Czech Republic removes mescaline cacti from blacklist
Previously these products were on the list of prohibited plants, meaning both the cultivation and possession was illegal. Under the new legislation, simply growing a cactus is no longer considered a crime, unless it is clearly done for the purpose of ingestion. The changes were supposedly made after protests by amateur cactus growers, who had no intention of consuming their plants, but were branded criminals by Czech laws.
Whether this paves the way to more lenient drug legislation is doubtful; after the changes last week the cultivation of cannabis will be met with stricter rules. A new method for calculating the THC content will be employed, which is estimated to give a concentration that is four to five times higher than the previous method, making it much harder to grow cannabis legally.
Note: Some news items have reported that mushrooms containing psilocybin (magic mushrooms) were taken off the list as well, but user comments have reported this to be false.
Sources:
www.ceskapozice.cz
www.theweedblog.com
