Plant ban

I just read that the Australian government is planning to ban nutmeg, some plants from the violet family and datura, along with any cacti that contains the smallest amount of mescaline...and that's just a few of  thousands of plants it will be be illegal to grow or sell. Apparently it's to crack down on drug trafficking. I can't imagine who exactly traffics datura or who deals in nutmeg, and how all the gardeners who are totally oblivious to the psychoactive nature of these plants and herbs will respond to these laws, but it does expose the desperation and pettiness of governments that aspire to continue the 'war on drugs'. How do we get to this point as a species, where datura and nutmeg are prohibited and alcohol is sold on TV.

Whether or not these laws are passed is regardless, they would be impossible to enforce and would only raise awareness of the fact these otherwise benign plants and herbs can be used as psychoactives. Nutmeg is popular amongst young people with no access to anything better, datura is potentially fatal delirient with, understandably, very little human use. Go to any forum where discussion of psychedelics and other psychoactives takes place, users will occasionally discuss substances they will never use, invariably these include crystal meth, crack and datura. It is unpopular as a drug, undeserving of mainstream attention and best left to gardeners who have no intention of consuming or selling it to be consumed.

Both (nutmeg and datura) have other non-psychoactive uses, nutmeg being the most obvious and datura as an aesthetically pleasing, popular garden plant. To ban them, as well as being a violation of very basic human freedoms also shows distrust on the Australian governments behalf in its people, how popular can datura use be in Australia and who are all these people that are using it to justify a change in laws. If one case, one bad experience or one death is all it takes, why not expand prohibition to cigarettes, which are undeniably damaging on a greater and vaster scale than some cacti and garden plants will ever be. This is not to condone prohibition of tobacco but to point out the lack of logic in drug laws, which continue to allow black markets and worldwide crime.

The saddest thing is that Salvia Divinorum is also on the huge list of plants to be banned, a spiritual tool now popular with mostly young people, unaware of its power and intensity. Widespread abuse of Salvia as a juvenile party drug has bought it to mainstream recognition and made it easier to push for its prohibition. My theory has always been with no proper guidance or instruction young people will continue down a destructive path, recreational use of drugs has most popularly become an escape from day to day reality as opposed to a means of understanding it better. With no awareness or understanding of the desire to explore different states of consciousness, use becomes abuse and chemicals used for centuries as spiritual tools are held to blame. Drug abuse is our fault, our culture and lack of society is to blame, not nutmeg, not datura, not salvia and not any cactus you could care to imagine.