaku's Ellis Island, indoctrinating pilgrims from remote parts of the empire into the state religion with chicha (a fermented drink), hallucinogens, and ritual theater. When the rituals were over, the converts could proceed to other temples in the city's ceremonial core, like the 56 foot high Akapana temple, in the background above. A devastating drought around A.D. 1100 may have ended the city's 600
year reign over the south-central Andes".
page 119 - "Around the edge of the walls he found hundreds of sherds of beautifully painted and intentionally smashed pots, some the size of wine barrels. Other pits held broken jars decorated with the design of a hallucinogenic plant". (My comment - the plant is a large night blooming cactus called SAN PEDRO which contains MESCALINE (Like Peyote). end comment
page 123 - "Inside the city, administrators probably handed down orders and dispensed chicha, and priests took hallucinogenic drugs while performing secret rites to summon the spirits and advice of the ancestors".
page 127 - "It must have been overwhelming," Vranich says, "a mind-altering, life-changing experience made even more so by the drugs they were taking". A Hallucinogenic cactus, other hallucinogenic
plants, drug paraphernalia, and snuff have been found among Tiwanaku's ruins. Recently another archaeologist uncovered the mummy of a shaman with his packet of drugs and medicines.
page 128 - "Apparently the Tiwanaku needed massive quantities of corn, potatoes, and COCA to feed and impress the pilgrims who flocked to their temples". end quotes
The evidence of the great civilization that was the Tiwanaku is all around Lake Titicaca in the Bolivian mountains. They were a megalithic civilization and built huge temples and places of worship from the rocks quarried nearby. There was no drug war or drug menace with them. The drugs were the plants that were worshipped. The plants were their gods, created by the god of nature. Their demise is one of the mysteries of archaeology, but the main theory that has been proposed and accepted, is that weather patterns changed and drought brought down the great empire.
Another ancient people who were successful in that they were never conquered were the famous Scythians (700 B.C. - 100 B.C.) of the Asian Steps north of the Black Sea. Marijuana and other hallucinogenic plants were discovered in tombs and graves by archaeologists. The Scythians faded out by the gradual encroachment of "civilization". But the Scythians lasted for centuries practicing their ancient ways, with no drug war or drug menace.
This is another article from a National Geographic society magazine: "Though not an agricultural society, Scythians benefited from crops the fertile plains offered. Among them: Hemp. Herodotus, in The Histories, details one use: "On a framework of three sticks, meeting at the top, they stretch pieces of woolen cloth, taking care to get the joint as perfect as they can, and inside this little tent they put a dish with red-hot stones in it. Then they take some hemp seed, creep into the tent, and throw the seed on to the hot stones. At once it begins to smoke, giving off a vapour unsurpassed by any vapour-bath one could find in Greece. The Scythians enjoy it so much that they howl with pleasure. This is their substitute for an ordinary bath in water, which they never use".
National Geographic Magazine also reports: "In one grave they found evidence of surgery - a skull with three small holes, evidently drilled to relieve swelling. Beside the skeleton was a cache of cannabis to ease the deceased's headache in the next world". Obviously, the marijuana was used in life as an inebriant, a shamanic drug, and medicine. And of course, they used the valuable fiber. The Scythians smoked hashish as well and used sacred hallucinogenic plants in their Shamanic animist religion.
A great book written about the sacred plants and shamanism is "HALLUCINOGENS AND SHAMANISM" (Oxford University Press - 1973). The book describes the now extinct Indian cultures that proliferated throughout the Amazon river basin of Brazil and South America. One of the most famous of these tribes were the JIVARO. They were known as "headhunters". There were many such tribes extant just up until about a century ago, but when the Amazon rain forest was encrouched upon by western civilization and the missionaries in the early 20th century, their ways went extinct and many tribes no longer exist.
In the Amazon rain forest grows many hallucinogenic plants. The most famous of those plants are several species of BANISTERIOPSIS, a tree inhabiting vine containing DMT as the hallucingenic molecule. The indians would chop the vine up and boil it along with other leafy additions to create a powerful hallucinogenic brew in which they would partake on a regular basis and commune with their jungle gods. The vine is not very powerful by itself, but when other plants such as Psychotria viridis (containing DMT) is added to the brew, the hallucinogenic power is increased. There are many different plants that the indian shamans would add. Although the actual scientific analysis is incomplete, enough has been done to reveal that the indian shamans knew what they were doing. The brew is called ayahuasca or yage.
One of the mysteries of the Amazon shamans, is the question of how did they find out how to create their powerful visionary brews from the myriads of species of plants and animals which exist there. When the shamans were asked by the research anthropologists how they found it out, the shamans would just reveal that their ancestors taught them, which doesn't answer the question. It is well known, that these shamans know every plant and animal in the jungle and what the plants do - if they are a food, a poision, a medicine or a visionary plant. The shamans claim that they become in touch with the supernatural realm of the rain forest and learn from the gods, of which amongst their sacred gods are the giant snakes, birds and big cats such as the jaguar. Many anthropologists also report that the shamans have psychic ability and reveal secrets unknown to them, but only known to the anthropologists. For instance, a shaman would say that a certain family member belonging to the scientist had just died. A few days later, the scientist would receive word of that. There has been much written about this, but it is all going extinct today and anthropologists are doing work to preserve the knowledge that is becoming forgotten. And of course, the plants these shamans use all contain alkaloids (like DMT) that are all schedule 1 hallucinogenic drugs, declared criminal by the United States government and its' drug warriors.
In the book "HALLUCINGENS AND SHAMANISM" (Oxford University press) is a description of an initiation ritual that the Jivaro did to bring their young men into the warrior ranks. The shamans would take the young man (just out of puberty) deep into the rain forest. There in a chosen spot, the shamans would give the young man a powerful dose of YAGE brew, and then leave him, taking another route home. Then the shamans (and of course the anxious mother) would wait at their encampment. When the young man found his way back to the village (usually after a day or two), he would be celebrated as a new warrior - experienced in the way of shamans and ready to take his place amongst the warrior shamans of the tribe - a man. Of course, if the young man didn't make it back, that's a hard way to fail. In comparison, there is the intitiation into manhood (and womanhood) in the USA culture. After a hard nights drinking, the youths would jump into a car and if there were no deaths, injuries or arrests made, whoopee! - courtesy of the great legal drug of the west - alcohol.
Since the Amazon Indians were discovered in the rain forest, that makes it obvious that they were never conquered or erradicated by the Spanish conquistadors as the Aztec or Inca civilizations were. The Amazon Indian cultures go back thousands of years and came to an end with the encrouchment of the unstopable forces of civilization. What is left is a remnant and their ancient practices have been replaced with alcohol drinking and a sad state of affairs. The young are not interested in the old shaman ways but prefer boom boxes and pop music (which isn't that bad of a thing in my opinion). But I can't help but imagine what happened when the dreaded Jivaro warriors encountered the Spanish Conquistadors as the invadors with their armour, weapons, gun powder and christian missionaries would make their way up the Amazon tributaries in search of gold, plunder, slaves, and victums to murder. So picture this: Spanish expeditionary forces would be coming up an unknown Amazon river when suddenly, from the river bank would be the rustling of underbrush and then some kind of projectiles would pelt their boats. The Spanish and their Indian counterparts (mercenaries and converts) would quickly realize that they were under fire with some sort of small arrows and darts. They would immediately consider the attack rather impotent in comparison with their own Spanish steel and weaponry. But, some of the crew members would get hit by an arrow or dart, and it would not seem to be very deadly. As the Spanish prepared to attack, certain soldiers who were hit by a stray dart or arrow, within several minutes, would collapse onto the flooring of the boat and begin writhing in agony. They were finding it hard to catch their breath and they were becoming paralyzed and begin suffocating as their their nervous system shut down and they would not be able to breathe - then death. Very quickly, the Spanish invaders realized that they were in trouble. There was something very deadly about the arrows and darts that were pelting them. They didn't know it, but the shamans knew how to process a small brightly colored rain forest frog into a deadly nerve poison in which they would coat their darts and arrow heads with. The Spanish incursion into the Amazon rain forest didn't last long and the Indians therein didn't become slaves and weren't erradicated. I am sure they took some Spanish heads for their pleasure. That is why the infamous head hunters of the Amazon rain forest were still there when more modern explorers encountered them. The anthropologists would most likely agree, that the Jivaro and their counterparts received messages from their gods while under the influence of their magic sacred plants. Just maybe, while under the influence of the Yage, the shamans relealized that an evil was coming, and the best way to deal with it, was to kill and shrink the head of every Spanish invader that had the misfortune to come their way.
In Gabon and Zaire Africa dwells the BWITI cult. The Africans take the plant, Iboga Tabernanthe, to have out of body experiences and claim to visit the world of the dead and their ancestors. It is an ancient African Shamanic religion that is growing. It has become a strong force against the missionary spread of Christianity and Islam, since it unifies many of the once hostile, warring tribes in resistance to European innovations.
From "PLANTS OF THE GODS" by Richard Evans Schultes, Albert Hofmann and Christian Ratsch.
