4 ms·

Is it just me, but ... The sort of people of today search out and take mushrooms and psychedelics and don't violently run amok, but sit down quietly going whee

Is it just me, but ... The sort of people of today search out and take mushrooms and psychedelics and don't violently run amok, but sit down quietly going whee are the sort of people who when offered crack or just when perfectly sober, will also go whee and not shoot anyone. And the sort of people who when offered a pipe of crack today and then go on a shooting spree, are the sort of people who will rob a seven-11 on mushrooms or sober. Its not just personal responsibility - 99% of the latter group are going to correspond with abusive childhoods, poverty, mental health issues and so on. (So the difference between me and a Republican congressman is that I believe that if we solve all those issues, 99% of the latter group will also sit in a room and go whee.) Personal Responsibility matters, but it matters about as much as willpower does in dieting - its a lot more likely to work if there are no fatty sugary foods around. The 1940s had healthier thinner people because we were all on a government enforced diet.

mekoka 5y ago
The issue with psychedelic is not (so much) about personal responsibility. It's very much about the wrongful classification of the drugs themselves based on how they tend to alter cognition and behavior. I don't mean any offense, but by squeezing crack in the same bag as psychedelics, your comment exhibits the exact misunderstanding that led to the latter's prohibition. Good people on crack are more likely to do bad things over time. Bad people on mushrooms are much less likely to be worse than their usual selves (based on studies).
- lifeisstillgood 5y ago
  There are (in my limited understanding) too many confounding issues to be able to say that its ok to get off your head regulars with drug X but not with drug Y. In my (again limited) understanding, saying "all these are bad for us long-term (to wildly varying degrees), but it seems likely that other factors (childhood, mental illness, social position, economic, family and social) all play as important if not more important roles. Lets unban them if they have some medicinal purposes, but lets not pretend that having mushrooms and amphetamines marketed by the same socially-minded people pushing Marlboros for decades is going to make the world a better place, and please lets not think that if we strike a blow for freedom, its ok to stop worrying about all those other confounding issues. (But I concede its a lot easier to legislatively fix banned psychedelics than to fix childhood abuse, poverty and mental health. But that's why we pay government the big taxes, to take on the big jobs. )
  - pas 5y ago
    > mushrooms and amphetamines marketed by the same socially-minded people pushing Marlboros for decades is going to make the world a better place, They'd be better regulated than the fucking cartels. The problems with dose would come up quickly, and you could make it available in X mg shots in liquid form. Add some ugly taste, like alcohol has. > to take on the big jobs Yeah, absolutely! Also would you be interested in acquiring a really cheap and famous bridge? Or perhaps the Eiffel tower? /s So currently it seems we pay taxes to keep the darkness at bay. Maybe. Maaaybe after half the world stops sucking fascism's dick we might finally get to spend resources to properly address those big ticket items.
- pmoriarty 5y ago
  "Good people on crack are more likely to do bad things over time. Bad people on mushrooms are much less likely to be worse than their usual selves (based on studies)." Of all drugs, legal and illegal, the drug that is most associated with violence is alcohol. Yet most people don't get in to a moral panic over alcohol anymore, as they used to during the original Prohibition of the 1920's. We've learned from the original, failed prohibition of the '20s. We understand that when people abuse alcohol it is a medical issue, not something to throw people in jail for. We need to learn the same lesson about all the other drugs, almost all of which are far less harmful than alcohol.
  - mekoka 5y ago
    Again, the current issue with psychedelics is not a debate on Drugs with a capital D. It's rather about the mischaracterization of psychedelics. Because of their mind altering properties, psychedelics are continually conflated with other drugs, simply because we like big umbrellas. The reason they're currently being brought out of prohibition is responsible and compelling research that is demonstrating that their benefits heavily outweigh their harmfulness. If you want to legalize crack, then responsible and compelling research should probably also do the same. If you want to pin alcohol against crack when it comes to harmfulness, note that alcohol is also legal and thus more prevalent. https://bibliography.maps.org/bibliography/default/resource/15836 https://bibliography.maps.org/bibliography/default/resource/... See graph on page 4. Heroin and crack are still illegal, yet already significantly harmful. Let's not assume that legalizing them would keep the standing the same.
  - partomniscient 5y ago
    They're not easy direct comparisons though. Alcohol personality changes are (now) fairly simple compared with the wide variety of substances and possible behaviours. The whole approach is wrong. Criminalise the behaviour, not the drugs and then people can work out which drugs they're compatible with. Some people are great when drunk, some are violent arseholes. The same is true for other substances.
  - adminscoffee 5y ago
    let's bring back the original coca-cola, it's crazy to think that some of our grandparents and great grandparents use to drink coke as a teenage/child. but yes, prohibition has caused more pain and suffering in the world than any war combined. it's a shame how much money we waste on locking up people who already feel beaten down by life, a lot of drug addicts are people trying to self medicate
dabinat 5y ago
You could really say this about anything - for instance, violent video games. If we start banning everything that someone with a severe mental disorder could potentially abuse, that would end up being quite a long list. But there is evidence that psychedelics could prove useful in treating mental illnesses, so it could actually help those people rather than make them worse. (Of course, that’s probably best done in a clinical/therapeutic environment.)
pas 5y ago
Why wouldn't psychedelics follow the same pattern as weed? An initial uptick as it gets legalized, then it just becomes one of those things people try and decide for themselves. (And if someone is ruining their lives with addiction, we might as well spend the war on drugs money to help them, or we can just ignore them like we do with the addicts of legal substances.)
tengbretson 5y ago
This sounds strikingly similar to the "guns don't kill people" argument.

