Seattle Votes to Decriminalize Psilocybin and Similar Substances | Hacker News Reader

Seattle Votes to Decriminalize Psilocybin and Similar Substances

bloomberg.com

148 pointsbryanrasmussen47 comments

This is exciting! As others have mentioned it’s important to use psychedelics in the appropriate context. These medicines are powerful tools which can really help in self examination and course-charting but like all powerful tools can also be quite chaotic in the wrong circumstances.

I’d recommend reading a bit on Erowid[0] or checking out Michael Pollan’s book How To Change Your Mind.

In general it’s important to trip with people you trust, in a safe place you are ideally somewhat familiar with, and with as open eyes about your current mental landscape (what’ve you been excited about? What’re you struggling with in your life?). Set positive intentions for your trip!

If you do find yourself wanting someone to talk to either during or after a trip, please reach out to the Fireside Project peer support line[1] (I’m a volunteer here, this is a cause and domain very dear to me)

If you do decide to trip, know that you are loved, experience is positively weird (both on and off drugs, eh?), and… welcome!

[0] https://www.erowid.org/

[1] https://firesideproject.org/

Fear of a bad trip is also something you need to control. If you're working through some stuff in your life, and you want to use psilocybin for it, you may encounter some darker things. It's important to expect this and learn what works for you to work through it. Fighting some negative energy out of fear of a bad trip makes the trip so much worse, in my experience. I also normally have some happy music queued up that I can always throw on as a lifesaver of sorts.

Framing it as "Control" or "fighting" may lead to sub-par results

Excellent advice.

Though I'd posit that simply making it legal closes down plenty of avenues for someone coming to harm from use, especially younger people.

I agree, the stigma around legality is just a breeding ground for panicky experiences. “Is that the cops?” “Do they know?” Etc.

I've always been interested in psilocybin, but am afraid to take them without some kind of guide. Where can I find someone like that. I haven't read the book, but in Michael Pollan's talks, he mentions "underground" guides for people going on a trip.

I would be wise for various organisations to start funding education on these chemicals so that a culture of sensible use can grow up around them.

Absolutely. Everybody I know who has done shrooms in a responsible manner (starting small to test tolerances, having a sober friend as spotter) has usually had a great time and never had a bad trip become a tragedy.

Also, for the love of god, don't inject shroom tea. It only becomes psychoactive if you digest it, and the spores can actually start to grow in your bloodstream which is definitely a bad time.

> Also, for the love of god, don't inject shroom tea. It only becomes psychoactive if you digest it, and the spores can actually start to grow in your bloodstream which is definitely a bad time.

I read "inject" as "ingest" at first and was like, wait isn't the point of shrooms/tea ingestion? Important distinction!

Yeah don't inject shroom tea (1). Don't inject anything that wasn't GMP prepared (by reputable companies ) (2)

1 -https://www.livescience.com/magic-mushroom-injection-case-re...

2 -https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_England_Compounding_Cent...

I’m definitely outside drug culture but do people really just inject stuff that clearly (tea!) isn’t meant for injecting?

It's fairly common to inject ground up tablets afaik. It's not that strange when considering the very variable quality of other commonly injected drugs. I never heard of injecting something like tea though, but it's not super surprising. Some people just don't care about anything.

Right, but tablets aren't...fungus.

People use horse dewormer to treat covid, it's really not surprising that they'd inject shroom juice.

If you want to learn about one case of this, there's a doctor on YouTube that does great narrative style videos of things like this that are very easy to understand with links to sources. He did a great video on this topic:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmiowRlk8Xc

An interesting tidbit I learned from that video is that psilocybin isn't known to be active, but your liver breaks it down to psilocin which is.

There is only 1 reported case that I know of. The person died when the fungus started to grow in their blood, a bad way to go.

This isn't drug culture. It is general human stupidity, ignorance, and curiosity in action.

It would be useful of the general education system would teach how the prescription model work, what criteria are used, why those exist and what a medical professional have to consider when writing out a prescription for a drug. A introduction to drug interactions and health so that individuals can make an informed decision when it comes to ingesting or injecting chemicals into their own body, taught from the perspective of science and medical knowledge.

well, better hope the ministry of education is not also berated by those guys

https://www.propublica.org/article/mckinsey-never-told-the-f...

In this case it might be better that NiH had the support role rather than FDA, especially since education and science seems to have a more similar role than administration and education.

"The city’s police will make it among their lowest priorities to arrest or prosecute anyone engaging in activities"

[1] "[Lowest] priority to arrest" doesn't imply "legal". The state laws are still on the books and you can still be arrested. (Every policy has exceptions.) [2] Police don't make prosecution decisions, DAs do.

The title says decriminalize, not legalize. Decriminalize means that in effect (in practice) the police are busy enough that it is equal to it being legal, and this policy is official.

There's a difference between decriminalized on paper, and decriminalized in practice. In practice, something can be decriminalized even though it isn't official policy.

