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San Francisco decriminalizes psychedelics

623 points by O__________O 4y ago

mrcheesebreeze 4y ago
As if the city wasn't bad enough, I guess they would rather let people get hooked on even more drugs instead of fix anything. Maybe if they are high enough they will not be able to tell how bad things are.
- babyshake 4y ago
  There are some problems with psilocybin and ayahuasca but "getting hooked" isn't really one of them.
- wmichelin 4y ago
  Have you ever tried psychedelics? What makes you think they're problematic? I'm sure opiates are the primary driver of many of the problems in San Francisco, combined with a failure to charge anyone with petty property crimes. Drug prohibition doesn't work and just hurts the wrong people.
  - anon291 4y ago
    Psychedelics can induce schizophrenia, as most mind altering drugs can. The stronger the drug, the more capable. From https://www.psychedelicsdaily.com/faq/can-a-bad-trip-cause-schizophrenia/ https://www.psychedelicsdaily.com/faq/can-a-bad-trip-cause-s... > Research has shown that the use of LSD can trigger the onset of schizophrenia in people prone to schizophrenia. People who use LSD are more likely than anyone else with a psychotic disorder to consume it over a period of more than a few days at a time. I am an educated adult who understands my family's history of schizo means that these drugs are no gos for me. It's just not worth it. However, I worry that teenagers and such in their developmental years will experiment. The way these drugs are marketed by true believers you'd think they're a cure all. However, in some people they cause long-lasting, even permanent effects. A significant number of people taking psychedelics experience symptoms for years after. This is a very bad change to make to one's psyche that calls one ability to reason and decide into question. These drugs should not be encouraged.
    - nh23423fefe 4y ago
    - jlmorton 4y ago
      That link makes claims not backed up by any sources it links to that are accessible online. If you follow the chain, it eventually gets to a book unavailable online, but I am skeptical. Other research has shown no link between psychedelics and psychosis. [1] This same [1] article discusses old research which may have shown a link, and speculates that the wide prevalence of various psychotic disorders may have led to spurious findings. [1] https://www.nature.com/articles/nature.2015.16968 https://www.nature.com/articles/nature.2015.16968
      - adnzzzzZ 4y ago
        Sorry, but I'm just going to trust my own observations of reality over some random paper. It's plainly obvious that these drugs trigger schizophrenia and other mental illnesses in a percentage of people who use them. Sometimes all it takes is a single use even. If you haven't met people who have had this happen to them then I advise you to search online for people's stories since it's not that hard to find them.
        deadbeeves 4y ago
        However, what's unknown is whether people who develop schizophrenia due to psychedelic use wouldn't have developed it anyway for some other reason. Latent schizophrenia can be triggered by things such as stress. Besides, it's not like even given this there's no way to consume the substances safely. A simple method is to way until 25-30 years of age. Since schizophrenia most commonly develops during a person's teenage years through to early adulthood, a person who hasn't developed it by 30 probably will never develop it.
        adnzzzzZ 4y ago
        If you're prone to it (family with history of mental illnesses) you shouldn't use it no matter your age. Why risk it? Something like schizophrenia is no joke and ruins your life completely. And if you don't find meds that work for you you literally can't fix it and go back to normal.
- pigtailgirl 4y ago
  -- the idea of getting "hooked" on psychedelics is - frankly - laughable - primarily because - well - they're not physiologically addictive - and additionally - because they're medically used to treat addiction -- https://www.discovermagazine.com/health/classic-psychedelics-arent-addictive https://www.discovermagazine.com/health/classic-psychedelics...
  - Invictus0 4y ago
    I'm appalled by your hyphen usage
    - matrix12 4y ago
      Especially the joined hyphens, they represent marriage. And as in bash, means the end of options, and the beginning of arguments.
      - pessimizer 4y ago
        "em-dash" is the word you're looking for. I like it, it's like Céline or Bukowski were forum commenters.
    - panzagl 4y ago
      Psychedelics aren't addictive- hyphens are.
  - borski 4y ago
    To be fair, while they are definitely not physiologically addictive, they can be psychologically or emotionally addictive. (I agree with you, but I think all too often people talk about addiction as if it is solely physical; emotional dependence is a real thing too)
  - mrcheesebreeze 4y ago
    thats why people never get addicted, oh wait people abuse them habitually all the time. drugs of any kind are addictive, infact even mere behaviors are addictive let alone drugs. Its truly a mark of an individual in denial when they claim their favorite drugs aren't bad for them. yes drugs are bad for you. yes even weed is bad for you and is very addictive. And people always bring up the medical use, but we all know what its going to be primarily used for. We need to treat these drugs like we do other medicine, criminalize it if its not a prescribed one unless its very weak. Its a huge problem if we let people ruin themselves with this garbage under the guise of decriminalizing for medicine, when we already are able to just prescribe them as medicine usually.
- bloppe 4y ago
  Honestly we need more people to believe this to bring this dam rent down
  - kurthr 4y ago
    Exactly! Everyone here should hate this terrible place... why is the rent so damn high? I love the "I just moved here" crowd complaining about how bad things are, and I miss the pre-1999 days when artists could afford to live in the city. Even Oakland is expensive now.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - fosk 4y ago
      I am frankly tired of hearing this non-sense. NYC is more expensive than SF and it is very much a vibrant place. For a decade SF complained about tech and actively drove companies away, because they wanted “their culture” back. Fine, then tech organizations left after covid (and their money left too), and now SF complains that tech organizations are not supporting the city anymore with their money and their employees, and you get entire areas of town (ie: Fidi) which are empty and small business are struggling. Who exactly do you think was supporting the outrageous spending and programs of San Francisco? Artists playing the piano in a bar, or hundreds of millions of dollar in taxes paid by tech and its employees? You can’t have your cake and eat it too. Now - finally - we get to see “SF culture” in full force without technology organizations and their employees: meth-addicted zombies with violent outbursts, tents everywhere, human poop and needles, salmonella outbreaks, go ahead and complete the list. Nobody wants to live in a place like this: not the artists, not the families, and now not even tech workers. There are plenty of great cities to go to, why would anybody move to San Francisco and deal with these quality of life problems?
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      - kurthr 4y ago
- junon 4y ago
  Clearly spoken by someone who has exactly zero exposure to such drugs. For example, they're typically not addictive.
  - mrcheesebreeze 4y ago
    typically not addictive. Anyone who takes them runs the risk of being addicted to the experience hence the abuse of these drugs in the first place. It may not be the same kind of addiction but they still go back time and time again. Furthermore various mental issues can come from them so even if you don't get addicted you can still be harmed. Its a useless past-time thats dangerous and is less fun than other mediums of entertainment. Rather than reduce yourself to an incoherent mess for a while you can spend the money doing basically anything else for a better time. Hang out with friends, travel somewhere in you state or country, play some video games, anything else is better. Its a useless risk that should be banned, other than medical use, to protect society.
    - junon 4y ago
      You don't get addicted to experiences. You get addicted to chemicals. You are approaching a scientific topic from an emotional stance. You cannot do that.
- SpaceL10n 4y ago
  I view this as a pragmatic solution to a common problem amongst law enforcement agencies which is constrained resources. Focusing on the bad drugs and leaving the hippies alone seems like a sound step forward.
- TakeBlaster16 4y ago
  All our problems would be solved if we simply jailed everyone who put the wrong kind of mushrooms on their pizza
- Ixiaus 4y ago
  > Psychedelics (serotonergic hallucinogens) are powerful psychoactive substances that alter perception and mood and affect numerous cognitive processes. They are generally considered physiologically safe and do not lead to dependence or addiction. ... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4813425/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4813425/ Decriminalizing psychedelics is likely to help with the treatment of mental health problems that often lead people to substance abuse. The idea that substance abuse is a character flaw is outdated and harmful. Some substances are certainly dangerous. Psychedelics are not in most cases. Condemning people who are using dangerous substances perpetuates the cycle of shame which keeps people from being able to heal.
