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Bouncing Bear Botanicals, Raided

Just when I think that the United State’s  could not be more cor­rupted and incor­rect, Bounc­ing Bear Botan­i­cals was ille­gally raided. For those of you who have never heard of them, BBB is one of the Inter­nets largest herbal sup­pli­ers. Along with the raid of Bounc­ing Bear Botan­i­cals, the FDA and local police also raided another store which sold some of the same mer­chan­dise called Spir­i­tual Jour­ney. There is a lot of talk about why the raids were exe­cuted, some say it’s because the state of Kansas is cur­rently work­ing on a law to out­law a herbal smok­ing blend called K2, by raid­ing an con­fis­cat­ing the prod­uct before the law is passed to keep it from going into the black mar­ket. K2 is a new blend of herbs with appar­ently is a cannabi­noid antag­o­nist, in sim­pler words, it pro­duces the same effects of Mar­i­juana, so the gov­ern­ment wants it banned (a news story about it).

On top of los­ing over $700,000 worth of prod­ucts and prop­erty; Jon Sloan was arrested and had bond set at $906,000, and received 8 felony charges including:

1. Unlaw­ful man­u­fac­tur­ing of con­trolled sub­stances: Dimeth­lyl­trypt­a­mine (DMT)
2. Unlaw­ful man­u­fac­tur­ing of con­trolled sub­stances: Mescaline
3. Unlaw­ful man­u­fac­tur­ing of con­trolled sub­stances: Lyser­gic Acid Amide (LSA, rel­a­tive to LSD found in Morn­ing Glory and Hawai­ian Baby Woodrose Seeds)
4. Unlaw­ful cul­ti­va­tion or dis­tri­b­u­tion of con­trolled sub­stances: Mescaline
5. Unlaw­ful cul­ti­va­tion or dis­tri­b­u­tion of con­trolled sub­stances: Dimeth­lyl­trypt­a­mine (DMT); Chacruna; Illi­nois Bundle­flower; Epena; Cebil Seeds.
6. Unlaw­ful cul­ti­va­tion or dis­tri­b­u­tion of con­trolled sub­stances: Bufote­nine, Epena, Chaliponga, Cebil Seeds, Col­orado River Toads.
7. Unlaw­ful cul­ti­va­tion or dis­tri­b­u­tion of con­trolled sub­stances: Lyser­gic Acid Amide, Morn­ing Glory Seeds, Rivea Corymbosa.
8. Unlaw­ful pos­ses­sion of cer­tain drug pre­cur­sors and drug para­pher­na­lia: Plas­tic jugs and fil­ters used or intended for unlaw­ful use to man­u­fac­ture, cul­ti­vate, plant prop­a­gate, har­vest, test, ana­lyze or dis­trib­ute a con­trolled substance.

The thing that is so asi­nine about this whole sit­u­a­tion is that all of the plants, herbs toads (yes, toads) and cacti found on Bounc­ing Bear’s web­site are legal. I could per­son­ally go to Wal-Mart’s gar­den shop and buy Morn­ing Glory seeds,  I could go to an exotic pet shop and buy a Col­orado River Toad, San Pedro Catus, totally legal. Bounc­ing Bear did not sell extracts from any of these plants which he is being charged with. If grow­ing Morn­ing Glo­ries are “cul­ti­vat­ing LSA”, every gar­den­ing shop in the USA would be fined as well. Another highly accred­ited botan­i­cal shop, IAmShaman, sells a lot of the same plants the BBB does.

It is truly ridicu­lous of what the FDA spends their time on. Instead of try­ing to crack down on the guys who put chem­i­cals in herbal sup­ple­ments, they are try­ing to shut down and com­pletely screw over a guy try­ing to make a liv­ing sell­ing plants. I know that almost every plant sold on the site has some kind of psy­che­delic prop­er­ties, but they are legal, 100% legal.

The feds are really just wast­ing their time, the owner’s time and taxpayer’s dol­lars. There is no way that the charges will stick on Sloan, in my opin­ion. I do wish him the best of luck, I have always sup­ported his store and I still do to this day. The feds basi­cally froze all of his bank accounts and put him in jail to make it harder for him to present a defense. His fam­ily and co-workers are gath­er­ing dona­tions for his defense, though I don’t com­pletely agree with that. They made a lot of claims on savejon.org that are untrue to make more peo­ple donate. They say that they didn’t know that most of those plants were psy­che­delic, but if you visit the owner’s blog and web­site, he has tons of infor­ma­tion about it all. I under­stand that you need money, but lying to the peo­ple who sup­port you isn’t cool.

Tags: bbb, bouncing bear botanicals, controlled substances, drug paraphernalia, felony charges, hawaiian baby woodrose seeds, morning glory seeds, state of kansas, toads, unlawful possession