California ballot measure to decriminalize adult use of hallucinogenic mushrooms | Hacker News Reader

California ballot measure to decriminalize adult use of hallucinogenic mushrooms

latimes.com

161 pointsprostoalex107 comments

This will be a much harder sell to the public - cannabis legalisation had been helped by decades of "Medical Marijuana" - but there has no such inoculation of public opinion for mushrooms yet.

Under MM a voter will likely have known a friend or a relative who tried MM and had a positive impression - this was someone who did weed who wasn't a pusher, lowlife or degenerate. But of all the people I know who have done shrooms: those that aren't exactly poster-children for legalization tend to the type that are the most vocal about effecting change. In short: we need more white, middle-class, middle-aged married couples to openly talk positively about doing drugs!

Until then, I think a better proposal would be a law that strikes down the DEA's concept that drugs can "...[have] no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States." when quite the opposite is true - it damages the credibility of drug enforcement agencies to parrot these lines when there is evidence of both medicinal value and the politicalisation of prohibition (namely http://www.cnn.com/2016/03/23/politics/john-ehrlichman-richa... ).

Remove the dogma - and irrational stigma - from drug laws first, then begin more specific targeting for legalisation and regulation.

It's starting to happen, ecstasy was recently designated a "breakthrough therapy" for people with PTSD in early trials.

https://www.axios.com/ecstasy-to-treat-ptsd-fast-trackedl-24...

Right, but unlike cannabis, this is coming from the "top" down, not a popular movement on up.

starting?

MDMA was orignally used heavily in psychological experimentation in the 70s and then later became popular recreationally in the 80s

> white, middle-class, middle-aged married couples

Doesn't that describe all the hippies now? That is exactly the image that comes to mind when the topic is psychedelics.

No, the hippies aren't all white, aren't all married, and are mostly elderly (children born at the height of the movement are on the late end of middle age.)

Old people vote :)

ok your third point is a given but the other two are more archetypal than hard rules.

Fact of the day: fresh shrooms were legal in the UK up until 2005. You could buy them easily at Camden market in London for example and while I was at University around then some bright spark started offering and advertising deliveries of them to the uni and surrounding area with posters all around campus. Great fun, and no one went mad or gets violent (unlike with booze). I don't think 'sitting on your sofa listening to reggae and thinking about the mysteries of the universe' should be a crime...

LINK: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4691899.stm

I'm all for it, and this is a great example of the benefits of direct democracy.

I don't think it'll pass, but still, well done getting real drug law reform on the ballot.

> Psilocybin is considered a Schedule I drug by the California Controlled Substances Act and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency.

> These drugs have no accepted medical use and a high potential for dependence and abuse, according to the DEA. Heroin, LSD, and marijuana are in the same category.

Well, if you do psilocybin as recreation, I suppose that's "abuse". Because all good Puritans know that it's sinful to have any fun ;) But seriously, there's a risk for dependence with psilocybin? There is tolerance, in the sense that using too frequently increases the required dose. As with LSD. But, other than coming to like the experience, I can't imagine how there's a risk for dependence.

I think this actually COULD pass in California...

But this just being on the ballot will really hurt Marijuana legalization in the rest of the country. People in middle America are only afraid of pot as a gateway drug.

This ballot will prove to conservatives that once you legalize pot the floodgates are wide open.

Mushrooms seem to be even safer than pot, but I agree re the general public opinion.

Drugs aren't the problem, addiction is.

Errr..

Addiction isn't the problem, unprocessed developmental / Shock trauma is.

> Mushrooms seem to be even safer than pot

Physically perhaps.. Psychologically I'm not so sure..

They've usually been a more middle class bourgeois sort of drug - start making them one of the choices for a 'quick high' at the corner drugstore and I could see this not ending up so well - esp considering there are a lot of mentally unstable people on the streets with hampered intellect/self-control issues..

> Physically perhaps.. Psychologically I'm not so sure..

