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Comment by 627467 | Hacker News Reader

Not a naive question: why would Canada (state) need to authorize patients to consume anything?

I get that substances are regulated but we already can get legal access to substances that we shouldn't consume too much or at all (ie. spirits, tobacco, sugar, salt, bleach...) so, why would dying patients (or anyone, really) not be allowed to consume regulated mushrooms?

I get that the real problem noted in this article is not on the right of the patient to consume, but the access to it - anyone distributing mushrooms to those patients need legal coverage to do so.

Still, I find it really hard to understand why (most, yet, not all) societies are so obsessed in regulating the access and consumptions of certains things while vast majority of unregulated things can and are as deadly as those regulated.

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> Still, I find it really hard to understand why (most, yet, not all) societies are so obsessed in regulating the access and consumptions of certains things

Some things are deemed net negatives for society, we already can't trust people not to drive while high or after drinking alcohol, if anyone could buy cheap meth at Walmart I can't imagine it would be a good thing.

I'm all for legalising, or at least decriminalising, psychedelics but some people really can't be trusted to ensure their own safety and the safety of others. On top of that it's a bit like seatbelts or motorcycle helmets, some people think it's their own choice but when they crash they cost $$$ to the public health system and they're fucking over every single tax payer in the country.

I already know the rebuttal to that point "simply do it safely", well, just as some people can't drink alcohol safely, some people can't handle drugs safely. The only sensible way to legalise it would be to allow it under full medical supervision, which brings a whole other set of problems

> while vast majority of unregulated things can and are as deadly as those regulated.

If you're talking about alcohol and tobacco they're legal because they're historical and heavily lobbied. If alcohol didn't exist and someone came up with it in 2020 it wouldn't be legalised. Tbh in my opinion half the food sold in supermarkets should be as illegal as coke but that's another topic.

(By the way I always found the "if alcohol and tobacco are bad but legal then drugs should be legal" argument kind of moot, the logical conclusion would be to criminalise tobacco and alcohol rather than decriminalising everything else)

>If you're talking about alcohol and tobacco they're legal because they're historical and heavily lobbied

They're legal because experiments have shown making them illegal is more harmful to society.

They're regulated and taxed because government naturally wants to regulate and tax things and given their controversial nature there is less push-back to taxing vices.

You're right, but I still doubt neither cigarettes nor alcohol would be legal if they were invented in 2020

"...which brings a whole other set of problems"

Please expand on this point.

My understanding is that Supervised injection sites already exist, are proven to be effective and are endorsed by public health services in some cities.

https://santemontreal.qc.ca/en/public/support-and-services/s...

This story about Psilocybine is different, it's an exception about a controlled substance. Many exceptions exist for controlled substances around the world, such as methamphetamine sold under the name Desoxyn in the US, or Heroin sold as Diamorphine in the UK .

> Please expand on this point.

You need to train people to handle patients under psychedelics (both mentally and physically), that alone is quite a challenge, who has the knowledge ? I'd bet there is more knowledge on internet forums than in the scientific community right now. Some people go in really weird mental states under psychedelics, I've witnessed it several times, it's never an easy thing to deal with. I have no problem believing psychedelics can "cure" ptsd/depression, I have also no problem believing it can make them worse for some people depending on their state of mind and the trip settings.

You need to pay supervisors, an lsd trip is something like 6-12+ hours, who's going to pay ? Insurances ? How long will it take them to come up with regulations for that ? Who will have access to supervised psychedelic trips ? Dying people ? Sick people ? people with PTSD ? people with depression ? People who want to give it a try ?

What about the after glow ? Most people will feel really down in the 24-96 hours following a trip, how do you make sure they don't do anything stupid in that period ? Who's accountable if something happens (suicide, etc.) ?

People don't exaggerate when they say psychedelics can have mind shattering effects, I think we're far from wide spread medically supervised psychedelic trips.

A big reason alcohol can't be made illegal is that is ridiculously easy to make yourself. Given time sugary liquids will spontaneously start fermenting into alcohol.

Getting your hands on drugs requires connections, and those connections can be more or less viably disrupted.

If you know how to access tor you can get lsd delivered via USPS in the us. It's not anywhere as hard to get as it used to be. I'm in Berlin right now and could get lsd (and all kind of other drugs) delivered to my door in less than 2 hours, it's the same in any major EU cities.

edit: and you don't even need tor really, everything is happening through signal these days.

The current political climate is favorable for drugs. Don't mistake that for it being impossible to stop.

A determined government could attack what you just described in so many ways. By shutting down tor. By owning tor. By tracing the envelopes. By setting up fake drug markets to catch buyers. By controlling access to precursors. By looking for labs. By bribing members of these organizations (I doubt they are 1-man operations).

I question the ability of government to stop everything deemed ilegal, immoral, dangerous. A (seemingly) arbitrary line is drawn somewhere for reasons that I things goes beyond what is rational.

While psychedelic mushrooms literally grow on cow poops in many parts of the world

Won't buying meth in Walmart and misusing it be analogous to buying anything in Walmart that can be used to harm oneself or others?

You mention alcohol an tobacco but the problem I'm highlighting is: almost anything can be used to harm oneself or others. So shouldn't we be focusing on dealing with those who misuse things rather than keep adding things to a list of things one cant touch without strict supervision?

A quote from Terence McKenna, a renowned advocate for the responsible use of psychedelic plants:

“Psychedelics are illegal not because a loving government is concerned that you may jump out of a third story window. Psychedelics are illegal because they dissolve opinion structures and culturally laid down models of behaviour and information processing. They open you up to the possibility that everything you know is wrong."

The psychedelic experience can be much more intense to process and integrate afterward than the substances you mentioned.

My take on why a state needs to "allow" a person to consume anything whatsoever: this attitude has roots in cultural and religious values.

For centuries, the Christian religion sought to eradicate "witchcraft" and pagan practices in the Western world. The use of mind-altering substances in particular is commonly associated with taboos, in an anthropological sense. It's no secret that they can bring a person to visionary ecstasy, to experience heaven and hell, to see or even be God. (Subjectively, I might add.)

The history of prohibition and the legal justifications are, in my opinion, symptoms of these unconscious, generational mindset in society, heavily shaped by religion. I'm glad to see the tides change - after decades of criminalization, we're collectively gaining more understanding of the therapeutic potential of these substances.

If the state has more to regulate it will create jobs and expand it's sphere of influence.

Power tries to amass more power.

For the same reason why Canada regulates a whole array of things you might find mundane. To ideally benefit society.

For example, in Canada it is illegal to sell unenriched flour. Flour sold in Canada has to fortified with things like folic acid, riboflavin, and thiamine. Why? Because this helps contribute to Canada having one of the lowest birth defect and infant mortality rates in the world. This kind of thinking extends to regulations around food prep in restaurants, car safety, pharmaceuticals, etc...

Given the single payer health insurance that is pervasive in Canada, the government(s) are incentivized to ensure proper delivery of services and care as efficiently as possible.

Canada is far from nor will it ever be some libertarian hellhole.

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