24 ms·
California Bill to Decriminalize Psychedelics Is Approved by Senate
- CryoLogic 5y agoA tweet from Senator Scott Wiener confirming the bill was passed: https://twitter.com/Scott_Wiener/status/1399867521612881921 https://twitter.com/Scott_Wiener/status/1399867521612881921
- stickfigure 5y agoPassed the CA Senate... then it goes on to the CA Assembly for vote. Anyone know the probability that this will make it all the way to becoming law?
- jeffbee 5y agoAnyone know why states have bicameral legislatures?
- telotortium 5y agoModeling themselves after the US Congress, itself modeled after the British Parliament (House of Commons and House of Lords). I personally believe bicameral legislatures - allowing houses to deadlock on a bill - are a terrible idea. Either unicameral (used by one US State, Nebraska) or tricameral legislatures, with 2 out of 3 houses needing to approve a bill for it to pass, make much more sense.
- giantg2 5y agoI think some state legislatures actually predated to federal one. I know some states had constitutions before the US did, but I don't know if they included the legislature structure. Why only one house or three? What exactly would that fix? Sure you eliminate most deadlock, but how does that representation? Also, is deadlock really a bad thing in all scenarios?
- FateOfNations 5y agoIt all goes back to the English parliament with it's two houses, either directly modeled after that, or via the Federal government congress.
- bdamm 5y agoCanada is effectively unicameral. Random data point.
- jeffbee 5y agoThat only begins to make sense if it's actually modeled on the US Congress, with proportional representation in one chamber and specific representation of subdivisions in the other, but to have two chambers both with proportional representation, as California has, makes no sense.
- Fauntleroy 5y agoI actually have no idea, can you elucidate?
- jeffbee 5y agoI can't. It seems totally irrational to me. Makes no sense at all.
- stjohnswarts 5y agoIt makes plenty sense. It was meant for the Senate to tame the more erratic decisions of the House of Representatives. However, since the GOP has become what is essentially a fascist party with a Mango Messiah, no amount of balance is currently possible.
- stjohnswarts 5y agoUsing the USA congress it was viewed a compromise between having reps for the people aka "democracy" and the Senate preventing the tragedy of the commons with a more "stable", less influenced by the populace groups of reps who would be more intellectual and conservative. They would represent the states at large (population not being a metric) rather than districts in the states more of a "republic" idea. That's why you'll hear the USA called a Democratic Republic and why idiots who say "we're a republic and not a democracy!" are almost completely wrong.
- SocksCanClose 5y agolots of combat veterans are seeing good outcomes with this type of treatment...
- fnord77 5y agoit is promising, but there's not enough data to say this for sure. decriminalizing it will make running studies easier.
- giantg2 5y agoWill it though? The feds could still come after you if you're publishing research that admits possession, etc.
- aerostable_slug 5y agoThey aren't doing that with the researchers here in California openly attempting to find marketable ways to exploit legal marijuana.
- giantg2 5y agoIt can change with administration changes because that allowance is made under executive order (which is probably an abuse, but that's another story). There is one federally approved lab down in Louisiana that has been doing this research for decades.
- NikolaeVarius 5y agoyay
- ravenstine 5y agoI get LSD and psilocybin, but why ketamine? In either case, I feel like this shouldn't have tried to include ketamine since the perception of it might jeopardize the bill.
- michaelbrave 5y agoI've heard it has a lot of promise in treating depression, decriminalization would allow for official medical studies.
- ravenstine 5y agoAh, that would explain it.
- Plough_Jogger 5y agoI was recently surprised to learn about how big of an industry already exists around ketamine therapy. A search in your area (if in the US) would likely turn up several clinics nearby. Bay Area: https://bit.ly/2S3VNjW https://bit.ly/2S3VNjW Austin: https://bit.ly/3ccj2zk https://bit.ly/3ccj2zk
- failwhaleshark 5y agoOh awesome. I'm in ATX and have treatment-resistant depression (tried 15 meds) likely from chronic sleep deprivation (sleep apnea). If anyone knows a dope (no pun intended) psychiatrist for general purposes in ATX, I could use contact info.
- ggreer 5y agoKetamine is schedule III in the US. That makes it less restricted than meds like adderall and most prescription opiates. Decriminalizing it wouldn't really matter for research studies.
- stjohnswarts 5y ago
- madcows 5y agoWill it pass further voting required to enact it?
