San Francisco decriminalizes psychedelics
doubleblindmag.com
doubleblindmag.com
Also, the Grateful Dead- whose parking lots were famous as large scale drug distribution sites- went from being counterculture to establishment in some ~25-30 years (the "house band" of the Clinton administration).
We apparently live don't live in the strangest timeline, but it's definitely the trippiest one.
This is sort of just a historical dump since it’s a fascinating story: The notable death people remember is the Army officer who “jumped” out of his hotel window in NYC. Years later the Watergate investigation revealed the MKULTRA program and connected it to the Army officer’s death. CIA sort of implied “yeah we were doing stuff with LSD mind control and he went crazy,” but some (like the officer’s son) believe that is also a cover story. AFAIK the son still believes his father was going to blow the whistle on some sort of chem or bio weapon development (the father was a scientist at Fort Detrick, the US military’s bioweapon development center at the time) and he was assassinated before going public.
Anyway, the son’s theory almost seems like the most believable part of the whole MKULTRA universe.
[1] Among MKULTRA’s damage is arguably the creation of the Unabomber. Ted was an unknowing test subject at Harvard where he was basically emotionally tortured by a CIA agent posing as a fellow student. He had his beliefs — which he was always strongly identified with — systematically dismantled in order to cause emotional distress.
There was plenty of unethical psychological research going on at the time, so there's no need to assume the CIA was involved at all.
- relevant section ends at 1:01:15: https://youtu.be/4-DMH_myil8?t=1h20s
- continues for another crazy 20s: https://youtu.be/4-DMH_myil8?t=1h3m30s
Are you sure that wasn't just ergot poisoning[0]?
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ergot#Effects_on_humans,_other...
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-10996838
The way it happened doesn't really sound like classical ergot poisoning. But who knows (but them)
But American academic Professor Steven Kaplan, who published
a book in 2008 on the Pont-Saint-Esprit incident, insists
that neither ergot nor LSD could have been responsible.
Ergot contamination would not, he says, have affected only
one sack of grain in one bakery, as was claimed here. The
outbreak would have been far more widespread.
He rules out LSD on the grounds that the symptoms people
suffered, though similar, do not quite fit the drug.
That doesn't mean it didn't happen (or that the CIA wouldn't have done such a thing -- they've done much worse), but the "evidence" is pretty thin IMHO.
This is San Francisco we're talking about, psychedelics already weren't a priority for the police in any practical sense.
Supposedly one of them works with a prof at Berkeley to make their product
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Leonard_Pickard
Back then (the 90s), LSD was $2/hit.
edit, for anyone curious about 90s wholesale: "Government informant Skinner testified that Petaluma Al and the largest wholesale customers of Pickard paid 29 cents per 100 µg dose, which would put the cost at around $2.97 million for a kilogram of LSD."
edit: I'm annoyed by the math used in this quote. They couldn't say $2.9 million or "around" $3 million?
As old hippies used to tell me in the 90s, pot is 100x stronger than it was in the 60s, and LSD is 100x weaker.
"first case report documents significant improvements in mood symptoms, including reductions in mania with psychotic features, following an accidental lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) overdose, changes that have been sustained for almost 20 years."
I've met a couple people who took 100+ hits at once and survived to tell the tale. One fellow took what what was around 1000. The psychological aftershocks took him months to process, but at the time we met he was normal (well as normal as you'd expect from a person brave enough to intentionally ingest that much) and healthy.
Likely you’ve been taking something else.
Summary: 8 people at a party in SF “accidentally” (having mistook it for cocaine, as one does) snorted at least two lines each of powdered LSD. Somehow, they made it to the hospital 10 minutes later. 5 of them were in a coma by the time they were seen, and 3 had to be intubated. One person had a temperature of 107F + 200BPM pulse. One of the comatose patients discharged himself after 12 hours, and they all seemingly recovered fully. But without prompt medical care…probably not.
Conclusion: Do not snort a 1000x dose of LSD.
LSD in powder form is readily available on the black market. Expensive (because you don't just go and ask to buy only 1mg of LSD powder), but not exceptionally unsafe or rare.
Now the people who handle Fentanyl and Fentanyl analogues, those probably want to triple check their gloves and mask before putting them on.
Really? I doubt it. 1kg is about 10 million doses (@100ug each). I don't think there are enough people gobbling acid for there to be labs producing on that scale per batch. The cost of making a mistake with a batch that big would be quite high.
Edit:// having more acid than you could ever need is somewhat a novelty in this scene
IMO it's wonderful to know that this substance won't disappear anytime soon.
It's a darknet vendor btw and their name contains small mythical creatures. No personal experience with them, but I know their product and have a morbid interest for the market :)
of course, many things are not safe on the skin and that's not uniquely dangerous, really
For a thumbprint, you still put your thumb on your tongue and lick it. But it's important to keep in mind that only very rarely have people actually done thumbprints. Those are mostly stories, legends, and artistic works of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take them as fact.
We would routinely put this to the test.
Not only is it absorbed through the skin, but it takes longer to start and end the trip. We would do it on purpose for a longer/more intense trip if we were say camping for the weekend.
An esteemed underground LSD chemist arrested in '05, Donnie Shackelford, is quoted in an unfinished book on black market LSD production by Tim Scully. Here's an excerpt from the interview.
>Tim Scully said, "Did you ever get dosed through your skin in the lab". Donnie Shackelford replied, "No, I have accidentally dosed myself while laying sheets, I either touched my eye, or mouth. But the answer to your question is no, you cannot be dosed through the skin. I never wore gloves in any procedure unless lye is used and it isn’t in this procedure. I learned the hard way dropping a flask with 20g of LSD in it. I was extremely upset. I’ve had it all over my hands many, many times. I was there when Dr. Nichols basically called bullshit on the good doctor at Mindstates 60th anniversary".
This is the Mindstates talk by David Nichols https://erowid.org/general/conferences/conference_mindstates...
>"Another fact: I've made LSD in my lab on many occasions for research purposes, possibly in not so meticulous a manner as Albert Hofmann. Nothing ever happened. I had several graduate students who made LSD as an intermediate for projects. No accidental ingestion of LSD ever occurred. A technician in my lab makes it routinely because we use it as a drug to train our rats. He's learned by experience that he never gets high, nothing ever happens. And yesterday I was talking to Nick Sand, and Nick said, "I made a solution of LSD in DMSO…" -- DMSO (dimethyl sulfoxide) is a chemical that greatly enhances absorption of other chemicals through the skin -- he says, "…I painted it on my skin. Nothing happened." A concentrated solution and nothing happened!"
> While re-synthesizing LSD, he accidentally absorbed a small amount of the drug through his fingertips and discovered its powerful effects.
"Nevertheless, in the spring of 1943, I repeated the synthesis of LSD-25. As in the first synthesis, this involved the production of only a few centigrams of the compound."
"In the final step of the synthesis, during the purification and crystallization of lysergic acid diethylamide in the form of a tartrate (tartaric acid salt), I was interrupted in my work by unusual sensations."
...
"But this led to another question: how had I managed to absorb this material? Because of the known toxicity of ergot substances, I always maintained meticulously neat work habits. Possibly a bit of the LSD solution had contacted my fingertips during crystallization, and a trace of the substance was absorbed through the skin. If LSD-25 had indeed been the cause of this bizarre experience, then it must be a substance of extraordinary potency."
I take a few to mean more than 2 centigrams. So 30mg minimum. Thats 300x the 'normal' dose.
>Possibly a bit of the LSD solution had contacted my fingertips during crystallization, and a trace of the substance was absorbed through the skin.
that's a possibly, I suppose if that possibly exists then possibly some got on object X and then after leaving lab object X came in contact with his mouth or even nose when he touched his face.
I wouldn't assert that it's 'fact' but seems very plausible. (A full 'thumbprint' is probably uncommon, but ingesting a visible amount of crystal from a fingertip seems believable)
Whenever someone says something like that, you know they don't have much experience trying to get hold of illegal drugs! It's rarely easy, and often falls through.
