California Senate Approves Bill to Legalize Psychedelics Like Psilocybin and LSD | Hacker News Reader

California Senate Approves Bill to Legalize Psychedelics Like Psilocybin and LSD

marijuanamoment.net

103 pointsAndrewBissell29 comments

The question ought not be if we should legalize these drugs (with obvious proven medical use) but rather, why were they criminalized in the first place?

"Legalize" implies we need permission from the government to control what we put into our own bodies. That doesn't really make sense in a free country.

"Decriminalize" makes more sense: it rightfully implies the government screwed up when it outlawed the substance(s) in the first place...

IMHO banning chemicals is

a) impossible from a practical level because there are infinite chemicals and no means to enforce their use

b) misguided since politicians are unqualified to assess the various technical aspects of medicinal chemistry

c) counterproductive because when something people use is banned, they turn into criminals and the end result is a black market which encourages people to ignore other laws which actually DO matter (like when folks commit murder related to drug deals -- if the drug were not criminalized, then there would be no need for a black market drug deal)

TLDR: Don't legalize it. Decriminalize it!

Those mean completely different things to me. To me legalize it means there can be no punishment for the substance. Decriminalize it means sales and distribution are still illegal, the profits are still going to organized crime.

Legalize and decriminalize already have definitions from our government and mean very different things: https://adf.org.au/talking-about-drugs/law/decriminalisation...

That same argument would work equally well with pretty much every chemical that has been banned or severely restricted, such as leaded gasoline, lead-based paint, several pesticides, several food additives, and much more.

Unless you really are arguing that government should not be able to regulate any chemicals, you need to refine your argument to contain at least some elements specific to recreational or medicinal drugs.

I believe the line the OP was drawing was between regulating how one uses chemicals personally in a manner that does not affect others (directly or indirectly), vs. how one uses chemicals generally which may affect others.

Note that you can certainly ingest chemicals for completely personal and recreational use and still adversely impact others (e.g. drinking and driving, dosing for athletic performance, neglecting childcare to get high, I had a neighbor get high once and he painted hieroglyphs on the utility box on the street which I didn't particularly care to look at nor feel like spending my time to paint over it - I could care less if he got high and trashed the inside his house asside from property value loss when he sold his home).

The examples you site (e.g. burning of gasoline and releasing byproucts into the environment, using dangerous chemicals in consumer products) are all applications that will adversely impact others and should be regulated.

Personally, while there are exceptions, I assume people are inherently good and capable of making their own decisions. So, I agree with the OP - if you're not causing any harm to others, I say do what you want.

> Don't legalize it. Decriminalize it!

Decriminalisation means you can’t be charged under criminal statute. You can still be fined.

Legalisation means reversing all the laws that were passed restricting its use, criminal and civil. If you don’t like the term “legalisation”, you could go for “unrestricting”, though that seems like a pedantic waste of political capital.

I think your viewpoint may be better served by the word "destigmatize"? In practice, the word "decriminalization" does not go as far as the word "legalization". Decriminalization only refers to removing criminal penalties, while allowing other ones to stand. Legalization refers to complete legalization (they'll most likely still regulate large-scale production like they do alcohol, tobacco, and other psychoactive substances). Ideally legalization should also come with expungement of convictions, as long as no other crimes were committed along the way (and even still, the charges directly related to the drugs themselves should still be vacated, even if there are other valid charges to hold).

The way you are using decriminalize VS legalize is explicitly different than how they are generally used. Legalize means 100 legal. Decriminalized usually means something like downgraded to a misdemeanor where it is still not technically legal but there are no major criminal consequences.

I agree with your broader point though.

My friend developed schizophrenia and killed herself after taking ayahuasca. I know a lot of people think these drugs are great but I’m much less impressed with them. I did LSD once, a microdot on my first go and while overall the experience was good it remains up there as once of the most extreme things you can do. It took me weeks afterwards to integrate the experience and I still think about what it showed me daily. If I’d have had a bad trip I think I would probably have PTSD or something close. The “jaw dropping void” my friend talks about is real, being able to place your mind almost anywhere requires a lot of care. Before doing it a friend with a lot of experience said “if things are going down a bad tunnel move your body or change/lighting/scenery/indoors/outdoors and you should come back from being trapped in the matrix”.

The research on micro-dosing seems to suggest it just makes you feel cleverer (and actually worse at tasks) and as my friend said at the end of our trip: “it’s not exactly what you can call recreational”. I agree.

I wouldn’t legalise them, not even for psychiatric work as it’s too difficult to know if they’ll help.

Yeah but we arent going to throw people in jail for having or using them now.

A separate bill will regulate retail sales and it doesnt exist yet.

I’m sad about your friend.

You seem to be making some assumptions about causation though. I can imagine other correlations there.

To make the claim that “you wouldn’t legalize them”, you’d need to make the case that prohibition and the use of state violence to police what people do with their bodies is preferred to people potentially having bad experiences.

Is pretty common for people to assume that passing a law will just make things go away. As you point out, the real world doesn't work that way.

I may would have ended my life few months later if I hadn't done ayahuasca at a familiar person

I do think there is definitly inherent risk to taking psychedelics, but in my experience of offering help/harm reduction advice for 4 years to drug users it Seems to be easier tolerable than lsd /mushroom experiences, my guess it's cause it's way more sedating for most people and more difficult to wander off in personal ways to Bad places during the experience.

I wouldn't legalize them either. , I would license them to anyone above 25 Years with a 3 +month education and exam instead.

