Posted by pinksharkmark (12.128.177.208) on January 10, 2001 at 14:05:00:
In Reply to: How to send/receive shrooms through the postal service. posted by Flash on January 10, 2001 at 07:53:55:
I am of two minds about this.
I have always advocated growing your own or picking your own. I live in a country where there are no laws whatsoever regarding consuming, gathering, or cultivating psilocybin mushrooms. The climate here is also such that it is possible for most of the year to find them in the wild. But I do realize that for citizens of the United States, there are other challenges.
If you live in or near a city of any size at all, it is pretty easy to buy either psilocybin mushrooms or LSD on the black market. This, of course, entails dealing with some kinda sketchy characters, in some cases.
When I first established a relationship with some understanding hobbyists, it was with the intention that they limit their involvement to providing advice and LEGAL materials to clusterheads trying to grow their own. Some of these hobbyists are so anxious to help that they offered to "step over the line", so to speak. Their rationale is that since they are already breaking the law by cultivating psilocybin mushrooms, what difference does it make to make a gift of excess crop to someone with an urgent medical need?
The difference is that an ambitious prosecutor can argue that while cultivating your own crop may possibly be treated as "simple possession of a controlled substance", giving your crop to another should be treated as the more serious offense, i.e. "distribution of a controlled substance". Further, any communication between two or more individuals regarding this exchange can legally be classified as "conspiracy to distribute a controlled substance".
In the eyes of the courts, these are not subtle distinctions.
Whether or not psilocybin mushrooms should be illegal or not in the United States of America is a whole different ball of wax. Of course they should not be. Maybe some day they won't be. But, the sad fact is that today they are illegal, and anyone who gives a mushroom to someone else is at risk.
My personal belief is that if you want to rid yourself of cluster headaches, it is better to do so without putting someone else at risk, even if that someone else is willing, even eager to do so. Even if the odds of being discovered are virtually zero.
On the other hand, I must say that I completely understand the temptation. I am not in cycle now, and I have a sufficient supply growing at the moment to handle the return of the Beast. I might feel differently about the whole thing if I were still getting banged with four to five crushers a day, unable to work, spending thousands and thousands of dollars on Imitrex, and faced with the prospect of having to wait a month to six weeks to grow my own medicine.
People have free will. They will do what they will do, no matter what advice they receive from others.
BUT...
If I didn't give my advice, then I wouldn't feel I had done my part. I feel guilty as it is for getting this whole thing going in the first place.
pinky