The article specifically refers not just to the cultural, but also to the legal and medical, thinking about psychedelics.
> this new landscape demands more than just new laws. It also requires a new category for psychedelics. Are they recreational drugs? Are they medicines? Are they religious sacraments?
I'm asking why we can't just answer this question with "They are psychedelics".
The entire point of categorizing them is to answer questions around:
- Should they be sold to take recreationally, like tobacco and alcohol? Should there be limits, like tobacco packaging and taxes, or rules similar to drunk driving?
- Or should they only be prescribed by doctors for mental health reasons, and not allowed recreationally or in religious ceremonies?
- Or should there be exceptions for certain religious ceremonies as well? Is this open to anyone (so Catholics can invent a ceremony) or only ones that have traditionally used it? Does it require licensing or authorization?
By categorizing them, we come to answers on these questions. If they fit into existing categories, we don't have to write many new laws except to state the categories. Or if we decide they don't fit into existing categories, we come up with a new category with its own set of answers and new laws to write, but part of this whole process is determining if that's necessary or not. And even if it is, the name of the label may not be "psychadelics" because we realize there's another set of non-psychadelic compounds that make sense to be included as well (e.g. empathogens like MDMA).
I don’t see how this is at all equivalent, given that “psychedelics” is a well-known term that can be found throughout decades of literature and that gibberish word you just made up has no attached meaning.
If you’re equating random gibberish words to well-known words in literature then why does anything have any meaning? Why would a new word have meaning?
Regardless, the laws generally don’t refer to “psychedelics”, they refer to specific chemicals by their name. There are numerous compounds that would be considered psychedelics that are, nevertheless, not illegal because they’re not covered by any laws (including analog acts)
> Regardless, the laws... refer to specific chemicals by their name.
Not directly, very often. I doubt there's any specific law around Lipitor. Rather, drugs are grouped into categories and then the laws that permit or restrict them are mostly around those categories. Otherwise it would all be incredibly redundant (with exceptions for certain incredibly common drugs like alcohol). And the question here is how to categorize pyschadelics for legal purposes. And saying that we just call them psychadelics answers as many legal questions as saying we call them quooquaquams -- i.e. zero.
From a values standpoint, I don't see how it would be idiotic to schedule truly dangerous drugs like 25i-NBOMe more strictly than psilocybin or LSD.
Drugs are cool and interesting, go ahead and do them, but trying to pretend that something like 25i-NBOMe is something that Joe Average will safely deal with is, frankly, pretty fucking stupid. This conversation is constantly approached with this idea that everybody is a reasonable, informed person that is fully educated on the risks, but that's just not how this works.
People legitimately die or become seriously ill every year because they don't know this.
Granted, 5x is a lot different than 20x especially when a drug is taken for recreation rather than necessity. I've never done 25i-NBOMe, but it's my understanding that it's easy to overdose because a method of administration is blotter paper and people think they're taking LSD.
In our current world, when you get prescription drugs for the first time, you are provided with information about risks. Over the counter medicine, you aren't.
In my ideal world, if you wanted to do a recreational drug and it had risks like this, you'd have to complete a drug education course and obtain a prescription, you'd be provided with phone numbers for services like overdosing or mental health, specific to the drugs you're planning on doing, and dosage would be easy because medical professionals are doing it in a lab before they sell it to you.
The average Joe would much rather do drugs that they know are manufactured correctly, not adulterated or cut with other substances, where the dose is measured accurately, and where if something goes wrong they have a professional to help them, even if it means they have to pay a bit more than the black market - which will surely still exist.
And if someone goes through the black market and does because they did a drug that is now legal, and they didn't know the correct dose? Sad, but that's on them
I agree with your ideal world. The point of my original comment was that making no distinction between something like 25i-NBOMe and something like LSD, calling them psychedelics, and regulating them as such just isn't a good idea. I am not claiming that you should go to jail for having or using them.
Nobody? Um, I'm right here? I bought a 0.1ml pipette back in the day for the precise purpose of safely dosing 25X-NBOMes volumetrically, rather than by mass.
And I'm not the only one. Hamilton Morris[0], Nervewing[1], and many others on forums such as Bluelight[2] write about their positive 25X-NBOMe experiences.
trying to pretend that something like 25i-NBOMe is something that Joe Average will safely deal with
I take issue with the entire punitive premise of this discussion, namely, that substances should be placed on a continuum from safe to dangerous, or good to bad, or "soft" to "hard", so that we can determine how harshly to punish people who possess them. If anything, drugs should be regulated, not prohibited, and they should be categorized in such a way as to make clear the risks they present and how to mitigate them. Under such a scheme, you wouldn't even need to ban anything, because why would Joe Average futz around with something obscure like 25I-NBOMe when familiar LSD is available from the corner smart shop along with a pamphlet explaining how to use it properly? Why does everyone's mind immediately leap to a carceral solution?
[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/researchchemicals/comments/v1oz4j/h... [1] https://nervewing.blogspot.com/2014/05/25c-nbome.html [2] https://bluelight.org/xf/threads/the-big-dandy-25i-nbome-thr...
To be clear, I'm with you on the idea that all drugs should be legal. I don't believe in scheduling drugs to determine sentencing. I do believe in scheduling drugs according to the odds that Joe Schmoe will bungle the usage of them, in an attempt to steer people who aren't doing a an appropriate amount of research toward largely physiologically safe/well understood options.
[addendum]
Marijuana and Methamphetamine:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvGtn8RzF0U&list=PL2-GCln73g...
Ecstasy, LSD & the Raves:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3id6j6nJmlo&list=PL2-GCln73g...
Opium, Morphine and Heroin:
Maybe not using psychedelics as the legal term is useful strategically.
Got it.
There is no application for approval required to be a “church”, ie: religion.
Thinking there could be some “authority” for a religious institution’s practices is beyond measure.
You can't just arbitrarily call your house a church to avoid paying property taxes. Government authorities have to make decisions all the time over what they deem to be a legitimate religious organization.
You obviously don't need a license or authorization to engage in otherwise legal religious practice, but as soon as you want legal exemptions, the government most certainly has a say. And the ritual consumption of otherwise illegal drugs couldn't be a more perfect example.
by this logic, the government could make illegal any other religious practice (in addition to psychedelic usage), because then the practice isn't "otherwise legal"
Opioids are both recreational drugs and medicines.
Peyote is a recreational drug and religious sacrament.
This seems to ignore this fact.