I mean, they can both give pretty unpleasant experiences when taken in too high a dose. Here's a journalist writing about their experience after eating a cannabis candy bar in Colorado[1]:

> I felt a scary shudder go through my body and brain. I barely made it from the desk to the bed, where I lay curled up in a hallucinatory state for the next eight hours. I was thirsty but couldn't move to get water. Or even turn off the lights. I was panting and paranoid, sure that when the room-service waiter knocked and I didn't answer, he'd call the police and have me arrested for being unable to handle my candy.

> I strained to remember where I was or even what I was wearing, touching my green corduroy jeans and staring at the exposed-brick wall. As my paranoia deepened, I became convinced that I had died and no one was telling me.

I don't think this justifies making psilocybin or marijuana illegal, however. I do think it justifies regulating what products get sold to people (for instance, we'd never allow something that is called hard cider and tastes like hard cider but is 80% alcohol).

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/04/opinion/dowd-dont-harsh-o...

There was a study published recently that found they were the safest recreational drug.

I haven't verified the methodology in detail, but first pass it seemed legit.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/may/23/study-halluc...

Consuming misidentified mushrooms can result in death, so I'm not sure it's safer than smoking pot. Almost certainly less addictive though.

Presumably, legalization would prevent people from rooting around the woods trying to get high and possibly eating a deadly mushroom..

However, psychedelic mushrooms are unique in their identification. All mushrooms that turn blue when you touch them are psychedelic and there is only one that I'm aware of that doesn't turn blue (fly agaric - which isn't a psylocibe).

Very good point. Also, off topic just checked you 175g.com Love the site. Also I lived in Madison for a while. Good stuff!

Thanks!

It was my first domain name I ever bought back in 2001.

Started a t-shirt business to pay for my best friend to join our frisbee team on spring break after he had been bankrupt by medical bills beating cancer. It took off a bit and paid my rent in grad school (Madison).

At some point I got scammed by Nigerians and had to shut it down due to the cash flow screwing up production.

Strangely, while at Madison it also lead to inspiring Elliot Bisnow, and me helping him launch Summit.co (along with other crazy tales like a spin off t-shirt co locking horns with a fledgling TheFacebook).

Years later I set up a printful shop with the designs as a legacy memorial, though we rarely sell many shirts now.

But I think if you play ultimate frisbee, @175g.com is the best email address domain you could want!

I live in Park Slope Brooklyn now ;)

Some notes:

1. This will have a 180 day signature gathering window, beginning soon after the California Attorney General gives it an official title and summary. It's my understanding that this window will begin within the next 65 days (I think the AG has 50+15 days to get the summary + title)

2. Signature gathering is incredibly expensive. A cost estimate for this ballot initiative would be $1-5 million just to collect enough signatures to get it on the ballot. And then either it needs to have really good initial polling (perhaps 60%+ in professionally done polls), or needs to have millions of dollars for ad spend.

3. To make this win, two things are likely needed: Firstly, comprehensive polling to figure out if this will even get the votes needed if it gets on the ballot. 60% polling would be ideal. If it polls well, then it'll need massive numbers of volunteers to collect the ~365,000 signatures from California registered voters.

If you want to help: Nothing is needed yet, unless you can directly help Kevin Saunders - though soon, signature gathering help will be needed. Once the signature gathering window starts they'll either need $1-5mm in donations, or a massive number of volunteers. If you know Kevin Saunders who proposed the initiative, perhaps encourage him to do professional polling with likely voters, as there's a possibility that it could make things worse off if it gets on the ballot and fails. Also please encourage him to reach out to groups like the Drug Policy Alliance to get their expertise, if he's open to learning from them. Contrary to how it may seem, my understanding is it's not good to have a ballot initiative make it to the ballot and fail - it would be better to not have it on the ballot at all.

Read about the process here http://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/ballot-measures/how-qualify-...

