So far I got one cactus back. This cactus isn't even psychoactive, and in any case the alkaloid content does not matter because there is no such thing as an illegal cactus in Norway, when kept as a living decorative house plant as I was doing. While mescaline is a controlled substance, live cactus is not. I also had specimens of Lophopora williamsii (peyote) and Trichocereus pachanoi (San Pedro), which are still in police custody. These will also have to be returned to me because as much as the cops would like to destroy them and charge me with drug crimes, there is no law criminalizing live cacti at this point. You have to prepare them in some way for consumption or extract the mescaline before it becomes illegal, and I am not into that. I really mean it when I say they are only for decoration. I have been a psychonaut, to be sure, but that was many years ago and I have no interest in tripping anymore (or using any other recreational drugs including alcohol for that matter). My attitude to psychedelic drugs and the entheogens can now be summarized by this quote by Alan Watts: "When you get the message, hang up the phone." Been there, done that. I've been to both Heaven and Hell and am in no hurry to return, to say the least. These drugs are called entheogens because they generate God within. Whether the mystical experiences they unleash have any spiritual validity I cannot tell. Perhaps they are just mind states like any other. But then that applies to spiritual insights obtained by other routes also, such as meditation. I remain skeptical and agnostic, as ever. I do know that I want to live in the material world and make the most of it here and now. Eternal things can wait until they inevitably confront us (or not), and meanwhile I just want to have some pretty flowers in my living room, which is perfectly legal and harmless. This is what my peyote looks like when it flowers:
Articles about the Harlem Renaissance are apparently very suspicious and require police attention.
This is how it was presented in the case documents: "The Harlem Resisstance" [sic].
This is what your bookshelf looks like after the cops have searched through everything:
Even regular books are suspicious to the Bergen police. This is an ex-library book purchased used via Amazon Marketplace. Seized by cops because if you read about rape you must be a criminal, right?
I learned from this case that we only have as much privacy as we make, which is to say you pretty much need to keep everything digital and encrypted if you care about privacy and the cops should decide to investigate you. This calendar, for example, was analyzed to the extent of looking up my friends whose numbers were in it and discussing their criminal records in the case documents.
The police even managed to spill a jar of old coins, some of which fell into the subwoofer of my Harman Kardon Soundsticks III.
The coins are impossible to get out without breaking the subwoofer, as far as I can tell, and as long as they are there the sound is horrible.
My computer equipment has been returned. These are some of the seized hard drives. But they broke my laptop, evidently while circumventing the BIOS password protection. I expect to be reimbursed for this as well.
My explosives manuals originating from my military service are also perfectly legal, of course, and I could have demanded them back. However, when the cops asked if I could give them up as a favor, I agreed because I don't particularly need them anyway.