CHAPTER 26: Natural Products

Plant-based drugs such as opium, cocaine and cannabis have been used since historical times and are under international control but many other natural products contain psychoactive substances few of which are widely controlled. These materials often give rise to difficulties of definition, analysis and identification, and legislatures are often reluctant to control a wider range of natural products. Even cannabis and opium and the related product of poppy straw have caused problems in this respect. Until the advent of the United Kingdom Drugs Act 2005, fungi containing psilocin and psilocybin were not in themselves controlled; a prosecution needed to show that a preparation of such fungi had been produced. In the United Kingdom, the Home Office Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs recommended that khat should not be controlled, but this advice was not accepted by the Government; since 2014 it has been a Class C controlled drug. Some plants contain N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT), a Class A controlled drug but as with fungi before 2005, it is still necessary for a prosecution to show that a defendant is in possession of a preparation; the intact plant material is not controlled.