Also if you're a philanthropist with interest in this space, there's serious possibility to do good things right now, particularly given the increased democratic turnout that the 2020 Presidential election will bring - ballot initiatives for Drug Policy reform will have a one-time advantage in 2020. If you're a large donor looking for something valuable and underfunded that could make the world better, I'd suggest reaching out to Ellen from Drug Policy Alliance. If you're a large potential donor I'm also happy to help and answer questions over email based on what I know and share my notes, email in profile.

Lastly, pretty exciting that drug medical research and policy news has been all over HN recently. As a commenter in another thread noted, these (i.e. MDMA, Psilocybin) are genuine examples of suppressed technologies - so it's exciting to see them progress.

As a non-US citizen, can I still participate as a volunteer in gathering votes from eligible voters?

I'm not sure: check out https://ballotpedia.org/Residency_requirements_for_petition_..., which gives some idea but not a clear answer.

Thanks for the resource, I had a brief look into the laws of California. As it is, I am not a lawyer, so don't take my word as truth.

According to California Elections Code, Sec. 102 and 2101, those circulating petitions are required:

- to be a citizen of the United States - to be at least 18 years of age or older - to be a resident of the state - to not be in prison or parole for conviction with a felony.[0]

So I think that rules out my own involvement. I'm bummed I'm excluded from participating in an activity that I want to lean about. This, despite the fact that I do, on virtue of paying taxes and actively participating in civic live, support the government and country. I should have an avenue to learn about how these institutions function in government, even if my role is strictly participatory and non-voting.

0: https://ballotpedia.org/Laws_governing_the_initiative_proces..., Section on Restrictions to circulators.

Bummer. Agreed.

This seems to be a strange one to be on the list of illegal substances. Of all the drugs which were listed in my textbook in my health class in high school, this is the only drug which I could pick in the wild. Marijuana might have grown in those areas, but someone had to go through the effort of growing the plants. There are places in the US where marijuana grows in the wild, but I don't think you can get high from it (though you still might get busted for carrying it).

Marijuana is a weed and grows easily in the wild.

To me, it's obvious that if you give unrestrained access to something and increase its availability, more people are going to use it. I'd be leery of reports that say otherwise. In fact, the current opioid epidemic is a testament to this.

Mushrooms are not for everybody. I don't want my kids using them. Should they be illegal? I don't know. I'd take them being illegal over making them easier to obtain.

On the plus side magic mushrooms generally are not habit forming. (Lots of sources out there on that.)

In my own experience I remember thinking how it felt like a nice 20 hour scenic drive. After a long drive like that I was all set for a few years before desiring to do it again. (And not purely for hedonistic reasons, either. I appreciated the "bad trips" the most!)

However they can still be misused, so one day if they are decriminalized I would hope a fair amount of education would be allowed, if not encouraged. Perhaps legitimize a qualified sitter arrangement, if feasible.

There is no reason it has to be black or white. I think you brought up a good point—that we can have requirements. We don't need to open the flood gates.

Criminal drug laws aren't stopping the opioid epidemic, and they prevent us from asking the real question: why is it that so many people prefer an opioid stupor to being productively engaged in our society?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_Park

Note the overlap between the suicide maps and the opioid overdose maps:

https://morecrows.wordpress.com/2016/05/10/unnecessariat/

People are killing themselves. Heroin and fentanyl are just tools.

What's happening in those red areas of the country? Economic collapse and social alienation.

If people want to check out and slowly (or quickly) kill themselves making drugs illegal won't stop them. They'll get them anyway or they will find other methods.

As far as mushrooms go: they are not particularly addictive. There is not and never has been a 'shroom epidemic. I highly doubt there ever will be. They can be a little bit dangerous, especially if you have latent psychological problems. They're not some kind of panacea either. But they're not really that bad and they're definitely not worth putting people in jail over.

The fear that we have of mind altering substances is totally irrational, especially when placed next to the lack of fear or stigma that we have for so many other more dangerous things. If you drop acid or 'shrooms you're a demonic criminal even though the worse you'll get is a bad trip and maybe some psychological disturbance, but if you kill yourself cave diving or rock climbing you're a hero.