  - josephcsible 4y ago
    > The idea that substance abuse is a character flaw is outdated and harmful. Sure, once you're already physically addicted, taking the next hit isn't a character flaw. But being willing to take the first hit before you're addicted is absolutely a gigantic character flaw.
    - Ixiaus 4y ago
      No. It is not.
- quickthrowman 4y ago
  Hallucinogens have the lowest addiction potential of any illegal drug, by a large margin.
- cowmix 4y ago
  I was just there for the first time in two years. Based on all the comments here on HN, I expected to walk through a hell-scape. After spending a week, mostly on foot in the city... a lot of this talk seems overblown.
  - systemvoltage 4y ago
    I visit SF occassionally from East Bay. Absolute disaster. Where did you go? I think situation is more dire than it seems in East Bay. Both are succumbing to third-world urban decay and infrastructure rot.
    - novok 4y ago
      It really is area specific, and I think that is on purpose. When there was the superbowl in SF, all of a sudden certain BART stations stopped smelling like piss and homeless population in those areas were not there any more. Tell me where the homeless camps are around the marina or other wealthy neighborhoods of SF with high foot traffic. Suspiciously missing or hard to find... Since it's done on purpose, if SF wanted to actually revitalize their downtown they would lay down the law on their mainline tunnel transit stations, caltrain stations, ferry stations, tourist hotel hot spots and market st like they lay down the law in the marina with it's crazy high foot traffic. Yes it is 'moving the problem around', but at least it makes people feel safe and not nauseated where they enter and exit from SF. I bet one good chunk of why people are not coming back to offices to SF is because the transit safety and cleanliness experience is not good there.
      - systemvoltage 4y ago
        I've had my car broken into 3 times in different parts of SF. Nothing visible anywhere inside the car. They took things like coins and a utility knife from the center console, and once I made the mistake of having a dash cam which was promptly stolen. Never again. Criminals are not localized in SF. They roam around in cars smashing and grabbing.
  - ceeplusplus 4y ago
- StanislavPetrov 4y ago
  Drugs are effectively legal in San Fransisco already. Just walk down the street and take a look around. Psychedelics are not addictive and 99.999% of the people you see walking the streets like zombies are not on psychedelics.
ben174 4y ago
Surprised Ketamine isn't listed. I figured they'd lump that in. On the other hand, ketamine is extremely addictive, despite what you might read online. I know several people who have given up everything to sustain their Ketamine habit.
- bsedlm 4y ago
  Ketamine is not a psychedelic (in the hallucinogenic sense)
  - acchow 4y ago
    In which sense is ketamine a psychedelic?
- pengaru 4y ago
  It also has bladder toxicity issues, it's not uncommon for ketamine addicts to piss blood AIUI. In extreme cases bladders have required permanent removal. Edit: VICE even named their recent Ketamine episode "Pissing Blood" for this reason. [0] [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99XQY7Elwhc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99XQY7Elwhc
  - jjulius 4y ago
    >... it's not uncommon for ketamine addicts to piss blood AIUI. I had no idea this was a thing until the morning after I woke up from my first time partying around people who were using it. Someone took a leak and I hear, "Hah! Yep, there's the good ol' orange K piss," and I couldn't help but be surprised that it sounded like they were laughing at the fact they were pissing blood. I should clarify - nothing against ketamine in small doses recreationally, just take care of yourself.
    - totony 4y ago
      ketamine also has been shown to cause brain damage in addicts afaik.
Overtonwindow 4y ago
“While it doesn’t immediately enact changes to criminal justice policy in San Francisco, it urges police to deprioritize psychedelics as “amongst the lowest priority” for enforcement and requests that “City resources not be used for any investigation, detention, arrest, or prosecution arising out of alleged violations of state and federal law regarding the use of Entheogenic Plants listed on the Federally Controlled Substances Schedule 1 list.”
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- dsl 4y ago
  Heroin seems to fit their definition as well.
darawk 4y ago
Great news. Whether or not you believe these substances have significant therapeutic potential (I do), it's basically indisputable that they are socially harmless. Nobody gets addicted to them, there are no known negative health effects. There is absolutely no justification whatsoever for their criminality, and there never has been.
- bil7 4y ago
  While I am also in complete favour, stating that there are no negative health effects is somewhat false. Abusing any kind of psychedelic can lead to HPPD [1], a very real long term disorder. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallucinogen_persisting_perception_disorder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallucinogen_persisting_percep...
  - MacsHeadroom 4y ago
    I would classify HPPD as widely harmless. If you poll non-users you'll find that many people have HPPD like effects and can't recall ever not having them. Seeing a slight trail behind a bright fast moving object is inconsequential in life.
    - kortex 4y ago
      Brains are quite nonlinear. I wonder how many people already had visual artifacts and assorted weirdness, but never paid attention to them because the brain just paves over it, until an experience highlights those artifacts, and now they can't not notice them.
    - LordDragonfang 4y ago
      >If you poll non-users you'll find that many people have HPPD like effects and can't recall ever not having them. Yep https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/09/11/lots-of-people-going-around-with-mild-hallucinations-all-the-time/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/09/11/lots-of-people-going-a...
    - tsol 4y ago
      Many people with psychedelic-induced HPPD report them being a difficulty, though. Take this case study: >These symptoms persisted for the last 13 years, with little change in intensity and frequency. All efforts at treatment, psychopharmacological as well as psychotherapeutic, failed to alleviate the symptoms. Often the patient was unable to focus properly with her eyes and tired rapidly while performing intense visual tasks – these deficiencies being detrimental to her studies and professional work as an architect. As a consequence, the patient became depressed with latent suicidal impulses. She also found it increasingly difficult to distinguish between ‘normal’ and ‘ abnormal’ perceptions. This papering over of side effects that people insist on is why so many are so hesitant to legalize these drugs. It's doing no favor to the cause when so many refuse to acknowledge the danger that's inherit in some kinds of psychoactive drugs.
tikkun 4y ago
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
bloppe 4y ago
A more accurate title: SF supervisors would like to decriminalize psychedelics
- pvarangot 4y ago
  Considering how things went with the fence in 24th St. when Ronen actually tried to "criminalize" something (https://twitter.com/HillaryRonen/status/1537599919090847745 https://twitter.com/HillaryRonen/status/1537599919090847745) I would say psychedelics are already decriminalized in the city wether the board instructs SFPD about making them "the lowest possible priority" or not. This is probably a "propaganda law" to appear progressive while actually not doing anything at all except wasting ink and breath.
  - hemloc_io 4y ago
    That whole station is such a cluster. Someone got murdered there a week ago or so. There was some quote with her that her district "went to shit during her term" and she seemed confused as to who was responsible...
  - erdos4d 4y ago
    I'm not a SF resident and don't understand this at all, can someone explain what happened here?
    - bombcar 4y ago
      I think they’re saying that pshychedelics laws are already entirely not enforced so this does nothing.
    - kelnos 4y ago
      There's a BART station at 24th and Mission streets where the aboveground plaza (where the escalator is to get down to the station) is just covered with un-permitted street vendors. Many of the vendors are selling stolen goods. Ronen pledged to clean that up. Of course, it was all just staged; they swept away the vendors, finished their photo op, and after they left, the vendors all came back. I think the grandparent's point is that if they can't/won't even enforce laws that they actually claim to enforce, LSD use -- something the local government explicitly has not cared about for quite some time -- has already been unofficially decriminalized. I don't really agree with the overall premise there, though; without getting into whether this particular decriminalization is a good idea, leaving intentionally-unenforced laws on the books just leads to abuse. If particular laws shouldn't be enforced, then they should be repealed entirely.
photochemsyn 4y ago