"Iboga roots contain the alkaloid, Ibogaine. This substance was first introduced in the 1960's by the Chilean psychiatrist Claudio Naranjo as a "fantasy-enhancing drug" for psychotherapy. Today, ibogane is in the spotlight of neuropsychological research, which has shown that the alkaloid can ease drug addiction (to such drugs as heroin and cocaine) and make way for a cure. Ibogaine calms the motor activity that is present when under the influence of an opiate. The chiropractor Karl Naeher says that "Ibogaine, when taken in one high dose by an opiate addict, drastically reduces withdrawal symptoms and, at the same time, causes a "trip" that reveals such deep insights into the personal causes of the addiction that the majority of those who undergo this type of therapy can go for months without a relapse. But several additional sessions are required before a lasting stabilization is evident". end quote
Research into the potential use of ibogaine as a treatment for substance abuse is being carried out by Deborah Mash and her team in Miami.
Excerpts from a newspaper article by Vince Beizer - THE LOS ANGELES TIMES - november 28, 2004
A single day long trip on ibogaine, lore has it, can help break an addiction to heroin, cocaine, alcohol or even cigarettes.
"It has been proved to alleviate the pain and physical discomfort of drug withdrawal with animals," says Dr. Stanley Glick, a neuropharmacologist at Albany Medical Center in New York who has researched the drug for years. "And there are lots of reports of it doing the same with humans. You hear the same story a few thousand times, you've got to believe there's something there."
"One dose of ibogaine is not a magic bullet," says Dr. Deborah Mash, a neurology professor at the University of Miami who has done the most extensive research on ibogaine's effects on human beings. "But it can be a powerful first step on the road to recovery."
Everyone agrees that ibogaine is no fun. It's often emotionally unsettling, mentally exhausting and physically stressful. Its side effects can include nausea, vomiting, loss of coordination and a potentially dangerous reduction in blood pressure and heart rate. There have been several documented deaths in connection with the drug. But because the ibogaine was not taken in a clinical setting, the cause of death was never firmly established. Some fatalities may have been caused by preexisting heart conditions made lethal by ibogaine's effects. Dr. Mash is confident that there are more that have gone unreported. "There are some pretty unethical people" giving clandestine treatments, she says. "They just leave patients for dead in hotel rooms."
By 1993, Dr. Mash had won FDA approval to begin testing ibogaine on human subjects. In 1995, the National Institute on Drug Abuse decided not to proceed to clinical studies.
"Committee members were not all that impressed with its efficacy, but the safety issue stopped them in their tracks," says Frank Vocci, a federal researcher who has followed ibogaine's progress. "What you have are a lot of interesting, colorful anecdotes. But the plural of anecdotes is not scientific data."
Dr. Mash is doing her own part to advance the cause. In 1996 she helped to launch an ibogaine clinic on the Caribbean island of St. Kitts. During the next five years, she gathered data on more than 300 patients who sought treatment there; the largest body of serious clinical research on ibogaine ever collected.
Dr. Mash presented her findings at a medical conference last fall in San Francisco. Granted, her sample wasn't representative of America's drug users: most were white men between 20 and 40 years old, the sort of addicts who can afford to spend several weeks and several thousand dollars detoxing in the Caribbean. Still, she declared that her research proves that ibogaine can be administered safely and does help break addictions. "We saw people with big methadone habits lose their cravings after just a single dose of ibogaine," she says. "One month later, both cocaine and opiate addicts reported cravings were significantly lower. And at one year, drug use was significantly down among testees." end quotes
This quote is from the book, "HALLUCINOGENS a forensic drug handbook" - academic press - 2003:
PSILOCYBE - In addition to the AMANITA-type of sacred mushroom, described above, there are several other genera of psychedelic mushrooms that have a long history of use in religious settings (Ott and Bigwood, 1978). As we have seen, AMANITA can be found as far north as Siberia, whereas the lusher climates of Mexico and Central America are the primary habitat for the genera PANAELOUS, STROPHARIA, CONOCYBE and PSILOCYBE. The name PSILOCYBE is derived from the Greek for "bald head", a rather less poetic appellation than the Nahuatl word from the ancient Mexico, TEONANACTL, meaning "flesh of the gods". PSILOCYBE MEXICANA, which can be consumed either fresh or in dried form, has a longer history of human usage than any other psychedelic botanical. In Central America, religious sculptings of mushrooms with visages of gods etched on their stems date back more than 2500 years. Early descriptions of their ritual use were recorded by the priests who accompanied Cortez on his expeditions to conquer the Aztec nation. Because persecution of these mushroom cults by the Spanish missionaries succeeded in driving them far into the hinterlands, relatively little was known about them by Americans of European descent until mid-way into the twentieth century.
In the early 1950's, the Wall Street investment banker-turned-ethnomycologist, Gordon Wasson and his physician wife, Valentina, began to investigate stories of ritual use of mind-altering mushrooms by the Indians of Oaxaca, Mexico (Wasson, 1972a). The Wassons succeeded in gaining the trust of the Maztec users of these fungi who eventually permitted the American visitors to try them and to take samples home for analysis. The particular variety was designated PSILOCYBE MEXICANA. After several unsuccessful attempts to identify the active chemical in the fungus, the Wassons and their French collaborator, Roger Heim, turned to Albert Hofmann, the chemist who had discovered the psychedelic properties of LSD. In remarkably short order, Hofmann succeeded in identifying the psychoactive components which he dubbed psilocin (4-hydroxy-dimethyltryptamine) and psilocybin (4-phosphoryl-dimethyltryptamine). It turned out that psilocin is the actual neuroactive chemical - psilocybin is converted to psilocin by enzymes in the body before it affects brain tissues. Unlike DMT itself, the active chemicals in these mushrooms remain so when taken orally, the usual route of administration.
Hofmann tried the mushrooms' purified chemicals himself, finding their effects very much like LSD. The structural similarity among psilocybin, the neurotransmitter serotonin, and his pervious discovery , LSD, was immediately apparent to Hofmann. On a weight-for-weight basis, psilocin and psilocybin have only one-one-hundreth the potency of LSD and their duration of action is only about half that of the approximately 8-12 hour duration of the LSD trip (Snyder, 1986, p.190). Not surprisingly, their effects are very much like those of LSD, for the psychoactive molecules in both cases are closely related. It was an encounter with PSILOCYBE MEXICANA, while on vacation in Mexico that set Timothy Leary onto the path that led from Harvard psychology professor to LSD advocate, counterculture guru, and eventually, incarcerated felon. end quotes
The only thing I disagree about in the above quote from the book, "HALLUCINOGENS a forensic drug handbook" is the claim that the LSD trip is very similar to the magic mushroom psychedelic psilocin. This is far from the truth. I myself have had many LSD trips back in the 60's. Then, when I had my first magic mushroom experience in the mid 70's, I did notice the similarity, but it was only slight. The mushrooms are much different. In LSD, there is a breakdown of the "ego" where you forgot who you are. In other words, your "self" seems to disappear, or becomes very remote, almost not even a memory. It is really impossible to describe. But with the mushrooms, the over all hallucinogenic power is there (if not more) but the "self" is still there. The "ego" is clearer than ever and you meet yourself as you are. LSD is far from that. LSD, to me, is mind poison. When I had my first full blown mushroom trip, all of the old memories of my LSD experiences were overshadowed or eclipsed completely by the more natural and equally powerful magic mushrooms (psilocin). It was like I was healed of the lies and false visions rendered by the inferior man made mind poison, LSD. I wound up becoming symbiotic with the magic mushrooms for several years, enjoying (or not enjoying) the fabulous trips from them and I learned things or I advanced in my metaevolution as my life experiences would allow. And today, the memory of my excursions into the edges of the unknown universe are still with me, and will continue to be with me until the day I leave this body. And after I am gone, I will summon them to be my allies.
I found this info on the web about a proposed study of psilocybin to be given to dying cancer patients, to see if it helps them. It is from MEDICALNEWSTODAY.COM.
Psychiatric study for cancer patients to measure psychoactive medication - 02 Mar 2004
Stage IV cancer patients who suffer from anxiety may want to investigate a new research study recently approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) taking place at The Research and Education Institute at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in Torrance, CA.
The specific aim of the study is to learn whether the psychoactive drug, psilocybin, might be effective in reducing anxiety, depression and physical pain, and therefore improving quality of life for Stage IV cancer patients.
Psilocybin is a novel agent that produces a profound alteration in your state of consciousness. It is the main active ingredient found in 'magic mushrooms'.
For each participant there will be two overnight admissions to the hospital. In one session you will be given a placebo and in the other you will get the active medication.
Patients are not eligible for the study if they have:
- central nervous system (CNS) cancers
We also cannot take patients in the study if they are taking certain medications, such as anti-seizure, insulin and oral hypoglycemics, blood pressure, cardiovascular drugs and some antidepressant medications. end article quotes
There were follow up articles by the Doctors in which they were having a hard time finding even one candidate. The problem is, is that they need "healthy dying people". But the Doctor's goals are really great, but in the USA war on drugs, the magic mushrooms are considered a menace and I predict this research will get nowhere. But in the annals of the mushroom stories, having experiences that encounter the "other world" (world in which the dying are headed for) are common place, especially in the anthropology studies of the mushroom cults in Mexico.
It seems to me, that the only real requirement should be that the patient is not in pain. But even there, a small dose could be administered - say one gram of shrooms. And then, the best way to do it would be to use the professor's ethanol crystal extraction method which renders close to pure psilocybin without any stomach problems - a huge plus!