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- ttul 5y agoA very significant result for drug policy modernization efforts everywhere. California is larger than many countries. Policymakers and politicians will be looking at the results of this change with great interest as they contemplate the risks and benefits of such a move in their own jurisdictions. If things goes broadly without incident (as I bet they will), then Prohibitionists will have less ammunition against policy modernization.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- takeda 5y agoI hope this won't be similar to decriminalizing weed where people assumed it's also fine to drive while high :/
- whateveracct 5y agoLegalizing weed didn't do that. There's always been an opinion (argument?) that driving high is fine. Carl Sagan even discusses it in Mr. X (1969): > I have mentioned that in the cannabis experience there is a part of your mind that remains a dispassionate observer, who is able to take you down in a hurry if need be. I have on a few occasions been forced to drive in heavy traffic when high. I’ve negotiated it with no difficulty at all, though I did have some thoughts about the marvelous cherry-red color of traffic lights. I find that after the drive I’m not high at all. There are no flashes on the insides of my eyelids. If you’re high and your child is calling, you can respond about as capably as you usually do. I don’t advocate driving when high on cannabis, but I can tell you from personal experience that it certainly can be done. http://hermiene.net/essays-trans/mr_x.html http://hermiene.net/essays-trans/mr_x.html
- thatcat 5y agoYea, it's actually a banned substance in esports racing because of it's known performance enhancing qualities.
- whateveracct 5y agohah I did not know that Does this mean all my rhythm game personal best are invalid '-'
- JohnWhigham 5y agoAnd Sigmund Freud spent a decade using cocaine daily. Doesn't mean it's OK for everyone else to.
- whateveracct 5y agoI actually wasn't arguing from authority. I think the paragraph stands alone without the author's name attached (in fact it was originally published under a pseudonym, proving this point.)
- Morvan 5y agowhat part of indulging degeneracy reflects modernity to you?
- Judgmentality 5y agoAre you saying taking psychadelics makes you a degenerate? If so, why do you think so?
- Morvan 5y agono, the other way around.
- dwhit 5y agoTaking degenerates makes you a psychedelic?
- jjulius 5y agoCare to explain what you're trying to get at in greater detail?
- Morvan 5y agoSure, see my post above. What I'm getting at is that degeneracy leads to many things one of which is drug use, thus reflecting a deeper problem that legalization/decriminalization will not address but only obfuscate.
- masklinn 5y ago> What I'm getting at is that degeneracy leads to many things one of which is drug use, thus reflecting a deeper problem that legalization/decriminalization will not address but only obfuscate. Ignoring your utterly repellent[0] word choice, you could not be more wrong. Policy changes in Portugal, Switzerland, or Oregon show that decriminalisation, by avoiding the, well, criminalisation of an often symptomatic behaviour, allows addicts to more reliably look for and get help and stability. Can't really try to find a job or get help from social services when going there might land you in a jail because there was a cop trolling for easy busts and pissing hot will blacklist you anyway. Criminalising drugs actively dysfunctionalizes addiction, and breaks addicts away from society and support. [0] and genuinely dangerous
- fasteddie31003 5y agoProbably 95% of people can handle psychedelics. That last 5% are not going to handle psychedelics well. I'm talking about the people on Market and 6th with schizophrenia. If you give someone with schizophrenia mushrooms they will have a total break with reality and might not come back easily. This is going to make the street people of CA even that more crazy.
- JumpCrisscross 5y ago> That last 5% are not going to handle psychedelics well I imagine the ratios are similar for alcohol, cannabis and tobacco. Subjecting the 95% to threats of fines and jail time for the 5% is wrong. But it would make sense to use this new tax base as a platform for addressing our homeless and mental health problems.
- henriquez 5y agoKamala Harris sent Californians away for long haul prison sentences on drug-related infractions. Anyone here who thinks mass incarceration improves society should explain their reasoning, because I really don’t understand. Also the parent commenter on “tax base” is misguided. We’re not talking about legalizing and taxing drugs, just not locking people up for victimless crimes.
- JumpCrisscross 5y ago> We’re not talking about legalizing and taxing drugs, just not locking people up for victimless crimes This bill isn’t. I am.
- henriquez 5y agoFair enough. I fully support legalization and deregulation of all "controlled substances"
- tick_tock_tick 5y agoI mean mass incarceration for "long haul" (lets says 30+ years) prison terms absolutely could be argued to "improve" society by removing people who have broken the social contract. The classic problem with prison is short and frequent sentences that fuck someones life up just enough to prevent them from being a "good" member of society but not long enough to really keep them away from the general population.
- failwhaleshark 5y agoPortugal. Oregon. Maybe California. Ending the WoD prohibition and decriminalization is the way to go to stop incarcerating poor and minorities, ending violence in many countries, and decriminalizing personal choices. PS: Ketamine, acid, and shrooms are on my bucket list.
