Effects of Plant Banning

i wanted to start this thread because I'm curious to know what impact the proposed plant banning legislation might have on the typical cactophile such as myself.

As I understand it the government is currently looking at their options. So I suppose there can be little more than speculation about the outcome at the moment.

Nonetheless this affair has already affected me personally. On the verandah I have a collection of columnar cacti. Its a mix bag - Cereus spp, Pachycereus, myrtos and some trichs. In the last few months I have had two separate visitors who have noticed the plants and said that they have seen them on TV. The last one even said 'I know why you're growing them.' ! Hopefully I cleared up any misconceptions!

More recently I have been trying to sell the house. The real estate agent has been bringing around a lot of people to look at the place. After the above experiences I was quite concerned that somebody might see the poor old columnars on the verandah and get the 'wrong idea'. So I carried them all outside and actually hid them! A couple of years ago it wouldn't have been like that.

Anyway I am still curious about what is really happening with this legislation. I guess the short answer is that its too early to tell. But I'm not good with politics, and someone probably knows more about this than I do. If they don't I'll probably just add bits as I find them out.

Sorry about the rave. I do try to keep em short!

One last thing. I asked Hellonasty if would be ok to try and start a thread like this. He said that it would be fine as long as the forum rules regarding alkaloids were observed, and if cacti were the only type of plant being discussed.

cheers

Personally, I know it will affect many people that I know. I belong to the NSW Cacti & Succulent Society, as well as the Western Districts (Sydney) Cacti Club. Many of the members own columnar cacti that either they grow as fine examples of beautiful cacti. Even more of the members have grafted cacti, rare examples or ones difficult to grow on their own root systems, and these are grafted on to some of the proposed plants for banning. If banned, will these people (many of them people in their 70's & 80's who have grown cacti for their collections for decades), be forced to destroy normal plants just because the grafting stock is banned? Is there something that we can do to make the politicians see that they would be causing more problems and grief then anything that they think they might be 'fixing'?

Frankly I don't think that there is much that we can do that will influence them. The objections seem to fall largely on deaf ears. It was possible to make submissions, but but that's closed now.

The problem, for me at least, is that no one, not even the govt, seems to know what they're planning to do. So its pretty well impossible to say what sort of impact any of this may have.

One thing I haven't heard mentioned myself is the problem of hybrids. Trichs are used to produce hybrids. Some of the famous Echinopsis hybrids produced by the Abbey Brook Nursery contain Trichocereus in their make up. Its possible that some of these beautiful hybrid Echinopsis will have also inherited aspects of Trichocereus chemical profile. Will that make them illegal?

There's a lot of grey areas. Maybe that'll be enough to discourage the government...

The way I see it the only way to do any thing about this madness is to inform your local member about the new rules because I guarantee they will know nothing about it. The biggest problem that we face with the way this is being handled now is there is no documents that I can find that break down what exactly they are going to do. This makes it very hard to inform the different clubs and associations when it is at best hearsay at the moment.

All garden and specialist clubs, associations and all voters need to start knocking on there local member of parliaments doors and demanding to be heard.

If this follows the proposed legislation that we saw last year then the people and plants that are effected are very diverse. As far as cacti go the legislation wording drags in a massive number of plants not just Trich's and Loph's.

I also believe we wont find out what has been changed until the changes are in place but it is very important that we don't just accept the changes and we make as much noise as possible until some one takes notice.

Cheers
Midlife

From my understanding the changes are already in place and all it takes now is a minister signing off on a substance or plant as being illegal if he/she feels it matches the guidelines outlined in the amendment.

http://monicabarratt.net/?p=385

Though I doubt we'll find out how it all will work untill something "real" happends, say mescaline containing plants get banned and someone gets busted for owning one. If it does go illegal I'd say one "sneaky" thing to do is make an anonymous phonecall to the police and dob Bunnings/Masters in for dealing in prohibited plants. Wesfarmers/Woolworths have money enough behind them and would do anything to clear their name in court.

Thanks for that.
I hadn't seen the actual changes. The real worrying thing with what I have read so far is the minister is to make all of the decisions. I don't like the idea of a minister making decisions on my behalf as it is let alone a minister making a ruling on what I can grow in my garden when he probably lives in a inner city flat and thinks the only ornamental plants that are worth keeping are roses because his mum grew them.

Cheers
Midlife

Yes I read some of that as well. Section 301.2 'Meaning of a controlled plant' in some thing called an Explanatory Memorandum (its on the site) sort of 'explains' it.

As far as I can tell a controlled plant is either one already listed as such by some regulation, or a plant that the minister decides should be controlled.

With so many plants being potentially involved they have to draw a line in the sand somewhere. It looks as though this may be left up to the minister's 'discretion' and then it could be done on a species by species basis.

What's that? Did you say 'the minister's misdiscretion'?

No, but I probably should have!

I'll continue to grow all the same plants I wish too as my earth based right. I dont see the big issue here. It's all fear based legislation aimed around raising revenue and another way to take away your freedoms. Humans contain alkaloids so unless you are going to ban all organic based life forms on the planet I would fear less..... Laws are just bits of paper to help screw you if your a bad naughty human!!

Screw it, here is an even better idea. all the cacti enthusiasts just need to take away the notion of being a group and become an "Earthling" then we can legally grow EVERYTHING!! It's the oldest religion on the planet rooted in tradition and culture!

For the most part I agree.

The problem is that the government doesn't really care about what you, or I, think about all this.

I suppose it'd be possible to hide them (an act which in itself is an acknowledgement of the government's power). But if they know you have them, and they decide that they want to take them, they will.

cheers

Realistically nothing will happen even if the plants are made illegal. Australia's largest cacti nurseries will not become prime targets for the authorities, but Joe Blow growing weed with a few Lophs might get done.

Considering the stories Ive heard from friends who have been raided the police dont raid with a botanist present, and so they were clueless as to what most of the plants were.

Some perspective. If your caught growing a few cannabis plants and its your first time offence you are unlikely to go to jail. So the likely hood of jail time or a fine for growing lophs, trichs or any other cacti is going to pale in comparison.

I agree with you there. A friend of mine is very paranoid about the whole thing. I keep telling him if cops ever rocked up at his house I'd be astonished if they even knew what cacti where in his collection. Even if they did know he has a broad enough collection to play the 'ignorant hobby collector' card.

Thankfully first time offences for this type of thing are laughable to say the least.