But then, the researchers will most certainly use synthetic psilocin. But there is a big advantage to avoiding a "pill" to induce the experience, and that is to grow the magic mushrooms in their lab, PF TEK style. And since
they have got DEA clearance, there would be no problem with that. Using the actual source of the magic, the shrooms, would be good because the actual growing and living mushrooms could be shown to the patients. This would give a reality to the patients that they are not guinea pigs. The patients would be shown information about the ancient shamanic uses of the shrooms and that the shrooms were always considered by the ancients to be entheogenic keys to unlock the door into the mysteries of the unknown universe, the worlds of the dead. And since the patients are facing just that, death, then this would apply to them, personally.
The patients should be allowed to pick a fresh mushroom, check out its aroma and the way it feels. Then they should be shown some dried specimens. Then they they will understand what they are doing. Instead of some chemical or pill, they will know they are experiencing something from the realm of nature. Then the patients would be shown the crystal extract. The crystal extract smells very shroomy and is rather attractive. And with the crystals, they will most likely have a very nice experience, totally controllable, (but not as controllable as a pharmaceutical drug form of the shrooms magic). And as seen by the reports added to my Magic Crystal extraction tek from across the internet, the infamous sour stomach problems of the shrooms is eliminated, making the patients trips natural, and potentially empowering.
It is very important that the patients should be eased into the experience. At first, they should be given a dose equal to one gram of the shrooms (Psilocybe Cubensis potency). That is not a trip, but it gives the taker a little idea, but in no way does it reveal really what is to come with a full dose. Then a 1 1/2 grams worth dose and then a 2 gram dose. The 2 gram psilocybe cubensis dosage is almost a trip. The energy levels are definitely felt and the beginnings of the trip are felt, but the patient does not go all the way through the doorway. A 2 1/2 gram mushroom equal dose, to most people, becomes an easily controlled trip. I myself, have tripped very hard on that dose. And of course, the partaker can go up from there. But it is a learning experience and eventually, the dying patient can experience the wonder that is to come when they finally leave their diseased body.
As far as myself goes, I have had dozens of serious level 10 (1 to 10 rating) experiences. I always did it by myself, in the privacy of my own realm. The privacy issue is very important. When one is tripping hard, things like dancing, jumping around, and talking to unknown prescences happen and with others around that aren't bemushroomed, they don't understand and can douse the trip. I have had a few experiences where my "third eye" tweaked open and saw things from the realm of what I would call the "dead". These shrooms are all about that. The silliness, the pretty colors, the undulating walls and floors (ect) are just for starters. These effects are apparent at a 1 to 2 1/2 cubensis equal dosage. Most people seem to stop there. To really see what these shrooms can do for you takes a serious investment in personal intention and also, one cannot make demands of the shrooms. All one can do is take the shrooms, lay back and say "OK, what are you going to show me today - I'm ready". Scientists have no idea about these things unless they are experienced. The books reveal nothing. Now of course, this is all theoretical, and it actually hasn't been done scientifically. And I doubt that it will ever be done and that is because the governments of the world consider the sacred mushrooms to be "sacred" (as in the book - "Hallucinogens a forensic drug handbook), but alas, ILLEGAL and in the USA, a schedule 1 drug and in Europe, a class A drug - evil and only good for banning. I doubt that will ever change.
R. R. Griffiths1, 2 , W. A. Richards3, 4, U. McCann1 and R. Jesse4
(1) Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, 5510, Nathan Shock Drive, Baltimore, MD 21224-6823, USA(2) Department of Neuroscience, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, 5510 Nathan Shock Drive, Baltimore, MD 21224-6823, USA(3) Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center, 2516 Talbot Road, Baltimore, MD 21216-2032, USA(4) Council on Spiritual Practices, Box 460220, San Francisco, CA 94146-0220, USA
Received: 20 January 2006 Accepted: 27 May 2006
Abstract Rationale: Although psilocybin has been used for centuries for religious purposes, little is known scientifically about its acute and persisting effects.
Objectives: This double-blind study evaluated the acute and longer-term psychological effects of a high dose of psilocybin relative to a comparison compound administered under comfortable, supportive conditions.
Materials and methods: The participants were hallucinogen-naive adults reporting regular participation in religious or spiritual activities. Two or three sessions were conducted at 2-month intervals. Thirty volunteers received orally administered psilocybin (30 mg/70 kg) and methylphenidate hydrochloride (40 mg/70 kg) in counterbalanced order. To obscure the study design, six additional volunteers received methylphenidate in the first two sessions and unblinded psilocybin in a third session. The 8-h sessions were conducted individually. Volunteers were encouraged to close their eyes and direct their attention inward. Study monitors rated volunteers' behavior during sessions. Volunteers completed questionnaires assessing drug effects and mystical experience immediately after and 2 months after sessions. Community observers rated changes in the volunteer's attitudes and behavior.
Results: Psilocybin produced a range of acute perceptual changes, subjective experiences, and labile moods including anxiety. Psilocybin also increased measures of mystical experience. At 2 months, the volunteers rated the psilocybin experience as having substantial personal meaning and spiritual significance and attributed to the experience sustained positive changes in attitudes and behavior consistent with changes rated by community observers.
Conclusions: When administered under supportive conditions, psilocybin occasioned experiences similar to spontaneously occurring mystical experiences. The ability to occasion such experiences prospectively will allow rigorous scientific investigations of their causes and consequences.
Long banned as illegal, psychedelic mushrooms are being eyed for their potential medicinal and psychological properties.
July 11, 2006 - This may come as no surprise to the flower children of the 1960s, but in one of the few controlled human studies of a known illegal hallucinogen, the active ingredient in "sacred mushrooms" created what researchers are describing as deep mystical experiences that left many of the study participants with a long lasting sense of well-being.
The controversial study, conducted by Johns Hopkins University of Medicine, looked at whether a pill containing psilocybin, derived from the psilocybe mushroom, would induce mystical experiences among 36 healthy adult study participants. All had religious backgrounds, and all were also given the active drug ingredient in the attention-deficit disorder drug, Ritalin, at a separate time as a comparison.
The results were clear: Sixty percent of the psilocybin group elicited behaviors consistent with a "full mystical experience" as measured by psychological scales. Two months later, about 79 percent of the group reported "moderately to greatly increased" well-being or life satisfaction.
During the experiment, the participants were informed they could be receiving a hallucinogen, and they were closely watched in a comfortable room to make sure they didn't experience what is commonly known as a "bad trip," researchers said.
However, researchers were not releasing much information about what exactly the participants did experience, other than this statement from the study author that was released in a press statement:
"Many of the volunteers in our study reported, in one way or another, a direct, personal experience of the 'Beyond,' " said study leader Roland Griffiths, a professor with Hopkins' departments of Neuroscience and Psychiatry and Behavioral Biology.
According to Johns Hopkins, psilocybin is one of a class of serotonin receptors compounds (similar to the chemical used in many antidepressants) whose effects include changes in perception and cognition. Some call them "hallucinogenic," while other researchers are more inclined to call them "spirit-facilitating," the hospital's press release said.
Because it is illegal to possess psilocybin in all states but Florida and New Mexico, the study is attracting the attention of many ethicists and doctors and even the scientists at the federal National Institute on Drug Abuse, one of the funding entities for the study.
Yesterday, NIDA Director Dr. Nora Volkow released this statement critical of the study. "Although there is no evidence that psilocybin is addictive, its adverse effects are well known. Similar to the more commonly known hallucinogen LSD (acid), psilocybin acts on serotonin receptors in the brain to profoundly distort a person's perceptions of reality," the statement said. "Psilocybin can trigger psychosis in susceptible individuals and cause other deleterious psychological effects, such as paranoia and extreme anxiety.
However, Griffiths, the study author, said extremely rigorous ethical standards were maintained throughout the research process, and that the value of learning the potential medical and psychological benefits of hallucinogens should not be ignored. "[The study] shows that, under carefully controlled conditions, psilocybin can be administered safely and that it can occasion a mystical-type experience, which scientific measures say are very similar to spontaneously occurring mystical experiences" Griffiths said in an e-mail to ABC News. "The results suggest that such events may have lastingly beneficial consequences."
Other scientists familiar with hallucinogens and pharmaceuticals also praised the possible benefits of studying such chemicals.
"I was most impressed by the large percentage of individuals reported a much more positive effect afterwards. That to me is very significant. They are thinking of taking this to cancer patients and difficult substance abusers," said James A. Smith, chairman of the Physiology and Pharmacology Department at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center.
The work is similar to the "Good Friday" experiment conducted in 1962 by a minister and doctor said Rick Doblin, president of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies. In that study, psilocybin also produced mystical experiences in most of the participants.
"This kind of work should be a top priority of our society. People have some of the most profound experiences of their lives after taking psilocybin. This mystical experience they talk about from the Good Friday experiment is something that tends to have people become more tolerant and compassionate," Doblin said. "We're talking about how psilocybin is a tool that helps people have these remarkable experiences."
Just because the active ingredient is illegal doesn't mean it should not be studied, noted Dr. Jeffrey Kahn, the director of the Center for Bioethics at University of Minnesota.
"If you step back and ask: Have we ever used illegal drugs in other medical research? There is probably a long list of drugs that started off illegal but had very useful purposes in medicine, such as marijuana," Kahn said. "This study seems less unusual now than in the 1960s since many more people take medications or drugs now compared to the 60s."
However, the study raises important safety questions, said Laurie Zoloth, a professor of Medical Ethics and Humanities at Northwestern University in Chicago.
"There is no known antagonist for this drug, unlike others - if someone's peak moment turns out to be - being eaten by a terrifying sea creature, there is no way to rescue them from the thing we used to call 'a bad trip,'" Zoloth said. "The long-term side effects are not known." She also wasn't that impressed by the drug's effects on mood. "If such an experience meant that you suddenly became aware of injustice, poverty and inequality in the world, and became devoted to caring for the vulnerable in a selfless manner, I might be more impressed," she said.
