5 ms·

There was a Times article several years ago about the rise of synthetic cannabis and they said legislators can't keep up with new chemical formulations. They ta

There was a Times article several years ago about the rise of synthetic cannabis and they said legislators can't keep up with new chemical formulations. They take several months to study and ban one chemical, and the manufacturers turn around and tweak it slightly and it's a "new" drug that hasn't been made illegal yet.

gowld 8y ago
That's not quite right. Legislators certainly can keep up; all they need to do pass a broad ban on chemicals with the undesired empirical properties.
- rhizome 8y ago
  You can't legislate a state of mind, and people have different reactions to different substances, so I'm a little confused as to what form this "broad ban" would take.
  - maxerickson 8y ago
    Just ban chemicals that interact with certain receptors: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serotonin_receptor_agonist#5-HT2_receptor_agonists https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serotonin_receptor_agonist#5-H...
    - sannee 8y ago
      That's extremely non-selective - for instance [1] is a random paper discussing ethanol interacting with the 5-HT2A receptors (at least if you are a male rat that is). It would likely also lead to unforeseen consequences. For example, the Czech government attempted to ban growing Phalaris, but had to backpedal as it's a common unassuming weed. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9347073 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9347073
  - chris_va 8y ago
    You could always ban the chemical scaffold.
  - DanBC 8y ago
    Here: The Psychoactive Substances Act 2016. http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2016/2/contents/enacted http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2016/2/contents/enacted https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychoactive_Substances_Act_2016 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychoactive_Substances_Act_20... But also the UK has rapid powers to add a substance to the schedule in the Misuse of Drugs Act. Here's a recent list: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/controlled-drugs-list--2/list-of-most-commonly-encountered-drugs-currently-controlled-under-the-misuse-of-drugs-legislation https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/controlled-drugs-... Here's schedule 2. I don't know how often this gets updated: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1971/38/schedule/2 http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1971/38/schedule/2 > You can't legislate a state of mind, You can legislate "intoxication", although the methods for doing so are pretty crude at the moment.
  - soundwave106 8y ago
    The United States has a "broad ban" in place called the Federal Analogue Act -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Analogue_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Analogue_Act The definition is "not 100% exact" in its nature, but dealers have been prosecuted and sent to prison for violating this. It's also possible to apply broad bans to Markush structures (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structural_scheduling_of_synthetic_cannabinoids https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structural_scheduling_of_synth...), which is how I understand some places attempt to regulate synthetic cannabinoids and other broad classes of chemicals. (Keep in mind these laws do not apply to fentanyl -- in the United States, fentanyl is schedule II and is available as prescription medicine. Illicit fentanyl is more "illegal drug market" than "research chemicals"; cocaine is in the same boat in the US as well, a schedule II drug that's available on the illicit market. The above might apply to any fentanyl analogues though.)
  - toomanybeersies 8y ago
    Well here's one: http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/2013/0053/latest/DLM5278431.html http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/2013/0053/latest/D... The Psychoactive Substances Act 2013 was introduced in NZ after its failed experiment with legalising synthetic highs. I don't necessarily agree with the act, but it basically is a "broad ban" of new recreational drugs.
vis52 8y ago
Yup. From what I could tell that's almost exactly what's happening in Europe as well. One difference though is that it takes even longer since each member state bans these individually. From what I saw there are RC variants of many drugs I've never heard of but I saw RC-LSD, RC synthetic cannabis, RC-ecstasy, angel dust...
- freeflight 8y ago
  It is very much a European thing, not as popular in the US due to easier access to cannabis and it was synthetic Cannabis (Spice) that started the whole craze a couple of years ago, followed by "bath salts" which then extended to the whole RC line of drugs. Tbh the government reactions to this, banning specific substances cannabinoids in particular, have made this situation just that much worse. This stuff booming like that should have told them the whole story: That there's a very real demand for legalization. Instead, they continue prohibition practices even further, forcing manufacturers to use other (much more dangerous) substances, a game they've now played so long that by now most of these synthetic Cannabis variants have nothing at all do anymore with the "natural stuff" and instead have become extremely destructive and addictive substances [0] By insisting on the prohibition stance the regulators literally made "weed" lethal. [0] http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-birmingham-43600584 http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-birmingham-43600584
  - cc439 8y ago
    >Instead, they continue prohibition practices even further, forcing manufacturers to use other (much more dangerous) substances The inherent danger in iterative research chemicals is a lesson I had to learn firsthand. I had tried the initial formulations for "spice" a few times and found it to be a pleasant analogue to marijuana. I decided to pick some up several years later, and well, the effects were closer to that of a hardcore disassociative than anything resembling THC. Don't fuck around with products you can't be 100% confident in.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

gowld 8y ago

That's not quite right. Legislators certainly can keep up; all they need to do pass a broad ban on chemicals with the undesired empirical properties.

