Sepher,
Actually the ban was the result of greedy UK shroom growers who got tired of buying their shrooms form the Nederlands. English sold cubes were almost 25 % more than they sold for in Amsterdam. What those dealers did was ruin the right to freely pick and consume liberty caps and cyanescens since the mid 1970s when two justices ruled that fresh shrooms were mushrooms and chemicals were chemicals so one could pick and possess libs for many years. Hundreds of thousands of pickers of libs and then the greed of a few fucked it up for everyone who, before all those stores opened, legally picked all they wanted every year. In Japan where they were legal for five years, an asshole dosed a teen fab pop star with a cup of shroom tea. He ended up in a mental ward for three weeks. You could, at the time, even purchase shrooms from vending machines in certain streets in Tokyo and they even had them along playboy and beer in vending machines at Narita airport in Tokyo. So that ended that one. Next to go was Christiana, Denmark, a hippie community in the ten to twenty thousand people where most drugs were openly sold in head shops. Then Amsterdam. I detest most of the smart shop clerks whom are described as being knowledgable in shrooms to those who want to first try them. I watched some of these mickey mouse sales kids telling fabricated tales of the effects that the different shrooms they sell to tourists have when consumed. They know shit. And every smart shop sells the same attributes and dangers of shrooms only the name on the lists they provide a customer with are different from shop to shop, but the info is the same. And those descriptions of effects, etc, are published in Spanish, English, Dutch, German, Swiss, Portuguese, and Italian and French. I have a few for Copelandia (Panaeolus) cyanescens, Sclerotia of P. tampanensis, and for Philippino strain of cubensis. The sheets say this species gives you visual wonders, the sclerotia gives one feelings of tranquility, the cubes make you feel like you are in a new wonderful dimension. What tripe.
I actually predicted two years before they would become illegal that they would become illegal as they were greedy. I responded to a thread about that very matter at Mycotopia when a new member from the UK registered and offered sales of his shrooms in London at horrible prices to people in the USA, not knowing that they are illegal here to sell. That would get someone busted and people have been busted in the US who ordered grow kits from both the UK and from Amsterdam or elsewhere in the Nederland. This is horrible, the UK prices when liberty cap pickers in the PNW still sold and still do sell today, dried ounces or fresh pounds (Approx. 1200 or more fresh libs per pound) of liberty caps for $75 to $100 dollars per dried ounce or fresh pound. That is approx. 30 doses or more per. And then we also have hundreds of pickers who just turn their friends on free and do not charge them for their shrooms. And like the UK, those who grow cubes in America charge from $20 dollars an 1/8 fresh or 3-5 grams dry and as high as $20 dollars to $40 or $50 dollars a quarter ounce dried. Or for one fresh ounce anywhere from $20 to $40. That is rediculous.
Check my site at
http://www.mushroomjohn.org
and read the United Kingdom's news collection of articles I collected since 1976. Some in the UK i present a whole front paged newspaper on several shops. There are about 800 news articles of shrooms busts from all over the world posted at my grape vine news section. Look under UK in the index page on shrooms and shroom busts.
http://www.mushroomjohn.org/news.htm
I have over 15,000 photos posted at my site, dozens ofpublished papers and books by me and other scholars, several thousand photos of shroom hunting for magic in South and Southeast Asia, etc, really great surreal psychedelic art. etc. Several books, and a field guide showing several thousands of photos of 66 of the more than 200 species known worldwide to contain psilocine/psilocybin, my book mushroom pioneers, also Psilocybian Mushroom Cultivation: A Breif History. And many more cool images all free. I sell nothing on my site and it is for those who wish to learn the truth of these shrooms without errors or bs.
mjshroomer