Dr. Rosamond Rhodes, a professor of Medical Education at Mount Sinai School of Medicine and director of Bioethics Education, questioned some elements of the study's design. Not only was the study limited to people with religious backgrounds, but religious experiences could have been subtly or unduly promoted by the research administrators. "After each administration of the drug, they gave people the same set of questionnaires. As you ask people these questions each time, you are also directing them to focus that way - so it is suggesting," Rhodes said. "You are encouraging people to close their eyes, to concentrate, and you are not just doing this to regular people but to people who are religiously inclined. They are suggesting that this is what you are going to get from the drug, so they find a great deal of that sort of response, particularly to the drug psilocybin."
However, these things shouldn't necessarily limit the further study of previously shunned illegal drugs, said Dr. Scott Basinger, a drug researcher, and associate dean of the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. "I am in a city where Andrea Yates is being retried. - All of the [psychiatric] testimony says that she has been in a profound depression for many years that she could not get out of," he said. "I am not saying that psilocybin would have helped Andrea Yates and she would not have killed her kids - I am saying that it is sad that in an age where we have so much pharmacological advancement we still have people that we cannot help."
JULY 11 2006 11:30 PM ET - CTV.ca News
Scientists are taking a second look at so-called magic mushrooms, a staple of 1960s hippie culture, to see if they do open a pathway to the divine. Or, failing that, to help with addictions or terminally ill patients fighting depression and anxiety.
The active ingredient in the mushrooms is the psilocybin, a hallucinogen. "This is a class of compounds, the classical hallucinogens, for which research has been in the deep freeze for about 40 years," said Dr. Roland Griffiths of Johns Hopkins University in the United States.
His new study was published Tuesday by the journal Psychopharmacology. Use of magic mushrooms by native Americans in religious rituals predates their use by hippies.
In the Johns Hopkins study, two-thirds of the 36 volunteers, given capsules of psilocybin extracted from the mushrooms, claimed they had what they described as a religious experience. By that, they meant a sense of pure awareness, transcending time and space and feeling positive moods like joy, peace and love. They claimed it changed their lives for the better. Not only that, one-third said the experience was the most significant of their lives, likening it to a child's birth or a parent's death. Two months later, almost 80 per cent of the volunteers reported feeling ongoing positive effects.
On the God stuff, however, Griffiths said not so fast. "Just because we can describe the neurophysiology of this kind of experience says nothing about the existence or non-existence of higher power or God," he said. Religious leaders were also skeptical. "... I'm very, very suspicious about whether these experiences are genuinely spiritual," said Fr. Terry Kersch of St. Basil's Parish in Toronto.
At least one-third of the volunteers experienced a bad trip, including feelings of intense fear and paranoia, even though they took it under controlled conditions. Psilocybin acts as a message-carrier between brain cells in the same way as serotonin, a major mood-monitoring chemical in the brain. "There might be some application with these drugs for individuals who have anxiety or depression," Griffiths said. Some doctors also think the research might have value some day in treating addictions.
While hallucinogens haven't caught on with today's youth, one critic hopes it stays that way.
"It's a very vulnerable age and you don't want them to be experimenting with it," said Wende Wood of the Centre for Addictions and Mental Health in Toronto. Griffiths also strongly warned people not to try the drug at home.
NEW YORK - People who took an illegal drug made from mushrooms reported profound mystical experiences that led to behavior changes lasting for weeks -- all part of an experiment that recalls the psychedelic '60s. Many of the 36 volunteers rated their reaction to a single dose of the drug, called psilocybin, as one of the most meaningful or spiritually significant experiences of their lives. Some compared it to the birth of a child or the death of a parent. Such comments ''just seemed unbelievable,'' said Roland Griffiths of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, the study's lead author. But don't try this at home, he warned. ''Absolutely don't.''
Almost a third of the research participants found the drug experience frightening even in the very controlled setting. That suggests people experimenting with the illicit drug on their own could be harmed, Griffiths said. Viewed by some as a landmark, the study is one of the few rigorous looks in the past 40 years at a hallucinogen's effects. The researchers suggest the drug someday may help drug addicts kick their habit or aid terminally ill patients struggling with anxiety and depression.
Spiritual experiences - it may also provide a way to study what happens in the brain during intense spiritual experiences, the scientists said.
Funded in part by the federal government, the research was published online today by the journal Psychopharmacology.
Psilocybin has been used for centuries in religious practices, and its ability to produce a mystical experience is no surprise. But the new work demonstrates it more clearly than before, Griffiths said. Even two months after taking the drug, pronounced SILL-oh-SY-bin, most of the volunteers said the experience had changed them in beneficial ways, such as making them more compassionate, loving, optimistic and patient. Family members and friends said they noticed a difference, too.
Charles Schuster, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral neuroscience at Wayne State University and a former director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, called the work a landmark. ''I believe this is one of the most rigorously well-controlled studies ever done'' to evaluate psilocybin or similar substances for their potential to increase self-awareness and a sense of spirituality, he said. He did not participate in the research.
Psilocybin, like LSD or mescaline, is one of a class of drugs called hallucinogens or psychedelics. While they have been studied by scientists in the past, research was largely shut down after widespread recreational abuse of the drugs during the 1960s, Griffiths said. Some work resumed in the 1990s. ''We've lost 40 years of (potential) research experience with this whole class of compounds,'' he said. Now, with modern-day scientific methods, ''I think it's time to pick up this research field.''
'Pure awareness' - |
The study volunteers had an average age of 46, had never used hallucinogens, and participated to some degree in religious or spiritual activities like prayer, meditation, discussion groups or religious services. Each tried psilocybin during one visit to the lab and the stimulant methylphenidate (better known as Ritalin) on one or two other visits. Only six of the volunteers knew when they were getting psilocybin. Each visit lasted eight hours. The volunteers lay on a couch in a living-room-like setting, wearing an eye mask and listening to classical music. They were encouraged to focus their attention inward.
Psilocybin's effects lasted for up to six hours, Griffiths said. Twenty-two of the 36 volunteers reported having a ''complete'' mystical experience, compared to four of those getting methylphenidate. That experience included such things as a sense of pure awareness and a merging with ultimate reality, a transcendence of time and space, a feeling of sacredness or awe, and deeply felt positive mood like joy, peace and love. People say ''they can't possibly put it into words,'' Griffiths said.
Two months later, 24 of the participants filled out a questionnaire. Two-thirds called their reaction to psilocybin one of the five top most meaningful experiences of their lives. On another measure, one-third called it the most spiritually significant experience of their lives, with another 40 percent ranking it in the top five. About 80 percent said that because of the psilocybin experience, they still had a sense of well-being or life satisfaction that was raised either ''moderately'' or ''very much".
July 18, 2006
I have a few comments you might find interesting since I am a layman but very experienced with a serious relationship with the shrooms themselves.
From the press release published online--- July 2006 --- "The 8-h sessions were conducted individually. Volunteers were encouraged to close their eyes and direct their attention inward". MY COMMENT -- My suggestion would have been to do the opposite with attention and consciousness directed OUTSIDE. I have tripped on these shrooms many times and usually it was in the privacy of my domicile, alone. Here is a little info of where I am coming from - When I first grew the shrooms back in the late 70's, my first try was with one small fresh shroom. I got a low level "buzz" and it sparked my interest. I could tell a little about what they were like, but I had no idea what was to come. My next experience was about one gram of dried shrooms. That was more intense and I wound up doing a night time walk through my North Atlanta neighborhood. I found it very interesting and I felt that "energy boost". My next experience was about 50 grams of FRESH shrooms. I tripped. A good friend was there and he left when he kind of "tripped" on my trip. I unnerved him. My next trip was about a week later on about (probably more) 5 grams of dried shrooms. That was totally intense, with vivid colors and lights seen with my eyes closed. It was very startling. Later that night I went out in the night time for a walk and had a fabulous time. Over the next few years, I took the shrooms many times, almost a hundred or more trips with doses always at least equal to that 30 milligram level that the Johns Hopkins scientists used on their subjects. I would usually take a trip once a week for a period of months because I lived alone and my job was being a professional musician which freed me from the usual conundrum of the daily grind. I am kind of a special person, because I felt like the shrooms were right for me, which is very rare in my experience. Most people I know take the shrooms a couple of times, and decide that the experience is too deep for them and they prefer the usual drugs - marijuana, cocaine and ET. (Escape drugs - in my opinion).
It is a long story but I will end my monologue and history with this bit of info: when I would trip, I would wait for the right day - when I was feeling good with nothing to do that night. I quickly got used to being "bemushroomed" and during one very heavy trip a couple of years after I began, I had that "spiritual" experience. Basically, it was that I experienced a dream that I had since I was a kid, for real. The "dream" actually occurred (came true - I believe it) and I value it above everything I have experienced in life, but it didn't occur until a couple of years went by after many experiences. The dream that came true, has given me my life's path and I think about it almost everyday and the dream trip took place over 25 years ago. So what I am wondering about the report, is that the majority of the subjects reported a "spiritual" experience on their first trip. That amazes me because it took me about two years of heavy shroom tripping to have my spiritual experience. Or maybe I just had one spectacular trip along with many "spiritual" experiences previous to that special one. I think I just had a truly special event happen.