Would I want my kids doing them? Not until they're adults and not without care. It would worry me a bit. It would worry me a lot more if they got a motorcycle. I see crosses and candles by the road all the time. I've never read about anyone dying from 'shrooms.

The opioid epidemic was a direct result of giving out opioids as painkillers.

A better example is smoking. You allow it, you tax it, you educate people about the dangers. Some people still smoke, but the numbers are way down.

I think you are being unfairly downvoted for your opinion. I upvoted you though I disagree.

I'd like to know, how do you feel about the legality of cigarettes and alcohol. Presumably, you don't want your kids smoking cigarettes. Would you like them to be illegal to sell?

I'm also not really sure your thoughts on availability really hold in the way you are thinking. Take for instance glue and paint. These are both widely available for getting high currently, but are rarely used to do so because people understand the negative tradeoff associated. Under your view though, it would seem you prefer these be made illegal to prevent availability?

omg tobacco is totally different from psychedelics, come on. and glue? seriously? glue has a practical purpose other than getting high. what are mushrooms good for outside of getting stoned?

There are lots of salient differences between tobacco and psychedelic mushrooms, but they are mostly of the "banning tobacco would be much more reasonable" variety. I think that was the point.

Only if you ignore cultural path dependency which has a huge impact on the utility and adverse consequences of a ban.

Laws can only be meaningfully evaluated in a concrete social context.

So what if it's only purpose is to get high?

What moral high ground do you have to say others can't get high?

Some people just know that they're right. That they have "the truth". Burroughs called it the "Right Virus". That was before we had the concept of memes.

or if paint was, like hemp, regulated to the point of de facto unavailability, leading to the use of environmentally inferior alternatives like solid wood and cotton.

Im an alcoholic and I wish alcohol would be as illegal as cocaine. I often dream of some self-registration no alcohol sale allowed list that would make it harder for me to be able to obtain it. Alcohol kills.

I've heard you can get medication that makes your body reject the alcohol? A more elaborate self-registered anti-alcohol measure.

I think you're thinking about Antabuse, which does make you sick after drinking.

There's also Naltrexone which supposedly blocks the receptors that alcohol reacts to so you don't get the "good" feeling of alcohol.

I think it's more important for people to understand WHY they're drinking though, instead of masking it or using drugs to fix it. This is probably a conversation for another thread though.

Alcohol still killed a lot when it was illegal, though, and for new reasons: On average, 1000 Americans died every year during the Prohibition from the effects of drinking tainted liquor.

I do support your idea of a list you could write yourself into. Sounds like a solution with way fewer bad consequences.

Thanks

> I'd like to know, how do you feel about the legality of cigarettes and alcohol.

I wish they were illegal. I don't see any societal benefit with cigarettes, and I don't drink alcohol so am only left to deal with its consequences.

> but are rarely used to do so because people understand the negative tradeoff associated.

I don't think the masses are good at making decisions. You have to weigh the benefits of glue and paint against the small number of people who are going to injure themselves with them. I think we've gotten along fine without psilocybin, and any societal benefits are outweighed by the problems it can cause.

I don't think mushrooms are all out bad. If they're used responsibly, they probably help you think about things in a more intelligent way. But I don't want my kids eating psychedelic mushrooms. They can be horrifying and torturous for 8+ hour stretches of time.

Just because something does social harm doesn't mean it should be illegal.

I think alcohol is a great example of this because we made it illegal and saw that the consequences of it being illegal were far worst than the consequences of it being legal.

>> I'd like to know, how do you feel about the legality of cigarettes and alcohol.

> I wish they were illegal. I don't see any societal benefit with cigarettes, and I don't drink alcohol so am only left to deal with its consequences.

Weren't the consequences much, much worse when alcohol was illegal? That was the era when the word "gangster" was invented.

> I don't think the masses are good at making decisions.

What you mean, I think, is that the masses aren't good at taking the decisions that you would take. That way lies authoritarianism.

