I've dealt with BBB through multiple accounts, various times, regular and wholesale.
I'm quite certain I never once received an email from Sloan telling me "Good luck selling your drugs."

He was always VERY clear that they were intended for historical and in my case financial reasons only.

I'm fairly sure he's gotta be infuriated with this whole ordeal right now.
People running around saying he intended to sale these plants for getting HIGH need to be a
little more respectful of his situation and realize that the DEA, FDA, whatever, has access to Google and
the rest of the internet just as we do.
I'm sure they'll use ANYTHING they can do try to ruin him.

Bullshit like this makes me wish I was rich.
I'd buy him the best attorneys money possible could and laugh my ass of as the prosecutors took a beat down.
Sadly, I can't so, I wish him the best of luck.

Peace.

I hope you're right Ron, but if money is running the whole damn FDA thing and the judge+jurey are close minded it might turn not out that well.

My gut feeling is that BBB will be back just as before and the FDA will lose ground on this case.

BBB is extremely popular. They are truly the Wal-mart of entheogenic plants and have a lot of support from the entheogenic community.

Kansas is the worst place for them to have a trial, but I feel the charges will be dropped, and then BBB will counter sue. This is my gut feeling.

The FDA clearly performed an illegal action. The BBB properties that were seized were done so illegally. The search warrant was actually illegal, as I understand it, so all of the evidence will be thrown out of court and the FDA has no case.

K2 is not yet banned. As I understand it, their search warrant was based on K2. That ruins the whole case, unless they can prove BBB sold mimosa and similar items specifically for ingestion and that is very difficult to prove. So I think the charges will be dropped. The FDA messed this up. And BBB is going to counter sue them after getting a ton of help from the community. You can bet BBB is getting a ton of legal advice for free from lawyers across the US that buy products from BBB all the time and are very sympathetic to the cause.

Let me tell you that if I had the resources, I’d pump a ton of money into this case. I’d personally hire several attorneys to help counter sue the FDA.

I had a question: when the charges were listed off on this thread, DMT and mescaline possession were listed as separate charges from possession of trichocereii and chacruna/MHRB/bundleflower with intent to produce. Does that mean they DID find some extracts...?

Well, here's my supportive "WoOot!" to BBB. I'll spread the word about this particular incident... things were taken a bit too far. Am I right in thinking that the FDA has approved tobacco for human consumption...? But these herbs are obviously bad enough to warrant confiscation, even when not sold for consumption? (rhetorically speaking)

Ron, K2 wasn't illegal yet under state law but if it contained RCs like JWH-018 and was packaged as a smoking blend (i.e. for human consumption) then it would fall under the FDA's jurisdiction and be prosecutable under the analogue act.

Honestly, I feel the likely best-case scenario is BBB taking a big hit on the analogue charge and hopefully getting the rest dropped, but the fact that they've opened themselves up to a drug conviction increases greatly the odds that the other charges will stick.

The tobacco companies offer a ton of dirty money to several government officials to keep their extremely unhealthy product legal. If BBB had the resources the tobacco industry has, this would never have happened. That is the sorry truth of the matter.

The sales of K2 cut down on the sales of tobacco. This is very worrisome for the tobacco industry.

You can bet that several top ranking FDA officials were paid under the table to carry out this raid to help big tobacco get rid of K2.

The main reason marijuana is illegal in the first place is because the giant tobacco and alcohol industries have grouped together to make it so. Alright. This is the truth. The FDA is a tool used by large drug manufacturers to stamp out the little guys. Tobacco is a very toxic drug, and so is alcohol. Both are far more damaging to a human than DMT, mescaline, LSA, or bufotenine. Alcohol and tobacco kill many people on a regular basis. This is a well known fact.

The FDA top officials kiss ass to big industry because they buy them houses, give them free vacations getaways, buy them boats, give them billions in untraceable cash, and do all sorts of other things to keep the top FDA (and DEA) officials happy.

It’s all about money. This is very sad, but very much the truth. This is why something as toxic as tobacco remains approved by the FDA for human use, while other things you could smoked are banned.

Once a smoking mixture gets popular enough that it eats into the profits of the big tobacco industry, the smoking mixture gets banned. This is a fact. If you look at the history of the US, you’ll see this is true.

It is just plain degusting how our FDA officials, who’s jobs are to protect us from toxic crap, are bought and sold so easily by big corporations.

I don’t know what else to say about this. Something needs to be done. Congress tried to stop this crap by passing the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994, thereby preventing the FDA from doing this to a certain level. Congress is well aware of the corruption in the FDA.

This guy 00 said BBB just wants to make money. Well, the tobacco industry is supported by the DEA and FDA and makes millions in profits and kills millions of people with their FDA approved products. If anyone just wants to make money its these guys.