This is a good move. Psychedelics (read: naturally occuring or semi-synthetic substances which bind to the 5-HT2A receptor) are generally safer than most other recreational drugs (such as alcohol, opiates, amphetamines, cocaine, tobacco) and tend to have the lowest addiction potential. In addition they have some noted medical effects (treating alcoholism and depression in particular, with potential for treating opiate addiction as well). The best way to approach psychedelics is with the 'less is more' mentality, although this does fly in the face of consumer capitalism and the profit motive.
- worik 4y ago
  "consumer capitalism and the profit motive" and recreational drugs are a bad mix.
  - worik 4y ago
    ....unless your business is dealing drugs
    - throwawaylinux 4y ago
      Or buying them for reasonable prices.
      - worik 4y ago
        > Or buying them for reasonable prices In the realm of illegal recreational drugs price is a poor indicator of quality. What matters is relationships. The "free market" in that environment spurs deception, and in the very worst cases, poisoning In the market for legal recreational drugs, such as it is (alcohol and pharmaceuticals mostly) it spurs cultivating and exploiting addicts. The answer is regulation, and regulated markets. Not free markets
        throwawaylinux 4y ago
        Are you using the criminalized manufacture and trading of drugs as an example of "free" market failure and a demonstration of why regulated markets work better? Can't tell if it's sarcasm or not.
yieldcrv 4y ago
> will be "among the lowest priorities" for law enforcement. By that standard, both San Francisco and Los Angeles have decriminalized all drugs, alongside open containers, prostitution on the street, prostitution in strip clubs, prostitution elsewhere indoors, and practically every other vice. And I'm reaaallly not saying this from a position of envy or disdain, only accuracy, there is also a completely parallel society for people living in tents where enforcement of anything is a stated non-priority. Seeing an article about a board actually voting on a measure to "lower law enforcement priority" is kind of redundant! The Mayors and DA's have already dug their heels in, what does anything like this actually change? Does it force county/city judges to auto-drop cases if an officer and prosecutor fail to do so themselves? Seems redundant if it can't actually do anything differently.
- notch656a 4y ago
  Homeless have no money to extract. A middle class guy open carrying a protective weapon will get hit by the judicial system like a ton of bricks, while the homeless guy selling fent or acid or whatever on the corner will probably just get a tip on the next feeding time at the kitchen.
  - yieldcrv 4y ago
    One correction, the current non-enforcement of the nylon favelas is coming from a place of compassion, ostensibly I just wish we could use selective enforcement as a way to invalidate some laws and policies under the constitution (right its only the opposite, a law can only be questioned by someone it was enforced against, if they can afford doing so)
  - jakear 4y ago
    Hell SF pays homeless cash, simply for being homeless. Walk around SF on homeless payday and you’ll see a massive uptick in open use of crack, folks strung out motionless on the sidewalk with needles sticking out of them, and sidewalk slouchers openly sapping on liquor bottles. This is the same city that can’t manage to secure funding to prevent human waste from accumulating on the sidewalks. I happen to be homeless as well, but I still can’t get behind this concept. I volunteer my time to a national wildlife refuge and expect nothing in return, these folks shit on sidewalks and get cash in hand. If we really want to “solve” homelessness (I don’t think it’s something that needs to be solved, every era of humanity has had some portion of the population living without a solid roof over their heads), the answer is funding more public works programs, not funding delinquency. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10498607/San-Francisco-homeless-man-says-gets-paid-620-month.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10498607/San-Franci...
pengaru 4y ago
Years ago I interacted with hippies openly selling commercial-looking individually wrapped chocolates containing psilocybin in Golden Gate Park. This is San Francisco we're talking about, psychedelics already weren't a priority for the police in any practical sense.
- hemloc_io 4y ago
  hah still a thing, and now they do delivery and have punchcards. Supposedly one of them works with a prof at Berkeley to make their product
  - lalos 4y ago
    That's the premise of Breaking Bad, but with a twist.
    - deleted 4y ago
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    - YesWeWill 4y ago
  - briffle 4y ago
    A line that is repeated by any LSD dealer in any college town...
    - pessimizer 4y ago
      Because it's often true, and was universally true for late-Xers, early-Millennials? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Leonard_Pickard https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Leonard_Pickard Back then (the 90s), LSD was $2/hit.
      - cammikebrown 4y ago
        The wholesale price of LSD is currently under $2/hit.
rockbruno 4y ago
Fantastic news for the US and the scientific research of psychedelics as a treatment for depression and anxiety. Meanwhile, on the other side of the atlantic, it's a nightmare to get our politicians to even begin talking about cannabis (Sweden).
- torpid 4y ago
  Decriminalization is different than legalization. It likely will not help any US or scientific research.
  - justizin 4y ago
    The FDA is in the process of certifying psilocybin for therapeutic purposes, research should begin within a year or two, but decriminalization in oakland has already led to high quality, precision-dosed, retail-available gelcaps and such. I'm hoping those products hop the bay and show up in SF head shops, soon.
    - galangalalgol 4y ago
      What conditions are they considering it for?
    - omwow 4y ago
      Amen to that. Also, hope that this will pave the way for wider therapeutic use not just in SF, but across the US and other countries.
  - kirsebaer 4y ago
    Reducing stigma helps research. It becomes easier to get institutional support, recruit study participants, collaborate with colleagues, obtain funding, etc.
- nzealand 4y ago
  It's still illegal at a federal and state level.
g42gregory 4y ago
How are people supposed to drive (or walk on the street for that matter), with large number of street population under the influence of various drugs?
- RC_ITR 4y ago
  Carefully and with respect for others’ lives.
  - g42gregory 4y ago
    How about walking? Is your advice to people of San Francisco and visitors to walk “carefully” on the streets?
    - RC_ITR 4y ago
      Someone asked about driving.
- hadlock 4y ago
  - borski 4y ago
    This made me lol. Thanks
- green-salt 4y ago
  they already do with all the people consuming alcohol, nicotine, etc.
- 10x_contrarian 4y ago
  Psychedelics are not a street drug. The majority of people struggling with addiction use crack cocaine, crystal meth, and opioids. Those are not decriminalized (technically).
gwbas1c 4y ago
Meta: The nags on this site are overwhelming. There were 4 nags, three of them pushing a guide to grow my own shrooms. No means no.
rideg 4y ago
The Netherlands backpedaled after a couple of very serious incidents regarding many psychedelics. Public suicide, animal sacrifice, crime etc. I don’t see how it will be different in SF.
- FredrikMeyer 4y ago
  So silly, considering all the noise and accidents alcohol directly causes. But then a single bad case after someone taking psychedelics, and they reverse.
  - nathanaldensr 4y ago
    Textbook whataboutism--and I hate that phrase. Yes, and both substances should be controlled. Uncontrolled hard drugs are harmful to society, but it seems like the ignorant, naive youth of today are going to have to learn some hard lessons on the topic from first principles.
    - JamesBarney 4y ago
      This isn't whataboutism, it's very specifically comparing the societal consequences of two drugs and the possible consequences. It's not whataboutism bring up other risks that as a society we tolerate, when we are thinking about restricting one.
      - bko 4y ago
        One drug is possibly more harmful but is already legal almost everywhere, deeply ingrained in many aspects of Western society and has a history of issues regarding criminalization The other is possibly less harmful but it is currently illegal/controlled pretty much everywhere and has a niche demand. I think its entirely reasonable to think that we should not open up a whole new can of worms.
        kortex 4y ago
        How is the can of worms not already open? The War on Drugs has failed to put a dent in drug consumption habits. My suspicion why there was an uptick of incidents in NL/Amsterdam was the influx of people specifically seeking those substances out, with little safety education or experience. If they were more widely available, the incidents would be far more diffuse, and likely fall below the noise floor. Plus, wider awareness means better overall substance education and understanding, meaning fewer folks getting in over their heads and acting a fool. The same "can of worms" argument was leveled against cannabis legalization, and turned out to be overblown, there was no outbreak of reefer madness.
WFHRenaissance 4y ago
- itake 4y ago
  You think the homeless people were choosing not to do psychedelics because its illegal?
  - WFHRenaissance 4y ago
    regret
Nifty3929 4y ago