As this is a public record, I'm in total agreement with you. I have zero experience acquiring illegal drugs, none.
To not distinguish psychedelics from "illegal drugs" however, especially in the context of San Francisco, suggests to me you don't have much experience with the city.
If you live in the EU, you can even acquire a legit derivative legally on the 'clearnet'.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berwyn_Heights,_Maryland_mayor...
Also, the chocolate brownies are pretty good and even sometimes have drug-free versions too!
https://mushroomoneupbars.com/
IDK, people cheaply deliver these politely, promptly and dependably to your door where I live, and I don't live in CA.
Been doing this for years too. It ain't even new.
E.g. MDMA was a widely used substance in psychoterapy before 1980 (they used it to "open" patients before sessions), but it got banned and almost nobody could carry on with their research. Without research, you cannot claim practical uses and be taken seriously. And pharmas are not interested in spending on some product that they can't market anyway.
What do you mean? That pharma companies only develop drugs that don't require prescriptions? As far as I know at least that's kind of their main business.
Just look at the history of ketamine: known since 1970, it's controlled until 2000's when finally is found to work better than anything against depression. But even today it isn't marketed, unlike hundreds of antidepressants known to have worse secondary effects and be less effective. Reason? Some people might have fun with it.
Just because some medicines have kind of happy or fun or hallucinating effects don't make them more or less controlled.
And your argument about MDMA, it's already a developed medicine which is available under subscription. Why do you talk about delays?
And most medicines take more than 5 years to develop and release to market (also those without funny side effects sought after by drug abusers).
It's funny how you talk about ketamine being not 'marketed'. Why should a drug be marketed? It's a medical doctor who should subscribe it to patients he sees has a need for it. For sure medical companies might market it to doctors, but overall drugs should not be 'marketed'. Just see the issue with Purdue Pharma and the opioid crisis in the US.
Turns out MDMA is on list I, despite being used medically for a decade without problems. Currently there's no MDMA available, at least in the USA, under subscription nor prescription. It seems that is being researched, with extreme difficulties for being in list I, as a remedy for PTSD.
I'm done with this thread.
https://maps.org/news/media/playboy-ecstasy-was-legal-in-198...
Unlike cannabis, you can’t smoke it, so ingestion is an obvious choice. I suppose pills could be an answer but kids eat pills all the time too. Granted, perhaps less enticing than chocolates but still a problem.
The better option would be to forgo purchase of these substances until you're ready to consume them. Legalization makes this a reality. I could go to the store, buy the drugs, then drive straight home and consume them in a safe environment.
The prohibition we have currently is what tempts people to stock up all at once and ultimately leads to higher risks for children finding/consuming them while mommy and daddy are at work.
He had a Harley motorcycle that he accidentally dropped while moving it for street cleaning, and injured his back trying to pick up.
Sadly, after a very risky surgery to fix the injury, that was completely botched, he got addicted to oxycontin and eventually took his life.
There are a lot more stories there, but I'll leave it as that for now.
RIP Marcello.
November 2021:
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/detroit-just-decrimina...
September 2020:
https://apnews.com/article/ann-arbor-plants-featured-ca-stat...
https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/articles/2020-12-10/...
The city is also covered in graffiti and full of shuttered, empty stores, it's almost apocalyptic. It's quite a sad state of affairs, and I say that as someone living in the Bay Area next to San Francisco and Oakland.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallucinogen_persisting_percep...
Yep
https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/09/11/lots-of-people-going-a...
This papering over of side effects that people insist on is why so many are so hesitant to legalize these drugs. It's doing no favor to the cause when so many refuse to acknowledge the danger that's inherit in some kinds of psychoactive drugs.
1. The link between psychedelic use and persisting minor visual disturbances is reasonably well established.
2. The link between psychedelic use and serious, problematic visual disturbances or psychiatric issues is not well established at all, and modern evidence calls into question[1].
Even if we do take at face value the attributions of problematic HPPD to psychedelics (which we really shouldn't), the prevalence of this phenomenon is extremely low. So low that there isn't much in the way of empirical data to estimate its prevalence - just case reports. And case reports are a notoriously unreliable way to reason about etiology.
You are misinterpreting this. This is saying there's no link between psychedelic use and increased cases of psychosis. That isn't the same as debilitating HPPD, or any depression/anxiety caused as a result. In fact in that same article he highlights this;
>But he has concerns about Krebs and Johansen’s overall conclusions, he says, because individual cases of adverse effects use can and do occur.
>For example, people may develop hallucinogen persisting perception disorder (HPPD), a ‘trip’ that never seems to end, involving incessant distortions in the visual field, shimmering lights and coloured dots. “I’ve seen a number of people with these symptoms following a psychedelic experience, and it can be a very serious condition,” says Grob.
In the case of recreational drugs it is relative to alcohol.
So not "completely harmless" but "relatively harmless"
I have known too many people with "psychotic disorders". I have learnt the hard way to show such people enormous respect. A person who cannt distinguish a real thing from a thought is somebody that can do very surprising things.
These can be wonderful things, great artists etcetera. But it can also mean unexpected violence.
Yes "psychadelics should be considered very carefully... in context of those who have experienced psychosis". Everything should in that context.
A cup of tea should be.
It is true that it is possible to manage psychosis.
But it is also true that if you live with some one with psychosis you must respect the illness.
Denying that is dangerous. Unexpected violence is dangerous, and unexpected violence is a common symptom of psychosis.
I know this is currently a popular snarky rhetorical maneuver, but it gives me the creeps every time. It’s pretty ugly.
> I understand your reaction may be coming from a place of trauma
This is basically personally attacking someone on no evidence except their opinion, which happens to be different from yours.
I wonder what trauma you have experienced to behave like this. /s
I also know a nurse in a psychiatric clinic (the harder kind), he gets bit so much they have special vaccines (?, or some other kind of medication) to protect him against illnesses that can come from a human's mouth.
I don't believe the above reactions that I have learned are trauma, it's just the rational way to act when you've seen literal examples of what can happen.
https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/teendeathbridgefal...
Of course, if I buy rat poison, I have a pretty pure product and I can look up the ld50 and make a scientific estimate on how much I can take before I die. Not so with some random shit off the street.
True.
Where I live (Aotearoa) drug testing has been made legal and there are many opportunities to take your stash along to the spectrometer (I am not a chemist, unsure about the actual nature of the instrument, except it is reliable) and get it tested.
I wouldn't go that far. Any substance that alters perception, inhibition, etc has the potential for some social impact. For example, public drunkenness, DUI, liquor license etc were created because intoxicated people caused some sort of problem and laws were created around that. While these were created for alcohol, it's likely similar laws would be created for other substances.
>"No county, municipality or other political subdivision may adopt or enforce any local law, ordinance, resolution or rule having the force of law that includes being a common drunkard or being found in an intoxicated condition as one of the elements of the offense giving rise to criminal or civil penalty or sanctions..."
And in fact they specifically make it illegal to do the thing you suggest, and use other laws as a backdoor against public intox:
>"No county, municipality or other political subdivision may interpret or apply any law of general application to circumvent the provision of subsection A."
(This leaves ability to pass a law at state level, but state has no public drunk law)
But my point still stands - there are social negatives that we pass laws around consumption of various drugs (including alcohol), and that they are very similar in most states (AZ might not have a public drunkeness law, but still has plenty about other stuff like DUI, public consumption, age limits, licensing, open container law, etc).
It's merely an illustration that the absolute language used to proclaim that there are no social issues related to them is not correct.
Not so much "chalk and cheese" but "feather and revolver"
Not true.
My friend woke up handcuffed to a hospital bed after a bad trip on mushrooms. He saw his dead body in the street and was convinced he was dead and a ghost. He then went running around Manhattan traffic jumping on cars.
An English teacher in high school witnessed her friend jump to her death from a balcony after taking LSD. The woman said she felt light as a bird, took off running, hopped up a chair and dove over the railing to the pavement 20 feet below. She broke her neck.
I am not saying psychedelics should remain banned. But to casually call them harmless is incredibly irresponsible. They need to be taken under supervision by people with experience. This is called trip sitting. Not all trips are good as emotions and state of mind can effect the outcome. Things can go wrong fast. Be safe.
