Man, this is scary. I've never heard of a package of raw bark intercepted and prosecuted as DMT. According to the LEO in the article, this person may be charged with distribution, as they are hitting him with 200grams if product, even though once processed that amount of bark is well within reasonable personal use limits. It's like the guy arrested in Georgia recently who has the weight of his soup counted as processed DMT.

Be really, really careful y'all. As psychedelics become more popular and more and more people speak about their benefits, there seems to be a growing perception that law enforcement ignores them. As we can see, especially in smaller jurisdictions, this is simply not true. We aren't sure how the package aroused suspicion, or at what point in it's journey, but it's scary as hell to me, and a good reason to avoid customs. Don't be a marytr.

Sorry to keep posting articles like this, but i do feel that it is a good thing to be aware of. Other's mistakes can be a valuable learning tool, unfortunately.

cringe-worthy article HERE

I appreciate you taking the time to share this information, it is certainly worthwhile for this community to stay aware of the unfortunate mis-steps of others to stay safe.

This is messed up. He’s just a kid, and he’s being held on 100k bail. Meanwhile I’ve read several accounts of people committing theft and other non violent crimes being released in no bail due to the virus. Repeat offenders at that. The system is F@{<ed I tell you!

Wow, the logic still baffles me.

But why don't they just go all the way, as reason doesn't seem to be a restriction?

I mean, the article says DMT is simmilar to LSD, so why don't they charge him for posession of 200 grams of LSD? And grams is metric, so why not say that a gram is as good as a pound, so he had 200 pounds of LSD then? And if you would want to distribute 200 pounds of acid, you would need at least 50000 pounds of blotterpaper, so what he had in LSD was just about as good as 50000 pounds of LSD.
And he had it sent to him, witch is just about the same astransporting it yourself. So they could charge him with posession and transporting of 50000 pounds of LSD. Wich is about 200 billion doses, so you could in theory say that he was 50 times bigger than the sinaloa cartel.
And the sinaloa cartel probably killed something like at least 10000 people, so it would be fair to say that what this guy did is just about the same as killing half a million people.

No one should have their liberty taken away over a small amount of plant matter.

Sometimes I'm not proud of being human.

I hope that the investigators and police who perpetrated this crime against basic natural human freedoms realize what they did one day. I hope that on that same day they can forgive themselves for they know not what they do.

I also hope this kid's life is not ruined forever because of the disproportionate and unjust actions of the authorities. I hope that a right to nature organization and/or a good lawyer helps this individual so his life can get back on track as soon a possible.

Exploring nature is only a crime in a corrupt society that takes the sanctity of this planet for granted. The agressive behavior of the authorities seems psychotic.

These are still dangerous times for people who want to live free and explore their personal conciousness in privacy.

It bugs me when they try to pin people for the total weight not active compound. Kid had 200g bark not 200g dmt. Maybe 2g... Thats 100x exaggeration. Could they get away with charging people for 100x murders when they did one, or charge for 100x car thefts when they only did one....

+1 for helping him if someone figures out how.

This is super sad and fucked up. It makes me angry. Sometimes I forget just how illegal our beloved plant medicines still are. The most dangerous thing about using these compounds is the possibility of unjust imprisonment.

I'm curious how this would've played out in, say, Denver or Oakland (US)? Both of those places have decriminalized plant-based 'entheogens', but not manufacture or delivery. Customs are the ones who flagged and intercepted it and under federal law they were correct in doing so, if they then had to hand it over to a decrim city, would the local or state police (or both, as in this case) indict or say forget it? I kinda lean towards the former, i know that some police locally feel stymied by our far-less liberal drug policies and would be happy to nail a "psychedelic drug manufacturer", if only to make their own statement.

Any more thoughts on a gofundme?

100k bond is 10k to bail, at least in my state.

His priors are pretty light and he’s young, they may go easy on him with a good attorney.

Screw a bunch of bail, that is the least of his (or anyone in this position's) worries, no offense. Getting someone an actual lawyer to fight a case like this could not only help them but, if picked up by media, become an entry point into valid route to some legal reform. this isn't just a US problem, there's a guy in Austrailia being hit with over a hundred kilos of DMT in similar prosecutorial sitiuations. I'll try to find a link, I lost it.

I support this. I know I would be so grateful if I were in this position

I posted this info to a psychedelic social media group as a sort of warning, and then put this idea forward in the comments, but it hasn't gotten any real interest.

A friend just gave me several names of lawyers who are disposed to psychedelics. I'm going to message them with info and links, and will link this thread too. Maybe we can find someone local who will probono this guy.

Fingers crossed...

Excellent idea Null. Thanks.

A mere long term initiative of strategical benefits would be to attack government to change the all-weight-equals-extract mentality. This would help many people at once if succeeded. IIRC it was santo daime who attacked the state face on as a general strategy instead of licking wounds when shot. But it took many many years and tons and tons of money. But there was a plan, keeping going for it, prosecuting the state for incorrect legislation, and they got something out of it.