I think these "no enforcement" things are the worst. It always leaves people in a legal grey-area where they want to do something, and they are allowed to do it, but it's still technically illegal with all the baggage that goes along with that. In fact, it relieves pressure to legalize, since most people are now able to do what they like. Take speeding laws (in the US): (almost) everybody breaks them since the limits are so low, which gives officers discretion to basically go out and just start ticketing anybody they like. Everyone is guilty, but we just don't enforce it against you, at least for today. Clearly (I hope), when a large number of people are breaking a law, and we all just accept this - then it's not a good law. But speed limits don't get repealed, because very few people are actually prosecuted, so the general public doesn't get mad enough about it. If speed limits were universally enforced, the public would get mad and the limits would be removed or raised within a week.
- dsl 4y ago
  There is no gray area here. San Francisco can make murder legal and refuse to arrest people for it. State and federal law enforcement will just step in. The DEA still busts dispensaries and grow operations in California for example, it just isn't newsworthy.
  - int_19h 4y ago
    It's a bit more complicated than that. When the state makes something legal and refuses to prosecute, it can do so because it possesses sufficient sovereignty for that under the commandeering doctrine. But the relationship between the state and its municipalities is not equivalent - the state has all the sovereignty while the municipalities only have such power that the state delegates to them, and that power can always be withdrawn (in the most extreme case, by de-chartering). Thus, the state can actually force San Francisco to remove this law, and compel its law enforcement agencies to enforce state law. It just chooses to not do so.
yrgulation 4y ago
Oh boy prepare for more “AI is conscious” “whistleblowers” and headlines.
- rglover 4y ago
bosswipe 4y ago
Already happened across the bay in Oakland. Unfortunately Oakland police is so dysfunctional that it's impossible to know if decriminalization has caused any change in problematic public behaviors.
- throwaway_4ever 4y ago
  > Oakland police is so dysfunctional https://www.reddit.com/r/bayarea/comments/guqz5t/comment/fsk85fd/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3 https://www.reddit.com/r/bayarea/comments/guqz5t/comment/fsk...
deleted 4y ago
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torpid 4y ago
This growing fad of partial "psychedelic decriminalization" initiatives covers only plant-based ones, which is ridiculous. Ingesting shrooms are harder to dose than a hit or two of acid. Eating the weight equivalent of one cap or stem can be a completely different experience, from the same spores. This will make the gradual path to full legalization even harder because people aren't trying things that are more easier to dose. There is no good reason why non plant based drugs like LSD, MDMA and Ketamine are not included so we could really call this a true psychedelic decriminalization measure.
- deleted 4y ago
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- ebb_earl_co 4y ago
  I think that one at least passable reason for just the “natural” substances to be focused on is to bring religious people under the big tent of eventual psychedelic legalization. Leaning on arguments such as God wouldn’t have made the substance if He didn’t want us to use it resonates with a lot of potential allies to the overall psychedelic legalization cause. A second reason comes from the group Decriminalize Nature [0] in their resolution to the Oakland City Council when pushing for decriminalization there[1]: “…reestablish humans’ inalienable and direct relationship to nature.” That is, some have this explicit goal and might not care much for the synthesized psychedelics. 0: https://www.decriminalizenature.org/ https://www.decriminalizenature.org/ 1: https://www.decriminalizenature.org/media/attachments/2019/06/13/dno_resolution-oforentheogenicplantsandfungi.pdf https://www.decriminalizenature.org/media/attachments/2019/0...
  - oh-4-fucks-sake 4y ago
    Agree with this incremental step from a political perspective as an easy sell / quick win. But, it's imperative that this be understood as an incremental step. The hazard here is equating "natural" with "safe" and "synthetic" with "unsafe". Eventually, this mindset will have to be dropped because morphine, cocaine, and cyanide are natural (heck, methamphetamines is found in trace amounts in some species of acacia). MDMA is synthetic but can be lethal in a single dose. LSD is semi-synthetic and one of the safest of the bunch--in fact, it's safer than the "natural" chemical feedstocks of its synthesization routes (LSA or ergot). The shift will have to be to evaluating each molecule on its merits and risk profile. Sure, the whole "natural" argument feels warm-'n'-fuzzy for a lot of people--but sadly it's a poor metric for determining safety. After all, our brains' receptors can't tell whether a molecule originated from a plant or from a lab. TL;DR: LSD, Cannabis, Psilocybin, Mescaline, DMT, (maybe) MDMA, and their various pro-drugs/analogues should be legal and regulated--regardless of their source. Morphine? I mean, the libertarian in me says "OK", but the more practical side says "probably not a great idea". In the end, none of this is rocket science--but the DEA, the broader US Government, and religion have turned it into a far more complicated thing than it needs to be.
hayst4ck 4y ago
Imagine thinking you have freedom when you can't decide what to put in your own body. Imagine being happy with your tax dollars funding the "investigation, detention, arrest, or prosecution" of people using substances rather than teacher's salaries, solving homelessness, public transportation, or exploration of space.
- treeman79 4y ago
  Do I still need a prescription to get medication?
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- gotoeleven 4y ago
  Yes they should try it in san francisco maybe there'd be less hobos and you could use the public spaces occasionally. I used to be super libertarian but Ive come to realize that this only works if you, the one availing yourself of liberty, are the one that bears the consequences of your bad decisions. Increasingly, it seems, you do not. The dumber and more anti-social you act, the more victim status you are awarded with as the left half of our polity trips all over themselves rushing to make excuses for you. And then all the people who'd just like to sit in a park while also not being menaced by drug addicts are told to shut up. No thanks. We, as a society, cannot handle the liberties we already have.
  - virgildotcodes 4y ago
    Thank God none of this currently happens with drugs being illegal.
    - slickdork 4y ago
      We made being homeless be illegal too, so it's a solved problem.
cies 4y ago
> California is On the Brink of Decriminalizing Psychedelics — But It’s Not That Simple Sure, believe your government. Much of this stuff is grows in nature. It is a personal choice to take it. And it is forbidden by laws! So it used to be legal, before the law was enacted, and now you are a criminal for getting high. All that is needed is to remove the law! Which is not hard for the right politicians, but still they dont and have not for a long time. It is not hard to remove the law, and what we have to accept is that decriminalization is what we get. Pfff...
holyknight 4y ago
One of the few good legislations in SF in a long time
moneycantbuy 4y ago
safer than alcohol
formvoltron 4y ago
finally 16th & Valencia can compete with 16th & Mission. Seriously though this is pretty cool.
deleted 4y ago
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DocTomoe 4y ago
Given that San Francisco has decriminalised basically any crime, it's curious this took them so long.
jointpdf 4y ago
DC decriminalized psychedelics (well, entheogens like psilocybin) over a year ago: https://www.washingtonian.com/2021/03/15/magic-mushrooms-are-decriminalized-in-dc-as-of-today/ https://www.washingtonian.com/2021/03/15/magic-mushrooms-are...
- yboris 4y ago
  Detroit and Ann Arbor in Michigan both decriminalized it: November 2021: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/detroit-just-decriminalized-psychedelics-and-magic-mushrooms-heres-what-that-means https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/detroit-just-decrimina... September 2020: https://apnews.com/article/ann-arbor-plants-featured-ca-state-wire-mi-state-wire-b0ce69ca0961c150e0f900e8ea4cf432 https://apnews.com/article/ann-arbor-plants-featured-ca-stat...
- yboris 4y ago
  December 2020: Oregon decriminalized all drugs: https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/articles/2020-12-10/oregon-just-decriminalized-all-drugs-heres-why-voters-passed-this-groundbreaking-reform https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/articles/2020-12-10/...
  - notwedtm 4y ago
    I wouldn't say that this has been going well recently.
    - aagha 4y ago
      I haven't followed. Why not?
    - archon810 4y ago
      As someone who just came back from Portland with high expectations and instead stepped into a city where in downtown we were outnumbered by drug users, homeless, and other sketchy characters, I have to say you're right. We observed an ambulance trying to revive someone and another druggie crying in fear within the first half an hour of walking around. The city is also covered in graffiti and full of shuttered, empty stores, it's almost apocalyptic. It's quite a sad state of affairs, and I say that as someone living in the Bay Area next to San Francisco and Oakland.
tiahura 4y ago
