Taiwan Lawyer: Herb Legalization Could Help Drug Addiction

The herb is listed as a second-level drug in Taiwan. Many celebrities have been arrested over its use, yet many European and American countries have legalized it. Now doctors and lawyers have begun pushing together for legal medical access. What medical value does the plant actually have? What are its effects? Should it be legalized? This article looks at the issue from the medical, patient and legal angles to give readers a deeper understanding.

Li Jingqi, a lawyer who represented the Green Party in a legislative election, has green hair that makes people look twice. She also treats legalization as a political position. Although she was not elected, she has always called herself an herb lawyer. She specializes in herb cases and runs the podcast "Big Trouble", downloaded more than 100,000 times. In interviews she has chanted the slogan "Use the herb to save the drug addicts" and argued that a tax on it could fund treatment for other addictions. Paradoxically, Li Jingqi supports legal access, yet on her show she has shouted, "Don't touch the herb, it hurts!" She does not see this as a contradiction: "Because legalization in Taiwan still has a long way to go."

"I am talking to different people." The 31-year-old Li Jingqi talks about the herb on her show, but what she is really talking about is law, rights and culture. She admitted: "The herb is a hook, something that draws everyone in," because regular users and ordinary people alike want to know what to do when they meet a police check. Can the police request a body search? Why is the herb a second-level drug? "I was exhausted answering all of it." She laughed and said she did not want to talk about social issues when she started the show, so she made the herb her topic.

Uber rides get stopped too: a typical user's story.

On the day of our visit, Li Jingqi was about to go to the High Court to open a drug case. Her client, Mr C, is in his 30s. When the incident happened, he had returned to Taiwan from Japan and was stopped at the alcohol testing station outside the airport. The police officer said he smelled the herb coming from the car. Officers checked his luggage and found a flute that tested positive for herb residue. One of his Japanese friends had given him the flute. He was charged with second-degree drug possession, but the first-instance court found him not guilty because he might not have known about the residue in the flute. The prosecution then appealed to the second instance.

Li Jingqi points out that Mr C's experience is a typical herb case. Police can only conduct alcohol testing at an alcohol test station, and they have no authority to search a passenger's luggage. Still, officers will say "I smell the herb" or "Take it out yourself" and ask passengers to cooperate with a search. "Why use smell? Because a smell is invisible, so there is no evidence." Some officers even search illegally first and then ask the person to sign a voluntary search consent form afterwards. The people searched "consented" without understanding the law. The ghost stories Li Jingqi talks about are these bizarre enforcement encounters.

So on her program Li Jingqi teaches listeners that without a search warrant you can refuse a search, and there is no arrest on the spot; you are not a criminal. Do not sign a consent form without thinking, or you waive your rights. Li Jingqi stresses: "Enforcers must first abide by the law!" She is not trying to teach people to exploit loopholes, she says, but to tell them what rights they have and how the Criminal Procedure Law and the Act on the Exercise of Police Powers restrain the power of the state.

Li Jingqi also explains the law. "If the plant grows to 5 cm, that is the crime of cultivating it. Cultivation carries a fixed term of more than five years, while manufacturing a second-level drug carries a fixed term of more than seven years. That sounds reasonable, but manufacturing a second-level drug has a special commutation rule for confession and sentence reduction. Planting has no such rule, so a sentence of more than seven years cannot be reduced to two years, and it cannot be suspended." Shortly after she said this, the judiciary declared that the minimum five-year sentence for cultivation was unconstitutional. Advocates saw it as a milestone, but Li Jingqi believed it was only the beginning.

First experience with the herb: understanding the mindset of users

Li Jingqi first tried the herb many years ago, when she went to a Dutch coffee shop with a friend and spent six euros on herb cigarettes. "It is a bit like feeling slightly drunk, very relaxing." The herb also made her lose her sense of boundaries. "People are usually so guarded, but after using it everyone feels like a good friend." She said that after using it she felt thirsty and hungry, and the relaxation lasted about half an hour. Although she did not feel addicted, she understood why many people in Taiwan take the risk of using it illegally.

