I'm not sure how far the smoker ban extends. I think it's just some health care cooperations atm. If it proves to be legal and profitable, though... well, businesses follow profit.

Though I may have more to say on this topic in general in the future I just want to throw in a link to a meeting that sounds interesting within this context for now:

ISSDP conference on drug policies

unfortunately registration is horrendously high (350€) so I won't be going. But if there's a place to get some good ideas on what's going on and how to help, I presume this would be it.

As usual here at the Nexus, I am somewhat late to the party.

I have a number of things to say about this subject though, and I think it behooves anyone who wants to achieve the aims of CEL to consider a few things very seriously.

1) CEL needs to form a PAC (political action committee)
2) CEL must engage the services of professional lobbyists
3) CEL should gear up to begin sponsoring regular conferences & symposia
4) CEL should become a think tank as well as a coalition
5) CEL can procure a good lawyer to help draft initiatives and bills
6) CEL can design a petition and get friendlies to sign it
7) CEL should eventually hold rallies and stage publicity stunts
CEL can incorporate as a 501 (c)3 non profit, and thus be able to take tax deductible donations
9) CEL can attempt to publicize the various positive studies & encourage people to "come out of the closet."

As time (on my part) and interest (on yours) permit, I will go into each of these points in later posts.

I realize that this might seem overwhelming to some of you. However, this movement can be built and begin achieving some of its aims much faster than you might think. Focusing on one issue is a major plus. The fact is, that the powers that be are not as threatened by entheogen use as they are by marijuana and the other illicit drugs. The total number of people who this subject effects is somewhat small, and they tend to be educated and upstanding members of society. Party kids aside, the people who are serious about entheogens are a smart and networked community. We have professors and diplomats, computer programmers and millionaires... a hefty brain trust to say the least.

While having a single, narrow issue will lend strength to this push, we must pursue EVERY avenue that falls within its purview. This means that we can simultaneously work on the civil liberties aspect, the religious freedom aspect, the physical and psychological benefits of use aspect, the constitutionality, and the mind-body sovereignty aspect of this issue. In this way, one of the thrusts might bear fruit before the rest, and it is hard to say which seeds will sprout first. Clearly, these things overlap and could also apply to other subjects... directly dovetailing or tangentially.

However, I must say that, this entheogenic freedom movement should NOT be tied to the Cannabis issue. I realize that many of you will disagree. My logic is that there are already legions of pro-cannabis groups working on that front. Whether they succeed or not should not overly change our strategy. As I have said, Cannabis scares the powers that be a LOT more than any of the entheogens because it extremely popular and could spread to areas that are heavily entrenched economically and politcally. For those of you who are unfamiliar with HEMP and its industrial uses, as well as the actual history of Cannabis prohibition (hard to believe here), I will not discuss it further than saying that HEMP threatens timber, petrochemical, big pharma, cotton, tobbacco etc. etc. It also opens up the issue of people being self-sufficient if they can grow their own fuel, build their own houses, make their own clothes, and have an abundant source of Omegas and amino acids without even opening up their wallet. All of this means that it is likely we will succeed in legalizing spice before they let Cannabis out of the "medical use" box.

As a Hemp activist in the past, I was privvy to a conversation between Jack Herer and Dennis Peron, both of whom had propositions on the California ballot at the time. Dennis told Jack that he was right and his comprehensive approach to legalization was logical, but that, even still, the CHI (California Hemp Initiative) would fail, and Prop 215 (the 1st medical marijuana bill in the US) might actually pass. History has proven him prophetic. I can't quote him verbatim, but his reasoning was similar to mine. Medical marijuana doesn't threaten nearly as many people as Hemp does.

Entheogens, my compadres... threaten next to no one.

So, I am interested to hear what you CEL folk think of my points. I will check back when I have time and see if we can't get an authentic discussion going here.

Blessings.

Hyperspace Fool,

Great post - thank you. I agree with these action items; unfortunately, it would require a large investment by private parties to accomplish these goals. This is a good roadmap - but we're still a bit early in the game and have yet to organize to a level capable of accomplishing anything significant.

What we need is financial sponsorship - and I'm sure it will come soon.

Cheers,
a1pha

Interesting discussion.

Whilst I don't have much to add myself by way of ideas at this point (though I'm working on it, believe me!) I would like to mention that most of what has been said seems largely U.S. centric. That's fine, I'm new here, so naturally if the majority of people posting are Stateside, that's whats going to get talked about.

I'm on that little island across the pond, does anyone have views on what we could do on this side of the water?

I'm in Europe. I try to think global though.

I really liked points 3) 5) 6) and 9) and I think they could definitely be done. not only sponsoring but also organizing conferences/meetings would be interesting. I think so far there is just no real structure to CEL... only ideas. For any of these we'd need ppl to actually take matters into their hands and organize stuff. Currently I'm not able to do this, but once I get my life in some kind of order I would absolutely love to put time energy and whatever else I can into this. It is something I believe very strongly in.

Yeah, some of these points are def US specific...

Some of them have EU equivalents, though. Not sure if initiatives, propositions, and non-profit status can be done on an EU wide basis, or if it must go country by country. Somehow certain aspects of the EU strike me as rather undemocratic. As far as I know, a number of countries didn't get public votes on whether they would take the Euro or not. Also, EU reps in Brussels and Strasbourg are appointed and not elected by the populace, right?

US politics are enough of a morass without trying to stay on top of other countries' swamplands... despite my fondness for most of the "old world" countries.