An important thing to say is that after that SPECIAL experience, a few months later, I had a real horror trip. It was kind of a "pay back". I guess I was feeling kind of cocky and it brought me back to knowing that I am a mere human facing the normal dangers of spiritual life. But even there, the HORROR experience was absolutely amazing. Today, I put high value on it and it showed me a great truth about the spirit world. I survived it and a couple of months later had a secondary HORROR happen where I learned that I have nothing to fear of the spirit world. I am ready for my translation into the next world. After the few years of intense tripping and living alone, I met my lady at a local Atlanta Jazz club were I was the house Tenor sax and flute player. I moved in with her and her 8 year old daughter. My tripping basically came to an end, but I would trip every now and then, but nothing like I was doing previous to meeting her. She knows about the shrooms herself and her now grown up daughter has respect for them and is a liberal thinker (she used to work for me with the PF business).
From HOME U.S. International Investigative Money Technology & Science by J. Victory, B. Radhakrishnan and A. Carter - "During the experiment, the participants were informed they could be receiving a hallucinogen, and they were closely watched in a comfortable room to make sure they didn't experience what is commonly known as a "bad trip", researchers said."
MY COMMENT - I can understand that, but as far as my experience goes, being watched in a "comfortable room" would not be conducive to a "good trip". Freedom is one of the key ingredients of good tripping and to be free from prying eyes.
"Because it is illegal to possess psilocybin in all states but Florida and New Mexico ---" MY COMMENT - That's news to me. Psilocybin is a Schedule One hallucinogen on the Federal lists. Psilocybin is illegal everywhere in the U.S.A with severe penalties - including automatic level 12 felony with prison time.
But of course the real danger is the fact that these mushrooms are a SCHEDULE ONE HALLUCINOGEN and the law is harsh and ruinous. Law enforcement's involvement is very dangerous and ones life can be ruined. When the good doctor said "don't try this at home", that is what I am thinking - that the danger is the law and its absolute destruction of the experience.
It was reported that about a third of the subjects experienced "fear". I would think if they were to grow their own shrooms using my PF TEK (the easiest, simplest and most reliable growing tek yet) and ease into it by starting with low level doses and working up, the "fear" factor would be greatly decreased. (Except from the paranoia of the law and its enforcers with their guns, chains and handcuffs, squad cars, jails, prosecutors, judges and hell).
I think if the subjects were to take the drug (preferably the shrooms themselves - no pills) over a period of time at their will, their experiences would evolve and change. They would experience both the fear and the wonder and then see that those two experiences are two sides of reality and they would become wiser and most likely learn to make better choices in life.
"However, the study raises important safety questions, said Laurie Zoloth, a professor of Medical Ethics and Humanities at Northwestern University in Chicago. ""There is no known antagonist for this drug, unlike others - if someone's peak moment turns out to be - Being eaten by a terrifying sea creature, there is no way to rescue them from the thing we used to call a 'bad trip', Zoloth said. ""The long-term side effects are not known". She also wasn't that impressed by the drug's effects on mood.
My comment on Zoloths statements - Her ignorance is fueled by her having no experience. The drug is an unknown to her and I feel her statements are irrelevant. She has never even tried the drug. Only by trying the drug for oneself can a good idea of what it is all about be ascertained.
Then she goes on to say "If such an experience meant that you suddenly became aware of injustice, poverty and inequality in the world, and became devoted to caring for the vulnerable in a selfless manner, I might be more impressed," she said. MY COMMENT - That's a very strange statement. What does she expect from shroom trippers - SAINT HOOD? I am not impressed by her "science" in any way.
From "MUSHROOM DRUG PRODUCES MYSTICAL EXPERIENCE" CTV.ca News --- Religious leaders were also skeptical. " --- I'm very, very suspicious about whether these experiences are genuinely spiritual". Said FR. Terry Kersch of St. Basil's Parish in Toronto.
MY COMMENT - This man is a "Christian leader" and for what I know about the religion, their idea of a "spiritual" experience is accepting Jesus as your savior and personal God and then taking the sacrament which is bread and wine which symbolizes the flesh and blood of Christ. That is pagan idolatry to me. I reject all of mans religions as being Myth and Legend based with not much of a science to prove it. These so called "religious leaders" would automatically consider these mushrooms to be "Satanic" - just as the Spanish Conquistadors did when they invaded Central America and destroyed the pre-Columbian Indian civilizations.
Griffiths also strongly warned people not to try the drug at home. MY COMMENT - With this mushroom being as illegal as it is, you got no trouble from me with that statement. But, to disagree, I would say to grow the shrooms, be very discreet, tell no one, keep the kids ignorant of what you are doing, get a serious promise from the wife or husband to not tell anyone about the little grow op in the closet and then experience for your self - what other way would one do it? 36 people had one experience. The surface hasn't really even been scratched!
As a final comment on the Johns Hopkins study, it is clear to me that they really haven't touched on the real absolute end of the magic mushroom experience and what it is really about. So called "religious experiences" are poorly defined by science, in fact it is not much of a science because such experiences can't be taken apart and examined in a laboratory. Theology is not science. But I will say what the magic mushroom experience is all about, and it goes back to the Shammans and what they teach. It is all about the existence of the soul or the spirit and the greatest mystery of all, life after death and the cycle of rebirth. So far, there is no scientific proof for this greatest of mysteries but when one goes into the magic mushroom realm, the mystery is not so much a mystery any more, but a fact that includes all living beings.
An example of the ignorance and fascism of the drug warriors is an American (what else?) group called, "Partnership for a drug free America". What drugs are to be banned? The answer is all the drugs not approved by this self righteous group of fundamentalists. What they preach is inhuman, unrealistic, unscientific and fascist. I once talked to a woman who was a spokesperson for the group, on a Seattle radio talk show. After I cornered her with the logical idea of natural plant drugs being legalized and the harm reduction that would occur, she started babbling about Meth. I interrupted her and told her that Meth doesn't grow on trees. As she continued to spew forth her stupidity, I was cut off and on came a commercial for beer (alcohol). There might not be any hope. Even as this world could be ending, the drug warriors will still be smashing down doors and attacking weeds.
The continuing illegality of Hemp as a raw material (contains a tiny amount of THC) is proof of no hope for the USA to end the mad drug war. Raw hemp is incredible. I once took a piece of marijuana stalk (illegal), cut it up and put it into a small canister coffee bean grinder. After several seconds I opened the top, and out came a little bundle of greenish aromatic fibers interlaced with small pieces of wood like material. It was like a little tough greenish cotton ball. The resin that can be extracted is incredibly sticky and I understand it can be used in the manufacture of plastics and glues and all sorts of industrial products. Plus, the resin has a pleasant aroma. It does'nt smell like a noxious chemical. But no, not in America; lets just clear cut the forests and leave a waste land. Believe that! I live on the west side of the Olympic mountains of Washington state, and the clear cutting is unbelievable. As one drives from Aberdeen Washington up highway 101 to where I live and all the way up to the north side of the Olympic peninsula, it is like driving through a waste land. Up north from where I live, is a place called the HOH rain forest. It is a part of the Olympic national park. Going north, there is a right turn and the road is about a half hour drive to the HOH rain forest, and as one travels for that half hour, on both sides of the road is a desolation of clear cutting and destruction. Then after visiting the beautiful HOH rain forest, one has to drive back another half hour back through hideous clear cut destruction to highway 101 where to the north, south and west, there is more of the same. I know many loggers that are no longer loggers and that is because there are no more trees to log. What is left is protected by the Park service. At least in that respect, the US government (Dept. of the Interior) has done something right. Hemp production could be a great help in that the raw hemp production (weed growing) can reduce the need for big logging and clear cutting. Hemp is not the absolute solution, but it can be a big help, but it is illegal and will remain that way in America despite the ongoing declarations from pro hemp people that marijuana will be legal one day.
Before marijuana was made illegal in the U.S.A (1937), it was widely smoked and used, especially by the "hip" culture. During prohibition (alcohol), pot was smoked legally and in any nightclub, it could be bought for a pitance, and enjoyed in lieu of bootleg alcohol. In fact, there are several jazz tunes composed during that time to celebrate the herb amongst of which is "when I get low, I get high" by Marriana Proviti and the J street jumpers.
Amongst that culture were many of the pioneering jazz musicians. Bing Crosby is an American Icon of singers and musicians. He is on record saying that pot should be legal, and he smoked regularly. Bing made several movies with the great jazz man, trumpeter Louis Armstrong. Louis was well known as a daily smoker of the herb. When one considers the fact that Louis and Bing enjoyed each others company, including singing duets on film, it makes sense because not only did they share singing duties, they shared the herb. Bing was as "white" as one can get, and Louis was as "black" as one could get, but together, they were "green". The green herb was their sacrament and unifier.
There is one movie from those days called "High Society". Bing plays a lonely but successful song writer in love with a debutante. There is a scene in the movie, where Louis and his 6 piece traditional jazz band (erroneously called "dixieland") arive at the mansion early and survey their place of performance. Then they set up and begin to rehearse. That's nonsense. Louis and company didn't rehearse like that. They were pros and didn't rehearse before the performance, because that would be a waste of their time and energy. When they "struck up the band", it was when they hit the stage. To be accurate, what really happened, was that Bing, Louis and the guys, would retire to the gardens, and light up joints. There is a very memorable photograph of Louis smoking a big fat joint (pot cigarrete) featured in Ken Burn's book on jazz (which was based on the film makers 8 part jazz documentary production that first aired on PBS (Public Broadcasting System).