The reality is that the FDA and the DEA cannot stop the tobacco industry and they know it. The FDA and the DEA are small organizations compared to the tobacco industry, and you can bet if anyone in the DEA or FDA interferes too greatly with the tobacco industries monopoly on smoking blends, someone at the DEA or FDA will be assassinated and likely their whole family as well.

Think about it a little bit. At one end we are angry at the FDA for what they are doing, but at the other end, they have NO CHOICE. If they don’t do what the tobacco industry wants…well, you get the picture. They are merely pawns in the matter. Not even the president of the US can go against the tobacco industry. It’s quite scary.

During prohibition, the alcohol industry caused so much chaos for the government that the government had to re-legalize it. Lots of government officials were assassinated. People don’t talk about this much because it is embarrassing. Alcohol prohibition nearly destroyed the US.

Don’t be fooled. The alcohol and tobacco industries are many times worse than anything BBB is capable of. BBB is a small dot compared to alcohol and tobacco industries, and the FDA is just a pawn.




I know several FDA officials are reading this thread.

Look you guys (I’m talking to the FDA officials here), try to think about what’s really important. Do you really want to keep things the way they are? There is so much corruption in your organization. I’m sure that most of you got jobs at the FDA thinking you want to help out the citizens. Protect us from poisons in our water, contaminated food, drugs that are actually damaging to people, etc. I know most of you have good intentions, and once you got your jobs and worked there for many years you started noticing the corruption. You need to do something about it. The truth is we need the FDA to function properly for the sake of human health. When the NutraSweet scandal was exposed, I’m sure a lot of you guys thought, “WOW! I had no idea how corrupt this place is at the top.” I’m sure a lot of you actually want to stop the corruption but don’t know what to do about it.

I personally don’t hate the FDA workers. I think most of you are good people. I hate the corruption at the top. It is way too corrupt at this point in time. It needs to be shut down. It’s no longer protecting people, but instead protecting big corporations. This is not the function of the FDA, and we all know it. Please (I’m still talking to the FDA officials reading this) try to do something about it. Try to fix it. Do whatever you can to fix it.

I hope congress can do something about this situation. The FDA either needs to be shut down completely or new laws need to be put in place to help stop the corruption that has ruined the FDA.

JWH-018 is not an analog of THC. It’s far too different structurally to be an analog. Anyway, for an RC to be illegal as an analog of an illegal substance, the seller must market the RC as a psychoactive drug. I believe BBB did not, so the analog act doesn’t apply. That’s my understanding, so it will be thrown out of court if tried as an analog because JWH-018 is currently legal and not an analog of anything illegal. I could be wrong though. I’m not a lawyer.

Also a smoking blend can be considered a supplement, and in that case the FDA has little jurisdiction over it. The FDA would have to prove it’s harmful before going after BBB for the product. That’s my understanding anyway. Maybe I’m wrong.

If JWH-018 is not illegal, but being sold as a drug, then it falls under the jurisdiction of the FDA. But BBB did not sell it as a drug with claimed drug benefits, I believe, so then legally, it’s not a drug, just a chemical. The smoking blend could be considered adulterated though, and BBB could be fined I think, and that’s about it.

I just don’t see enough of anything there to really prosecute BBB. JWH-018 is not illegal. BBB didn’t offer JWH-018 as a drug, and it’s not an analog of THC although some people claim it is. If you look at the structure, it’s far too dissimilar to be a THC analog.

As they used to say, “WHERE’S THE BEEF!” I just don’t see it. BBB will get out of this one. The FDA has no case unless they found extracted DMT, LSA, etc., at the business location. That would change everything.

Swim thinks you are taking a lot of leaps here 69ron. A smoking blend is to smoke, its not a suplement its there to alter your physical or mind state especially if it contains mind altering chemicals such as the synthetics that resemble THC in their activity. They can claim its not for ingestion/extraction as much as they like but when they label their site as ethnobotanicals and have a forum relating to the use of the plants they sell its pretty obvious. As screwed up and hypocritical as this whole FDA situation is swim still thinks BBB is in big trouble.

This word legal is a con as far as i can see. People are prosecuted in the name of law. Yet the only real law is the law of nature. People have ingested psychoactive substances as part of religious and spiritual practices for thousands of years. It is a birth right.

This is an attack on the freedom of the people. And the FDA need to know that this is unacceptable. Using a corrupt system under the name of law is simply unacceptable. Land of the free?
00 mentions that these were illicit drugs, and that walmart sells legal drugs. We for starters the law of man is WRONG. It has no solid ground to stand on. What are the reasons for damaging drugs to be legal? There is no good one.
It is simply the truth that the botanical's that BBB sell are not damaging, unlike many things that walmart sell. So the point about walmart selling legal drugs (making it ok to sell) and BBB selling illegal drugs is mu, in this case the law is WRONG. Just because the law states something is wrong or right does not make it so.
You need to use you own mind and think about what is right and wrong, instead of surrendering all opinion to a system that is corrupt and nonsensical.