- sergiotapia 5y agoDoesn't california have a massive drug problem and literal armies of drug addicts shitting in the streets and harassing families and tax-payers? How will this help?
- whateveracct 5y agoThe drug problem isn't with psychedelics. If you think "drugs is drugs" - then reconsider.
- vmception 5y agoThe opposition party thinks we will have re-education camps, might as well do it and re-educate people regarding drugs with specific studies instead of anecdotes Pre-requisite for a driver’s license
- JumpCrisscross 5y ago> Doesn't california have a massive drug problem Good evidence, in Portugal and Oregon, that legalisation eases drug problems. The homeless problem is a result of Californian voters’ housing policy and policing preferences.
- whimsicalism 5y agoMore weather + high quality services + compassionate policing for the high-visibility homeless.
- vondur 5y agoOregon also has a big homeless problem.
- christopherwxyz 5y agoFirst, we stop treating victims of addiction adversarially.
- Fauntleroy 5y agoYou're referring to a completely different class of drug.
- beepbooptheory 5y agoAs someone whose life was very much thrown into turmoil and difficulty for getting caught with a relatively small amount of mushrooms in Texas, to the point that it will soon be a decade and I have not really completely recovered financially or emotionally, and also still blocked from a lot of jobs, news like this is so good but hard to hear on a personal level.
- giantg2 5y agoDon't worry, the system is so screwed up that they will continue to ruin people's lives over other infractions instead of producing true justice.
- splithalf 5y agoThe problem is peoples’ notions of justice are capricious and savage. The draconian laws over psychedelics represents yesteryear’s popular conception of “true justice.”
- Florin_Andrei 5y agoThe legal system will always trail behind the reality on the societal ground out there - that's almost by definition, and you actually kinda want them to be quite cautious and thorough before they make decisions. But you also need to watch for outliers - laws that are WAY past their prime, and should have been put to pasture long ago. Basically, the legal system needs a garbage collection mechanism.
- zenron 5y ago"The Breitbart Doctrine is the idea that "politics is downstream from culture" and that to change politics one must first change culture.} [cited from Wikipedia] Andrew was a man ahead of his time.
- Florin_Andrei 5y ago
- mrvenkman 5y agoWhenever I have taken psychedelic drugs (mushrooms), or taken cannabis, it has often made me more paranoid. Has there been any research into how psychedelic drugs may fuel conspiracy theories?
- ingas 5y agoSurprisingly my LSD experience led me to acceptance of OSI Model ;) Before that I thought that it was purely academical masturbation without any real connection to reality.
- giantg2 5y agoThis sounds like a conspiracy theory... Edit: satirical joke
- fsiefken 5y agoyes, i think there is a correlation, but you don't know if that is causative. i think people drawn towards psychedelics are also more inquisitive and imaginative with a fascination for grand narratives behind the scenes. David Icke, was he writing or speaking about conspiracy before he encountered psychedelics or after? What about Terence McKenna and his intriguing Timewave Zero nonsense?
- vmception 5y agoSusceptibility fuels conspiracy theories. These substances can make you more susceptible.
- Jiocus 5y ago> Whenever I have taken psychedelic drugs (mushrooms), or taken cannabis, it has often made me more paranoid. Suspending one's mind into an altered state while being aware of the grave consequences that would result if getting caught –effectively defenseless while high– makes me think hypervigilance is almost a rational response to that situation. I've seen heavy users succumb to conspiracies but such cases were ultimately a symptom of schizophrenia. There has been research into use of drugs and mental illness. Alcohol intoxication on the other hand, doesn't share the taboo, but paranoid ideations seem plenty. Intoxicated people misread signals, pick up malicious intent wherever and the paranoia that results blows back on the people most important to the person.
- tayo42 5y agoPretty cool, I think they way we all talk about psychedelics and drugs in general is harmful and misleading. I guess we need baby steps but idk if social sharing is enough. A big problem with the current drug world is not getting clean and pure substances and in predictable doses. I didn't see anything about like lsd labs and stores or mdma production being allowed in the bill. Did i miss something about making higher quality drugs more available to regular people?
- CabSauce 5y agoDecriminalization and Legalization are two pretty different things.
- 8note 5y agoDecriminalization being looser than legalization, where the production and use is put into a legal framework
- vmception 5y agoAll these drugs should just have their studied side effects listed on the back of the package like all the dangerous and deadly stuff on the shelves Decriminalizing, to me, is just having an industry tell you they don’t want to be regulated or illegal, and that’s absurd! A big step for research though!
