I'm sure this has been addressed before, and better, but I'd like to state the following:

The fact that hoasca is allowed to be drunk by religious groups such as the Uniao do Vegetal and Santo Daime but not by non-religious people ... this isn't fair.

We all deserve to be treated equally by the law, no? Yet it's not so. Religious groups think that a man in the sky wants them to drink a magic tea -- and so the government lets them drink. More grounded people think that the tea isn't magic -- that magic doesn't exist -- but that the tea is deeply beneficial to mental health -- and the government doesn't let them drink.

Isn't it weird that the way you think determines how you're treated by the government? There's a thought test going on here. And it's extra backward because the government is almost encouraging people to think magically. Think magically ... get special rights. Think in terms of evidence ... get shut down.

Life isn't particularly fair...

You could be getting incendiary ordinance dropped on you by a drone.
You could be struggling to find potable water.
You could be unable to eat with regularity.
You could be worse off in a million ways.

"The law" has never provided equal treatment. That's not what it's there for. And if that's what you're waiting for, you're gonna be waiting a looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong time.

And if you want to talk about unfairness related to government(s), ayahuasca is hardly the most damning case.

I hear your frustration, but the rant is tiring. What are you gonna do about it?

snozz has a point.
law is a corrupt joke anymore.

we see this every day.
if your rich , white and pretty, law isnt relevant.
anything goes.
^ try that being tan and poor and not hot.........

gated communities arent just to keep out rif raff,
the gates tell the law they they are out of bounds.

"What are you going to do about it?"

Well. I'd like to do something. Who is petitioning the government on this? I live in Colorado -- is there a group lobbying or working toward changing the laws? I'd like to join them. Do you guys know a group here in Colorado?

I'm sorry, but we don't spoonfeed here. You're going to have to do some research.

same thing i always do.
publish advanced open source grow teks and exhaust them slowly.

"ANNE TSU" axioms of the drug war,.......

"conflict is decided by supply and manpower"
and,
" train 10, become a sergeant , train 100 become a captian.
train 1000 become a commander , train 10,000 , become a general"
^ note above , you dont have to conflict or protest anything / anyone.
you have to TRAIN / EDUCATE.
sounds bo-ring, but its the basis of real change long term.

generally speaking, its a education / supply game.
the cannabis people bitched for yrs,
only when they democratized and flooded supply lines, did the game shift for them.
good job guys!

i dont protest, i empower people thru self supply and decentralization.

I'm not religious, but I don't begrudge religious folk having their freedoms under their faith.

I guess things are different in the states, but you shouldn't be hating the faithful for this. Instead you should be hating the government for their idiotic 'tar all drugs with the same brush' approach.

The issue isn't with Ayahuasca being legal because of somebodies religion.

The issue is with Ayahuasca being illegal, a class A substance in the UK (equivalent to schedule 1 in the US I think?).

There's obviously an extremely slow shift with drug laws, you guys in America have set the ball rolling with Marijuana legalisation. I'm sure other western countries will follow suite, perhaps other drug laws will be relaxed. But I doubt this will happen in our lifetimes. More and more substances are being banned each year, 'legal highs' being added to drug laws based on no evidence that they're bad for you. It only takes one individual to be silly with a substance and it's marked as dangerous and quickly illegalised.

There are a litany of organizations working on legalization or decriminalization, they shouldn't be particularly hard to find. LEAP, SSDP, NORML, MAPS...just to throw a few acronyms out there.

Personally, I don't think petitioning the government is particularly effective, as best case we end up seeing recuperation of formerly-criminal spaces by sociopolitical elite (e.g. while millions of drug offenders--mostly minorities and poor folks--rot in prison, well-to-do entrepreneurs are raking in the cash in the states where it has been legalized).

However, if you really feel called to doing that kind of work, start researching. I'm sure you'll find yourself with more than you could even expect to find.

Good luck!

Thanks! Marcus Aurelius said that Vivere Militare -- to live is to be a soldier.

Thanks for the acronym. There's not a perfect analog to NORML for hoasca, is there? No NORHL (Nat'l Org for Reformation of Hoasca Laws)?

I wonder if they'd let me in SSDP. I am a student -- in a community college EMT class. I wonder if that's close enough.

The CU-Boulder psychedelic club seems to be a thing. I'm hoping they'll have a meeting soon.