Thomas G, the owner of the Swedish company Psychedelic Bookstore was raided by police with a search warrant on April 7, and then locked up in a jail cell for 12 days.
His company sells mainly books about entheogenics and the psychedelic experience (books
which are perfectly legal in Sweden), but as they are a part of the pro-hemp movement they also have sold items such as Swiss sweet cannabis pastilles and the german product “Knaster Hanf”
which is a smoking mixture based on hemp.
None of these products are psychoactive drugs in any sense of the word, but they do of course contain material from the cannabis plant.
This was enough for the prosecutor to charge Thomas with aggravated crime against the Swedish laws against narcotics, which has a mandatory sentence of at least 2 years in prison, and up to 10 years.
Apart from selling books and drug-free hemp products, Thomas is also the most active and visible member of the Swedish legalization movement.
There is therefore serious concern that he was raided not by mistake, but for calculated political reasons.
Web links
Psychedelic Bookstore:
http://www.psykedelbok.se/
Knaster smoking mixtures:
http://www.flashback.de/herbal/mellow.html
http://www.zentauri.de/sites/knaster.htm
Swiss cannabis pastilles:
http://www.swisscannabis.com/cannaengl.htm