- tayo42 5y agoYeah I'm pretty interested in future research. It always bugs me how most harm reduction or drug "facts" are basically pseudo science that just gets repeated over and over with slight modifications from anecdotes I'd really like to know if this is bullshit or not lol https://www.bluelight.org/xf/threads/what-is-wrong-with-the-mdma-available-today-v2.895430/ https://www.bluelight.org/xf/threads/what-is-wrong-with-the-...
- qntty 5y agoIt's not hard to get clean and pure mushrooms if you take the time to learn how to grow them, or if you have a friend that does.
- wk_end 5y agoI strongly support decriminalization, but I'm curious: are people in California getting arrested for the possession of psychedelics for personal use in any real numbers? That is, is this bill going to change anything on the ground, or is it just a step in the right direction?
- oceanghost 5y agoI love mycology. I would grow mushrooms in an instant if it were legal-- so this is important to me.
- cannaceo 5y agoI have been. But that's not what this is about. This is a step towards legalization and social normalization of the usage of these plants.
- shakezula 5y agoAny number above 0 is too high. I would bet good money they're still arresting thousands of people a year on psychedelics possession charges.
- kf6nux 5y agoFewer criminal statutes is almost always a good thing. Discriminatory enforcement is a huge problem. My local Police Chief told me he thinks of discriminatory enforcement as a good thing, so you can only solve it as a problem by removing the ineffective/undesirable law.
- lurquer 5y agoYou can’t cut someone’s hair in California without a license. You can’t sell corrective eyeglasses without a license. You can’t buy (or sell) penicillin without licenses. I could go on. California has thousands of ridiculous, out-dated, laws. Yet, I see no groundswell of support for getting rid of them. My point is, this isn’t about generic ‘decriminalization’ or libertarianism or personal liberty. Rather, it’s about intoxicants. It is worth stopping and wondering what is behind this trend of increasing the number of intoxicated people (whether it be through recreational drugs or prescribed drugs.) I don’t know the answer, but you’re whistling past the graveyard by telling yourself it’s simply about cleaning up or reforming the criminal code. If it were, we would be starting with truly harmless activities such as taking money to put a weave in your girlfriends hair without a license (misdemeanor).
- solutron 5y agoSadly the specter of fentanyl, heroine and methamphetamine ODs, ruined lives and crime will over-shadow the goodness that is decriminalizing psychedelics. The drug-war states will simply say, "so what, everything's legal there and that place is a mess" and they won't be entirely wrong. If SF could shit-can Chessa Boudin and get rid of the Honduran fentanyl gangs terrorizing the City that'd be great. https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2019/08/07/tenderloin-heroin-drugs-hondurans-dea-san-francisco/ https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2019/08/07/tenderloin-hero...
- Noos 5y agoGreat, the hacker news psychedelic circlejerk is back in force. Dang, can we please ban these articles? There's zero point in even discussing them, because the mentality is completely one sided. There's no "curiosity" in drug legalization here, because its obvious everyone thinks its a 100% good unless its a low status drug like alcohol or meth.
- dabinat 5y agoA rethink of US drug policy, particularly regarding psychedelics, is long overdue. It blows my mind that LSD is in a higher category (i.e. considered more dangerous) than cocaine.
- nverno 5y agoYea, it's BS, but the reasoning behind it is the accepted medical uses of cocaine, and none for LSD
- tick_tock_tick 5y agohttps://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0236356 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal... https://www.verywellmind.com/does-cocaine-have-any-legit-medical-uses-1124135 https://www.verywellmind.com/does-cocaine-have-any-legit-med... Cocaine has very useful medical effects which is why it's a lower category.
- TaylorAlexander 5y ago“ This bill would make lawful the possession for personal use, as described, and the social sharing, as defined, of psilocybin, psilocyn, dimethyltryptamine (DMT) , ibogaine, mescaline, lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) , ketamine, and 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) , by and with persons 21 years of age or older.” Amazing! I’ve been curious about LSD but it’s kinda hard to get. Also glad to see ibogaine, ketamine, and MDMA on here in addition to psylocibin as they all have great medical potential. Really hope this is signed in to law!
- username90 5y ago> (6) Existing law states the intent of the Legislature that the messages and information provided by various state drug and alcohol programs promote no unlawful use of any drugs or alcohol. > This bill would repeal those provisions. Does this mean that the bill lets California start promoting unlawful use of drugs and alcohol? What is the purpose of this change?
- mysterEFrank 5y agoThis could rescue SF tech culture