Do you have a qualifying medical certificate and professionally diagnosed my friend? The answer is no. So don't try to down play a serious incident you have ZERO knowledge of.
> And the second one you describe is a pretty common story to be told (same rumor at my college).
When my teacher told us the story she was quite emotional and serious. It could be a well intentioned lie to discourage "drug use" but again, you have no way of knowing the truth so knock it off.
It's weird that you yourself don't require these kinds of qualifications to participate in this discussion. I guess you don't need them in order to disqualify people from disagreeing with you.
(as for credentials- no, no actual medical credentials, but I do have a phd in biophysics [emphasis on drug discovery], and have worked in the field of medical biology for decades). More importantly, my goal is here to avoid the "reefer madness" effect by countering establishment propaganda and college rumors with my read of the scientific literature, and also to raise awareness that mental illness is common and that psychedelic drugs can be a precipitating condition that turns a maintained disease into an emergency.
Trip responsibly,
1. Someone has had a latent mental disorder since birth, which then manifested itself permanently upon taking psychedelics, and would have never manifested itself without them
2. Someone who originally had no mental disorders developed a permanent one from taking psychedelics
* 15% of robberies
* 37% of sexual assaults
* 27% of aggravated assaults
* 60% of domestic violence (victim reported)
* 40% of child abusers (self reported)
* 40% of convicted murderers (self reported)
* 30% of traffic violence fatalities
https://www.alcoholrehabguide.org/alcohol/crimes/
psychedelics are essentially insignificant and are almost never involved in violence.
What behavior could be prosecuted here except for giving someone LSD without supervision?
Since, if you're on LSD (or pretending to be) and acting out, the first thing you're expected to do is talk about how you can fly and threatening to jump out of the window. It's silly. No part of LSD makes upper-floor windows magnetic, and the trope has proved longer lasting than the memory of Art or Diane Linkletter.
edit: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/the-scarlet-linkletter/
> Diane’s death helped spread a widespread urban legend that lives on to this day, although it was around well before her fatal plunge. According to a popular story that warns young people about the dangers of drug use, “some girl” jumps from a window while on an acid trip because the drug fools her into thinking she can fly. The claims immediately made after Diane’s death that she had been on LSD, coupled with her method of suicide, seemed to some to fit this existing cautionary tale, and afterwards her demise was pointed to as an example of this legend’s coming true.
Salvinorin-a on the other hand has (slightly?) more potential for this scenario. Users can experience what they call “salvia gravity,” a sensation of being pulled in some particular direction, which they follow with their body. I saw someone curl into and begin to lean against a 2nd-floor window screen. His friends kept him safe for the ~7 minutes the trip lasted. If he had been alone though, he could have fallen out.
I don’t know how common that effect is, and it’s quite different from the folklore of people thinking they can fly on acid. This is just a PSA for the few people who are interested in trying that particular drug.
I often hear stories about people tripping on mushrooms getting upto mischief. When I did I always find that, along with the mushrooms, there was a bottle of whiskey, or equivalent.
My culture is awash with alcohol. It is hard to disentangle the dreadful effects of the alcohol overdose experience form the psychedelic experience after consuming a bottle of whiskey.
https://www.alcoholrehabguide.org/resources/dual-diagnosis/a...
and then consider the mortality and harm caused directly by consumption of alcohol, which is significant, and one of the statistically largest causes of death at 140,000 people killed per year
https://nccd.cdc.gov/DPH_ARDI/
and once again, the involvement of psychedelics with with suicide is extremely limited and rare. psychedelics are often self-reported as a source of long-term relief from suicidal feelings, after even a single experience.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Olson
Basically a chemist gets secretly drugged with a massive dose of LSD, then nine whole days later allegedly jumps out the window of a hotel... this was after he was declared a possible security risk...
So more than likely he was helped out that window.
If not that - it was probably the guilt: for being a part of MKUltra and the clandestine drugging of American citizens - he had a moral crisis, that much is certain.
I'm not saying your story isn't true... but I've been on the internet long enough to see how stories morph over time.
It still should be legal but we should be honest about risks.
Psychedelics radically impact cognition and consciousness, and not always in a safe way.
It's not always just a 'woah man' giggling in a park.
People climb high things and fall. They run into traffic or harms way. They often attack first responders that are attempting to deescalate.
Thought loops are dangerous and psychotic breaks are an obvious possibility to anyone who has done these substances.
You mean you are going to prefer anecdotal evidence over scientific research?
The "studies that usually fail to replicate" are the ones supporting a LSD inducing schizophrenia.
Your "own observations of reality" are interesting to you, but do not form a basis for creating public policy
Yes, if it has the potential to ruin my life and the life of people I care about, as it is plainly obvious to anyone who pays any attention at all to the world around them that these drugs are extremely harmful to a subset of the population.
I pay attention.
Decades of observing.
Some negative effects (the paranoia induced by repeatedly taking magic mushrooms for instance).
I too have heard horror stories, I just have not witnessed them.
But then I prefer to pay attention to the scientific research by people like David Nutt
You do what you want based on your own prejudices and if you must your bigotry. But places like thos that influence public policy statements like:
"as it is plainly obvious to anyone who pays any attention at all to the world around" as an argument against scientific research simply does not belong here
scientific research of this particular type has proved to be unreliable enough that it should be taken with a grain of salt. Fwiw my anecdote was probably caused by weed not LSD, my friend was taking frequent doses of a "legal" research LSD precursor he found in europe and didn't have problems until later when he stopped and smoked weed more. Idk if the LSD precursor accelerated his problems or not and I don't care to speculate.
> Your "own observations of reality" are interesting to you, but do not form a basis for creating public policy
I did not imply that psychedelics should be illegal, if it were up to me I'd legalize all drugs.
My issue is with people calling these chemicals "harmless", that very stance I believe is harmful. Any drug should be treated with respect. Weed is not harmless and the right edible or strong enough joint will fuck you up for days. People abuse MDMA regularly and come down with serotonin syndrome or fuck up their brain by not waiting 3 months or more. Ketamine is often abused too and that's not a fun ride either.
I've heard that SV types take LSD micro doses and I've tried it, I got a more cheerful day out of it but the next day I didn't have any motivation to do anything and didn't get much pleasure out of the whole day. So your mileage may vary, be careful when doing this stuff, do proper research and make sure you have enough free time with no responsibilities in the near future when doing them because you can't predict your specific reaction.
You have to know that you're having this discussion with people who have done psychedelics and have friends who have done psychedelics.
The paper I linked even discusses this a bit - the problem is that psychedelics are an intense experience, and they have this reputation for causing psychosis (helped along by the drug war lies, naturally), and so people tend to attribute subsequent psychiatric issues to their psychedelic experience, inappropriately.
I'd ask you regarding your anecdata, do you actually know someone personally who you witnessed this happen to, or is it more like "a friend of a friend" had this happen, and told you about it? I've never personally known someone to whom this has happened, but like you, I've heard my fair share of tall tales from the gossip mill. It's just that, in this particular instance, I think it's pretty likely that the stories are just that - stories.
If you're talking about years of binging on mind altering substances, it's a virtual certainty that there were underlying psychiatric issues causing that. You can't simply conclude that because one thing came after the other, the drugs caused it, when we're talking about years of abuse.
There's one other extreme example where someone I'm acquainted with did a lot of psychedelics over the course of a summer who seems permanently changed (although not ill or non-functioning in any way) but there's too much that could've happened outside the drug use that summer that could have affected him for me attribute those changes to drugs (although many other friends did).
These survey methods come with huge uncertainty and lots of pitfalls. I would not be surprised if the result in the paper is not reproducible. In fact, "over half of psychology studies fail reproducibility test"[1]
Just this past summer I had a friend tell me he was thinking of getting some mushrooms for us to all use at a party, like it was something you just casually do for fun like weed.
I have another friend with a serious family history of schizophrenia and he does pot and now psilocybin because they’re “natural and harmless.” I warned him, showed him literature, etc. There’s been far too much propaganda (?) on how safe those substances are for him to think they could ever cause harm.
