Jan

4

Should toad ownership be a criminal act in the USA?

Filed Under Bufo Alvarius stories | 

We see in a report offered by the Associated Press that concern is rising in the USA about Bufo alvarius, our friend the Sonoran Desert Toad. “Law enforcement authories,” The A.P. says, “have discovered that people are willing to go to great lengths to get high.”

The fact that the establishment is only now discovering that people are willing to expend a lot of effort to get a buzz on may go a long way to explain the miserable failure of hallucinogen prohibition in the United States. Does nobody in the D.E.A. remember Donovan’s prediction that “Electrical banana is going to be the very next craze?”

Many reports are now being published about how bufotenine is a psychedelic substance that can be obtained from Bufo alvarius toads, and that governments are trying to regulate Sonoran Desert toads, also called Colorado River toads.

A few months ago in Kansas City, a man was charged with the posession of a controlled substance when he was found to be the owner of a Bufo alvarius toad. According to Daniel White, the Clay County Prosecutor, the fact of owning a toad is not illegal, but possession for the intent of getting high from its venom was not legal.

White was quoted as saying, “It’s sort of New Age way to get high. You convince yourself it is OK because it is something you get naturally from our environment.

“There are a lot of things that are created naturally but they are still not legal,” he reportedly said.

Of course this begs the question of why things suddenly become illegal, as alcohol did during prohibition in the ’20s. One day alcohol was fine, and then, with the stroke of a lawmaker’s pen, drinking was a criminal act. Once it was seen that prohibition was an utter disaster, and it only encouraged criminal activities, it was repealed.

Soon, one hopes, the prohibition of other natural, psychoactive materials will also be repealed. When this happens, dealing drugs will become less profitable, and many of the problems associated with, for example, hydroponic cannabis cultivation, will be eliminated.

Until then, Bufo alvarius owners, enjoy your pets for companionship purposes only, and be careful to hide any instructional material you may have about the best way to dry and smoke its potent venom.

We are both amused and cheered by the remarks of Jacob Sullum in his December 5, 2007 blog when he wrote:

“Evidently God committed some serious felonies when He created all those psychoactive plants and animals. Manufacturing with intent to distribute on such a massive scale probably would trigger a life sentence even for Him.”

Thank you, Mr. Sullum, and congratulations for injecting a long-overdue dose of sensibility into the foolishness and stupidity of the so-called War on Drugs in the United States of America.

When someone declares war on ignorance, greed or callous disregard for human rights, let me know and I will enlist.

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