Staff Reporter Arrested on Drug Charges

Cedar: Third Eye Over Iowa Staff Reporter William Posey IV was arrested on July 12, on drug charges. The officer responsible for the arrest wrote a citation for both possession of a controlled substance and failure to have drug stamps.

     The arrest occurred roughly two miles north of the Georg von Podebrad College campus, about a mile from Posey's own home. Zoar police officer Zeke Unger spotted Posey's Saturn taking an illegal right on red, and pulled him over. Unger approached the vehicle, and was able to see a large plastic bag filled with a greenish-grey material on the front passenger seat. Unger wrote out the ticket for failure to comply with traffic regulations, then asked Posey what was in the bag. The officer reports:

     "Posey handed me the bag and told me that I could take a look for myself. I opened the Ziploc and looked inside. There must have been approximately three ounces of a fungus, composed of silver-dollar-sized nodules strung together by fibrous filaments. The stuff smelled kind of musty, but it also had a weird, rusty smell. I asked Posey what the fungus was and he said that it was a very rare derivative of some Latin name, I don't know. I asked him again and then he said that it was a drug from India, and a very unusual one at that. He said he was doing research on it for some organization of his."

     Unger took Posey downtown for further questions, suspecting that the fungus could possibly be some sort of illegal drug. He was almost right. Hand cuffed and in the back of the officer's car, Posey admitted that the drug had hallucinogenic properties as well as other effects, and that's when Unger read him his rights.

     At the station, Officer Unger was joined by Detective Rory Duerlinger in Posey's questioning. Posey was then given a chance to fully explain the fungus he was transporting. He requested that his testimony be recorded, and a portion of that recording is transcribed here:

     Yes, the fungus is hallucinogenic. I and my colleagues at the Alternate Reality Project are doing research on the psychoactive properties in some of the rarest forms of psychedelic drugs known to man. This particular sample is from the north of India. It is a relative of Amanita muscaria, also known as 'fly agaric'. If you do your research, you will find that this particular mushroom is mentioned in the Rig-Veda, a collection of Indian hymns well over 3,000 years old. The mushroom from which this fungus was derived was used in medicinal and, shall we say, Shamanistic rituals long before their use was ever recorded there. This here, though, is a new strain, and significantly different enough from A. muscaria to warrant its own scientific classification. We at the ARP have received numerous accounts from holy men and others in India that this fungus may be instrumental in preparing the mind for what we Westerners call Astral Travel. I assure you, however, that the drug is different enough from current U.S. drug classifications to render it unregulated. I am afraid that in essence you have caught me empty-handed.

     The Zoar police department ran tests on the fungus while holding Posey in custody. Next morning's results from the department and from both Georg von Podebrad chemistry and biology departments yielded just what Posey had predicted: that the fungus in question was in fact so far removed from any classification of illegal natural hallucinogens as to render it legal, as far as the law was concerned. Although the fungus was similar structurally to some hallucinogenic substances such as psilocybin and dimethyltryptamine (DMT), the compound was still foreign and quite unclassifiable. Although the authorities wished to keep Posey on drug charges anyway, they had no solid ground on which to detain him any further. Posey refused to allow any more of the fungus to be taken for further study, saying that is the authorities wanted to do more work that they'd have to go and and find their own batch.

     Posey has also noted to this magazine that he is calling the fungus I-Gazi, though he refuses to elaborate on the name until more research is done. Posey has hinted that the drug is briefly mentioned in Eudonius Silvers' Psychic Travels in the Astral Plane (Fallen Oak Press, 1978), and that he is using this book to augment his research. Posey was released from the Zoar Police Department on the morning of July 13, with the only charge filed being failure to comply with traffic laws. Posey has since paid his fine.