There are elements of authoritarianism that aren't categorically bad. The example that comes to mind is Lee Kuan Yew who took the city-state of Singapore from a swamp to having one of the highest GDPs per capita through benevolent dictatorship.

Authoritarian states can be successful, for sure. But they're still immoral. Rome did really well with slaves, for centuries. Does that mean that slavery is good?

So would you rather have substances like this unregulated? Allow black market dealers to sell to minors and people who don't know what they're getting into? I'd rather have substances like this regulated, taxed, and give people who want to use substances like this a chance to be educated on how it will affect them. People are going to use this stuff regardless, how about we make it safer for those who want to partake and society around them. That's why decriminalization is a good idea.

totally agree. also not sure people should be going to jail for it (live and let live) but increasing availability by putting into every corner 7/11 is ridiculous. sometimes I think all this is happening to keep the voting public dumb and docile.

Porn, alcohol, cannabis, do you want to prohibit all that too?

I wish the Overton Window was more open to some kind of middle ground: "this isn't legal in general, but we have these tightly monitored, zero-advertising, well-trained centers where you can use the drugs". Apparently our only options are "legal for all adults" or "legal for no one".

It's not an Overton Window problem so much as a federal law problem; state decriminalization is easy and low legal risk even when it conflocts with federal law, state tight regulation is more problematic, since compliance produces evidence for federal criminal prosecution. With marijuana, there has been federal tolerance of state liberalization which somewhat mitigates that concern, but that seems less likely with mushrooms.

The Overton Window encourages factions to push extreme positions to move the middle ground of what is acceptable, but still it is the middle ground that is acceptable, not extreme positions with an excluded middle.

Nobody is suggesting prescribing mushrooms for any pain greater than a pulled muscle and covering it under insurance like we do with opioids. If I wanted an opioid recreationally, I'm pretty sure I'd have a hell of a time finding it. The opioid "epidemic" is _not in any way_ an issue of unrestrained access or availability.

That is opposite of the Portuguese experience

I disagree, but I upvoted you. In the short term (probably 3-6 months, but actually until the novelty wears off), you are correct that more people will use it. However, once the novelty wears off and people realize both the hazards and that said something will remain legal, people will lose interest. From my anecdotal experience, the temptation/desire of "forbidden fruit" has a strong correlation with the strength of the force maintaining the forbidden-ness all other things equal (e.g. equally addictive): the more forbidden something is, the more tempting/attractive it becomes. You could almost colloquially call it a "bad boy factor".

Is there any research to support this?

I don't have much information on Mushrooms personally, but shouldn't the default be that anyone is allowed to use a substance unless a case can be made that it needs to be restricted?

Given the current opioid epidemic, that exact same process of deciding when things should be restricted should be applied to opioids - but that practically gets a different treatment because there is a lot of money involved...

> unrestrained access to something and increase its availability

Nothing about decriminalizing the use of something does that. It's still illegal to sell it but people won't have a felony on their record for trying it. I don't think the drug should ruin people's lives just because they used it or had a personal use amount on them when they were driving while black/mexican/suspicious looking to a cop as they tend to get pulled over more in a vicious cycle.

I don't use them and have no real desire to but I am not a fan of 1. paying for nonviolent drug users that are in prison and 2. ruining someone's life with a felony possession charge and 3. even if they can get off without jail time and have their record expunged they are in debt to a lawyer for thousands for no really good reason.

> Nothing about decriminalizing the use of something does that.

Behavioral economics wholly disagrees with that. When you take away disincentives, you increase bad behavior like people selling, consuming, etc.

I agree with you about not ruining peoples' lives over it. Maybe a $5000 fine would be enough of a disincentive.

when Arnold signed the bill decriminalizing cannabis use there were still penalties in place... this is just moving how you punish someone for low-level drug use from jail to a monetary penalty I think.

> It's still illegal to sell it

No, under the actual measure proposed, as stated in the source article, it would no longer be illegal under state law for adults 21+ to sell it.

