Found it.

AQ vol 32, no 4, pg 289. Dec 2001.

At that point in time the new edition of the handbook was being written and
(according to this article) in the forward of the new edition there was to
be written wordage about the concern the AOS has for CITES.

" The last several years have seen growing concern with the situation
regarding orchids acquired in contravention of existing international
agreements. The American Orchid Society makes plain its intent to respect
and abide by these agreements and will not knowingly violate them.
Consequently, plants that do not conform to known parameters for legal
acquisition will not be judged or considered for any AOS award."

The Article goes on to list plants, and says the list will change from time
to time as plants are added and removed from teh list. But at the time the
list was mostly the Vietnamese paphs:

caobangense
coccineum
helenae
herrmannii
hiepii
hilmarii
mirabilie
tranlienianum
vietnamense

The article goes on to say "In order to fully conform to CITES regulations,
the prohibition extends to plants of these species raised from seed and to
any of their hybrids. This constitutes teh Society's understanding of the
legal requirements and prohibitions at this time. Additional information
will be published in teh Awards Quarterly as it becmes available. Any
questions should be referred to the Judging Committee." This was written by
James Rassman.

Again, this was written in December of 2001, and since then Antec has legal
Paph vietnamense and legal Ho Chi Minhs for sale. I suppose since the
update of Antecs Paphs weren't written up in teh AQ they can't be judged
either... JUST KIDDING!

I have to go back to work, now, but I'll look up the forward of teh Handbook
11th ed to see what they actually wrote. One could always ask if the
forward to a document is actually legislatable... but I'll leave it for now.

K Barrett
"K Barrett" wrote in message
. ..
I think that may have been in 'Orchids' I *think* Roddy Gable wrote a list
of illegal paphs. I went back through my AQs, but only 3-4 years and
couldn't find the list or policy, but know they published a list of
illegals.

K Barrett

"Al" wrote in message
...
Somebody just wrote to me to say that there is a discussion of policy or
guidelines in an old AQ someplace regarding this issue; something that
might be summarized thusly: the policy is that species described since
the 1990 ban on the importation of Paphiopedilum species cannot be judged
unless the exhibitor can provide evidence regarding the legality of the
plant in question. (you mean they have something besides pictures in
them?) I will start searching my old AQs shortly but they only go back
to about the year 2000 and they are spread all over the creation... If
anybody can find it and point me at it, I will stop banging my head on
walls at least for a little while.

There are actually quite a few knowledgeable people who either read this
newsgroup or have contact by email with people who do. There's a lot of
connection below the public chatter and I am getting quite a few
interesting emails on this topic.

"Diana Kulaga" wrote in message
...
And mo
Does anybody really read any of this crap? :-)

Um, yeah! No more head banging, Al, or we'll have to send someone in
with a wench.

Diana