According to the hypocrite drug warriors, the herb is a dangerous drug. Louis and Bing smoked the "dangerous addicting" drug and gave the world great jazz. The evil weed only gave them pleasure and inspiration, as it does many creative people. Even the legendary Benny Goodman bands' drummer, Gene Krupa and later star and band leader himself, was arrested and jailed for marijuana possession. The herb didn't hurt the master jazz drummers great time keeping. The list of famous musicians and unknown musicians that smoked the herb could fill a phone book of a big town - at least. All the herb does is inspire the art of creative music and every other creative art, but the drug warriors and their "experts" don't like that. "Woe unto the hypocrites" - (the Bible).
The prohibitionist movement, against whatever inebriating substance is at hand, always seems to be led by the fundamentalist religionist types who preach to the multitudes that altering ones consciousness is a "SIN" against God (their God).
In the USA, a political manifestation of this type of thinking appears in many American organizations such as the "Partnership for a drug free America", "Concerned women of America" and on and on. All of these groups are decidedly "Christian" and such. When the Bible is explored for this idea of prohibition, there are several passages that reveal that the God of the Bible and Jesus himself actually promoted the gift of substance induced euphoria. But of course, the throngs of Bible pounding, flag waving fundamentalist holier than thou types that dominate the political arena of the USA - even in the 21st century, don't know how the bible actually contradicts their own abstinance doctrines. After all, their ignorance can be seen in that millions and millions of these christian right wing fundamentalist holier than thou types believe whatever their like minded preachers tell them, including the ridiculous "RAPTURE" theory that is very popular amongst the believers - even though it is not Biblical. (Look up the word "rapture" in a Biblical concordance, and it can't be found in the Bible).
There are many verses in the Bible itself that contradict the TOUCH NOT - TASTE NOT crowd of fundamentalist prohibitionists. This chapter is for them. Begin with the OLD TESTAMENT:
Numbers 28:7 And the drink-offering thereof shall be the fourth part of a hin for the one lamb: in the holy place shalt thou pour out a drink-offering of strong drink unto Jehovah.
If the God of the Hebrews demanded a sacrifice to him of strong drink (alcohol), it certainly makes no biblical sense that strong drink (alcohol) is a sin as the fundamentalist prohibitionists proclaim.
Deuteronomy 14:26 and thou shalt bestow the money for whatsoever thy soul desireth, for oxen, or for sheep, or for wine, or for strong drink, or for whatsoever thy soul asketh of thee; and thou shalt eat there before Jehovah thy God, and thou shalt rejoice, thou and thy household.
When God says to "rejoice", he means to "get high" (in the modern vernacular). Or one could describe the experience as attaining a euphoria of some type. And since it is scientifically proven that alcohol is a drug, in fact one of the most dangerous drugs there is, and since God created the "green herb" in Genesis, God would certainly allow euphoria by other creations such as the "green herbs"; marijuana, cocaine, and opium poppy. GENESIS 1 -11: And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so. 12: And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good. 13: And the evening and the morning were the third day. 29: And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat. 30: And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so. 31: And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day. Natural "God created" plants are amongst myriad's of plants that alter consciousness as well as give medicine.
Revelation 22:1 And he showed me a river of water of life, bright as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb, 2. in the midst of the street thereof. And on this side of the river and on that was the tree of life, bearing twelve manner of fruits, yielding its fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.
Ezekial 47:12 And by the river upon the bank thereof, on this side and on that side, shall grow every tree for food, whose leaf shall not whither, neither shall the fruit thereof fail: it shall bring forth new fruit every month, because the waters thereof issue out of the sanctuary; and the fruit thereof shall be for food, and the leaf thereof for healing.
Plants are declared for healing in the future paradise of God. And, his plants are also gifts to his people on the earth. A pleasant euphoria can be a healing experience. God (nature) created a masterpiece with his opium flowers, giving to the human race the only known cure for pain, plus, the plant gives a euphoria. God (nature) would not declare the healing good, but the euphoria bad in his perfect creation.
The coca plant is definitely a green herb. It is another gift of God (nature) to the Andean highlanders of ancient time. According to science, the use of the green herb coca plant is a helpful stimulant when used in its God (nature) given form - the plant. It never created "sin" in the old world of the Andean Highlanders. Only the Christian fundamentalist "touch not taste not" types would declare it a sin.
Fundamentalist preachers often say that drinking wine or any alcohol is a sin. I have heard the famous fundamentalist preacher from West Virginia, Jerry Falwell declare that Jesus really didn't change the water to wine (that had alcohol in it) but that the "wine" was actually grape juice (literally - "fruit of the vine"). This is out of touch with what the Bible says about Jesus' first miracle, turning the water to wine at the marriage feast at Canna.
John 2:7 Jesus saith unto them, Fill the waterspouts with water. And they filled them up to the brim. 8. And he saith unto them, draw out now, and bear unto the ruler of the feast. And they bare it. 9. And when the ruler of the feast tasted the water now become wine, and knew not whence it was (but the servants that had drawn the water knew), the ruler of the feast calleth the bridegroom, 10. and saith unto him, "Every man setteth on first the good wine; and when men have drunk freely, then that which is worse: thou hast kept the good wine until now". 11. This beginning of his signs did Jesus in Canna of Galilee, and manifested his glory; and his disciples believed on him.
This description is complete. There is no other way to interpret it except that the WINE Jesus manifested had to of been the alcohol containing type. First, in the day of Jesus, they had no refrigeration. In that hot and dry climate, any just squeezed grape juice would quickly grow rancid in a matter of hours. Wine was always made (with the "fruit of the vine") in order to preserve it.
A second sign of the inebriating wine is that when Jesus did the miracle, he did it later in the party. When the participants marveled at how the host saved the "good wine" for last, that could only be alcohol containing wine. A common practice is to first serve the "good wine" and then when the taste buds are dulled and the effect is at work, the cheaper wine is served. It all becomes good for the partier and at less expense to the party giver.
1st Timothy 5:23 Be no longer a drinker of water, but use a little wine for thy stomach's sake and thine often infirmities.
Wine is a medicinal drink and Paul extorted its use. Alcoholic wine is not a sin. Being dead down drunk is, but that is behavior related, and it has nothing to do with Gods creation.
Ephesians 5:17 Wherefore be ye not foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. 18. And be not drunken with wine, wherein is riot, but be filled with the Spirit;
So it is not the alcoholic wine or strong drink as a substance that is sin, but the behavior. According to the Bible, God did not create sin. Fundamentalist prohibitionist hypocrites are the ones that have made it into a "sin". And as Jesus said so many times in the book that the fundamentalist holier than thou prohibitionist repressionist crowd loves so much - "Woe unto the hypocrites".
OUT OF JAIL
THE MEDIA
by The Associated Press
For two consecutive issues of the DAILY WORLD (Aberdeen newspaper), there was a front page story with big headlines about it. On tuesday and wednesday, there were feature news stories on Channel 5 (KING TV) news about it. The TV news story was also on Channel 4 (KOMO TV) and a couple of others. The story was also in the Seattle Times and Seattle Post Intelligencer newspapers with such reports as "the suspects sold hallucinogenic mushrooms on the internet" ect. According to the newspapers, by their bad reporting and inaccurate language and not knowing what they were talking about, they implied that we sold ILLEGAL MUSHROOMS out of our house. Also, they mentioned the spores, but they couldn't seem to get the difference.
November 15 2003
United States Attorney's Office
Western District of Washington
February 25, 2003
PSYLOCYBE FANATICUS OWNER AND EMPLOYEES INDICTED
THE LAWS THAT I BROKE
24. N-Methyl-3-piperidyl benzilate 7484 - Both of these drugs were studied as potential intoxicating agents of use in chemical warfare. There is no evidence that they were ever drugs of abuse.
Title 21, United States Code, Sections 841(a)(1), 841(b)(1)(c) and 846, and Title 18, United States Code, Section 2
Controlled Substances Act
Controlled Substances Act
DEFENDANTS ENTER GUILTY PLEAS IN HALLUCINOGENIC MUSHROOM CASE
* A residence and real property in Moclips, Washington.
* Real property on Lakeview Drive, Amanda Park, Washington.
* $78,286 in cash.
THE PLEA AGREEMENT
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
WESTERN DISTRICT OF WASHINGTON
AT SEATTLE
plaintiff,
defendant
Defendant
Attorney for Defendant
Assistant United States Attorney
Assistant United States Attorney
Transcript of The Professor's sentencing hearing
SENIOR UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE.
DOUGLAS B. WHALLEY Assistant United States Attorney
601 Union Street, Suite 5100 Seattle, Washington 98101-3903
BARRY L. FLEGENHEIMER Bell, Flegenheimer & Leong
119 1st Avenue South Seattle, Washington 98104
JUDITH M. MANDEL 524 Tacoma Avenue South Tacoma,
Washington 98402
Rm 3100
1717 Pacific
Avenue Tacoma, Washington 98402 (253) 593-6545
2.
3. THE COURT: Good morning. This is cause No. 03-5155,
4. United States versus Robert and Margaret McPherson. It comes
5. on for sentencing today, Mr. McPherson having pled guilty to a
6. charge of manufacture of psilocybin, and Ms. McPherson to
7. possession of psilocybin.
8. Pre sentence reports were ordered. I have read them, along
9. with the sentencing recommendations. I have also read the
10. sentencing memoranda filed by counsel.