rhizome 8y ago
You can't legislate a state of mind, and people have different reactions to different substances, so I'm a little confused as to what form this "broad ban" would take.
- maxerickson 8y ago
  Just ban chemicals that interact with certain receptors: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serotonin_receptor_agonist#5-HT2_receptor_agonists https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serotonin_receptor_agonist#5-H...
  - sannee 8y ago
    That's extremely non-selective - for instance [1] is a random paper discussing ethanol interacting with the 5-HT2A receptors (at least if you are a male rat that is). It would likely also lead to unforeseen consequences. For example, the Czech government attempted to ban growing Phalaris, but had to backpedal as it's a common unassuming weed. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9347073 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9347073
- chris_va 8y ago
  You could always ban the chemical scaffold.
- DanBC 8y ago
  Here: The Psychoactive Substances Act 2016. http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2016/2/contents/enacted http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2016/2/contents/enacted https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychoactive_Substances_Act_2016 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychoactive_Substances_Act_20... But also the UK has rapid powers to add a substance to the schedule in the Misuse of Drugs Act. Here's a recent list: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/controlled-drugs-list--2/list-of-most-commonly-encountered-drugs-currently-controlled-under-the-misuse-of-drugs-legislation https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/controlled-drugs-... Here's schedule 2. I don't know how often this gets updated: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1971/38/schedule/2 http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1971/38/schedule/2 > You can't legislate a state of mind, You can legislate "intoxication", although the methods for doing so are pretty crude at the moment.
- soundwave106 8y ago
  The United States has a "broad ban" in place called the Federal Analogue Act -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Analogue_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Analogue_Act The definition is "not 100% exact" in its nature, but dealers have been prosecuted and sent to prison for violating this. It's also possible to apply broad bans to Markush structures (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structural_scheduling_of_synthetic_cannabinoids https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structural_scheduling_of_synth...), which is how I understand some places attempt to regulate synthetic cannabinoids and other broad classes of chemicals. (Keep in mind these laws do not apply to fentanyl -- in the United States, fentanyl is schedule II and is available as prescription medicine. Illicit fentanyl is more "illegal drug market" than "research chemicals"; cocaine is in the same boat in the US as well, a schedule II drug that's available on the illicit market. The above might apply to any fentanyl analogues though.)
- toomanybeersies 8y ago
  Well here's one: http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/2013/0053/latest/DLM5278431.html http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/2013/0053/latest/D... The Psychoactive Substances Act 2013 was introduced in NZ after its failed experiment with legalising synthetic highs. I don't necessarily agree with the act, but it basically is a "broad ban" of new recreational drugs.

vis52 8y ago

Yup. From what I could tell that's almost exactly what's happening in Europe as well. One difference though is that it takes even longer since each member state bans these individually. From what I saw there are RC variants of many drugs I've never heard of but I saw RC-LSD, RC synthetic cannabis, RC-ecstasy, angel dust...

freeflight 8y ago
It is very much a European thing, not as popular in the US due to easier access to cannabis and it was synthetic Cannabis (Spice) that started the whole craze a couple of years ago, followed by "bath salts" which then extended to the whole RC line of drugs. Tbh the government reactions to this, banning specific substances cannabinoids in particular, have made this situation just that much worse. This stuff booming like that should have told them the whole story: That there's a very real demand for legalization. Instead, they continue prohibition practices even further, forcing manufacturers to use other (much more dangerous) substances, a game they've now played so long that by now most of these synthetic Cannabis variants have nothing at all do anymore with the "natural stuff" and instead have become extremely destructive and addictive substances [0] By insisting on the prohibition stance the regulators literally made "weed" lethal. [0] http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-birmingham-43600584 http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-birmingham-43600584
- cc439 8y ago
  >Instead, they continue prohibition practices even further, forcing manufacturers to use other (much more dangerous) substances The inherent danger in iterative research chemicals is a lesson I had to learn firsthand. I had tried the initial formulations for "spice" a few times and found it to be a pleasant analogue to marijuana. I decided to pick some up several years later, and well, the effects were closer to that of a hardcore disassociative than anything resembling THC. Don't fuck around with products you can't be 100% confident in.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]