A Louisiana bill aims to make the production and distribution of many previously unscheduled ethnobotanicals a crime...

House Bill No. 20 from Louisiana has been introduced to control the production and distribution of many common ethnobotanicals, some hallucinogenic and some not. From Jon Hanna, of the Entheogen Review:

Strangely, in the long list of names of specific plants that they deem "hallucinogenic" and therefore not allowed to be produced, manufactured, distributed, or possessed for consumption, Trichocereus is absent. (And they have several plants listed that can't really be considered hallucinogens.) But they do nail some things like Amanita muscaria, Heimia salicfolia (sic), Atropa belladonna, Brunfelsia species, Peganum harmala, and several others that have never been targeted for restriction from consumption, since they don't contain any scheduled compounds. And Salvia divinorum is on there too. (Indeed, it seems like perhaps MOST of the plants listed don't contain any compound that is scheduled.)

My guess would be that the idea--aside from getting more specific with the names of what is illegal and the defining the terms themselves--is that someone in Louisiana wants to target entheobotanical companies (in the same way that various "research chemical" companies were recently targeted), by trying to argue that it is CLEAR that such companies are selling the products for consumption.

Perhaps The Entheogen Review should stop accepting adverts from botanical vendors. Such adverts might perhaps be used in part of the "evidence" that defines the intent of the seller. Indeed, having a copy of Pharmacotheon in your house when they kick down your door and discover that Brugmansia plant in your back yard might also be "evidence" of your intent to later eat the plant...

View full PDF copy of Louisiana House Bill No. 20