And frankly, he’s always been a bit crazy but the past couple years…. Something has definitely changed in him. We’re talking things like believing he can heal people.
The only thing that has really changed is that we have fewer people in jail, we can know our doses in milligrams (instead of "hits" or whatever), and we can talk openly about our plans and get feedback from a wider audience re: whether they're good ones.
If psilocybin were legal, you friend would probably know better than to mess around with it if he has a family history of schizophrenia. As it is, he can only talk about it in small echo chambers, which is how harmful misinformation thrives.
"For the entire population twelve and older, Colorado’s marijuana use has increased starkly since legalization, rising 30 percent to become third in the nation, 76 percent above the national average. Among college-age youth (20–25), past-month use is 50 percent higher than the average, while past-month use for ages 12–17 is 43 percent higher."
https://www.hudson.org/research/17052-the-colorado-experimen... / https://www.thenmi.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/RMHIDTA-Ma...
I very much doubt your last point as I haven't seen the same thing happen with marijuana. Again, I told him myself. There's a good portion of the population that wouldn't conceive of taking a prescription medication unless absolutely necessary but think that several illicit drugs are somehow wonderdrugs that can cure all ailments.
HN is just low quality commentary on a lot of stuff and this is just another example. It's full of Internet urban legends and junk like that.
The classic sign of the Internet person who's trying to make himself seem like an authority on some subject is to try to use the trappings of expertise: speaking in passive voice, using words like "evidence" to describe urban legends, speaking in pseudo-formal tones to simulate expertise.
It's so clear that there is collectively very little expertise among this group on most subjects.
Considering that the place with the highest psychedelic drug use is also the place with the highest number of mentally ill and homeless, that seems a rather preposterous assertion.
Simply put, confirmation bias will convince you that people who do psychedelics end up on a bad track if your sample only includes people who are on bad tracks, rather than a sample composed of those who use psychedelics.
More probably (and this in my experience is definitely true) many more people use psychedelics than you might naively assume, and in fact probably the proportion of people who use psychedelics and end up on good tracks is way higher than that of those who use psychedelics and end up on bad tracks.
On a more meta-level, your searching and inquisition is still based on a more fundamental assumption, that homeless people are homeless for reasons stemming from their own decisions, rather than some confluence of bad events that leads one to ruin or another possible path to homelessness (e.g., they have mental health conditions which prevent integration into "normal" society without proper treatment, or that they simply want to be homeless and nomadic as a lifestyle choice). Empathy pays off here to temper un-credible assumptions and analyses.
I'll agree with that, but the real question is whether people who use psychedelics more frequently end up on bad tracks than those who don't, which in my experience is definitely true.
> homeless people are homeless for reasons stemming from their own decisions
No, my bias is that many homeless are homeless because they live in a place that enables and even encourages actions that lead people to become homeless (psychedelics use being one example).
As long as alcohol is a legal substance to consume, it makes no sense to criminalize substances widely shown to have lower harm coefficients than it. There's tons of studies which mostly-objectively quantify harm/addiction caused by substances. The only drugs squarely as bad or worse than alcohol are tobacco products (also legal, contains many more psychoactives beyond nicotine), meth, crack cocaine (delivery route matters), cathinones, GHB, certain gaba-ergics, and most opioids.
Nicotine in isolation, ketamine, classical psychedelics, cannabis, MDMA, most of the Shulginoids (phenethylamines and tryptamines), all fall short of the harm caused by alcohol.
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyt.2020.5921...
The three first principle components of a drug's harm are the therapeutic window (log ratio of LD50 to median active dose), addictivity (harder to quantify, but we have models based on pharmacokinetics and dynamics), and degree of harm to others when altered.
Alcohol is dangerously toxic on the order of ~15-25 units, has fast onset and hits GABA so rather addicting, and as a CNS depressant, is obviously very risky to others.
If a designer analog came out with the profile of EtOH, it'd immediately go to Sch I.
Sure, too much alcohol can cause people to get sick too, but then nobody ever said alcohol had "no known negative health effects" either.
I'm curious to see how often these events happen as more areas decriminalize it.
Take speeding laws (in the US): (almost) everybody breaks them since the limits are so low, which gives officers discretion to basically go out and just start ticketing anybody they like. Everyone is guilty, but we just don't enforce it against you, at least for today. Clearly (I hope), when a large number of people are breaking a law, and we all just accept this - then it's not a good law. But speed limits don't get repealed, because very few people are actually prosecuted, so the general public doesn't get mad enough about it. If speed limits were universally enforced, the public would get mad and the limits would be removed or raised within a week.
San Francisco can make murder legal and refuse to arrest people for it. State and federal law enforcement will just step in.
The DEA still busts dispensaries and grow operations in California for example, it just isn't newsworthy.
This all routes back to the Cole memo issued by the Obama DOJ, which (correctly IMO) identified federal jurisdiction as limited to interstate commerce, and effectively issued guidance to states that the federal government won’t intervene if it determines that local governments are making a good faith effort to prevent product or sales from crossing state lines.
Full legalization is almost definitely inevitable, but these sorts of patchwork laws will persist until federal law changes. Increasingly it seems likely that several holdout states will remain so until that time and may remain so even after the fact.
This is probably a "propaganda law" to appear progressive while actually not doing anything at all except wasting ink and breath.
There was some quote with her that her district "went to shit during her term" and she seemed confused as to who was responsible...
Of course, it was all just staged; they swept away the vendors, finished their photo op, and after they left, the vendors all came back.
I think the grandparent's point is that if they can't/won't even enforce laws that they actually claim to enforce, LSD use -- something the local government explicitly has not cared about for quite some time -- has already been unofficially decriminalized. I don't really agree with the overall premise there, though; without getting into whether this particular decriminalization is a good idea, leaving intentionally-unenforced laws on the books just leads to abuse. If particular laws shouldn't be enforced, then they should be repealed entirely.
Prior to Prop 64, we had a lowest priority ordinance for cannabis and it was a useful tool in defending our medical dispensaries.
People also have a tendency to get charged with possession when arrested for other things, even a traffic warrant or case of mistaken identity.
https://sfgov.legistar.com/View.ashx?M=F&ID=11095427&GUID=46...
I think it is useful because it provides a fairly compelling and surprisingly specific list of justifications.
Edit: VICE even named their recent Ketamine episode "Pissing Blood" for this reason. [0]
I had no idea this was a thing until the morning after I woke up from my first time partying around people who were using it. Someone took a leak and I hear, "Hah! Yep, there's the good ol' orange K piss," and I couldn't help but be surprised that it sounded like they were laughing at the fact they were pissing blood.
I should clarify - nothing against ketamine in small doses recreationally, just take care of yourself.
I have to call you on that.
Very irresponsible to say things like that with out context.
Like: Where does that factoid come from? Compare it to other known neuro toxins - alcohol obviously.
No. I will not take that seriously. "magnetic resonance imaging" of brains has very little value (not none) yet. I would pay attention to behavioural studies.
I hate ketamine. I hate its effects on me, and I really hate its effects on my friends. Makes them blithering boring idiots. I would not be devastated if there were serious health effects of moderate ketamine use (as there are for alcohol)
But this is bullshit anti drug propaganda. Just because the drug it is attacking is IMO a horrible drug, does not make it better
You have to use high doses extremely regularly for this to happen. The vast majority of users do not use it at high enough dosage or frequency to get anywhere near this.
What I can say is a similar thing, that it can cause _dependence_ very rapidly. It can be extraordinarily useful for healing certain mental health conditions, but tolerance builds rapidly, and people on the street are often trying to K-hole repeatedly, a basically pointless exercise. Sustained low-dosage usage seems to have fewer bladder effects, the tolerance combined with people using it as an escape (and preferring K-holes), as well as people who are already mentally broken having a nice lever to pull, is what can cause it to get out of hand.