Good luck BBB. You have a huge amount of support from real people. Spiritual and religious practitioners around the world.

To the FDA and the like, stop it. Just stop it. This is not the way to protect the people. Which i doubt is even your intention.

The state is ILL and needs to be healed.

yes, I find it extremely patronizing and infuriating to the point of heartache that these oppressive and destructive animals who masquarade as the protecters of the people have the audacity to claim they act on the peoples behalf

I just hope this is not the start of somthing more global, more catastrophic where eventially a chain of incidents lead us down the road to police state/martial law were human rights were a distant memory, but yes im sure the propaganda macine will work tirelessly to ensure that its all in our best interests of course

Was jwh-018 listed as an ingredient on the packaging for k2? I might be incorrect, as I have never bought any, but I thought that it was part of the controversy that it was a "secret ingredient" in the blend. If this is true, then it would seem that even if the chemical falls under the purview of the analog act (which is apparently controversial), BBB would not be liable for possessing or selling it.

Imagine a parallel case in which last week, coca-cola began to secretly, without putting it on the ingredients list, put cocaine into their product. Now, would every grocery store in the nation that unknowingly stocked the illicit cola be held liable and prosecuted for cocaine trafficking? Obviously not. It would plainly be the coca-cola corporation that would be liable, not the grocery stores. All the grocery stores knew was that the product gave the user a hell of a buzz, and that customers liked it, so, like any smart company, they stocked and sold the product.

Furthermore, even if the grocery stores had a good hunch that something was not quite kosher with the product they were selling, it would seem that doing their due diligence would not include anything more than reading an ingredients list of what they were buying (perhaps it would even be the responsibility of the FDA to make sure there was nothing further in the product, and prosecute the corporation that was knowingly misrepresenting their product). It would obviously be ridiculous to hold that retailers need to send every product they sell off to a lab to be analyzed for secret ingredients (especially ones that are not for human consumption).

So, if jwh-018 is in fact an ingredient that is not listed anywhere on the packaging, it seems that it would be absurd to hold retailers responsible for possessing and/or selling it. No?

Man... When I first heard about this going down I wasn't too worried, but the more information I had received about this the more upset I became. I was never really a fan of BBB, but 69ron is right. This could very well just be the beginning of even darker times. I first thought that BBB was extracting and this is why they were taken down, but now it is clear that this is not the case. All of the manufacturing charges brought against them are just for having legal plants, and this is total bullshit.

Ron you are the man and you say things very well. I am disgusted with this whole ordeal. I agree with the fact that we need to start standing up for our rights. We need to stand together and fight. I do not have the resources to organize some huge march to the jail house where our brother is kept. But i'll tell you one thing I would be one of the first people there to help the fight.

ohayoco - your idea is genius and we here in the US need to follow something like that. Lets get it going guys. Lets stop talking here and take action.

peace

Very good info about the technicalities of analogues. Obviously BBB doesn't have any K2 info anywhere, but doing some searching shows other people marketing it as aromatic incense.

Also Ron can you point me towards some additional reading on a few of the things you were talking about, specifically the gigantic kickbacks received by FDA officials and the assassinations during prohibition.

I agree with many and think that if this went to court BBB would absolutely win. They need to do this to make a point that this is not acceptable. They should then sue for return of property and damages.

Unfortunately the governments/Law enforcements new strategy is to rack up a bunch of scary charges, hang them over your head and then offer you a plea. The problem is than it gives them "right" (in there sick eyes) to do it again. I hope that BBB owner will stand up to this and fight back. I think with a good lawyer this won't even go to trail and could be used to embarrass these assholes. The charges, of drug possession, manufacturing, analogues, selling drugs for human consumption w/o FDA approval are completely unfounded as I see it currently. Although I am sure there are things that we do not know about the case. News articles are ALWAYS incorrect when it comes to law ALWAYS. So who knows what's really going on.

The fact that the FDA was there and not the DEA is very significant. I guarantee the cops asked the DEA to ride along. Which as the scum they are, likely told them there was no case of analogue act or drug possesion. So they likely went to the FDA to assist them to shut them down on the human consumption side.

Even the DEA website acknowledges that JWH-018 and JWH-073 are not analogues of THC. They are structurally diverse. There is no analogues case, this would be too difficult, my guess is they won't even attempt this case but will go for drug possession, or FDA violations both of which are complete BS charges if what the papers say are true.