That's great. Every time I take my family on a leisurely stroll down Market Street I keep thinking what SF really needs are more people on drugs.
SavageBeast 4y ago
Like LE in SF had any priorities anyhow - not big news here.
29athrowaway 4y ago
Now you can have business "trips"
dekhn 4y ago
I would like to remind all the readers of this post that the united states government used to try to use LSD as a mind control drug. They (IIRC it was the CIA) got into all sorts of shenanigans, dosing people (including CIA officers) without their consent. Some people died and other people's lives were affected very negatively. This was back in the 1950s- a time at which American had little or no conception of the concept of a "psychedelic" at all. Also, the Grateful Dead- whose parking lots were famous as large scale drug distribution sites- went from being counterculture to establishment in some ~25-30 years (the "house band" of the Clinton administration). We apparently live don't live in the strangest timeline, but it's definitely the trippiest one.
- iancmceachern 4y ago
  What a long strange trip it's been!
- Mo3 4y ago
  They used to try.. then they succeeded with some of their research, rolled it into the private sector, and closed the official record with the notion that it was a waste of time.
  - edem 4y ago
    Can you elaborate?
    - Mo3 4y ago
      I'm not quite sure what you would like to know, but this is a regular process that has been going on for a long time.
- ethanbond 4y ago
  FWIW there were deaths caused by the MKULTRA program[1], but the implication that LSD caused the deaths is probably not correct. This is sort of just a historical dump since it’s a fascinating story: The notable death people remember is the Army officer who “jumped” out of his hotel window in NYC. Years later the Watergate investigation revealed the MKULTRA program and connected it to the Army officer’s death. CIA sort of implied “yeah we were doing stuff with LSD mind control and he went crazy,” but some (like the officer’s son) believe that is also a cover story. AFAIK the son still believes his father was going to blow the whistle on some sort of chem or bio weapon development (the father was a scientist at Fort Detrick, the US military’s bioweapon development center at the time) and he was assassinated before going public. Anyway, the son’s theory almost seems like the most believable part of the whole MKULTRA universe. [1] Among MKULTRA’s damage is arguably the creation of the Unabomber. Ted was an unknowing test subject at Harvard where he was basically emotionally tortured by a CIA agent posing as a fellow student. He had his beliefs — which he was always strongly identified with — systematically dismantled in order to cause emotional distress.
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WalterBright 4y ago
In a free society, consenting adults should be free to take whatever drugs they want. Committing a crime while on drugs should be a crime - the drugs should not be a valid defense.
- yadaeno 4y ago
  Why is that a given without any thought of the consequences? Heroin and fentanyl addictions ruin peoples lives forever, many regret ever taking it and wish they could escape the cycle of addiction but cant no matter how hard they try. One reason they cant escape is because fentanyl use is so widespread and normalized the option to return to their old lifestyle is always extremely easy. Freedom to take fentanyl and live on the street isnt freedom, its quite the opposite. Go walk around the tenderloin or pioneer square to see what this "free society" looks like.
  - solaceb 4y ago
    Addiction is a problem, and it's a problem now, even with the harmful substances being prohibited. The fact that fentanyl and heroin are criminalized doesn't make anyone less likely to end up using them; the criminal penalties just make them even more dangerous to use. You're assuming that legalizing / decriminalizing fent and h possession the addiction situation would get worse -- I'm not convinced that is true. If we legalized / decriminalized the possession of all drugs including fent and heroin, then people using them would not suffer criminal penalties for being caught with them. Oftentimes it's social factors like incarceration that make it doubly hard for addicts to escape the cycle of addiction. You are caught using and so you enter jail, and catch a felony on your record, making it even more difficult to land work. Or you end up with trauma from being imprisoned, further damaging your mental health, further driving you to escape with your drug of choice. Long story short, prohibitionism doesn't really work in the sense that criminal penalties don't really deter drug users from using drugs. It just makes it even more dangerous to use the drugs!
    - WalterBright 4y ago
      Criminalization creates other problems: 1. addicts can't get predictable, reliable, pharmaceutical quality drugs. Street drugs aren't predictable, and cause overdoses because of that 2. addicts become criminals because of high street prices, leading to all sorts of associated crime 3. illegal drugs lead to massive profits for criminal organizations 4. people suffering from terrible diseases die in agony because painkillers that would work on their pain are illegal 5. people who suffer from chronic pain, which is not diagnosible, are forced to turn to street drugs 6. legalizing heroin is not going to tempt me to use it. Is it being illegal stopping you from using it? 7. being an addict is punishment enough. Why does anyone think punishing them further will improve matters? 8. consenting adults have a fundamental right to their own bodies. As the pandemic showed, our government is not very good at determining what drugs are best for people. It's more politics than science.
diogenescynic 4y ago
This is going to make San Francisco even more sketchy and dangerous.
newdrugsyay 4y ago
classified 4y ago
About time. I'm hoping others will follow up soon.
graderjs 4y ago
This is fantastic! I hope they also decriminalize Salvia (if it's scheduled there) it's a (plant that has a number of) very very good molecule in my experience (which was way back around the millennium before it was scheduled)
sentrysapper 4y ago
While a bit dry at times, there is a fascinating history on the use and misuse of LSD and psychedelics in Michael Pollan's "How To Change Your Mind." In it he describes how Sandoz knew LSD had potential, they just couldn't figure out how to best apply it to human psychology. So they would literally give it out to anyone who asked for it. Would recommend it to those looking to learn more about how it got criminalized in the first place. None of the comments I've read so far capture the full picture.
- filoeleven 4y ago
  He’s also done a 4-part documentary on Netflix under the same title. It can’t go into the detail that the book does, but what you’re writing about here is covered broadly in the first episode.
UltraViolence 4y ago
It's time we started legalizing narcotics en masse, since half a century of fighting "the war on drugs" has made organized crime richer and stronger than anyone believed possible. Look at the cannabis industry, it's thriving yet hasn't led to a surge in medical emergencies. OTOH the states where it's been legalized have had a huge windfall in tax income which they can put to good use fighting other crime and prepping up social services.
- buzzert 4y ago
  > which they can put to good use fighting other crime and prepping up social services. Still waiting for that part.
nullcontext 4y ago
As an old head, lifelong Junglist and retired long serving Minister of Raves for the Party People Party, this is thrilling to hear. Please pass the MDMA, whatever Dutch doublestacks bearing a high dose warning (yes, a real label for 250mg+ per dose) you have in stock. Teslas would be wonderful. Thanks~~~ Now, when can someone enterprising small business startup stand themselves up an independent dispensary? What about the install of the drive through window? Until we allow for take out and achieve feature parity with alcohol these substances are being discriminated against. If intoxicants were races then LSD could use affirmative Action to get it on par with how we treat tobacco and booze. Treat it like alcohol already. Better yet don't concern yourself with what people put in their bodies unless they make you have to intervene for public order or safety's sake. Without the myopic and impotent moral bias these substances have suffered through since their discoveries this becomes pretty simple and surprisingly straightforward to live with socially. People don't typically abuse psychedelics to addiction. Notable exceptions being stimulants obviously. LSD is evil, mushrooms are great, and everything in between will have you feeling various degrees of regret and anxiety about what you just took and how long it's going to be warping your reality. That gets dicey if things take a downward turn and things spiral into a true bad trip. These chemicals are decompilers for the mind and should be treated with the respect you would give your mind's configuration files. The psychological consequences from a bad experience can be lifelong and stay with you forever, but we're adults and hopefully RTFM and follow best practices and take precautions. There should be no one telling me what I can't put in my own body... long as I accept the end result of it. Sorry for the /rant, this hits close to home and I have many feels about it.
anotherOneSound 4y ago
grubby 4y ago
literally got handed a chocolate bar of shrooms on the street in SF while I was joking about “killing me eagle”