mekoka 5y ago

The issue with psychedelic is not (so much) about personal responsibility. It's very much about the wrongful classification of the drugs themselves based on how they tend to alter cognition and behavior. I don't mean any offense, but by squeezing crack in the same bag as psychedelics, your comment exhibits the exact misunderstanding that led to the latter's prohibition. Good people on crack are more likely to do bad things over time. Bad people on mushrooms are much less likely to be worse than their usual selves (based on studies).

lifeisstillgood 5y ago
There are (in my limited understanding) too many confounding issues to be able to say that its ok to get off your head regulars with drug X but not with drug Y. In my (again limited) understanding, saying "all these are bad for us long-term (to wildly varying degrees), but it seems likely that other factors (childhood, mental illness, social position, economic, family and social) all play as important if not more important roles. Lets unban them if they have some medicinal purposes, but lets not pretend that having mushrooms and amphetamines marketed by the same socially-minded people pushing Marlboros for decades is going to make the world a better place, and please lets not think that if we strike a blow for freedom, its ok to stop worrying about all those other confounding issues. (But I concede its a lot easier to legislatively fix banned psychedelics than to fix childhood abuse, poverty and mental health. But that's why we pay government the big taxes, to take on the big jobs. )
- pas 5y ago
  > mushrooms and amphetamines marketed by the same socially-minded people pushing Marlboros for decades is going to make the world a better place, They'd be better regulated than the fucking cartels. The problems with dose would come up quickly, and you could make it available in X mg shots in liquid form. Add some ugly taste, like alcohol has. > to take on the big jobs Yeah, absolutely! Also would you be interested in acquiring a really cheap and famous bridge? Or perhaps the Eiffel tower? /s So currently it seems we pay taxes to keep the darkness at bay. Maybe. Maaaybe after half the world stops sucking fascism's dick we might finally get to spend resources to properly address those big ticket items.
pmoriarty 5y ago
"Good people on crack are more likely to do bad things over time. Bad people on mushrooms are much less likely to be worse than their usual selves (based on studies)." Of all drugs, legal and illegal, the drug that is most associated with violence is alcohol. Yet most people don't get in to a moral panic over alcohol anymore, as they used to during the original Prohibition of the 1920's. We've learned from the original, failed prohibition of the '20s. We understand that when people abuse alcohol it is a medical issue, not something to throw people in jail for. We need to learn the same lesson about all the other drugs, almost all of which are far less harmful than alcohol.
- mekoka 5y ago
  Again, the current issue with psychedelics is not a debate on Drugs with a capital D. It's rather about the mischaracterization of psychedelics. Because of their mind altering properties, psychedelics are continually conflated with other drugs, simply because we like big umbrellas. The reason they're currently being brought out of prohibition is responsible and compelling research that is demonstrating that their benefits heavily outweigh their harmfulness. If you want to legalize crack, then responsible and compelling research should probably also do the same. If you want to pin alcohol against crack when it comes to harmfulness, note that alcohol is also legal and thus more prevalent. https://bibliography.maps.org/bibliography/default/resource/15836 https://bibliography.maps.org/bibliography/default/resource/... See graph on page 4. Heroin and crack are still illegal, yet already significantly harmful. Let's not assume that legalizing them would keep the standing the same.
- partomniscient 5y ago
  They're not easy direct comparisons though. Alcohol personality changes are (now) fairly simple compared with the wide variety of substances and possible behaviours. The whole approach is wrong. Criminalise the behaviour, not the drugs and then people can work out which drugs they're compatible with. Some people are great when drunk, some are violent arseholes. The same is true for other substances.
- adminscoffee 5y ago
  let's bring back the original coca-cola, it's crazy to think that some of our grandparents and great grandparents use to drink coke as a teenage/child. but yes, prohibition has caused more pain and suffering in the world than any war combined. it's a shame how much money we waste on locking up people who already feel beaten down by life, a lot of drug addicts are people trying to self medicate

dabinat 5y ago

You could really say this about anything - for instance, violent video games. If we start banning everything that someone with a severe mental disorder could potentially abuse, that would end up being quite a long list. But there is evidence that psychedelics could prove useful in treating mental illnesses, so it could actually help those people rather than make them worse. (Of course, that’s probably best done in a clinical/therapeutic environment.)

pas 5y ago

Why wouldn't psychedelics follow the same pattern as weed? An initial uptick as it gets legalized, then it just becomes one of those things people try and decide for themselves. (And if someone is ruining their lives with addiction, we might as well spend the war on drugs money to help them, or we can just ignore them like we do with the addicts of legal substances.)

tengbretson 5y ago

This sounds strikingly similar to the "guns don't kill people" argument.