Note, ayahuasca may be lethal for people on medicine or drugs, ayahuasca has/is a powerful maoi which should not be combined with a lot of kinds medicine (takes 4+weeks to do it safely after many of. The ssri /antipsychotics, there many more kinds which are dangerous, or can cause a overdose of that drug easily )

As a counterpoint, psilocybin forced me to make uncomfortable changes in my life in just two sessions and absolutely zero effects, also very cheap. But then it took a couple months preparing myself to do it properly and with someone. It saved my life.

I’m sorry about your friend. I don’t know anything about her so what I’ll say is in no way related to her (also ayahuasca is a different beast). One of the big warnings is that you should never take them if you took psychiatric medication last year or your family has a history of serious psychiatric problems. Another one is that you definitely have to have a proper set and setting so you have someone who supports you in case you see something that’s way too scary so you can rationalize it.

I highly recommend “How to change your mind” from Michael Pollan to understand how these things are helping a lot of people but also to understand the inherent risks. For many people it was the only thing that saved them from suicide.

> One of the big warnings is that you should never take them if you took psychiatric medication last year or your family has a history of serious psychiatric problems.

By legalizing the drug, don’t we expect the user to make these sort of judgements themselves? Who deals with the consequences of the many poor judgments that will be made (besides the poor user themselves)?

I think decriminalization, not legalization + capitalism as has happened with Marijuana, is the right choice here.

It's illegal right now but I can still get you some by tomorrow. I'm not exactly much of a drug user either.

It being illegal doesn't stop the majority of people who want it from getting it. It just makes it riskier. You don't know how strong any particular batch is going to be, you don't know if it's got anything on it that it shouldn't, and you don't feel safe going to the hospital if something goes wrong.

Add in the growing evidence of the efficacy of mushrooms for psychiatric use in controlled settings and not only are we talking about increased risk by keeping it illegal, we also can't do the research to see if and at what dosage it is potentially a lifesaving medication.

Drug prohibition is about changing addiction from being an easy choice backed by marketing (I'll take a pack of Marlboros, please) to a challenging choice that does not present itself in ordinary life. It may not stop the majority of people from getting it, if they want it - but it does reduce the number of people to whom it occurs to want it.

I understand where you're coming from with that. I'd argue that it's not terribly effective and that it does more harm in preventing research on these drugs than it helps by keeping people from using it.

I also wanted to add that psychedelics to my understanding are generally not addictive.

Legalizing doesn’t prohibit regulation.

You can legalize with requirements such as prescriptions or require sellers to ask questions and not sell to people with certain conditions.

Alcohol is legal yet regulated such that it can only be sold to people of a certain age and trust people who have a history of alcoholism or are pregnant to self regulate.

Is there evidence to suggest other drugs should be treated differently?

>One of the big warnings is that you should never take them if you took psychiatric medication last year

What business do the stable have taking psychadelics? The person in the prior story developed schizophrenia AFTER taking psychadelics.

I took SSRIs in the preceding year (not for a few months) and took psychadelics when already suicidal from personal distress. Is it not a logical progression to go from evidence based treatments to experimental ones? Do the math from the perspective of such a person taking some. You're either no longer in distress or no longer in distress. It may not even result in any net gain in suicidality in the long term, just a gain in decisiveness, an exit from limbo. The equivalent of doing a dangerous operation but on your mind.

What is completely irrational to me is people who have no such feelings risking developing a mental disorder from the strength of psychadelics. You already started out with a happy life and yet are willing to risk ruining all that and becoming suicidal. To me that seems far more reckless. I would compare it to a perfectly healthy person doing a dangerous surgery but seeing themselves as taking less risk due to lower absolute mortality. Yet the risk is actually much higher since they weren't facing death to begin with and thus had no potential to lower ones chance of mortality.

Is there even a shred of evidence that populations without a psychiatric history have better outcomes from psychadelics? I can't help but feel patronized by amateurs in psychiatric drug use.

I agree that people should definitely be careful with drugs.

You know how the ABS of your car gives you more control? If you lock the brakes, you run the risk of sliding out of control. Much better to let up on the brakes a bit and try to keep the wheels turning.

Same for laws on things like drugs. Better to have things legal but controlled, rather than illegal and untrackable/uncontrollable.

Yeah, the old trope about doing LSD and then spending a day trying not to jump out a window doesn't come from nowhere.

I still support legalization though. Adults can choose what to do with their bodies.

>the old trope about doing LSD and then spending a day trying not to jump out a window doesn't come from nowhere.

It seems that "old trope" actually came from the CIA's MKULTRA project where they were secretly dosing unwitting people with LSD:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Olson

Olson probably didn't jump out of that window by his own hand and the joke predates public awareness of MKULTRA by at least a decade. Ask some old hippies. They all have a story of that time or two they had to prevent a friend from self harm. Not saying it's the majority experience but it's a common enough minority that users should be aware of the possibility.

The funny thing is, those old hippies may well have been doing LSD that could be traced back to the CIA's efforts to flood the 60s counterculture with it. I don't think they did that -- or, more recently, that Peter Thiel is working on companies offering psychedelic therapeutics -- because they thought it would genuinely enlighten people.

I think it would be smart to be prepared for potential future backlash and the pendulum swinging the other way. Look at vaping. Or Timothy Leary.

Is there a red team approach that can help ensure we don't misstep in the momentum to overturn the drug war?

No, my opinion is that when things are out of whack, you can't solve them by creeping back to the "proper" line. You have to swing the pendulum hard and fast and go waaaay past where you think it should be. Then it will slowly swing back and forth until it ends where it should be.

Just saying that vaping and Timothy Leary don't necessarily support that enthusiasm. Do you have a counter example?

That assumes that there is a "correct" line. It's also been proven throughout history that your opinion has the opposite of the intended effect, women's rights are a good example. Trying to push the pendulum too hard too fast makes the people who support the status quo get very defensive and unwilling to compromise, so the situation can actually get even further from what you want.

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