I can't hold it any more and made a decision to act. B.Caapi., P. Virdis, D.cabrerana, M. Hostilis, and part of the body of the any mushroom that conatins Psilocybin or Psylocin, T. Pachanoi L. Williamsi and all kinds of extracts or brew from mentioned above are illegal since 05.02.2011.
At first i investigated that changes to the list of the controlled substances are made by the Cabinet of the Ministry of Ukraine on proposal from Ministry of Health. So today i wrote a request to the CabMin that I was given a copy of that proposal, by which they made plants illegal.
After they give me that paper i plan to send a request to the person who had signed it and ask for conclusions of the expert committee or something which gave them a reason to do so.
Maybe after that will go to the administrative Court.
Also i made a community in the local social net where advocate entheogens and give information on them: today wrote a note about what is a difference beetwen 'narcotics' and 'pschoactive substance' and also translated as much as i can a Joe Rogan podcast on DMT.
And as this network supports video content hosting up to 2GB per file also added a transleted (in which i participated also) DMT: The Spirit Molecule movie and some Terence McKena interview.

I will make this out or fucking change the country of residence.

p.s. not care about cannabis(not smoking and agree with Hyperspace Fool, it is other territory and energy and we must not must be tighted by it) or mushrooms (growing is easy), only cacti and dmt.

That is exactly as I see it too. Pagan hippy freak, I like that Can I use it in a lyric? Just listened incidentally to CSNY's 'Almost Cut My Hair', that contains the phrase "letting my freak flag fly'. Strange how these things come together sometime.

Anyway. It is a cop out. We should not have to backed into a corner of religious framework in order to celebrate our lives and freedoms.

It is my opinion that religion seeks a monopoly on spirituality. They will never accept competition.

Same here.
In .nl at the moment there is the issue of implementing a system of using a pass to be able to buy weed in coffeeshops. So you need a license of some sort to buy it. That means a registartion system.

And then it gets scary. I do not wish to be registered as a 'druggie'.

In this world every day there is hacking going on. Do I trust coffeeshops with my personalia? What about the security precautions of their PC? What if society changes to an even worse state - and isn't it all the time - and they demand this information to be put in some national database, for 'your own protection and think of the children'? I mention again the success of the Nazi's back in the day in rounding up Jews because on their passports it said they were Jewish.

There is a registration neurosis going on in society. And at the same time we lose more and more privacy.

So I don't see a license as a solution. It is only demanding persecution when society goes sour.

I was wondering is there a process to request that the law be changed like a paper work process with the government? Something to appear before the Senate with a case or something like that? And if there is, is anyone taking advantage of it?

If I remember correctly in business law there were certain organizations or political groups that could request such a thing, like political groups even at the level of a county? im not really familiar with how law works so...

If you could do this, the key would be to gain mass media attention with it via youtube the news whatever and have a good case.

You know what has always bothered me the most about drug laws is that there is no obligation, when drafting such a law, to set forth any kind of rationale. I personally feel it is not enough to say, "You can't do this because we said so."

I would very much like to see it specified in clear language by the authorities just what kind of harm exactly they believe is caused by a given entheogen. I mean, they start the discussion with a premise of "drugs are bad," but that premise is seldom questioned or examined. Consequently, they never have to say WHY they have taken it upon themselves to abolish something "for our own good." I am tired of this dimwitted hamhanded refusal to entertain any kind of rational discussion about the underlying logic of drug law.

I'm sure far more people die each year from eating misidentified wild mushrooms as food, than those (if any) who die from psilocybin. Why then is is perfectly okay to eat a fungus that will kill you, and a punishable offense to eat one that won't kill you?

Stuff like this just boggles my mind sometimes.

I'd like to point out something important that one of the speakers at Pyschedemia pointed out: That this idea of cognitive liberties is one viewed by those folks "actually" oppressed as bourgeois whining. Upper-middle-class white boys complaining about FINALLY reaching the limits of what society is cool with, and then looking for solidarity with discriminated peoples. I mention this not because I wish to troll, but because I care intimately about the cause being raised here, and I think to consider this perspective is crucial. When people are struggling to put food on the table, struggling that their marriages may be treated equally under the law, struggling to no longer be racially profiled, the banner of "cognitive liberty" seems elitist and bitchy. We can overcome this with personal humility, by NOT describing our fight by comparing it to the civil rights movement of the 1960s. Certainly, of course, such comparisons will HAVE to be made, in the courts, at least... But we should avoid describing events with monikers like "Our Stonewall Moment" (I've used this phrase myself), "Siting at the front of the bus", etc. You get my drift.

I read an article on NORMLs website that in the state of MI, they have a similar "licencing" system which is in no way mentioned in the medical mj law that was passed by their voters. The state charges patients $100 a year for this card, and the agency handling these licenses now has over 2 million dollar budget surplus. So the only thing this licence doing is making money for politicians who hate pot.

There's no rationale required for ANY law, TimePantry. Look at DOMA. That's "You cant do this because the Bible said so." What's the rationale for property taxes? You "own" the property (if you've paid off your mortgage, that is), but you're still required to pay the municipality "rent" for the privilege of them allowing you to own it. I'm not arguing with taxes, as I am a firm believer in a strong govt which provides services, and they have to come up with some way to have revenue to do that. However, none of it is "logical," it's more like it's "agreed upon."

Same thing with drug laws. Those in power have "agreed" that "drug are bad, mkay" and that's "reason" enough for the laws to exist. Then, those very laws are used as justification for other laws/cultural viewpoints and the castle is built up on a foundation of sand. Our job is to be the high tide which washes away the sand.