I bought the 'encyclopedia of psychoactive plants' book by christian raetsch from Amazon USA to europe. It arrived in Frankfurt and then came to the country Im in. Together with this book were two books on ecological and sustainable education

The parcel had been opened by customs in germany, and it came with a big bag around it and a tag that said: Goods do not meet requirement of article 9 and 10 of the contract for the foundation of the European Community.

I googled these articles and it seems its the 'rights to conscience and religion', and 'freedom of speech'


Now the funny thing is, the books arrived intact, including the encyclopedia.

What should one think of this? Just some paranoid or bored german custom officers, or maybe its signs of an european community big-brother style future dystopia? Why did the books arrive in the end, then, if they went to the trouble of putting the tag that it didnt meet the requirements? So having books about plants is not my right for freedom of speech and religion?

I don't know man... that is kinda weird. Sounds like some officers fucking with you or something.

yeah I considered that also

"These kids nowadays, with these books on evil drugs and.. well.. 'ecological' education.. They must be into these weird sects. Lets put a sticker and teach them a lesson, maybe they get scared and stop with this nonsense"


but then again.. there was a pre-made sticker already.. this must happen often then.

i can only imagine the idiot who's job is to put sticker in the packs he deems innapropriate

Welcome to the EU, blueprint for world government. just kidding (kind of...). Personally I wouldn't be worried about it no ones going to keep track of books your ordering (yet...). I find that strange SWIM is going to ask friend about this if SWIM remembers as SWIMs friend orders books about drugs all the time in the EU.

Complain to someone if you get the chance just to see what the heck it was all about.

I'm absolutely confident that there is no EU mandated censorship or ban on any form of information. According to this officer, EU laws meant to protect us citizens against all kinds of censorship do not apply to this book. I bet if you would make a case of it, wou would win.
If EU laws would not offer enough protection, then at least the german law should.
Opening someone's mail, i believe is a federal crime in germany, so the officer HAD to come up with a good excuse.
The guy violated your privacy and try's to cover his ass with this EU thing.
There is not even a slight chance this guy is right. You can buy, read, own and ship books on any topic within the EU.
If freedom of speech didn't offer enough protection then privacy laws definately would. And the guy tried to distract your attention from this fact, because he opened up your mail. And there was no legal ground giving him the right to do this, probably.

The thing is, it does say on the customs 'form' sticker from amazon that 'it is allowed to be opened by customs..

and since the book did arrive, its ok.. but still strange heh

I wonder if they actually ever do completely block some books

Customs are allowed to open any package they like. So they are also in their right to open this book-package.

Looking at Google it seems it's Amazon who's putting this stickers on the packages. It's very likely this package was opened because of that sticker. Since the content was containing only legal items there was no reason to withhold the package.

So, the problem lies partly with Amazon and partly with the lower-IQ people who invented that "contract foundation" nonsense. You can probably see it as a sort of "Explicit lyrics" warning.

thanks for the info traveler. So amazon puts the 'does not meet the requirements' sticker in the first place?! isnt that odd?