Such an official policy is still different from legal.

IIRC in Santa Cruz drugs like cannabis have been decriminalized for a long time this way (2005?). And probably other drugs as well.

My point is that you can't rely on "decriminalize".

"in practice" means that it's still available, no matter how "official" the policy may be, when "felony disrespect" is the real issue.

That depends on your risk assessment. Everyone can do their own on that one. Here's my take:

The likelihood that you get hit by a car is probably higher than you get busted for weed in Santa Cruz. Or The Netherlands, for that matter. I am from The Netherlands. Weed is decriminalized here, too. Many Dutch rely on that, including those who got a lot to lose. Personally, I don't as of now, but I used to in the distant past before I concluded the risk for certain outcome like psychosis is not worth it. I also don't feel the urge anymore.

> The likelihood that you get hit by a car is probably higher than you get busted for weed in Santa Cruz.

Even if that's true on average, it isn't necessarily true for everyone. Different people have different risk profiles for different risks. (There are people who wouldn't be arrested for mushrooms in Seattle under the old rules even if they publically dosed a bus full of children while police watched. Meanwhile, there are people who will be arrested if they're in a crosswalk when the light turns yellow.)

Moreover, the Netherlands are not Santa Cruz or Seattle.

The risk of psychosis is higher in moderate coffee or alcohol use than it is with cannabis. The touted psychosis risk is mostly FUD: it only applies to those genetically predisposed to schizophrenia, which is such a strong predisposition that the people with those genes will develop symptoms sooner or later. They also definitely need to avoid coffee, tobacco and alcohol, but somehow there’s not so much ranting and raving going on about that.

I disagree, especially considering high THC strains. In general, coffee, tobacco and alcohol are milder. People can do stupid stuff after having too much alcohol, but I'm not sure I would consider that psychosis. Having too much THC can make someone feel a bit crazy (or maybe a lot crazy). It can even be somewhat psychedelic at higher doses, so there's just some variability there. The thing is that THC can also make people feel pretty relaxed, so they wouldn't necessarily want to go out and do something stupid, but I'm just saying that it isn't a guarantee. I think there is some risk, at least for acute episodes, and I personally don't think it's just FUD.

The claim is that THC somehow causes craziness, and it’s usually paired with claims that CBD inhibits those effects.

However, see this:

https://jcannabisresearch.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186...

> Fixed effects regressions showed that, controlling for time-invariant user characteristics, mid and high tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) levels were the primary independent predictor of increased symptom relief, and that when broken out by symptom type, this effect was only statistically significant for our largest sample of users, those reporting anxiety rather than agitation/irritability or stress. Cannabidiol (CBD) levels were generally not associated with changes in symptom intensity levels. In a minority of cannabis use sessions (< 13%), cannabis users reported anxiogenic-related negative side effects (e.g., feeling anxious, irritable, paranoid, rapid pulse, or restless), whereas in a majority of sessions (about 66%), users reported positive anxiolytic side effects (e.g., feeling chill, comfy, happy, optimistic, peaceful, or relaxed).

> higher THC levels were the strongest predictors of relief

I agree about THC being a symptom reliever. I myself don't care much for CBD, although I have heard it works for some people. Anyway, I'm just not sure I'd put cannabis in the same class as alcohol, tobacco and coffee, in terms of psychosis risk, although I don't think that cannabis should be federally illegal though either.

I wouldn’t put them in the same category either; psychosis is much more likely with those than with cannabis.

As someone with autism diagnosis who had multiple psychosis due to cannabis yet none from alcohol and coffee, I respectfully disagree.

You already stated that you are not neurotypical, so why would your anecdotal experience count in a case that concerns everyone?

Also, how can you be certain your psychoses were not caused by concommittant use of coffee/alcohol and cannabis? Especially coffee, since it contains monoamine oxidase inhibitors that are known to be stored in brain fatty tissues for months after cessation of use.

Exactly. Lowest priority means it will only get trotted out as an extra charge for additional negotiation leverage when they're throwing the book at someone they really want to screw or to give a veneer of legitimacy to a contempt of cop arrest.

The whole idea of 'throwing the book at someone' must end. Either people should be treated equally (i.e., everyone have the same book thrown at them) or the laws that most people aren't charged with ought to be removed from the books.

I'm a proponent of "single charge per case". If the cops go for the big headline grabbing charge the penalties are still plenty stiff but it removes a huge amount of the incentive for people to take bad plea deals and removes an opportunity for the cops to abusively charge people with stuff with the expectation of them wasting money, the excessive charges being dropped and the realistic ones sticking.

If someone burns a building down killing someone or a drug deal goes bad ending in a shootout then the prosecution can either pick murder or the lesser charge. Either charge will put them away long enough and if it was really a murder then adding arson or drug dealing on top doesn't really change anything but it makes it hard for the cops to charge someone with murder when the fact pattern doesn't justify that since they'll go to court and beat the charge.

