Magic mushrooms are for sale in SF, and the city gov has no idea what to do | Hacker News Reader

Magic mushrooms are for sale in SF, and the city gov has no idea what to do

sfgate.com

43 pointsarkadiyt40 comments

I'm all for magic mushrooms and legalization, but I don't buy this 1st amendment religious exemption bullshit. The law should apply equally to everyone and everything, or it ceases to have any meaning. It's the same as the Supreme Court carving out a religious exemption to the Civil Rights act. There's no good reason why people's woo-woo beliefs somehow changes whether the law applies to them or not. It's ridiculous.

having a private religious experience with a mushroom doesn't deny anyone legislative representation

Laws exist to create a civil society. You shouldn't get an exemption because you have an imaginary friend.

>Laws exist to create a civil society.

That is... quite a comment to make in a thread about "illegal drugs" in the United States.

LOL

I agree. Let's get the church to pay taxes and return public lands and then I'm happy to chat.

I can't tell if you're being sarcastic, but I actually endorse these ideas

I very much endorse them as well and so, happily join you.

in the meantime, let's get something positive out of the contradiction

It does if you were found guilty of a felony and are currently in prison for having done so. Which; the store's owner was charged with three felonies.

Most laws don’t apply to everyone, and they still have meaning.

> There's no good reason why people's woo-woo beliefs somehow changes whether the law applies to them or not.

There is: the 1st amendment is about what we consider more important than anything else: here, religion - but not just: freedom of assembly, of the press and speech also covers way, WAY more ground than any other country in the world.

Personally, I like that - and considering how many people believe in some $diety, it may be the majority.

If you don't like that, and think the majority also dislikes that, it's easy: find enough support to change the 1st amendment.

In reality, the First Amendment does not create a religious exemption from drug laws. See Employment Division v. Smith, 494 U.S. 872 (1990).

That's a pretty far fetched interpretation of the 1st amendment. It doesn't say "one's religious beliefs supersede the laws enacted by congress". Having religious beliefs doesn't mean I can practice ritual human sacrifice, or sell bleach to people with promises that it cures cancer, or impregnate a harem of child brides. Freedom of speech isn't a get out of jail card either. Most criminal statutes involve speech of some kind. You are not free to commit fraud, to lie to law enforcement, to engage in a criminal conspiracy, etc.

My sweet summer child...

Religious exemptions are a good thing and should be respected. It’s important to be skeptical of novel religious claims, as they're usually just a cynical abuse of a legal exemption. Exemptions should certainly not be limitless: America is incompatible with human sacrifice.

I think we make selective religious accommodations and exemptions for no good reason. Why is one person’s fiction more deserving or more valid than another? Followers of CotFSM and Scientology have as much of a claim on special treatment as do older religions.

Take a cue from Toronto and do nothing*.

> A spokesperson for Toronto police, meanwhile, has told CityNews that illegal dispensaries are investigated when reports are made. The service’s drug enforcement at this time, however, is “largely focused on the trafficking of illegal drugs that are resulting in overdose deaths.” It cites the need to concentrate on the supply of fentanyl in the midst of an opioid crisis.

https://toronto.citynews.ca/2023/07/18/toronto-mushroom-disp...

Pretty simple: do nothing and spend police resources on violent crime instead.

Yeah, but then police would actually be useful to the public, and we can't have that.

Except that SF police also seem incapable of that. In fact, they seem incapable of doing very much at all.

DA won’t do anything, so why would anyone risk their well being for more paperwork?

If I was the cops, I would start a skunk works style database of recurring offenders, arrests, judicial decisions and outcomes.

Once you have a good number of smoking-gun cases of repeat violent offenders due to DA inaction, then leak it to the media. Name and shame the DA, make sure the voters / people in power know where the weak link is and give them a better alternative.

Cops get apathetic because their arrests have no effect, but the paperwork can be useful to solve the fundamental problem.

The people that might put in unpaid extra sweat and tears to do that have been scared away from the profession due to media storms that occur on those 1 in 1000 poor interactions that are filmed on 3 hours of sleep.

This seems like a concerning level of charity being given to cops who ruin people's lives.

Would you accept a world in which "1 in 1000" planes crashed because the pilot was on 3 hours of sleep?

There should be a media storm every time a police officer abuses someone, we should all collectively be outraged. A functioning society has to start with the front-line enforcers being responsible and trustworthy.

Planes are about 1 in 10,000,000 in terms of accidents.

There are about 1,000,000 police, so I guess 2 bad police events per month would be equivalent?

He’s not being charitable to cops who abuse their power, he’s pointing out that good cops receive backlash due to the actions of bad cops.

Being outraged at cases of abuse doesn’t mean you have to stop empathising with the difficult job that most cops have.

Reminds me of this quote: “almost everything in the world is broken and almost no one is evil.” Don’t let your anger at evil people make you reflexively think badly of their colleagues. Focus on your love of humanity rather than your hatred of authority.

This is what the city will care about? I think magic mushrooms is way lower in the “should have an idea what to do” below shoplifting and poop.

"We have tried nothing and we are all out of ideas" seems to be the response to any sort of problem in San Francisco. There are plenty of federal and state resources that can come in and handle the problem, they just have to make a phone call.

(I don't care to debate the value of mushrooms, at this point it is illegal and I am commenting on the broader ineptitude of SF city government)

In the past hackers generally sought subvert the dominant paradigm and play with uncomfortable boundaries as a result (or just to do it).

You may not like how they do it, or why they do it, but you have to acknowledge and appreciate the spirit of the exercise.

The state is afraid of mushrooms because they let users detach from the groupthink that guides the people from birth to death. The groupthink is made of many polished thought-circuits that compel an individual to do certain things, such as buying a nice car, working an office job, going to vacation on hawaii, watching tv, and so on.

That seems like a less-than-useful generalization. I know plenty of people who do mushrooms and yet labor away in cubicles to pay for their houses, in which they watch television.

> going to vacation on hawaii

Most of the dudes I know plenty of dudes who partake in psilocybin also really like going to Hawaii. Maybe they didn't get stuff good enough to break that particular thought-circuit? What do you think?

Maybe they really do like going to Hawaii.

He probably needs a higher dose: addiction to Hawaii and surfing develops quickly, and it's hard to break.

Unless you've met the machine elves, can you really say you've had a psychedelic experience?

I'm imagining politicians in a cigar-smoke filled room terrified of hippies on shrooms.

The difference is in why they are going to Hawaii. Mimetic and status driven reasons suggest groupthink.

Or, the magic volcanoes are talking to the sky.

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