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Comment by zer00eyz | Hacker News Reader

> drug LSD, which is used to treat conditions like depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and addiction.

Umm, ok, sure thats what it's used for.

That one sentence just points to a large issue with the whole tone of this article. Clearly LSD is still a problem child.

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Please be serious: alcohol is a real problem child but it’s widely used and legal.

Cannabis and LSD have their issues, sure; but, so do so many other drugs that aren’t schedule I.

Scheduled drugs are simply politicized to separate the ‘desirables’ from the ‘un-‘.

are you saying alcoholics are desirables because I have a different view on them

No, it's because the "Undesirables" simply have a skin tone that isn't white.

pretty sure LSD is readily found amongst white people at predominantly white universities.

Yes, but it was the dirty hippies taking it, not the god fearing white male conservatives. They just smoked cigarettes and drank until they died.

to be clear, a lot of the dirty hippies smoked cigarettes and drank till they died too. maybe some heroin too.

source: my family

Yes of course, but the point was that the hippies were part of the undesirables, along with the black folks, the mexicans, and any women who wanted to say, own private property or have a bank account.

Look at what Timothy Leary and Ken Keasy were saying about LSD

Turn on. Tune in. Drop out.

Apart from being really stupid advice it was viewed, correctly, as a direct threat to the established order. The established order is very bad (no arguments now?) but Tim and Ken were being very stupid and bought a whole load of shit down and put psychedelics back 40 years

It's extremely well-known and documented that the War on Drugs was racially motivated, and hence drugs used by certain minority groups more than the majority white population were made illegal.

GP's comment isn't suggesting alcoholics are desirable, but that people who preferred alcohol over other drugs were historically part of the "desirable" group. That's my reading of GP's intent, anyway.

are you acknowledging that alcohol was made illegal in the US for white people and only re-legalized after those laws proved unenforceable and fed the growth of white organized crime?

there was a lot of racism in US legal history, but don't try to make drugs and white people who wanted to do drugs the victims, it was non-white people who were the victims directly.

"problem child" is an allusion to Hoffman's own characterization.

Indeed. “LSD: My Problem Child” is the name of Hofmann’s book:

https://global.oup.com/academic/product/lsd-9780198840206?la...

You should read / watch Michael Pollan’s “How to change your mind” https://m.imdb.com/title/tt21062540/

why so? this is probably the direction he wanted to go if i can recall his book (problem child) correctly

the more insight into the synthesis of a pro-therapeutic substance, the easier (i guess) is to remove the undesirable effects (what recreational people want)

How is it a problem child? The only problem is the fed's blanket ban of it like many other drugs that do have known medical uses. Feds still classify marijuana as schedule 1 with no medical uses, and yet multiple states allow you to buy it freely. Just don't invite the feds to your house.

“LSD: My Problem Child” is the name of Hofmann’s book.

https://global.oup.com/academic/product/lsd-9780198840206?la...

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