This is not everybody, however. I think it depends upon the circles, and I think it is hard to see people do that regardless of the world. But your circles around you are also not the world at large. Please stay factually rooted in what you're sharing online. To me, substances that would be dangerous would be directly opioidergic or dopaminergic substances (opioids, nicotine, opioidergic hallucinogens) as opposed to one that is opioid _sensitizing_, like Ketamine (which lets it be a kind of opioid replacement for pain relief clinics, for example. Even infusions are helpful.)
It really is important that we all don't take our personal experiences to say "don't listen to what you hear online" too strongly, I guess even myself included here. Hope that helps shine an alternative perspective on the matter.
Ketamine is also a direct dopamine agonist (Ki=0.5uM at D2).
The opioidergic effects are indirect by re-sensitization (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3856727/) which is why it is used by pain clinics and possibly might contribute to antidepressant effects.
One potential theory hanging about is that if appears to indirectly agonize AMPA through blocking NMDA, and this is what leads to mTOR and then eventually BDNF modulation. However, if activating AMPA is the main goal to getting Ketamine's antidepressant effects, one could just simply take a racetam and be done with it. Racetams seem to be helpful but not drastic like Ketamine here is, which likely I think is because of some concert of fortuitous effects unique to Ketamine itself.
There are other offshoots, like how some metabolites of Ketamine affect how Ketamine is processed, leading to potentially incredibly complex cascades of metabolite interactions in the brain. But this is even more in the weeds and I've rambled enough.
In any case, something special is going on with Ketamine. Otherwise people could just take massive amounts of Agmatine (and L-Lysine along with it for the wise, mouth sores are not desirable) and be done with it. Interestingly, this seems to work for some, but it seems like more than the NMDA is what is necessary (for a side thread: see sarcosine, some of the related methylation supply issues, and how it's an NMDA _agonist_ at the glycine site but still has rapid antidepressant effects. Very strange, this whole business).
I love this topic so I get verbal on it, hope it was an enjoyable ride. :) :thumbsup:
I suspected, from personal experience with various NMDA antagonist that it's blockade has a similar effect on the dopamine¹ and nicotine/acetylcholine² families of receptors (but not on GABA³ nor CB⁴).
1- A few days after a dose of whatever the NMDA antagonist I currently had my ADD drug felt magical like the first month I took them.
2- As a teen I use to smoke... But I never smoked a cigarette again after trying to smoke during a DXM ( like ketamine, it's a substance with a really funky pharmacological profile ) trip. Every puff felt like it was my first puff but worse.
3- I take 1.5mg of clonazepam a night since I was 18 (I am over 40 now) and they had no effect whatsoever on my sensitivity nor my dependance. Clonazepam dependance is insidiously strong... it was prescribed for anxiety and insomnia, I never abused it, yet I cannot stop, each time I tried my attempt ended a few days later as I started to see scary bugs on the wall.
4- I used to be a pothead and while the combo is quite enjoyable they did nothing on my tolerance to cannabis.
p.s. Nowadays I read about drugs and I have as much fun as I did when I did use them... so I understand your enthusiasm, neuropsychopharmacology is fascinating.
p.p.s. If you didn't read this book https://archive.org/details/stahlsessentialp00stah I strongly recommend it !
By that standard, both San Francisco and Los Angeles have decriminalized all drugs, alongside open containers, prostitution on the street, prostitution in strip clubs, prostitution elsewhere indoors, and practically every other vice.
And I'm reaaallly not saying this from a position of envy or disdain, only accuracy, there is also a completely parallel society for people living in tents where enforcement of anything is a stated non-priority.
Seeing an article about a board actually voting on a measure to "lower law enforcement priority" is kind of redundant! The Mayors and DA's have already dug their heels in, what does anything like this actually change? Does it force county/city judges to auto-drop cases if an officer and prosecutor fail to do so themselves?
Seems redundant if it can't actually do anything differently.
I just wish we could use selective enforcement as a way to invalidate some laws and policies under the constitution (right its only the opposite, a law can only be questioned by someone it was enforced against, if they can afford doing so)
I happen to be homeless as well, but I still can’t get behind this concept. I volunteer my time to a national wildlife refuge and expect nothing in return, these folks shit on sidewalks and get cash in hand. If we really want to “solve” homelessness (I don’t think it’s something that needs to be solved, every era of humanity has had some portion of the population living without a solid roof over their heads), the answer is funding more public works programs, not funding delinquency.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10498607/San-Franci...
Yeah it is something that needs to be solved. I simply dont agree that society should sit idle while people are out there in the cold. Sure some do it by choice and you cant do much to help them. But a healthy society should have the mechanisms to house every person. I am not a socialist or whatever but i strongly believe that basics such as housing and health care should be taken care of on behalf of those who cant do it on their own. How can people call themselves “patriots” or say they love their country yet they dont help their fellow citizens. A country is not made of trees and rocks its made people. Loving it means loving the people as well.
SF and coastal west coast cities don't get cold enough.
That's a major contributing factor to why there is a density of people living on the street. I would say that temperature argument point is invalid.
> But a healthy society should have the mechanisms to house every person.
There is plenty of land for housing nearby and elsewhere.
>
I'm not advocating for anything, I'm actually hoping that you can solidify your arguments better as you maintain your primary sentiment of wanting people to not be on the streets, that matches the sentiment of the people you think you're against, but you're wanting to address it with love and compassion.
Their weaker arguments don't factor in anything. It doesn't factor in why people go to those specific areas. It doesn't factor in how the people on the street are only the visible homeless population and just the tip of the iceberg of the larger unhoused population in the same circumstance. It doesn't factor in how much of that visible homeless population is not interested in going to a different living arrangement, and so much more. Its just a rudimentary compassion argument that assumes well off and influential people aren't doing anything and that massively funded programs don't already exist. The statement about "the cold" doesn't seem to be targeted to any specific place either, despite this conversation being about San Francisco where "the elements" are more important, since a sweater and blanket is good enough for the worst of San Francisco weather. If their sentiment is so strong, they can iterate towards stronger arguments.
Even if so, it's not your right to take these by force. So if someone has to pay for that via taxes, etc then you are infringing on the rights of others in extracting that value. I would argue the government does have the obligation to not infringe on those rights, as they currently do in onerous regulation that makes these things unaffordable (well crappy food is pretty affordable by world standards). Obviously health care regulations and licensing, medicare, medicaid, medi-Cal, are some of the biggest offenders in destroying our rights.
50-50 Senate since forever tells you all you need to know! No party is going to overcome the filibuster to pass anything.
That said, “homeless” is a loaded term that likely doesn’t accurately connote my living situation. I live in a tent on an wildlife refuge. I am a full-time volunteer on that refuge with the US Fish and Wildlife service. The general public may camp at the site free of charge, but my position grants me access to laundry, showers, and internet at the headquarters, which is located a few miles away from my campsite (no services or cellular connection there).
About half my traditional “working time” is spent doing odd jobs around the refuge for the benefit of its wildlife, staff, and visitors. I am provided a government truck and gas for official business, as much of the time I’m off-roading around from task to task. The other half of the time I work on personal projects, bike, hike, read, relax, meet people, etc.
In general I derive more satisfaction from helping animals-at-large as compared to humans, but the animals unfortunately pay quite a bit less. I would like to some day have an official compensated position using my education/professional experience to help wildlife more than my current position allows, but I have not yet heard back from the applications I submitted to that end. I am hoping connections I develop here will help me pursue that goal more effectively.
Hope that helps explain!
I lived a somewhat similar life basically enjoying living outdoors and odd jobs and travelling and volunteering until I had a kid; would not recommend consorting with women unless you want to be on the hook to pay rent and chained to a desk for 18 years.
You could have just continued that life on a cash basis...
Also where health or safety isn't anyone's responsibility. I guess we find it innately distasteful to make real demands of people that we do as little for as we possibly can. Most of us think that it's dangerously charitable not to imprison them and burn their things.
Committing a crime while on drugs should be a crime - the drugs should not be a valid defense.
Heroin and fentanyl addictions ruin peoples lives forever, many regret ever taking it and wish they could escape the cycle of addiction but cant no matter how hard they try.