623 points by O__________O 4y ago

As if the city wasn't bad enough, I guess they would rather let people get hooked on even more drugs instead of fix anything. Maybe if they are high enough they will not be able to tell how bad things are.

babyshake 4y ago
There are some problems with psilocybin and ayahuasca but "getting hooked" isn't really one of them.
wmichelin 4y ago
Have you ever tried psychedelics? What makes you think they're problematic? I'm sure opiates are the primary driver of many of the problems in San Francisco, combined with a failure to charge anyone with petty property crimes. Drug prohibition doesn't work and just hurts the wrong people.
- anon291 4y ago
  Psychedelics can induce schizophrenia, as most mind altering drugs can. The stronger the drug, the more capable. From https://www.psychedelicsdaily.com/faq/can-a-bad-trip-cause-schizophrenia/ https://www.psychedelicsdaily.com/faq/can-a-bad-trip-cause-s... > Research has shown that the use of LSD can trigger the onset of schizophrenia in people prone to schizophrenia. People who use LSD are more likely than anyone else with a psychotic disorder to consume it over a period of more than a few days at a time. I am an educated adult who understands my family's history of schizo means that these drugs are no gos for me. It's just not worth it. However, I worry that teenagers and such in their developmental years will experiment. The way these drugs are marketed by true believers you'd think they're a cure all. However, in some people they cause long-lasting, even permanent effects. A significant number of people taking psychedelics experience symptoms for years after. This is a very bad change to make to one's psyche that calls one ability to reason and decide into question. These drugs should not be encouraged.
  - nh23423fefe 4y ago
  - jlmorton 4y ago
    That link makes claims not backed up by any sources it links to that are accessible online. If you follow the chain, it eventually gets to a book unavailable online, but I am skeptical. Other research has shown no link between psychedelics and psychosis. [1] This same [1] article discusses old research which may have shown a link, and speculates that the wide prevalence of various psychotic disorders may have led to spurious findings. [1] https://www.nature.com/articles/nature.2015.16968 https://www.nature.com/articles/nature.2015.16968
    - adnzzzzZ 4y ago
      Sorry, but I'm just going to trust my own observations of reality over some random paper. It's plainly obvious that these drugs trigger schizophrenia and other mental illnesses in a percentage of people who use them. Sometimes all it takes is a single use even. If you haven't met people who have had this happen to them then I advise you to search online for people's stories since it's not that hard to find them.
      - deadbeeves 4y ago
        However, what's unknown is whether people who develop schizophrenia due to psychedelic use wouldn't have developed it anyway for some other reason. Latent schizophrenia can be triggered by things such as stress. Besides, it's not like even given this there's no way to consume the substances safely. A simple method is to way until 25-30 years of age. Since schizophrenia most commonly develops during a person's teenage years through to early adulthood, a person who hasn't developed it by 30 probably will never develop it.
        adnzzzzZ 4y ago
        If you're prone to it (family with history of mental illnesses) you shouldn't use it no matter your age. Why risk it? Something like schizophrenia is no joke and ruins your life completely. And if you don't find meds that work for you you literally can't fix it and go back to normal.
pigtailgirl 4y ago
-- the idea of getting "hooked" on psychedelics is - frankly - laughable - primarily because - well - they're not physiologically addictive - and additionally - because they're medically used to treat addiction -- https://www.discovermagazine.com/health/classic-psychedelics-arent-addictive https://www.discovermagazine.com/health/classic-psychedelics...
- Invictus0 4y ago
  I'm appalled by your hyphen usage
  - matrix12 4y ago
    Especially the joined hyphens, they represent marriage. And as in bash, means the end of options, and the beginning of arguments.
    - pessimizer 4y ago
      "em-dash" is the word you're looking for. I like it, it's like Céline or Bukowski were forum commenters.
  - panzagl 4y ago
    Psychedelics aren't addictive- hyphens are.
- borski 4y ago
  To be fair, while they are definitely not physiologically addictive, they can be psychologically or emotionally addictive. (I agree with you, but I think all too often people talk about addiction as if it is solely physical; emotional dependence is a real thing too)
- mrcheesebreeze 4y ago
  thats why people never get addicted, oh wait people abuse them habitually all the time. drugs of any kind are addictive, infact even mere behaviors are addictive let alone drugs. Its truly a mark of an individual in denial when they claim their favorite drugs aren't bad for them. yes drugs are bad for you. yes even weed is bad for you and is very addictive. And people always bring up the medical use, but we all know what its going to be primarily used for. We need to treat these drugs like we do other medicine, criminalize it if its not a prescribed one unless its very weak. Its a huge problem if we let people ruin themselves with this garbage under the guise of decriminalizing for medicine, when we already are able to just prescribe them as medicine usually.
bloppe 4y ago
Honestly we need more people to believe this to bring this dam rent down
- kurthr 4y ago
  Exactly! Everyone here should hate this terrible place... why is the rent so damn high? I love the "I just moved here" crowd complaining about how bad things are, and I miss the pre-1999 days when artists could afford to live in the city. Even Oakland is expensive now.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - fosk 4y ago
    I am frankly tired of hearing this non-sense. NYC is more expensive than SF and it is very much a vibrant place. For a decade SF complained about tech and actively drove companies away, because they wanted “their culture” back. Fine, then tech organizations left after covid (and their money left too), and now SF complains that tech organizations are not supporting the city anymore with their money and their employees, and you get entire areas of town (ie: Fidi) which are empty and small business are struggling. Who exactly do you think was supporting the outrageous spending and programs of San Francisco? Artists playing the piano in a bar, or hundreds of millions of dollar in taxes paid by tech and its employees? You can’t have your cake and eat it too. Now - finally - we get to see “SF culture” in full force without technology organizations and their employees: meth-addicted zombies with violent outbursts, tents everywhere, human poop and needles, salmonella outbreaks, go ahead and complete the list. Nobody wants to live in a place like this: not the artists, not the families, and now not even tech workers. There are plenty of great cities to go to, why would anybody move to San Francisco and deal with these quality of life problems?
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - kurthr 4y ago
junon 4y ago
Clearly spoken by someone who has exactly zero exposure to such drugs. For example, they're typically not addictive.
- mrcheesebreeze 4y ago
  typically not addictive. Anyone who takes them runs the risk of being addicted to the experience hence the abuse of these drugs in the first place. It may not be the same kind of addiction but they still go back time and time again. Furthermore various mental issues can come from them so even if you don't get addicted you can still be harmed. Its a useless past-time thats dangerous and is less fun than other mediums of entertainment. Rather than reduce yourself to an incoherent mess for a while you can spend the money doing basically anything else for a better time. Hang out with friends, travel somewhere in you state or country, play some video games, anything else is better. Its a useless risk that should be banned, other than medical use, to protect society.
  - junon 4y ago
    You don't get addicted to experiences. You get addicted to chemicals. You are approaching a scientific topic from an emotional stance. You cannot do that.
SpaceL10n 4y ago
I view this as a pragmatic solution to a common problem amongst law enforcement agencies which is constrained resources. Focusing on the bad drugs and leaving the hippies alone seems like a sound step forward.
TakeBlaster16 4y ago
All our problems would be solved if we simply jailed everyone who put the wrong kind of mushrooms on their pizza
Ixiaus 4y ago
> Psychedelics (serotonergic hallucinogens) are powerful psychoactive substances that alter perception and mood and affect numerous cognitive processes. They are generally considered physiologically safe and do not lead to dependence or addiction. ... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4813425/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4813425/ Decriminalizing psychedelics is likely to help with the treatment of mental health problems that often lead people to substance abuse. The idea that substance abuse is a character flaw is outdated and harmful. Some substances are certainly dangerous. Psychedelics are not in most cases. Condemning people who are using dangerous substances perpetuates the cycle of shame which keeps people from being able to heal.
- josephcsible 4y ago
  > The idea that substance abuse is a character flaw is outdated and harmful. Sure, once you're already physically addicted, taking the next hit isn't a character flaw. But being willing to take the first hit before you're addicted is absolutely a gigantic character flaw.
  - Ixiaus 4y ago
    No. It is not.
quickthrowman 4y ago
Hallucinogens have the lowest addiction potential of any illegal drug, by a large margin.
cowmix 4y ago
I was just there for the first time in two years. Based on all the comments here on HN, I expected to walk through a hell-scape. After spending a week, mostly on foot in the city... a lot of this talk seems overblown.
- systemvoltage 4y ago
  I visit SF occassionally from East Bay. Absolute disaster. Where did you go? I think situation is more dire than it seems in East Bay. Both are succumbing to third-world urban decay and infrastructure rot.
  - novok 4y ago
    It really is area specific, and I think that is on purpose. When there was the superbowl in SF, all of a sudden certain BART stations stopped smelling like piss and homeless population in those areas were not there any more. Tell me where the homeless camps are around the marina or other wealthy neighborhoods of SF with high foot traffic. Suspiciously missing or hard to find... Since it's done on purpose, if SF wanted to actually revitalize their downtown they would lay down the law on their mainline tunnel transit stations, caltrain stations, ferry stations, tourist hotel hot spots and market st like they lay down the law in the marina with it's crazy high foot traffic. Yes it is 'moving the problem around', but at least it makes people feel safe and not nauseated where they enter and exit from SF. I bet one good chunk of why people are not coming back to offices to SF is because the transit safety and cleanliness experience is not good there.
    - systemvoltage 4y ago
      I've had my car broken into 3 times in different parts of SF. Nothing visible anywhere inside the car. They took things like coins and a utility knife from the center console, and once I made the mistake of having a dash cam which was promptly stolen. Never again. Criminals are not localized in SF. They roam around in cars smashing and grabbing.
- ceeplusplus 4y ago
StanislavPetrov 4y ago
Drugs are effectively legal in San Fransisco already. Just walk down the street and take a look around. Psychedelics are not addictive and 99.999% of the people you see walking the streets like zombies are not on psychedelics.