Li Jingqi said that after returning to Taiwan, she got in touch with the rapper Yang Bin's herb case and with Taiwanese advocates who promoted legalization. The plant's compounds have many medical uses, but Taiwan's tolerance for the main active compound is only 10 ppm. Exceeding that standard classifies a product as a second-level drug, and the non-euphoric compound is also treated as a drug, with only a small amount allowed for personal use.

In the United States, however, the soothing, relaxing compound is sold as drops of health food. Because botanical products sometimes contain the active compound, U.S. rules require food-grade drops to contain less than 0.3% of it. People use the drops for symptoms such as sleep apnea.

Li Jingqi showed us various drops from her collection and explained how they are made. Some are dripped under the tongue and absorbed through the mucous membrane, and some can be taken with water. Their effect is mainly to relax and relieve stress.

Herb tax can help other addictions.

Having used the herb and herb products herself, Li Jingqi believes Taiwan does not need to live forever in the shadow of the Opium War and keep stigmatizing the plant. More than 20 states in countries such as the Netherlands, France and the United States have now legalized it. In Asia, Thailand and South Korea have opened up medical access, and even Japan is preparing to open clinics for botanical treatments. Taiwan, she says, should open its heart to this wave.

The first step should be to open up medical herbal preparations and study the plant in depth, so that everyone can judge whether its benefits outweigh its disadvantages. Once a social consensus is reached, the public can discuss decriminalizing personal use. Li Jingqi believes that would be a better path. Compared with ketamine and other chemical drugs that cause bladder shrinkage, the herb has relatively low addictive and abusive potential. If the government decriminalizes it, people who use other drugs may switch to the herb, making it a possible substitution alternative for reducing addictive substances.

Decriminalization would also free up resources in the judiciary. Li Jingqi believes that treating people who abuse addictive substances as criminals and punishing them in prison does not end an addiction. Instead, they are labelled and give up on themselves. Drug addicts, she argues, should be treated medically.

Li Jingqi goes further, proposing that the "green economy" could become a new dawn for agriculture in Taiwan. She believes Taiwan has excellent agricultural technology and biotech talent, and that the plant is a high-value crop. If Taiwan could grow it legally under strict control, the whole supply chain, including grow lamps, greenhouses, watering, harvesting, breeding and pest control equipment, would become part of the industry. Taiwan could even develop its own herb varieties, such as Formosa No. 1 and No. 2. "We must grow an agricultural product better than anyone else's."

Li Jingqi once wanted to coin a slogan: "Grow the plant, no heavy industry." She has seen how many areas of Taiwan are polluted by heavy industry, and she believes the crop's high economic value could change the island's financial structure. She said that because the plant is vulnerable to pests, an agricultural specialist once told her it should not be difficult to splice a pest-resistance gene into it. "No kidding, the whole world will want it." Li Jingqi grew more excited as she talked.

I asked her whether legalization would require heavy regulation, and whether the cost of that regulation would be lower than the cost of the current control regime. Li Jingqi said the cost could be reflected in the selling price, because illegal supply already carries a cost: the risk of being caught. One gram currently sells for about 1,000 yuan. Under a highly regulated system, the government could set prices and levy a tax on the herb, then use that tax to help people quit other addictive substances. Li Jingqi widened her eyes: "If one habit can save lives in the long run, and the herb can save people from drugs, why not?"

Li Jingqi seemed confident. She even named Chen Baiwei, a newly elected legislator from the science and technology sector known as 3Q, and called on her to fulfil a pre-election promise to support medical access. After that, she said, she would write a plan to lobby legislators. Li Jingqi stressed that the public should get to know the plant properly. Refusing to listen or talk about it only loses the opportunity for rational discussion.

Li Jingqi said she is often called a "poison lawyer" these days. She has received intimidation and threats for promoting legalization, and netizens have hacked her accounts, but her fighting spirit only grows. "I am quite happy. When you are in the spotlight, everyone wants to care about you."

Note: The herb is currently a second-level drug in Taiwan.

Manufacture, transportation and trafficking of the herb carry a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.

Transfer of the herb carries a maximum penalty of 5 years' imprisonment, and personal use carries a maximum of 3 years.

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