One reason they cant escape is because fentanyl use is so widespread and normalized the option to return to their old lifestyle is always extremely easy.
Freedom to take fentanyl and live on the street isnt freedom, its quite the opposite. Go walk around the tenderloin or pioneer square to see what this "free society" looks like.
If we legalized / decriminalized the possession of all drugs including fent and heroin, then people using them would not suffer criminal penalties for being caught with them. Oftentimes it's social factors like incarceration that make it doubly hard for addicts to escape the cycle of addiction. You are caught using and so you enter jail, and catch a felony on your record, making it even more difficult to land work. Or you end up with trauma from being imprisoned, further damaging your mental health, further driving you to escape with your drug of choice.
Long story short, prohibitionism doesn't really work in the sense that criminal penalties don't really deter drug users from using drugs. It just makes it even more dangerous to use the drugs!
1. addicts can't get predictable, reliable, pharmaceutical quality drugs. Street drugs aren't predictable, and cause overdoses because of that
2. addicts become criminals because of high street prices, leading to all sorts of associated crime
3. illegal drugs lead to massive profits for criminal organizations
4. people suffering from terrible diseases die in agony because painkillers that would work on their pain are illegal
5. people who suffer from chronic pain, which is not diagnosible, are forced to turn to street drugs
6. legalizing heroin is not going to tempt me to use it. Is it being illegal stopping you from using it?
7. being an addict is punishment enough. Why does anyone think punishing them further will improve matters?
8. consenting adults have a fundamental right to their own bodies. As the pandemic showed, our government is not very good at determining what drugs are best for people. It's more politics than science.
Look at the cannabis industry, it's thriving yet hasn't led to a surge in medical emergencies. OTOH the states where it's been legalized have had a huge windfall in tax income which they can put to good use fighting other crime and prepping up social services.
Still waiting for that part.
Now, when can someone enterprising small business startup stand themselves up an independent dispensary? What about the install of the drive through window? Until we allow for take out and achieve feature parity with alcohol these substances are being discriminated against. If intoxicants were races then LSD could use affirmative Action to get it on par with how we treat tobacco and booze. Treat it like alcohol already. Better yet don't concern yourself with what people put in their bodies unless they make you have to intervene for public order or safety's sake.
Without the myopic and impotent moral bias these substances have suffered through since their discoveries this becomes pretty simple and surprisingly straightforward to live with socially.
People don't typically abuse psychedelics to addiction. Notable exceptions being stimulants obviously. LSD is evil, mushrooms are great, and everything in between will have you feeling various degrees of regret and anxiety about what you just took and how long it's going to be warping your reality. That gets dicey if things take a downward turn and things spiral into a true bad trip.
These chemicals are decompilers for the mind and should be treated with the respect you would give your mind's configuration files. The psychological consequences from a bad experience can be lifelong and stay with you forever, but we're adults and hopefully RTFM and follow best practices and take precautions. There should be no one telling me what I can't put in my own body... long as I accept the end result of it.
Sorry for the /rant, this hits close to home and I have many feels about it.
The best way to approach psychedelics is with the 'less is more' mentality, although this does fly in the face of consumer capitalism and the profit motive.
In the realm of illegal recreational drugs price is a poor indicator of quality. What matters is relationships.
The "free market" in that environment spurs deception, and in the very worst cases, poisoning
In the market for legal recreational drugs, such as it is (alcohol and pharmaceuticals mostly) it spurs cultivating and exploiting addicts.
The answer is regulation, and regulated markets. Not free markets
In it he describes how Sandoz knew LSD had potential, they just couldn't figure out how to best apply it to human psychology. So they would literally give it out to anyone who asked for it.
Would recommend it to those looking to learn more about how it got criminalized in the first place. None of the comments I've read so far capture the full picture.
Sure, believe your government. Much of this stuff is grows in nature. It is a personal choice to take it. And it is forbidden by laws! So it used to be legal, before the law was enacted, and now you are a criminal for getting high.
All that is needed is to remove the law! Which is not hard for the right politicians, but still they dont and have not for a long time.
It is not hard to remove the law, and what we have to accept is that decriminalization is what we get. Pfff...
There were 4 nags, three of them pushing a guide to grow my own shrooms.
No means no.
Ingesting shrooms are harder to dose than a hit or two of acid. Eating the weight equivalent of one cap or stem can be a completely different experience, from the same spores. This will make the gradual path to full legalization even harder because people aren't trying things that are more easier to dose.
There is no good reason why non plant based drugs like LSD, MDMA and Ketamine are not included so we could really call this a true psychedelic decriminalization measure.
A second reason comes from the group Decriminalize Nature [0] in their resolution to the Oakland City Council when pushing for decriminalization there[1]: “…reestablish humans’ inalienable and direct relationship to nature.” That is, some have this explicit goal and might not care much for the synthesized psychedelics.
0: https://www.decriminalizenature.org/ 1: https://www.decriminalizenature.org/media/attachments/2019/0...
Eventually, this mindset will have to be dropped because morphine, cocaine, and cyanide are natural (heck, methamphetamines is found in trace amounts in some species of acacia). MDMA is synthetic but can be lethal in a single dose. LSD is semi-synthetic and one of the safest of the bunch--in fact, it's safer than the "natural" chemical feedstocks of its synthesization routes (LSA or ergot).
The shift will have to be to evaluating each molecule on its merits and risk profile. Sure, the whole "natural" argument feels warm-'n'-fuzzy for a lot of people--but sadly it's a poor metric for determining safety. After all, our brains' receptors can't tell whether a molecule originated from a plant or from a lab.
TL;DR: LSD, Cannabis, Psilocybin, Mescaline, DMT, (maybe) MDMA, and their various pro-drugs/analogues should be legal and regulated--regardless of their source. Morphine? I mean, the libertarian in me says "OK", but the more practical side says "probably not a great idea". In the end, none of this is rocket science--but the DEA, the broader US Government, and religion have turned it into a far more complicated thing than it needs to be.
Yes, there are research chemicals that are tasteless, and feel sort of like LSD. They are not LSD, and they could fuck you up.
You can't easily lace shrooms
Well, it's more that there's no point. If you've already gone to the trouble of growing mushroom-shaped things, adding anything to them won't increase their street value, so it's a waste. The only way to optimize profits for a producer is to grow mushrooms as fast as possible without any regard for potency.
Imagine being happy with your tax dollars funding the "investigation, detention, arrest, or prosecution" of people using substances rather than teacher's salaries, solving homelessness, public transportation, or exploration of space.
I used to be super libertarian but Ive come to realize that this only works if you, the one availing yourself of liberty, are the one that bears the consequences of your bad decisions. Increasingly, it seems, you do not. The dumber and more anti-social you act, the more victim status you are awarded with as the left half of our polity trips all over themselves rushing to make excuses for you.
And then all the people who'd just like to sit in a park while also not being menaced by drug addicts are told to shut up.
No thanks. We, as a society, cannot handle the liberties we already have.
This has nothing to do with the vast range of laws we have in the books. It's a question of complete lack of enforcement.
When defecating in public at a park carries no consequences whatsoever, do you really have a law that makes that illegal?
Some guy just shot and killed four people in Memphis. Google it. The man was arrested in 2020 for "attempted first-degree murder, aggravated assault, using a firearm to commit a dangerous felony and reckless endangerment with a deadly weapon". It took until April of 2021 to convict him to three years. He was released 11 months later.
As the Mayor put it, four people would be alive today and, my addition, a number of others would not be wounded in the hospital, if this person --who is and was an obvious danger to society-- had been where he belonged, in prison.
Laws mean nothing when they are not enforced.
Another tragic example is what has been happening at the US border since the new administration took office. It's a mess. It's criminal, but nobody is enforcing the laws. So much fentanyl and other drugs is coming in that I am sure we have lost control. In my town alone I think we've had over 300 deaths so far this year due to fentanyl.
We have laws. Things are illegal. And yet, you can't sit at the park with your kids to enjoy a nice sunny afternoon because the laws mean nothing when the people we elect to look after society choose not to enforce them.
