Since December 1st Magic Mushrooms are illegal in the Netherlands. Jesse from the headshop Mush-e-Mart.com about the, backgrounds and perspectives.

Acutally what were the reasons that mushroom will be prohibited from December 1st? How did they argue?

The reasons why mushrooms are made illegal have to do with some (recent) historical background.
Religious people (CDU is in government in Holland) have never liked mind altering substances because it makes people autonomous and philosophers instead of consumers of the philosophies and visions of the Bible. It produces heresies (Häresie) so undermines the power stuctures of the church.

The advantages of psychedelics have not been communicated well through the media in the last years. Noone knows what they are for. The only arguments for keeping psychedelics legal have been that they are "not so dangerous". Noobs classify psychedelics as "drugs", without any other conotations than harmful, dangerous and stupid.

Since 2002 (assasination of Pim Fortuyn) of socialists have lost elections. Dutch people are affraid of loosing their identity to large groups of immigrants (especially muslims). Therefor we vote "conservatives" (combination of Christians and Right Wing, like the G.W. Bush administration). There has been a which hunt on every idea that the Left Wingers spread in the last 35 years. Tollerance to immigrants and other drugs than alcohol was one of them.

From this perspective it is completely logic that the government and the media have been trying to scandalize shrooms in any illogical way. According to research all incidents have been multidrugusers (alcohol, cocaine, speed + mushrooms), but every incident is published as a "mushroom incident". After a few incidents the ministry banned the shrooms.

 

You already send around some contra- arguments in one of your mailings. Is there any additional material available?

It is important that organizations like MAPS.org (usa), stichtingopen.nl (in Holland) do research and publish results. This can be used in a courtcase and in general for acceptance and respect for psychedelics. Often used arguments about the Maya's and spirituality dont have any effect on the general public. Instead we should show what psychedelics do for the Creative Economy we live in. For instance its better to use arguments like this: " "It must be changing something about the internal communication in my brain. Whatever my inner process is that lets me solve problems, it works differently, or maybe different parts of my brain are used, " said Herbert, 42, an early employee of Cisco Systems who says he solved his toughest technical problems while tripping", or this ""There is no doubt that the psychedelic evolution in the 1960s had a profound effect on the history computers and computer graphics, and of mathematics, especially the birth of postmodern maths such as chaos theory and fractal geometry," writes Ralph Abraham, Professor of Mathematics, USSC", or "Francis Crick, the Nobel Prize-winning father of modern genetics, was under the influence of LSD when he first deduced thedouble-helix structure of DNA nearly 50 years ago."  or "the PC and the Internet sprang from pot-smoking, acid-dropping California dreamers" (track back via Google).

I have informed our lawyer about these arguments that are in fact starting to get scientific background (which is very important in court).

 

Sometime ago dried mushrooms had been prohibitied in the Netherlands, fresh one were still free for sale. Why that?

Dried mushrooms were never illegal in Holland. People just thought so, but technically the high court have admitted their mistake of wrongly interpreting the law. In later courtcases noone got convicted for dried shrooms. One of the reasons why the ministery of justice got involved in banning the shrooms (which was a ministry of health issue) is that they were affraid that they would keep looking rediculous in every courtcase they had to drop because they would loose it (and which generates jurisprudence).
Since 2002 people thought dried shrooms were illegal.

 

Which perspectives do you have now, whats the next juridical step?

The VLOS.nl (including Mush-e-Mart) will decide this week whether we go into appeal against the "blitz courtcase", and what kind of courtcase we will start in the near future. It depends on the explaination of the last decision which the judge will release this week.

 

Also herbal ecstasy is prohibited in the NL since some time. Is there a general trend to a less liberal drug policy?

Herbal Ecstasy is a name for a collection of herbs. There are dozens of herbs that are euphoric. You probably mean Ephedra extract. This was made illegal around 4 years ago. Liberal Drug Policy has been declared bankrupt (doesnt work), allthough the scientific evidence shows otherwise. Coffeeshops will probably be the next victom of  the "Christian Sharia".

 

Growkits are still legal for sale. Can you please give me a short description: Include they already growing mycel or just spores? What about spores, are they still legal in the Netherlands?  

Our growkits do not contain mushrooms when we sell them. They contain mycelium. Spores and Mycel are legal in the Netherlands as long as noone grows mushrooms in the Netherlands.