From info at Garden Freedom

Legislation being proposed in Australia would criminalize most permaculturists, farmers, gardeners, nurseries and bush regenerators by banning any plant that contains  DMT – a naturally-occurring hallucinogen.  Five plants are currently criminalized, but the new list will include hundreds (possibly thousands) of other species that are common garden plants and include a significant number of common native plants including the national flower, the wattle.  [Image: Australia's National Flower, Acacia pycnantha]

Having any of these plants could get you charged with and convicted of a federal drugs violation. The list can be found here, comprising about four pages of the 41-page document.

Garden Freedom is leading a campaign to block the legislation. The public is urged to contact the Minister for Justice, the Hon Brendan O’Connor MP with comments at Criminal.Law@ag.gov.au by March 11. (See instructions here).

The purpose of this new legislation is supposedly to stop major drug trafficking, yet many of the targeted plants have never been traded for drugs and have no value as drug plants, because they only contain traces of the compounds.

The proposed laws will make hundreds or possibly thousands of plants illegal. Many of these are common garden plants that honest, law abiding citizens have legally grown for as long as they remember. The laws will affect the commercial propagators, nurseries, farmers, collectors, botanic gardens, seed merchants, landcare groups and most gardeners.

• Farmers may need to change their pasture grasses and legumes.
• Gardeners, collectors, and botanic gardens will have to remove precious plants from their collections.
• Landcare and dunecare groups may no longer work with the species they are used to and that are native to their region.
• Nurseries may no longer propagate many of the plants they normally propagate.
• Botanists may no longer collect samples from many plants.
• Seedbanks will need to destroy many of their precious seeds.

DMT (dimethyltryptamine) is ubiquitous in nature and is likely to be present in thousands of species. If DMT is found in one species within a genus then it is likely to be found in other species of that genus. Some common plants include grasses, wattles, peas, nutmeg, screwpines, buckwheat, citrus trees, and violets. Also included are legumes, the Leopard tree, Honey Locust, wisteria and cattle forage plants like Desmodium, wetland plants such as the Common Rush (Phragmites), and common pasture grasses (Phalaris spp) — even the ice plants in your Granny’s rock garden would be effected by the legislation.

The existing schedule of criminalized plants include:

1. Any plant of the genus Cannabis

2. Enhanced cultivation of any plant of the genus Cannabis

3. Any plant of the genus Erythroxylum from which cocaine can be extracted [...] incl E.coca & E.nova-granatense

4. Papaver bracteatum

5. Papaver somniferum

6. All fungi that contain PSILOCIN

7. All fungi that contain PSILOCYBIN

The proposed new schedule will include:

8. Any plant containing MESCALINE including any plant of the genus Lophophora

9. Any plant containing DMT including any plant of the species Piptadenia Peregrine

10. Salvia divinorum (Diviners Sage)

11. Mitragyna speciosa (Kratom)

12. Catha edulis (Khat)

13. Any species of the genus Ephedra which contains ephedrine

14. Any species of the genus Brugmansia

15. Any species of the genus Datura.

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H/T dprogram.net, Permaculture College Australia.

Ed. If God put the plant here, how can humans criminalize what God has planted?

Feb. 22, 2011

foodfreedom.wordpress.com/2011/02/22/australia-bans-nature/