Ron there is more too it than that K2 is cutting into big tobaccos profits. This is completely unfounded and sounds conspiracy theory. Not to mention ridiculous. K2 was not even well known, if anything it was cutting into marijuana's profits not tobacos. I have never met anyone who stops smoking cigarettes to smoke marijuana all day. People do both. People would still drink alcohol too. There is no history of tobacco making these things illegal, what other smoking blends have been banned. There are tons of herbal smoke blends sold at every gas station in the US....cloves are not illegal?

Also marijuana was initially made illegal for racist reasons as a means to target mexicans and other immigrants whom widely used it at the time. It is kept illegal for economic profit reason which I discuss below.

I know that these corporations do give money towards prohibition causes however they could also be doing it to look good and set the distinction of alc and nicotine not being "real drugs"... rather than they think that these other drugs cut into their profits. Prohibition does not deter use, so statistically it is unlikely to effect their profits at all either way. If anything people would see alcohol as one of the more dangerous psychoactive drug available ...although...this may effect use.. it would still be widely used as it always has been as used responsibly (as it is by many) alcohol causes no serious adverse effects. Philip Morris (who owns marlboro) actually gives money to warn about the dangers of smoking... they do this to look good not to get people to stop smoking...

Marijuana and all drugs are kept illegal because enforcing these laws is a multi BILLION dollar industry. In fact it is one of the largest industries in the world and employs thousands of thousands of people worldwide. To name a few: Prison industrial complex, judges, probation officers, forensic labs, DEA, law enforcement, urine test companies, prison building contractors, companies whom use prison labor, rehabs, drug consoling .... it just keeps going... This it what is keeping it going, these people are not going to give up their jobs. Why would they admit what they are doing is complete BS and does nothing to help society but actually makes society worse than the drugs?

Rather they say they need more money to combat the new drug K2, or (fill in name here) because your kids could use it and die. We need to take down the dealers of k2 to save the world.... we need to urine test your children for k2 use... Legal alternatives may scare them because of the law people may use these alternatives instead of illegals, and thus effecting their racket.

It is a racket, the difference between government and the mafia is just which one writes the laws... Drugs are easy money for government because these agencies have used heavy propaganda and fear tactics to make people think that if they didn't fight these things society would turn into junkies.... people actually believe this (even people on this site) even though at one point all these things were legal, used by the same % of the population and were less harmful than they are today. Yes even heroin, and crack cocaine... prohibition is worse for society than the drugs.... this is the very same reason alcohol prohibition or any other prohibition throughout history has failed

An interesting video about website FDA Abuse.

Upload date: January 21, 2010
User: FluxRostrum
Interviewee: Lloyd Wright
Company: AlternativeMedicineSolution dot com
Title: Obama FDA Goons Worse Than Bush FDA Goons: Welcome to CODEX

URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0C7fymVOV0

Bufoman, I know a lot of people who have quit smoking tobacco but continue smoking marijuana. I’ve seen several polls where people were asked if marijuana could replace tobacco as a smoking herb and the overwhelming response was yes. Look at this forum where 77.14% said yes it could:

http://www.hipforums.com...showthread.php?p=5194478

I think you’re being naive here. Marijuana, and smoking blends like K2 do eat into tobacco profits. If a teen starts smoking K2 as their very first smoking experience, and it makes them high, and it’s legal to buy, why would they start smoking tobacco? I think the likelihood of a teen turning to tobacco after having a positive experience with K2 is very small. It’s more likely for a non-smoker who has no access to K2 to begin smoking tobacco.

I am pretty confident that this is actually the tobacco industries pushing to get K2 banned, and doing so with dirty money. They want to stamp it out before it gets popular. Salvia became very popular as a smoking herb, and I’m sure the tobacco industry was partly responsible for the banning of Salvia in many parts of the world. The tobacco industry wants to maintain a monopoly.

If you think the tobacco industry does not have power over the DEA and FDA, again, I think you are naive. How else could such a toxic substance remain 100% legal despite all the tests proving it’s carcinogenic.

When the FDA finds something is carcinogenic, they ban it. But not tobacco. Think about that a little bit and maybe you’ll see why many people, not just me, believe the tobacco industry plays dirty. There is no other logical reason why the FDA would allow tobacco to be approved unless they get huge kick backs or threats from the tobacco industry. Yes this is a “conspiracy theory”, but one which is very believable to me and many other people.

The population of Hipforums is not necessarily representative of the population of the USA

That's for sure. But it does show that some people would use marijuana as a substitute for tobacco and that was the point I was making. I know many who have given up tobacco and use marijuana as a replacement for it, so this is definitely a concern for the tobacco industry.