The Australian Federal Government recently called for public comment on its draft proposal to schedule many hundreds of plant species as “controlled plants”, purportedly in order to reduce organised crime and terrorism. However, the plants in question, and especially Salvia divinorum, DMT-containing plants and mescaline-containing cacti are criminologically and epidemiologically inconsequential, as is actually acknowledged in paragraph 48 of the draft proposal itself as well as various independent studies. The vast majority of published materials on these plants (generally known as entheogens) emphasises that their primary function throughout history and across cultures has been, and will continue to be, as adjuncts to spirituality and epistemological insight.
The proposed schedule entails absolute violation of several legitimate, bona fide religious traditions that use these plants, including the Santo Daime Church, the Uniao do Vegetal (UDV), Barquinha, Vegatalismo, many forms of Curanderismo and shamanism, Jurema and the Native American Church (NAC) as well as many smaller organisations and innumerable syncretic practices all of which, as expressions of genuine beliefs, deserve respect and acknowledgment, rights which are protected under international and federal law (particularly Article 18 of the ICCPR and Section 116 of the Australian Constitution). Opposing these arguably “Natural Rights” is the Federal Criminal Code as it relates to “Serious Drug Offences”; statutes which have their origin in Australia’s International Treaty obligations. The legal complexities that emerge from these apparently conflicting laws will be elaborated with reference to anthropological approaches to law as applied to test cases from Brazil, the United States, the Netherlands, France and Australia wherein entheogenic practitioners and Churches have found themselves embroiled in legal wrangling.