This is not a formula for a society that trends towards better outcomes. It's crazy. You have people who have never even thought about owning guns asking about gun ownership and buying firearms because they no longer feel safe.
Not to go too far. Over a year ago, I caught and arrested a guy who broke into my neighbor's home across the street. The guy probably caused over $10K in damage to the home entering, destroying the security system and breaking through the door from the garage into the home. This guy, we came to find out, had a prior record in another state. We finally went to the hearing last week. It took almost a year. I don't think the guy did more than 30 days in jail. What did the DA's office, led by George Gascon (I can only describe him as demented and, yes, with history in San Francisco) do? They let the guy go. He is supposed to enroll in some kind of a counseling program. Brilliant. I hope he doesn't kill anyone when he returns to crime.
The freedom to kill yourself in public is no kind of freedom at all. I also don't see the legalizers working to "solve homelessness", just to enable it, while expecting the government or someone else to "solve" it.
Without the option to crash - you aren't a pilot.
If and when we find the secret to immortality - this right to end your own life how you see it will be eroded by corporate greed.
Tangential point, back to the main one.
There are 2 classes of drugs I would not legalize and you named one of them. the opioid and amphetamine are a chemical moth to the flame trap - And I support making that trap harder to find/get into...
Psychs on the other hand, RC's of course are dangerous due to their inherent novelty, Don't do the same things as Meth/fentanyl/crack, and generally are less dangerous/abusable. Basically anything that rewires the dopamine reward circuit should be highly suspect at best - and banned at worst.
Most psyches build a tolerance quickly in the brain - resulting in weeks/months between effective 'trips'. To abuse psyches is tough - and not desirable (after a trip most people want a rest for a long while from doing that again)
Yeah - freedom of brain chemistry should also be an unalienable right. If the government tells you what is allowed brain chemistry and what is not: that's government mind control...
If someone controls what you ingest, see and hear: they control (to some extent) what you think.
Above I am speaking solely of recreational use.
>> freedom of brain chemistry should also be an unalienable right
So, personally I completely agree with your first statement (now) about making the trap harder to get into. I also - as a matter of logic and principle - agree with your second statement.
The problem is that those two statements are completely contradictory. Doesn't the right to control your brain chemistry include the right to do meth? Even if it makes you psychotic? And even if your psychosis ends up violently harming others?
So I think it goes to whether we're willing to take some rights away to have a society that's sustainable and livable for a majority of people. And where to draw the line is something I think every thoughtful person needs to wrestle with. I certainly support the right to suicide, but not the right to do so in front of children, for example. If you take it from the principle of "everything is legal except that which harms others," at least there's a starting point for a logical position that doesn't contradict itself.
We as a society generally need criminal justice reform, but it wont come at the hands of addressing the illness of addition through exploring space instead. better bus schedules doesnt magically demilitarize the multibillion dollar industry predicated on a loophole in the thirteenth amendment. I can only hope the decriminalization of psychedelic drugs is predicated on sound research but alas, it feels like most SF legislation is brinksmanship between seattle and portland to see who can pedal their city into oblivion fastest with random virtue signalling.
The war on drugs is over and the drugs won.
I'm confused if this even reaches the bar for a strawman... Today, I am legally allowed to drink bleach. It's not breaking the law, just my body.
I cannot, however, take psilocybin, which breaks the law, but gives new insights into the body.
We are indeed trapped in some orwellian hellscape.
I truly don't care what anyone wants to put into their bodies or do to themselves.
My problem comes in when they affect others. That applies to a wide range of situations from excessive drinking to smoking (ever go to a concert and you have to sit in a cloud of smoke, breathing what came out of others' mouths?) and more.
I think everyone should be free to do as they please to themselves. The red line is when their choices infringe on someone else's right to not be affected in any way by their decision. If you choose to smoke, that does not give you the right to have the smoke that comes out of your mouth go into my lungs.
Respect for freedom requires respecting everyone's freedoms and rights. A self-serving stance will never result in expanding freedom.
Why is this important?
To continue with the hypothetical, if the smoker does not respect the right of the non-smoker to breath clean air, the non-smoker will eventually want to (need to!) seek ways to restrict the smoker's freedom to smoke. Everyone loses because society becomes more restrictive.
In a sense, not much different from the concept of freedom of speech. In order to preserve it you have to allow --and protect-- that with which you disagree to have a voice.
Yes, and both substances should be controlled. Uncontrolled hard drugs are harmful to society, but it seems like the ignorant, naive youth of today are going to have to learn some hard lessons on the topic from first principles.
It's not whataboutism bring up other risks that as a society we tolerate, when we are thinking about restricting one.
The other is possibly less harmful but it is currently illegal/controlled pretty much everywhere and has a niche demand.
I think its entirely reasonable to think that we should not open up a whole new can of worms.
My suspicion why there was an uptick of incidents in NL/Amsterdam was the influx of people specifically seeking those substances out, with little safety education or experience. If they were more widely available, the incidents would be far more diffuse, and likely fall below the noise floor. Plus, wider awareness means better overall substance education and understanding, meaning fewer folks getting in over their heads and acting a fool.
The same "can of worms" argument was leveled against cannabis legalization, and turned out to be overblown, there was no outbreak of reefer madness.
Psychedelics never made me black out, piss on the floor/all over the room, never made me want to assault someone, or made me act like an asshole, but alcohol on the other hand....
To engage in dangerous behavior? Hardly.
That said, alcohol is a lot more predictable in its effects for a given dosage. And also the dosages are a lot more reliable. There's a reason it's perceived "not as bad" as hallucinogenic drugs.
Imagine this- you hear something behind you (a real sound), and for a moment you are startled, thinking someone else is in the room. You soon realize that this isn't the case.
Someone on hallucinogens might take a moment longer to realize that there is nobody there. They imagine the intruder a little more vividly, their heart rate goes up a bit more. But just for a moment.
In contrast, if there actually is someone there, a drunk person might not realize it. Their senses are dulled. Instead of seeing things that aren't there, they fail to notice things that are there. It's the opposite.
They aren't dangerous to individuals, only rent seekers
"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 behavior and information processing. They open you up to the possibility that everything you know is wrong."
We tried that here in the US. The result was a a proliferation of organized crime.
Do you also advocate for the criminalization of alcohol?
That's just normal in SF streets already lol.
Besides, for every animal sacrifice on LSD there are 100 (probably more) drunk drivers crashing into trees, parked cars, oncoming traffic, and pedestrians, and alcohol is totally legal and widely used.
Why not?
That seems to ignore the fact that there are far more people drinking than tripping. I'm not saying that with an equal numbers of users the math wouldn't still make drinking more dangerous, I really don't know, but it's an unfair comparison.
As for the animal sacrifices, I couldn't find a single news article from 2000-2007 referencing this. I also couldn't find any good crime numbers.
The whole illegalization push in 2007 from available news sources was tied to this one suicide and damage to French-Dutch relations.
[1]https://www.google.com/search?q=nemo+building+amsterdam&rlz=...
I know it sounds like I'm writing a Yelp review, but it was fantastic. :)
Things happen, that's life, but it's really important to put things into proportion at some point.
https://www.reddit.com/r/bayarea/comments/guqz5t/comment/fsk...
Maybe if they are high enough they will not be able to tell how bad things are.
From https://www.psychedelicsdaily.com/faq/can-a-bad-trip-cause-s...
> Research has shown that the use of LSD can trigger the onset of schizophrenia in people prone to schizophrenia. People who use LSD are more likely than anyone else with a psychotic disorder to consume it over a period of more than a few days at a time.
I am an educated adult who understands my family's history of schizo means that these drugs are no gos for me. It's just not worth it.
However, I worry that teenagers and such in their developmental years will experiment. The way these drugs are marketed by true believers you'd think they're a cure all. However, in some people they cause long-lasting, even permanent effects. A significant number of people taking psychedelics experience symptoms for years after. This is a very bad change to make to one's psyche that calls one ability to reason and decide into question.
These drugs should not be encouraged.