ben174 4y ago

Surprised Ketamine isn't listed. I figured they'd lump that in. On the other hand, ketamine is extremely addictive, despite what you might read online. I know several people who have given up everything to sustain their Ketamine habit.

bsedlm 4y ago
Ketamine is not a psychedelic (in the hallucinogenic sense)
- acchow 4y ago
  In which sense is ketamine a psychedelic?
pengaru 4y ago
It also has bladder toxicity issues, it's not uncommon for ketamine addicts to piss blood AIUI. In extreme cases bladders have required permanent removal. Edit: VICE even named their recent Ketamine episode "Pissing Blood" for this reason. [0] [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99XQY7Elwhc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99XQY7Elwhc
- jjulius 4y ago
  >... it's not uncommon for ketamine addicts to piss blood AIUI. I had no idea this was a thing until the morning after I woke up from my first time partying around people who were using it. Someone took a leak and I hear, "Hah! Yep, there's the good ol' orange K piss," and I couldn't help but be surprised that it sounded like they were laughing at the fact they were pissing blood. I should clarify - nothing against ketamine in small doses recreationally, just take care of yourself.
  - totony 4y ago
    ketamine also has been shown to cause brain damage in addicts afaik.

Overtonwindow 4y ago

“While it doesn’t immediately enact changes to criminal justice policy in San Francisco, it urges police to deprioritize psychedelics as “amongst the lowest priority” for enforcement and requests that “City resources not be used for any investigation, detention, arrest, or prosecution arising out of alleged violations of state and federal law regarding the use of Entheogenic Plants listed on the Federally Controlled Substances Schedule 1 list.”

deleted 4y ago
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dsl 4y ago
Heroin seems to fit their definition as well.

darawk 4y ago

Great news. Whether or not you believe these substances have significant therapeutic potential (I do), it's basically indisputable that they are socially harmless. Nobody gets addicted to them, there are no known negative health effects. There is absolutely no justification whatsoever for their criminality, and there never has been.

bil7 4y ago
While I am also in complete favour, stating that there are no negative health effects is somewhat false. Abusing any kind of psychedelic can lead to HPPD [1], a very real long term disorder. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallucinogen_persisting_perception_disorder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallucinogen_persisting_percep...
- MacsHeadroom 4y ago
  I would classify HPPD as widely harmless. If you poll non-users you'll find that many people have HPPD like effects and can't recall ever not having them. Seeing a slight trail behind a bright fast moving object is inconsequential in life.
  - kortex 4y ago
    Brains are quite nonlinear. I wonder how many people already had visual artifacts and assorted weirdness, but never paid attention to them because the brain just paves over it, until an experience highlights those artifacts, and now they can't not notice them.
  - LordDragonfang 4y ago
    >If you poll non-users you'll find that many people have HPPD like effects and can't recall ever not having them. Yep https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/09/11/lots-of-people-going-around-with-mild-hallucinations-all-the-time/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/09/11/lots-of-people-going-a...
  - tsol 4y ago
    Many people with psychedelic-induced HPPD report them being a difficulty, though. Take this case study: >These symptoms persisted for the last 13 years, with little change in intensity and frequency. All efforts at treatment, psychopharmacological as well as psychotherapeutic, failed to alleviate the symptoms. Often the patient was unable to focus properly with her eyes and tired rapidly while performing intense visual tasks – these deficiencies being detrimental to her studies and professional work as an architect. As a consequence, the patient became depressed with latent suicidal impulses. She also found it increasingly difficult to distinguish between ‘normal’ and ‘ abnormal’ perceptions. This papering over of side effects that people insist on is why so many are so hesitant to legalize these drugs. It's doing no favor to the cause when so many refuse to acknowledge the danger that's inherit in some kinds of psychoactive drugs.

tikkun 4y ago

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

bloppe 4y ago

A more accurate title: SF supervisors would like to decriminalize psychedelics

pvarangot 4y ago
Considering how things went with the fence in 24th St. when Ronen actually tried to "criminalize" something (https://twitter.com/HillaryRonen/status/1537599919090847745 https://twitter.com/HillaryRonen/status/1537599919090847745) I would say psychedelics are already decriminalized in the city wether the board instructs SFPD about making them "the lowest possible priority" or not. This is probably a "propaganda law" to appear progressive while actually not doing anything at all except wasting ink and breath.
- hemloc_io 4y ago
  That whole station is such a cluster. Someone got murdered there a week ago or so. There was some quote with her that her district "went to shit during her term" and she seemed confused as to who was responsible...
- erdos4d 4y ago
  I'm not a SF resident and don't understand this at all, can someone explain what happened here?
  - bombcar 4y ago
    I think they’re saying that pshychedelics laws are already entirely not enforced so this does nothing.
  - kelnos 4y ago
    There's a BART station at 24th and Mission streets where the aboveground plaza (where the escalator is to get down to the station) is just covered with un-permitted street vendors. Many of the vendors are selling stolen goods. Ronen pledged to clean that up. Of course, it was all just staged; they swept away the vendors, finished their photo op, and after they left, the vendors all came back. I think the grandparent's point is that if they can't/won't even enforce laws that they actually claim to enforce, LSD use -- something the local government explicitly has not cared about for quite some time -- has already been unofficially decriminalized. I don't really agree with the overall premise there, though; without getting into whether this particular decriminalization is a good idea, leaving intentionally-unenforced laws on the books just leads to abuse. If particular laws shouldn't be enforced, then they should be repealed entirely.