I was on mobile and these sites are awful to read on it so I didn't see that detail. I was going off of the bill that Arnold signed for Cannabis decriminalization that made it still an infraction to have it/use it/sell it but not lead up to a year in jail like the current system will do to a mushroom user.

I am not sure I agree with this proposal unless they make it as an infraction to buy and sell it. (not a misdemeanor and certainly not a felony)

> I was going off of the bill that Arnold signed for Cannabis decriminalization that made it still an infraction to have it/use it/sell it but not lead up to a year in jail

That never happened. A decriminalization bill passed one Assembly committee when Schwarzenegger was governor, but it didn't leave it an infraction (it had a system of commercial license for growing and selling), and neither it nor any other made it out of the legislature to his desk.

I don't particularly care if more people use it: Their loss, not mine.

If you don't want your kids using it, education rather than (attempts to bring about) eradication.

Do you mean legal/prescription opioids (Access is hardly unrestrained for (say) heroin). Psilocybin is rated "low" for dependance liability, heroin is ranked "very high".

Are they (perhaps psychedelics in general) even that dangerous. In the UK, LSD is a Class A drug despite it being responsible for (at a glance) 3 deaths in about 20 years.

That's my 2cents.

> Mushrooms are not for everybody. I don't want my kids using them. Should they be illegal? I don't know. I'd take them being illegal over making them easier to obtain.

You can say the same for marijuana and alcohol, with alcohol being worse than marijuana and psilocybin mushrooms (in terms of toxicity and violent behavior) yet being not only legal, but even culturally encouraged (see what happens when you turn down a drink at a party). Psilocybin and marijuana also have more medicinal value than alcohol.

One of the most unsettling thing about the war on drugs is that we've rejected data and embraced misinformation. In terms of addiction and toxicity, psilocybin mushrooms are fairly benign; comparing them to opioids is like comparing coffee to opioids (yet opioids are still used medicinally while psilocybin mushrooms aren't).

Your kids will do many things that you don't want.

And in any case, not wanting your kids to do X is a horrible reason for delegitimizing the use of X by everyone.

I mean, I wouldn't want my kids to BASE jump in wingsuits. But I wouldn't want to see BASE jumping or wingsuits become illegal.

Perhaps a more relevant question would be:

If you found out your kid tried mushrooms, do you think they'd deserve criminal charges and jail time?

Yes, that's an excellent question.

You are issuing a false equivalency here. The opioid epidemic is largely catalyzed by the fact that prescription rates are boosted because doctors are incentivized with money. Furthermore, opiates carry a physical dependency after long enough, creating a positive feedback loop. As a third point, the prescriptions are usually issued for those who are under intolerable pain and so the path to addiction is somewhat smoothed by the fact that they simply need to take that much of the drug to feel human again. Before you know it, you're hooked.

Psilocybin suffers none of these problems. It would be more intellectually honest to compare it to something like marijuana and its uptake in society.

Personally, I think it should be possible to take a harm-reduction test and get examined by a doctor and get a license to possess certain currently illegal substances. (Taken to it's most extreme, that would also include alcohol and nicotine) I also don't think they should be government issued either, but rather by certain regulated third parties, in order to ensure privacy.

I don't know of many places aside from china where taking drugs is illegal, normally it's just possession and sale that is. Normally, the sweet-spot for things like this is decriminalizing possession, but keeping sale illegal. Again, I think this is less than ideal, as it makes it harder to limit sale to children.

For the sake of reference, do you have a strategy to keep your kids away from other drugs? I don't have children, but I expect my plan to involve describing what each of the substances do, and why they might want to avoid them. (or wait until they're older)

Well Terence would've loved this! Anyway... Besides his stoned ape theory he might've mentioned little green elves and perhaps twenty or thirty hours of other things, all of it erudite, fractalizing, novel, and utterly fascinating. Be a lot more Terence in the world if this passed, leading mushie workshops, spinning mind-blowing yarns, experimenting with consciousness...