Other research has shown no link between psychedelics and psychosis. [1]
This same [1] article discusses old research which may have shown a link, and speculates that the wide prevalence of various psychotic disorders may have led to spurious findings.
Besides, it's not like even given this there's no way to consume the substances safely. A simple method is to way until 25-30 years of age. Since schizophrenia most commonly develops during a person's teenage years through to early adulthood, a person who hasn't developed it by 30 probably will never develop it.
Fun doesn't keep the nation together, we can't decide whats right or wrong just off of fun.
If you want to seriously harm yourself I believe we need to stop you.
That includes drug addictions, I think addicts need to be forcibly helped and not given more avenues to ruin their life.
I hate this "live and let live" type thinking with drugs because it enables people to ruin their lives.
I would rather be disliked but see people be healthy and their lives go well, than be liked for my opinion but enable people to ruin their lives.
addiction is no joke and consent to it doesn't make it right!
>I hate this "live and let live" type thinking with drugs because it enables people to ruin their lives.
Yes, one of the consequences of self-determination is that you're able to make wrong choices. You know what doesn't make any wrong choices? Cattle. The farmer decides for his cattle what and when they eat, where they sleep, when they mate and who with, and when they die. It's completely impossible for a cow to make choices so wrong that it ruins its own life. Now, I personally don't find living like cattle to be very appealing, but perhaps you disagree.
>At some point you have to be pragmatic and realize that some mental illnesses can't be fixed with more freedom.
I'm fine with a world with more than the absolute minimum number of mentally ill people. Put another way, there are things that are not worth sacrificing in order to have fewer mentally ill people.
>A responsible society provides said structure for those people who need it, and lets the ones who don't be free as you claim they should be.
Well, correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the goal of a society is to organize efforts in order to accomplish tasks that would not be possible by individuals or smaller groups. "Providing structure to those who need it" seems more like the responsibility of a hospital, not of societies in general. While a society that works like a hospital (rather than merely containing them) is conceivable, I think asserting that one that doesn't is irresponsible is going too far.
Cool, that's your opinion. It has been tried. Your opinion creates the tweet I linked as well as this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YB6gwOBClwE. I can post many more videos like these as there are plenty.
My opinion is that your principles are completely idiotic and they're not worth sacrificing other people's well being for. You disagree, that's fine. But you're obviously and verifiably wrong based on the state of reality and anyone with two eyes and a brain can see it.
https://www.discovermagazine.com/health/classic-psychedelics...
(I agree with you, but I think all too often people talk about addiction as if it is solely physical; emotional dependence is a real thing too)
drugs of any kind are addictive, infact even mere behaviors are addictive let alone drugs.
Its truly a mark of an individual in denial when they claim their favorite drugs aren't bad for them.
yes drugs are bad for you.
yes even weed is bad for you and is very addictive.
And people always bring up the medical use, but we all know what its going to be primarily used for.
We need to treat these drugs like we do other medicine, criminalize it if its not a prescribed one unless its very weak.
Its a huge problem if we let people ruin themselves with this garbage under the guise of decriminalizing for medicine, when we already are able to just prescribe them as medicine usually.
For a decade SF complained about tech and actively drove companies away, because they wanted “their culture” back.
Fine, then tech organizations left after covid (and their money left too), and now SF complains that tech organizations are not supporting the city anymore with their money and their employees, and you get entire areas of town (ie: Fidi) which are empty and small business are struggling. Who exactly do you think was supporting the outrageous spending and programs of San Francisco? Artists playing the piano in a bar, or hundreds of millions of dollar in taxes paid by tech and its employees?
You can’t have your cake and eat it too.
Now - finally - we get to see “SF culture” in full force without technology organizations and their employees: meth-addicted zombies with violent outbursts, tents everywhere, human poop and needles, salmonella outbreaks, go ahead and complete the list.
Nobody wants to live in a place like this: not the artists, not the families, and now not even tech workers. There are plenty of great cities to go to, why would anybody move to San Francisco and deal with these quality of life problems?
I agree there are some terrible policies and parts of town are struggling (and addicts too). But there were huge problems in the 90s as well (in SF an NY). Frankly, NYC is a MUCH bigger place with Manhattan alone being twice the population. But please, if you don't like it LEAVE!
Nobody likes poop or needles, nor drive-bys and side-shows those are symptoms of law enforcement and the city not giving a F#ck... but the tenderloin wasn't some beautiful panacea 25 years ago either, nor the mission, nor the dog patch. All of those places were hipster-gentrified and drove out people who did give a damn. Bringing money doesn't mean that a WETF attitude and boring consumerism won't make the place worse than you found it.
If you want to raise kids, go to the avenues or the marina or a suburb somewhere. Yes, it's horrible expensive, but why does the world owe you the lifestyle you want and the house you want in the place you want for cheap? Why does everyone else have to change the way they live for you? Because you got a FAANG job? I feel more for the people born in SF.
BTW we always called the Fidi "wine country" for the obvious reason (people drinking wine on the corner)... and that was 25 years ago when at least strip clubs could afford the rent.
The dogpatch was a waste land 10 years ago, it got redeveloped thanks to new money and the new tenants that were willing to pay $$ to live there.
The problem of San Francisco is not tech (which gives resources to the city, and which every other city would do anything to have) or the lack of artists.
The problem is San Francisco is the utterly incompetent leadership that fails their citizens at every level (supervisors, mayor, school board, DA, police, etc). Technology was an incredible opportunity for this town to become world class, and now they got nothing to show for it.
How about we refocus on the real problems that are affecting this town? The tenderloin doesn’t have to be this way, the Fidi was thriving up to 2018/2019. The alleged lack of artists is at the bottom of the pile.
A world class city like San Francisco can and should do more to guarantee that no kid steps on poop or needles. Take a step back please: this is a very low bar, and these are problems that every city in the world doesn’t have. So what’s wrong with this place? Why is San Francisco a poster child for disgraceful and incompetent leadership? Why can’t it remove poops from the street with a budget of billions of dollars. What is wrong with this town?
These are the problems that we should be focusing on.
If you want the perfect place to live look for a red state but a city thats moderate and large.
You get sweet sweet low tax rates, usually affordable housing, good jobs, political extremists are more rare since liberals aren't too powerful and the conservatives basically lost their previous dominance.
Red states with large moderate cities are the place to live in the usa.
Low taxes, less crazy people, good living.
If your city is dominated by one political side completely its basically time to run away.
For example, they're typically not addictive.
Anyone who takes them runs the risk of being addicted to the experience hence the abuse of these drugs in the first place.
It may not be the same kind of addiction but they still go back time and time again.
Furthermore various mental issues can come from them so even if you don't get addicted you can still be harmed.
Its a useless past-time thats dangerous and is less fun than other mediums of entertainment.
Rather than reduce yourself to an incoherent mess for a while you can spend the money doing basically anything else for a better time.
Hang out with friends, travel somewhere in you state or country, play some video games, anything else is better.
Its a useless risk that should be banned, other than medical use, to protect society.
... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4813425/
Decriminalizing psychedelics is likely to help with the treatment of mental health problems that often lead people to substance abuse.
The idea that substance abuse is a character flaw is outdated and harmful. Some substances are certainly dangerous. Psychedelics are not in most cases. Condemning people who are using dangerous substances perpetuates the cycle of shame which keeps people from being able to heal.
Sure, once you're already physically addicted, taking the next hit isn't a character flaw. But being willing to take the first hit before you're addicted is absolutely a gigantic character flaw.
Since it's done on purpose, if SF wanted to actually revitalize their downtown they would lay down the law on their mainline tunnel transit stations, caltrain stations, ferry stations, tourist hotel hot spots and market st like they lay down the law in the marina with it's crazy high foot traffic. Yes it is 'moving the problem around', but at least it makes people feel safe and not nauseated where they enter and exit from SF. I bet one good chunk of why people are not coming back to offices to SF is because the transit safety and cleanliness experience is not good there.
Criminals are not localized in SF. They roam around in cars smashing and grabbing.
If you think SF is the norm then you should visit a city with competent governance and see what normal should be.
Well, more drugs, more zombies.