Attention woodworkers! Did you know that owning wood might be considered a felony? Well, neither did I, that is until today when I learned that armed Federal agents raided the facilities of Gibson Guitar in Nashville and Memphis.
Was the raid because they didn’t pay their taxes? Nope. Was Gibson employing illegal aliens i.e. unregiistered Democrats? No, again. No, silly, they were looking for wood. You can’t be serious. They were looking for wood?
Since we apparently no longer need to worry about terrorist threats, or bank robbers, or such, it’s clear that the Feds should take on the next most serious crime, the posession of illegal wood.
This seems to be because Gibson was in violation of the Lacey act, which was originally passed in 1900. The act was most recently updated in 2008 when Congress over rode President Bush’s veto.
I bring this to your attention because it appears that even the mere posession of something suspected of being one of these species could bring about seaarch, seisure, prosecution and forfeiture of the “contraband”. Could your 50 year old Guitar be seized by the Government? How about your next woodworking project?
What are the significant points of the Lacey Act amendments?
With enactment of the 2008 Farm Bill (the Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008), the Lacey Act was amended for the purpose of combating illegal logging and expanding the Lacey Act’s anti-trafficking protections to a broader set of plants and plant products. The following points and background are designed to provide a concise summary of the amendments as well as background on the Lacey Act.
v The Lacey Act now makes it unlawful to import, export, transport, sell, receive, acquire, or purchase in interstate or foreign commerce any plant, with some limited exceptions, taken in violation of the laws of a U.S. State, or any foreign law that protects plants. The Lacey Act also makes it unlawful to make or submit any false record, account or label for, or any false identification of, any plant.
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v Anyone who imports into the United States, or exports out of the United States, illegally harvested plants or products made from illegally harvested plants, including timber, as well as anyone who exports, transports, sells, receives, acquires or purchases such products in the United States, may be prosecuted. In any prosecution under the Lacey Act, the burden of proof of a violation rests on the government.
v The defendant need not be the one who violated the foreign law; the plants or timber, and the products made from the illegal plants or timber, become “tainted” even if someone else commits the foreign law violation. However, the defendant must know, or in the exercise of due care should know, about the underlying violation.
v Violations of Lacey Act provisions for timber and other plant products, as well as fish and wildlife, may be prosecuted through either civil or criminal enforcement actions. Regardless of any prosecution, the tainted plants may be seized and forfeited.