This was the same legal mechanism Seattle used for cannabis for years before WA voted to legalize. Effectively it meant it was broadly treated as legal, but could be and was enforced unevenly.

They voted to reschedule it and other drugs to the lowest level of police priority. The drugs have to be “living, fresh, dried or processed plant or fungal material, including teas or powders.” I’d be curious how many arrests there are currently per year for psilocybin and other plant based drugs in Seattle? How significant a change is this?

This seems like a step in the right direction. It'll help a lot of people deal with mental health issues.

Or just live in the area. If you know what you're looking for, you don't have to pay money for mushrooms west of the Cascades. You might not have to look past your yard. It's ridiculous to be at risk of criminal charges for posession of wild mushrooms that grow on your property.

Mate, even cannabis is illegal where I live. It's rarely enforced but still quite ridiculous. I'm not even a consumer but I know a few people who've benefitted greatly from it.

Interesting that drug decriminalization has been coincidentally in lockstep with social strife. If I were an oligarch, I might prefer people smoke weed, indulge in psychedelics, etc. if it means shifting focus away from me. Worked in the 60s.

Drug criminalization is arbitrary and a documented tool of political oppression, so decriminalization is actually the opposite of your claim. Non-addictive substances like cannabis and psilocybin have put a lot of people in jail where their criminal record can be used to deny them certain rights for the rest of their lives.

By arbitrary I mean why are chemically addictive substances like tobacco and caffeine legal? Or why is alcohol legal when it's a common aide in substance abuse? Addictiveness and abuseability are not indicators of legality.

But historians who have looked into the motivations behind criminalization of cannabis find politically motivated individuals such as Harry Anslinger who weaponized a war on drugs as part of an anti-immigrant and racist agenda.

> By arbitrary I mean why are chemically addictive substances like tobacco and caffeine legal?

If you are truly asking, then I'd say that it's because those substances were normalized and became a large part of culture before the overzealous harm considerations were broadly accepted. If something has enough popularity or momentum it's simply infeasible to outlaw, regardless of your general policies and principles. Prohibition etc.

It should also be noted that as tobacco usage is decreasing in popularity in the world, so has the law followed by making it more more illegal in places where it can. Here in Sweden it is getting taxed to death and the places where it is legal to smoke is shrinking every year. The current battle is if apartment owners can forbid renters from smoking, and once that is in place it will just be a short time before sale of nicotine is banned outside of medical prescription. Just this year a new anti-smoking law was added.

Caffeine is also getting more regulated here in terms of energy drinks. Those have gotten a similar age restrictions as alcohol. Coffee however is normalized and such a large part of the Swedish culture that any potential harm is broadly accepted as part of life. There is however a general opinion that young children should not drink it, which is first step of recognizing the effect of the substance.

> why are chemically addictive substances like tobacco and caffeine legal

I guess because they help you get up early to work an extra shift at the factory or whatever. People get nervous about drugs when they make you sleepy or appear lazy, which I'm guessing is why people hated marijuana so much. Caffeine and nicotine don't have that problem; they wake you up and make you work harder, which society sees as great.

This doesn't explain alcohol, though, I guess. They tried to ban it once but it didn't take. The problem there is probably not the level of harm, but rather how ubiquitous ethanol is. Leave some sugar water out and it turns into ethanol eventually. That's a problem for people trying to ban it.

Parent is clearly clueless on this topic (and history of Nixon vs hippies/mexicans) or trolling, but a minor distinction - weed is definitely addictive, but comparatively mildly. Probably the second mildest from all those prohibited subtances, first being shrooms/acid which actually works less the more often you use it to the point of not feeling anything if you would dose daily (or so the reports said when I was reading on it, never tested it).

Tobacco or alcohol create absolutely devastating addiction in comparison, that most people struggle to shed during their remaining lives (and more often than not fail with corresponding consequences).

Taxonomic aside: I was using addictive only in the sense of chemically addictive. I've seen substance abuse or substance dependence being used rather than overloading addiction to capture those behaviors. Is this in alignment with what you're saying? Or do you mean cannabis is chemically addictive in some way?

I genuinely don't know but would like to learn more. It's hard to search for "is X addictive" because of aforementioned definition overload.

Tobacco and alcohol have large cultural influence. Tobacco at least should be eradicated mostly and alcohol ought to generally be reduced in usage. However, those are orthogonal problems. The solution is not to embed yet more addictive, harmful substances into the culture, without any of the controls that tobacco and alcohol do. I mean, I remember seeing marijuana ads all on buses in SF and on huge billboards in Portland, whereas that would be illegal for tobacco without massive scary warnings.

i feel you, but advise you not to underestimate psychological addictiveness.

anecdote: been on a week-long hicking trip with a group of vegetarians and boy did i crave for a steak after that.

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