11. For the record, the defendant is present with their
12. attorneys, Ms. Mandel and Mr. Flegenheimer; and Mr. Whalley is
13. here from the government.
14. Mr. McPherson, have you had the opportunity to read the
15. presentence report and go over it with your lawyer?
16. MR. McPHERSON: Yes.
17. THE COURT: Mrs. McPherson, have you read your
18. presentence report and had the opportunity to go over it with
19. your lawyer?
20. MS. McPHERSON: Yes, your honor.
21. THE COURT: Are there any objections to the
22. presentence reports, either in guideline workup or in the
23. facts presented, Mr. Whalley?
24. MR. WHALLEY: The government has none, Your Honor.
25. THE COURT: Mr. Flegenheimer?
page 3
1. MR. FLEGENHEIMER: I filed with U.S. probation -- it
2. is attached to the presentence report -- and objection letter
3. that outlined the objections, many which were addressed by
4. Mr. Moon in his final report to the court. None of the
5. remaining ones had any impact on the guideline range, so I
6. would just rest on that.
7. THE COURT: All right. Ms. Mandel?
8. MS. Mandel: The amended presentence report addressed
9. the problems that were originally present in the guidelining,
10. and the only other issues are those that are set forth in the
11. defendant's requests regarding probation conditions.
12. THE COURT: All right. Well, we will turn our
13. attention then to sentencing. Mr. Whalley?
14. You also filed exhibits that I have looked at and now I
15. can't find your -- you filled a memorandum, did you not?
16. MR. WHALLEY: I did, in both cases. I have copies
17. here if the court would like me to hand them up.
18. THE COURT: I thought I read those.
19. Just a minute. Yes I did see those. they just weren't
20. where I thought they were. Okay.
21. MR. WHALLEY: With respect to Mr. McPherson, we are
22. recommending the low end of the range which would permit him
23. to serve his sentence on electronic monitoring, home
24. detention, and there's several reasons for this
25. recommendation.
page 4
1. When Mr. McPherson was first arrested by the agents, he
2. completely admitted his involvement in the spore distribution
3. scheme, admitted ownership of the few mushrooms that were
4. found in his house. He operated the business for several
5. years and never tried to conceal it. So to a certain extent,
6. he was lulled into thinking it was legal, although it was not.
7. His actual mushroom grow, which was the source of the
8. spores to which he pled guilty, to maintaing those
9. mushrooms, psilocybin, was very small. I was surprised at how
10. small it was.
11. The pictures that I submitted show the mushrooms the agent
12. grew, which were very impressive, and then the mushrooms that
13. were found in the defendant's house, which were in the glass
14. covers, relatively small.
15. Once we made the arrest, he closed down the business and
16. admitted his involvement, and at the first opportunity pled
17. guilty.
18. His demeanor throughout the prosecution has been: Since
19. it's wrong, I'm not going to do it. And we respect that.
20. So we are recommending home detention.
21. With respect to Ms. McPherson, she was helping her husband
22. in the distribution of the spores, again openly in the
23. community; everybody knew what their job was. They paid taxes
24. on it.
25. We feel her involvement should be punished for having the
page 5
1. hallucinogenic mushrooms in their residence, but was somewhat
2. limited. She didn't run the business. She assisted in it.
3. We are recommending probation for her misdemeanor offense.
4. THE COURT: Mr. Flengenheimer?
5. MR. FLEGENHEIMER: Thank you, Your Honor.
6. Your honor, I have gotten to know Robert McPherson well
7. over these months. He is somebody -- and I think Mr. Whalley
8. captured it -- there was nothing dishonest, nothing hiding
9. about his activities. He did his business. He's a creative
10. man. He thought this was something that he could do. He
11. knows it was sort of on the margins; he understood that. But
12. he never was contacted by anybody saying don't do this. He
13. was doing it openly. He was advertising it openly.
14. Unfortunately, his first contact was one of a federal
15. prosecution. Spores are specifically made illegal I think in
16. only three states. There's no drugs in the actual spores that
17. were distributed by them. And he would follow the chat about
18. this and research it, and didn't see any prosecutions on it.
19. Maybe that is changing now, obviously. He thought it was
20. marginal activity, that if the government makes it clearly
21. illegal, he would just stop.
22. Of course the government's position is that it is clearly
23. illegal, and Robert understands that. Shut it down. Gave up
24. substantial assets, that were the product of the business,
25. back to the government, and understands that this is something
page 6
1. he cannot ever do again.
2. So in considering what the court should do, we'd ask the
3. court consider sort of the mind-set here --
4. THE COURT: I am sorry, I can't quite hear you.
5. MR. FLEGENHEIMER: I was saying, in considering what
6. the court should do, I'd ask that you consider his mind-set.
7. He didn't go out to hurt anybody. He was doing something he
8. thought was, if not acceptable to everybody, at least not
9. clearly criminalized.
10. What he did do, and what he pled guilty to, clearly he
11. understands that, too. Each mushroom creates millions of
12. these spores. He understood that growing the few illegal
13. mushrooms it takes to create the spores was illegal, pled
14. guilty to that.
15. So I would ask the court consider those circumstances in
16. deciding what's a just sentence, and ask the court to follow
17. what is the government and the defense recommendation of
18. electronic home monitoring.
19. It is worth noting also, since the day of the arrest, he
20. was someone who routinely used marijuana. He hasn't used
21. since then. It took a while to get out of his system, but
22. hasn't used. He's had 50-some tests, drug tests, and he's
23. attended treatment.
24. He doesn't see himself as somebody addicted. He stopped
25. doing that, too.
page 7
1. So I don't know if that is a necessary condition for the
2. court to impose that he actually participate in drug
3. treatment, but he has done that as a condition of pretrial
4. release.
5. So we'd ask the court consider those things, and ask the
6. court to impose electronic home monitoring as a punishment for
7. six months of that.
8. THE COURT: Okay, Mr. McPherson, is there anything
9. you would like to say about this before I determine your
10. sentence?
11. MR. McPherson: Mr. Flegenheimer, he explained it
12. very well. It was truly marginal, but I accept my guilt for
13. what I did.
14. THE COURT: What do these mushrooms do for somebody?
15. MR. McPherson: People are curious about them because
16. they go back -- their use goes back into history for maybe
17. thousands of years. And that is why people like them, they
18. are just interested, they are curious.
19. They are called hallucinogenic, but there's some academic
20. argument that that word really fits. But that is what they
21. are called, hallucinogenic.
22. THE COURT: What do they do for you, if you consume
23. them?
24. MR. McPherson: Some people have what they call
25. religious experiences. But most people don't like them, they
page 8
1. have rather unpleasant physical effects. And it is something
2. people don't do for escapism, they don't work that way.
3. Very few people, all kinds of people that are interested
4. in altering their consciousness, they don't go that way; they
5. go just regular ole street drugs or whatever.
6. But it is just people that are interested in this ancient
7. experience, and very few actually do it. The thing that is
8. going on more that I see in the world is just cultivation,
9. hobbyists. It is not a popular drug at all.
10. THE COURT: Okay, thank you.
11. Ms. Mandel?
12. MS. MANDEL: Yes, first of all I would like to
13. apologize for being late this morning.
14. THE COURT: I think we are all used to waiting for
15. the bridge or for the ferry around here when necessary.
16. MS. MANDEL: Well, this time it was 2 1/2 hours, more
17. than I had --
18. THE COURT: My secretary came in just a little ahead
19. of you because she was stuck, too.
20. MS. MANDEL: Okay, Well, having said that, on behalf
21. of Ms. McPherson, Ms, McPherson pled guilty to a misdemeanor
22. offense involved in her being an accomplice of possession of
23. this small amount of the actual mushrooms, which are illegal.
24. This case, when if first came to counsel and we talked
25. about it, and I think that while the government has maintained
page 9
1. its position that they knew this to be illegal, that is the
2. distribution of the spores, from time immemorial -- in fact,
3. it poses a sort of interesting entrepreneurial world that
4. nobody thought much about. But the day the indictment
5. came down here, I went on-line and saw that in Ohio there's
6. companies, there were companies that were doing the same thing
7. in other states in the United States. And I called the Ohio
8. public defender, and I said: Do you know that this is
9. illegal? At least the government's position today is that
10. this is illegal. And they had no idea that the growing of the
11. spores and distribution of the spores was an illegal activity,
12. since the spores themselves don't contain any illegal
13. substance. They have to be cultivated, and the mushroom has
14. to be grown. And this is a fairly difficult process, despite
15. the fact that an agent with a lot of training in biochemistry
16. was able to do it.
17. The spores also are now available. They are sold in
18. Vancouver, in Canada, openly.
19. So what I am saying, the McPhersons didn't know that they
20. were doing something illegal. They now accept that they did,
21. or at least they believe that the government could make an
22. acceptable argument to that effect.
23. Other than that, the McPhersons are law abiding citizens
24. who give to the communities.
25. They contribute to the communities that they have lived
page 10
1. in. They are well-liked and well thought of in their
2. communities. They are people who pride themselves in the fact
3. that they live green.
4. They are not big consumers. They drive modest cars. They
5. have given the government a lot of property that they
6. acquired.
7. The recommendation of Ms. McPherson, Margaret McPherson,
8. is probation. All the parties are recommending probation, and
9. we concur in that recommendation.
10. The only issue here for Ms. McPherson is the perceived
11. necessity by probation that she needs to undergo mental health
12. treatment. Her position is that that is not warranted by her
13. history and by the facts here.