> These drugs have no accepted medical use and a high potential for dependence and abuse, according to the DEA. Heroin, LSD, and marijuana are in the same category.

This is a pretty absurd comparison, grouping marijuana and heroin in the same category.

It was entirely political. The Nixon administration made drugs highly illegal to badger hippies and blacks.

I'm surprised you've been downvoted so much. It's true! http://www.cnn.com/2016/03/23/politics/john-ehrlichman-richa...

Peculiar that you are being downvoted for a statement that is (a) true and (b) recently confirmed by John Ehrlichman in a huge recent article in Harpers.

https://harpers.org/archive/2016/04/legalize-it-all/

Downvoters: this is literally true. Quote from Nixon policy chief John Erlichman, also in the sibling comment's link:

"You understand what I'm saying? We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin. And then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities," Ehrlichman said. "We could arrest their leaders. raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did."

Exactly.

Fact check,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ehrlichman

Was convicted of perjury. We're supposed to believe what he says?

https://harpers.org/archive/2016/04/legalize-it-all/

Wait, it's not what he said. It's what Dan Baum said he said, 22 years after he supposedly said it, 17 years after Ehrlichman died. Since John isn't around to corroborate the story, I guess we just have to take Dan's word on it?

Not impressed.

Yes, Erlichman is known to have lied to support his political goals. The quote in question supports that claim.

A quick wiki search finds numerous clinical marijuana and LSD trials conducted in the 50's and 60's suggesting therapeutic applications. The CSA of 1970 classifies these drugs, counter to the then growing body of evidence, as having no known medicinal use.

We know that later, the CIA bought Nicaraguan cocaine specifically to sell in American black inner cities.

We know the US peddles patently absurd, fear and lie based anti-drug propaganda to school children in the form of the DARE program.

We also know, well, everything we currently know about various psychoactive substances.

The consistent thread this weaves is a bit more convincing to me than, "this politician lied about some stuff. Maybe I can't believe anything he's said?"

Methamphetamine is only Schedule II. You can buy it at Target. There's a fun video of a congressional hearing with the DEA head and a few reps hammer her on this, only to get lots of talking in circles.

You cannot buy methamphetamine at Target. The closest you can get are ephedrine-based decongestants... from the Target pharmacy.

Yes you can. Methamphetamine is used to treat ADHD under the trade name of Desoxyn.

http://www.webmd.com/drugs/2/drug-9124/desoxyn-oral/details

Yes, but you can't simply "buy it" from Target.

You can buy it in the same sense that you can simply buy cigarettes. Just the documentation requirements are different.

wouldn't amphetamine be closer? (adderal)

With ID, might I add. CVS wouldn't sell me pseudoephedrine using my foreign license, which enraged me. I had to settle for phenylephrine which is a very poor replacement. Mind you, I've bought liquor using that license and never been hassled.

I hate this war on drugs.

That shit can really screw you up. See e.g. this case right here: http://gawker.com/5941532/mma-fighter-who-ripped-friends-hea...

Sounds like we better ban alcohol, a substance much more likely to elicit violence than psilocybin.

There are different kinds of violence. Dude ripped out the heart from his friends chest while he was still alive and then cooked it. When discovered by police he didn't see anything wrong with what he did.

Going out on a limb here, but I think there may be more to the story than they both ate a couple of magic mushrooms.

Alcohol is the fourth leading cause of preventable deaths in the U.S.

I'm not advocating for or against anything here, just that alcohol is not a good example or comparison to use when arguing for some other mood-altering drug.

I've heard people have even died from caffeine overdoses [0]. We should ban coffee, soda and energy drinks while we're at it.

EDIT: While my argument is sarcasm, there's both a change.org petition to ban raw caffeine [1], along with several senators who support such a ban [2].

0: https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/south-carolina-te...

1: https://www.change.org/p/u-s-food-and-drug-administration-in...

2: http://cen.acs.org/articles/94/i18/US-senators-push-ban-caff...

