The Federal Control of Entheogens
The first federal law to comprehensively regulate entheogens was enacted in July 1965, and went into effect on February 1, 1966.1 The law, known as the Drug Abuse Control Amendments of 1965 (DACA), amended the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act by prohibiting the unregistered possession, manufacture, or sale of depressant, stimulant and hallucinogenic drugs. The law did not explicitly name the proscribed “hallucinogenic” substances. Rather, it broadly brought within its ambit any drug found to have a “hallucinogenic effect on the central nervous system.”
While the DACA included a blanket provision outlawing possession of all hallucinogenic substances, an accompanying provision carved out a large exception, permitting any person to possess hallucinogenic drugs so long as they were for his or her own personal use or the use of a member of his or her household.2
On January 18, 1966, the Commissioner of the Food and Drugs Administration published a notice in the Federal Register proposing to control seventeen drugs said to have “a potential for abuse because of their stimulant or depressant effect on the central nervous system or because of their hallucinogenic effect.”3 Explicitly enumerated as prohibited substances having “hallucinogenic effect” were: dimethyltryptamine (DMT), d-Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), mescaline, peyote,4 psilocybin, and psilocin. Effective May 17, 1966, DACA was amended to add these six “hallucinogens” to the list of federally controlled substances.5 A little over two years later in the fall of 1968, the exception for personal use was eliminated in June 1968. 6
In 1970, federal policy concerning the control of drugs was consolidated with the enactment of the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970, which took effect on October 27, 1970.7 Part II of the Act, known as the Controlled Substances Act (CSA), established a scheduling scheme whereby drugs were allocated to one of five schedules according to a checklist rating each drug’s addiction or abuse potential, medical efficacy, and medical safety. The scheduling scheme (which remains in existence today) is exclusively focused on the medical safety and efficacy of listed substances. Religious import, if any, is entirely irrelevant.
The five schedules range from “Schedule I,” containing those substances found unsafe, with a high potential for abuse, and no currently accepted medical use, to “Schedule V,” containing those substances thought to have a low potential for abuse, relatively slight potential for physical or psychological dependence, and a currently accepted medical use.8
As initially enacted, the CSA listed a total of 17 substances as “hallucinogens” all of which were declared to have “a high potential for abuse,” “no currently accepted medical use” in the USA, and “a lack of accepted safety” even under medical supervision.9 The substances were therefore placed in Schedule I — the most restrictive schedule and denoted under the subheading “hallucinogens.”10 Pursuant to the CSA, “any material, compound, mixture, or preparation, which contains any quantity of [a Schedule I substance], or which contains any of their salts, isomers, or salts of isomers” is also considered a Schedule I controlled substance. As of February 1998, the list of Schedule I “hallucinogens” had grown from the initial 17 to 31.11
Notes
1Drug Abuse Control Amendments of 1965, Pub. L. №89–74, 79 Stat. 226 (1965). Earlier federal attempts to suppress or prohibit the use of peyote have been well-documented by professors Slotkin (Slotkin 1956) and Stewart (Stewart 1987). The cases discussed up to this point, all involved state (or tribal) drug prohibition laws
2Id. (Sec. 511 ©.
331 F.R. 565 (January 18, 1966).
4As we’ve seen in the cases already discussed, a number of states had previously enacted legislation prohibiting peyote use. In 1917, Utah, Nevada and Colorado outlawed peyote use, followed, in 1923, by Arizona, Kansas, Montana, North Dakota and South Dakota. Peyote use was prohibited in Iowa in 1925, and in New Mexico and Wyoming in 1929, California in _____ (See Stewart 1987).
531 F.R. 4679 (March 19, 1966).
6Pub. L. №90–639, 82 Stat. 1361 (1968). RGB NOTE: This is worth looking at more as it is the first comprehensive criminalization of even personal possession of these drugs, and I recall that it was done in order to make it easier to arrest sellers — — and expressly not to bust simple possessors and users.
721 U.S.C. sec. 801 et seq.
8 All fifty states employ similar scheduling schemes, and similarly place the primary psychoactive sacraments in the most tightly controlled schedule.
9 The substances initially listed in Schedule I as “hallucinogenic” were: (1) 3,4-methylenedioxy amphetamine; (2) 5-methoxy-3,4-methylenedioxy amphetamine; (3) 3,4,5-trimethoxy amphetamine; (4) Bufotenine; (5) Diethyltryptamine; (6) Dimethyltryptamine; (7) 4-methyl-2,5-dimethoxyamphetamine; (8) Ibogaine; (9) Lysergic acid diethylamide; (10) Marihuana; (11) Mescaline; (12) Peyote; (13) N-ethyl-3-piperidyl nezilate; (14) N-methyl-3-piperidyl benzilate; (15) Psilocybin; (16) Psilocyn; (17) Tetrahydrocannabinols. 21 U.S.C. sec. 812, subd. (b) (1970).
10 21 U.S.C. sec. 812, subd. ©.
11 21 CFR 1308.11.