14. The only mental health history that Ms. McPherson presents
15. is a fairly common one that she encountered during menopause.
16. She has -- the dosage of Paxil that she takes now is very
17. modest, and she probably is joined by millions of people who
18. take that dosage and don't require any further mental health
19. treatment.
20. With regard to illegal drug use, she has no history of
21. illegal drug use. She self reported to Pretrial Services that
22. she had -- that she was drinking too much by her own account.
23. She has no encounters with the law in connection with that or
24. anything like that, so she was ordered to take mandatory tests
25. for alcohol use, and she's passed all those ever since
page 11
1. February.
2. Her employment with Lake Quinault Lodge, and the
3. remoteness of the location that she lives in, works in, makes
4. this really burdensome, the idea of having to travel to
5. Aberdeen, which is where the drug testing facilities are and
6. where she'd have to go for mental health treatment.
7. Under those circumstances, and given her full-time
8. employment now in the business she's in, she'd have to travel,
9. and the minimal history that would suggest that any of this is
10. called for, I would ask that the court not impose mental
11. health treatment as a condition of probation, nor mandatory
12. drug testing with regard to MS. McPherson..
13. THE COURT: You've got one thing wrong. Lake
14. Quinault is not remote. If you live at Lake Quinault,
15. Aberdeen and Tacoma are remote.
16. MS. MANDEL: Yes, in reverse.
17. THE COURT: It's like the people in Washington, D.C.
18. speak about being out in Tacoma, and I would say out in
19. Washington, D.C.
20 Ms. McPherson, is there anything you would like to say
21. about this before I determine your sentence?
22. MS. McPherson: No, Your Honor, thank you.
23. THE COURT: Well, you know, this is pretty straight
24. forward. The recommendation of probation is not an
25. unreasonable one, but under the circumstances here and the
page 12
1. plea bargain, I am inclined to follow the recommendation of
2. the government as to Mr. McPherson.
3. That means, Mr. McPherson, that your punishment is six
4. months imprisonment, but that may be served by electronic home
5. monitoring.
6. You should pay the cost of that, and then be on supervised
7. release for three years on the standard conditions and the
8. the special conditions set forth in the sentencing recommendation.
9. In light of the substantial forfeiture, I will affix no
10. fine. It appears to me there's nothing left from which a fine
11. should be exacted, but you must pay the special assessment of
12. $100 as required by law.
13. Ms. McPherson, you may be admitted to a probationary term
14. of three years on the standard conditions, and those special
15. conditions set forth in the sentencing recommendations.
16. I will go along with you and your lawyer and eliminate
17. those special conditions relative to mental health program and
18. drug treatment, drug testing, and eliminate those conditions.
19. Again, I will depart or affix no fine, waive a fine
20. because of the substantial forfeiture, and affix the special
21. assessment of $25 as required by law.
22. If punishment is really required here, it seems to me that
23. it is substantially covered by the very large forfeitures that
24. you folks are facing or have faced.
25. I think the comparatively light sentences recommended
page 13
1. here, and that I am affixing, are reasonable, particularly in
2. light of those substantial forfeitures.
3. You should bear in mind, if you don't adhere to the rules
4. and conditions of probation or supervised release, you are
5. subject to having those conditions revoked and still would be
6. subjected to a prison term.
7. So it is very important, even if you disagree with the
8. probation officer, or whatever requirements are placed on you
9. by that, it is very important that you follow those
10. requirements regardless of whether you like them or not.
11. Now, I have been given an agreed forfeiture preliminary
12. order that is only relative to Mr. McPherson.
13. Is there a separate one for Mrs. McPherson?
14. MR. WHALLEY: No, Your Honor, because it is a
15. misdemeanor, I understood it is not necessary. She has agreed
16. in the plea agreement to the forfeiture.
17. THE COURT: Well, this is a community property state.
18. MR. WHALLEY: I think we will have to get releases
19. from her at some point.
20. THE COURT: Any objection to the form of the
21. judgment, counsel?
22. MR. FLEGENHEIMER: No, Your Honor.
23. THE COURT: Ms. Mandel, any objection?
24. MS. MANDEL: No.
25. THE COURT: I am signing the judgment as presented.
page 14
1. There's one other thing I must do, and that is that I must
2. advise you, each of you, your right to appeal.
3. You do have a right to appeal your sentence if you believe
4. I have committed an error in sentencing.
5. Do both of you understand that?
6. MR. McPherson: Yes.
7. MRS. McPherson: Yes.
8. THE COURT: If you wish to appeal, and you don't have
9. the funds available to employ a lawyer to prosecute an appeal
10. for you, and if you request it the court would appoint a
11. a lawyer for that purpose at public expense.
12. Do both of you understand that?
13. THE DEFENDANT: Yes.
14. THE COURT: If you request it, the clerk of court
15. would file a notice of appeal on your behalf. Do you
16. understand that?
17. MR. McPherson: Yes.
18. MS. McPherson: Yes.
19. THE COURT: I guess I told you that you have 10 days
20. from today in which you file a notice of appeal, or you
21. irrevocably lose that right to appeal.
22. Do you both understand that?
23. MR. McPherson: Yes.
24. MS. McPherson: Yes.
25. THE COURT: I am sure Mr. Flegenheimer and Ms. Mandel
page 15
1. will be happy to discuss that further with you and advise you
2. further about that if you have any questions.
3. OKAY. As they say: Go and sin no more.
(Proceedings concluded) * * * * * * * * * *
CERTIFICATE
I certify that the foregoing is a correct transcript from the record of
proceedings in the above - entitled matter.
TERI HENDRIX, court reporter Date - July 12, 2004
PROBATION DOCUMENT
Sheet 3 - Supervised Release
CASE NUMBER: CRO3-5155RJB-001SUPERVISED RELEASE
PF's ENCOUNTER WITH THE JUDGE
THE GRAND JURY
TAP AND WHISPER
THE REGRETS
THE BIG SCARE
WHY DID I BECOME PF?
PROBATION
MAGIC MUSHROOMS AND THE LAW
By Professor Fanaticus
THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA LAW AGAINST THE SPORES
Section 11390-11392
THE STATE OF GEORGIA LAW AGAINST THE SPORES
16-13-71 (627)
Mushroom spores which, when mature, contain either psilocybin or psilocin;
UNITED STATES CODE FOR SIMPLE POSSESSION
CHAPTER 13 - DRUG ABUSE PREVENTION AND CONTROL
SUBCHAPTER I - CONTROL AND ENFORCEMENT
Part D - Offenses and Penalties
THE STATE LAWS AGAINST THE SHROOMS
Mushroom grower's conviction stands
By BRYAN CORBIN
Daily Journal news editor
bcorbin@thejournalnet.com
Jan. 2, 2004
http://www.wate.com/Global/story.asp
September 13, 2004
US CODE section 863 - Drug Paraphernalia
My comments
INDEX LIBRORUM PROHIBITORUM (Index of Forbidden Books)
THE LEGALITY QUESTION
The following is from the D.E.A. web site and it concerns some spore syringes that were sent to their laboratory from the Postal Inspector in Great Falls Montana.
THE MICROGRAM BULLETIN OF THE D.E.A.
Office of Forensic Sciences Washington, D.C. 20537
July 2003
- INTELLIGENCE BRIEF-
THE FBI INVESTIGATES PF SPORES AND THE PF TEK
American Academy of Forensic Sciences
(1948)
Volume 45 - Number 3 - May 2000 - JFSCAS 45 (3)513-754 (2000)
DETECTING PSYCHOACTIVE DRUGS IN THE DEVELOPMENTAL STAGES OF MUSHROOMS
Forensic Scientist, Minnesota Forensic Science
Laboratory, 1246 University Ave. St. Paul, Minnesota.
This project was
supported by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Minneapolis Field
Office.
Received 26 Feb. 1999: and in revised form 12 May 1999: accepted 23
Aug. 1999.
METHODS
SAMPLE PREPARATION
THIN-LAYER CHROMATOGRAPHY
GAS CHROMATOGRAPH/MASS SPECTROMETER
LOWER LIMIT OF DETECTION
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
CONCLUSION
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
REFERENCES
PHOTO AND CHART DESCRIPTIONS (figures and table-charts)
FIG. 2 - mycelium invitro
FIG. 3 - birthed PF cake with fungal pins
FIG. 4 - PF jar with invitro primordia
FIG. 5 - PF race shrooms on cake
FIG. 6 - PF shrooms on cake
FIG. 7 - 12 - GC/MS readout charts
Table 1 - TLC chart
Table 2 - GC/MS chart
PF comments
THE DRUG WAR
IBOGA AND THE AFRICAN BWITI CULT
IBOGAINE
- kidney disease
- diabetes
- abnormal liver function tests
- epilepsy
- cardiovascular disease including high blood pressure (BP greater than 140/90)
- a history of a personal or familial psychiatric disorder
- a current substance abuse problem
- anxiety or a mood disorder within 1 year prior to the onset of symptoms of your current illness, and are pregnant.
Psilocybin can occasion mystical-type experiences having substantial and sustained personal meaning and spiritual significance
Published online: 7 July 2006
July 11, 2006
By JOY VICTORY, BHARATHI RADHAKRISHNAN and ANDREA CARTER
By MALCOLM RITTER
Associated Press
By ROBERT MCPHERSON (aka Psylocybe Fanaticus - creator of the PF TEK)
TOUCH NOT - TASTE NOT