Oh please that's an absurd argument. Nobody here is saying we should ban every possible dangerous thing. The question becomes what are the recreational benefits of using the drug when weighed against the possible risks and side-effects. If you're willing to present statistics that more people overdose on caffeine than cause violent crime on mushrooms, then maybe you'll have something.

People who get drunk on alcohol are super violent all the time: murdering, mutilating, and fighting each other, and getting in to car accidents where they kill a whole bunch of people -- so much that it's not usually considered newsworthy to point out any particular case of someone being drunk when they got violent.

Now, how often do people get violent from taking mushrooms? Basically almost never, which is why a news story like this gets coverage.

Of course, people can and sometimes do (non-violently) freak out on mushrooms, which is why it's important to treat them with respect, take them with a sitter under a good set and setting, and perhaps ideally under the guidance of a therapist.

You do realize that you're unquestionably believing the word of the heart ripper, right?

No actual evidence has been released regarding what happen, since the case never went to court (he took a plea).

Possession and transportation should be legalized, cultivation and sale shouldn't be. If people aren't willing to spend the time to learn how to identify them in the wild, they're probably not responsible enough to use them safely.

So the cultivation and sale should be totally unregulated? (By which I mean, status quo - it's on a DEA "schedule" and outlawed, so growth, sale, consumption all occur outside the bounds of regulation.)

I don't think psilocybin should be scheduled, and I think folks should be able to buy pure psilocybin, psilocin, 4-ACO-DMT, etc. online under the driver's license model. But I don't really see any reason for mushrooms themselves to be legal to sell, given that it's just an unknown dose of psilocybin that comes in a form that's mainly of interest for historic and spiritual reasons. It seems to me that selling mushrooms themselves should still be at least a misdemeanor and come with a substantial fine.

What do you mean by the driver's license model? Similar to buying pseudoephedrine?

The model of drug regulation that Rick Doblin advocates for, where you would need to pass a test to be able to use a certain class of substances.

http://realitysandwich.com/165390/state_psychedelic_research...

That's really interesting - I hadn't heard of it before, but it makes a lot of sense.

OK, I see what you're getting at, I think. Basically, if people have a mushrooms, protecting them from legal jeopardy.

I think the issue with this is that the acquisition of unregulated mushrooms will be no safer. Wouldn't it be safer to regulate the sale, so the contents can be specified?

I think your top comment is being interpreted as "not responsible enough to use [any form of psilocybin]" - that's how I read it until I saw this comment, which makes me think you were actually referring to dosage safety and presence of toxins.

I strongly disagree with the first interpretation: I can't imagine any connection between identifying plants and having the introspection and self-criticality to know if, when and how much of a psychoactive substance to use. But I agree on the dosage/toxicity aspect. Way more stochastic than what your everyday recreational alcohol or marijuana user is probably used to.

> I can't imagine any connection between identifying plants and having the introspection and self-criticality to know if, when and how much of a psychoactive substance to use.

So the precedent I'd cite is with Hindu ashrams, where they're not going to impart any sort of esoteric spiritual training unless you're already brushing your teeth every day, keeping your room tidy, can hold a job, etc. The connection is that a lot of the higher-level practices can be profoundly destabilizing, so ensuring that people are continually performing the baseline tasks necessary to be a semi-functional adult is a good way to reduce the likelihood of people completely losing their shit.

With mushroom identification you need to join a community of likeminded people, put in the time needed to learn, scout the correct terrain, go to the right place during the right weather conditions, etc. It's not super complicated, but it's a good baseline to weed out the sort of people who become statistics after eating a handful of random drugs without knowing what they are, the dosage, the expected effects, etc.

Whether it's making people pass a driver's license type test, making them identify the plants or fungi in the wild, making them extract or synthesize the substances themselves, etc., I think the best drug policy is policy that allows anyone to consume any substance but which discourages people from impulsively swallowing handfuls of random stuff.

I don't see any connection between safe identification and safe use.

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