User:Sambc/Casey William Hardison

Casey William Hardison (b. 1971) is an American chemist and a self-described medical anthropologist who was convicted in the United Kingdom in 2005 of six offences under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 involving psychedelic drugs: three of production, two of possession, and one of exportation. He is seen as something of an exemplar for the entheogenic movement.

Background and beliefs
Hardison is committed to the idea of cognitive liberty or freedom of thought, including using psychoactive substances for conscious exploration and psychological transformation (entheogenics).

Activism and research
Hardison has been involved in research and activism, as recorded and reported by the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, an organisation conducting FDA-approved trials and studies for psychedelic research in humans, including treating posttraumatic stress disorder, pain, drug dependence, and anxiety and depression associated with end-of-life issues. Hardison has taken a leading role in workshops on entheogenic drugs, their plant sources and history. In 2008 he helped found the Drug Equality Alliance, a non-profit organization working to secure equal rights and equal protections for all drug users.

Unauthorized Activities
Hardison was engaged in the unauthorised manufacture of several psychedelic-type drugs after moving to Brighton in 2002. He had set up a laboratory in his back bedroom, and using £38,386 worth of chemical ingredients produced "hallucinogenic tablets with a value of up to £5m". It was alleged later in court that he had come to the UK in order to conduct these activities because the US has become 'too hot', and that he was seeking to make money.

Arrest
In July 2003, Hardison mailed two parcels containing MDMA, also known as ecstasy, a chemical compound that is undergoing clinical trials for use in the treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder, to the United States. The Court heard that the drugs were hidden between pages of the magazine Private Eye. Most reports indicate that the packages were opened in a routine inspection. Following communication from the US Drug Enforcement Administration, the British authorities elected to monitor Hardison until he was arrested in February 2004, at the Sanctuary Cafe in Hove, near Brighton.

In the Courts
The case represented a successful cooperation between multiple agencies from both the United States and the United Kingdom, leading to a complex court case for the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS). The case against Hardison was made more unusual by his decision to represent himself in court and argue, on human rights grounds, that "taking psychoactive drugs was an innocent act and the only crime he had committed was against the state". These issues combined to lead to the case being one of only three highlighted in the annual report of Sussex CPS.

Pre-Trial Arguments
Employing human rights based arguments, Hardison asserted his right to freedom of thought and freedom from discrimination

Hardison challenged the administration of the law itself, citing the lack of evidence and rationale for UK government decisions to control and  classify certain psychoactive drugs as more harmful than others, particularly alcohol and tobacco, under the system of classes A, B and C in the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971.

And since drug control and classification restricts liberty and determines the corresponding punishments associated with the unauthorized use, trade and/or production of a particular dangerous or otherwise harmful drug, but alcohol and tobacco are excluded, Hardison claimed he was subject to inequality under the law and discrimination.

Hardison argued that the UK government is unable to show that the regulations and sanctions associated with certain drugs are 'necessary in a democratic society', as human rights law requires.

Hardison was unable to discharge the evidencial burden on him to show a prima facie abuse of process so the judge ruled against Hardison's human rights arguments, forbidding him to put them to the jury.

Trial and Conviction
After a two-month trail in early 2005, The jury found Hardison guilty. The judge said that Hardison had knowingly and flagrantly broke UK law and that he had come to the UK to take advantage of a softer attitude to drugs, engaging in his manufacturing and supply activities intending to make financial gain. He was said to have boasted that kids in the UK were 'hungry' for a drug known as '2CI', which he was allegedly in the UK to produce. However, the prosecution were unable to prove to the jury that he had made 2C-I. He is believed to have sent some of the profits of his drug manufacturing activitie to his father, who used it to buy and refit a 33 foot trimaran sailboat.

Sentence
In April 2005, Hardison was sentenced to twenty years imprisonment in the UK for producing a variety of psychotropics, purported to be entheogenic drugs (specifically LSD, 2CB and DMT).

Appeals
On June 29th 2006 Hardison's first application for leave to appeal against conviction and his appeal against sentence to the Court of Appeal were rejected and the conviction and sentence were upheld.

He still claims the charges are a violation of his human rights and describes himself as being victim of the "chemical apartheid". Justice Kieth of the Court of Appeal was quoted as saying "This was not an amateurish operation in a garden shed. It was a sophisticated and calculated attempt to introduce synthetic drugs in the UK market, which could have reaped great financial rewards."

Hardison was refused a final appeal against sentence at the House of Lords, the highest court in the UK, and his appeal to the European Court of Human Rights also failed to get a hearing.

However, on August 13th 2009 Hardison filed a new appeal against conviction based on new evidence that the UK Government has abused the legal discretions contained within the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, particularly section 2(5), and that this abuse gives rise to severe inequality of treatment.