photochemsyn 4y ago

This is a good move. Psychedelics (read: naturally occuring or semi-synthetic substances which bind to the 5-HT2A receptor) are generally safer than most other recreational drugs (such as alcohol, opiates, amphetamines, cocaine, tobacco) and tend to have the lowest addiction potential. In addition they have some noted medical effects (treating alcoholism and depression in particular, with potential for treating opiate addiction as well). The best way to approach psychedelics is with the 'less is more' mentality, although this does fly in the face of consumer capitalism and the profit motive.

worik 4y ago
"consumer capitalism and the profit motive" and recreational drugs are a bad mix.
- worik 4y ago
  ....unless your business is dealing drugs
  - throwawaylinux 4y ago
    Or buying them for reasonable prices.
    - worik 4y ago
      > Or buying them for reasonable prices In the realm of illegal recreational drugs price is a poor indicator of quality. What matters is relationships. The "free market" in that environment spurs deception, and in the very worst cases, poisoning In the market for legal recreational drugs, such as it is (alcohol and pharmaceuticals mostly) it spurs cultivating and exploiting addicts. The answer is regulation, and regulated markets. Not free markets
      - throwawaylinux 4y ago
        Are you using the criminalized manufacture and trading of drugs as an example of "free" market failure and a demonstration of why regulated markets work better? Can't tell if it's sarcasm or not.

yieldcrv 4y ago

> will be "among the lowest priorities" for law enforcement. By that standard, both San Francisco and Los Angeles have decriminalized all drugs, alongside open containers, prostitution on the street, prostitution in strip clubs, prostitution elsewhere indoors, and practically every other vice. And I'm reaaallly not saying this from a position of envy or disdain, only accuracy, there is also a completely parallel society for people living in tents where enforcement of anything is a stated non-priority. Seeing an article about a board actually voting on a measure to "lower law enforcement priority" is kind of redundant! The Mayors and DA's have already dug their heels in, what does anything like this actually change? Does it force county/city judges to auto-drop cases if an officer and prosecutor fail to do so themselves? Seems redundant if it can't actually do anything differently.

notch656a 4y ago
Homeless have no money to extract. A middle class guy open carrying a protective weapon will get hit by the judicial system like a ton of bricks, while the homeless guy selling fent or acid or whatever on the corner will probably just get a tip on the next feeding time at the kitchen.
- yieldcrv 4y ago
  One correction, the current non-enforcement of the nylon favelas is coming from a place of compassion, ostensibly I just wish we could use selective enforcement as a way to invalidate some laws and policies under the constitution (right its only the opposite, a law can only be questioned by someone it was enforced against, if they can afford doing so)
- jakear 4y ago
  Hell SF pays homeless cash, simply for being homeless. Walk around SF on homeless payday and you’ll see a massive uptick in open use of crack, folks strung out motionless on the sidewalk with needles sticking out of them, and sidewalk slouchers openly sapping on liquor bottles. This is the same city that can’t manage to secure funding to prevent human waste from accumulating on the sidewalks. I happen to be homeless as well, but I still can’t get behind this concept. I volunteer my time to a national wildlife refuge and expect nothing in return, these folks shit on sidewalks and get cash in hand. If we really want to “solve” homelessness (I don’t think it’s something that needs to be solved, every era of humanity has had some portion of the population living without a solid roof over their heads), the answer is funding more public works programs, not funding delinquency. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10498607/San-Francisco-homeless-man-says-gets-paid-620-month.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10498607/San-Franci...

pengaru 4y ago

Years ago I interacted with hippies openly selling commercial-looking individually wrapped chocolates containing psilocybin in Golden Gate Park. This is San Francisco we're talking about, psychedelics already weren't a priority for the police in any practical sense.

hemloc_io 4y ago
hah still a thing, and now they do delivery and have punchcards. Supposedly one of them works with a prof at Berkeley to make their product
- lalos 4y ago
  That's the premise of Breaking Bad, but with a twist.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - YesWeWill 4y ago
- briffle 4y ago
  A line that is repeated by any LSD dealer in any college town...
  - pessimizer 4y ago
    Because it's often true, and was universally true for late-Xers, early-Millennials? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Leonard_Pickard https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Leonard_Pickard Back then (the 90s), LSD was $2/hit.
    - cammikebrown 4y ago
      The wholesale price of LSD is currently under $2/hit.

rockbruno 4y ago

Fantastic news for the US and the scientific research of psychedelics as a treatment for depression and anxiety. Meanwhile, on the other side of the atlantic, it's a nightmare to get our politicians to even begin talking about cannabis (Sweden).

torpid 4y ago
Decriminalization is different than legalization. It likely will not help any US or scientific research.
- justizin 4y ago
  The FDA is in the process of certifying psilocybin for therapeutic purposes, research should begin within a year or two, but decriminalization in oakland has already led to high quality, precision-dosed, retail-available gelcaps and such. I'm hoping those products hop the bay and show up in SF head shops, soon.
  - galangalalgol 4y ago
    What conditions are they considering it for?
  - omwow 4y ago
    Amen to that. Also, hope that this will pave the way for wider therapeutic use not just in SF, but across the US and other countries.
- kirsebaer 4y ago
  Reducing stigma helps research. It becomes easier to get institutional support, recruit study participants, collaborate with colleagues, obtain funding, etc.
nzealand 4y ago
It's still illegal at a federal and state level.

g42gregory 4y ago

How are people supposed to drive (or walk on the street for that matter), with large number of street population under the influence of various drugs?

RC_ITR 4y ago
Carefully and with respect for others’ lives.
- g42gregory 4y ago
  How about walking? Is your advice to people of San Francisco and visitors to walk “carefully” on the streets?
  - RC_ITR 4y ago
    Someone asked about driving.
hadlock 4y ago
- borski 4y ago
  This made me lol. Thanks
green-salt 4y ago
they already do with all the people consuming alcohol, nicotine, etc.
10x_contrarian 4y ago
Psychedelics are not a street drug. The majority of people struggling with addiction use crack cocaine, crystal meth, and opioids. Those are not decriminalized (technically).

gwbas1c 4y ago

Meta: The nags on this site are overwhelming. There were 4 nags, three of them pushing a guide to grow my own shrooms. No means no.

rideg 4y ago

The Netherlands backpedaled after a couple of very serious incidents regarding many psychedelics. Public suicide, animal sacrifice, crime etc. I don’t see how it will be different in SF.

FredrikMeyer 4y ago
So silly, considering all the noise and accidents alcohol directly causes. But then a single bad case after someone taking psychedelics, and they reverse.
- nathanaldensr 4y ago
  Textbook whataboutism--and I hate that phrase. Yes, and both substances should be controlled. Uncontrolled hard drugs are harmful to society, but it seems like the ignorant, naive youth of today are going to have to learn some hard lessons on the topic from first principles.
  - JamesBarney 4y ago
    This isn't whataboutism, it's very specifically comparing the societal consequences of two drugs and the possible consequences. It's not whataboutism bring up other risks that as a society we tolerate, when we are thinking about restricting one.
    - bko 4y ago
      One drug is possibly more harmful but is already legal almost everywhere, deeply ingrained in many aspects of Western society and has a history of issues regarding criminalization The other is possibly less harmful but it is currently illegal/controlled pretty much everywhere and has a niche demand. I think its entirely reasonable to think that we should not open up a whole new can of worms.
      - kortex 4y ago
        How is the can of worms not already open? The War on Drugs has failed to put a dent in drug consumption habits. My suspicion why there was an uptick of incidents in NL/Amsterdam was the influx of people specifically seeking those substances out, with little safety education or experience. If they were more widely available, the incidents would be far more diffuse, and likely fall below the noise floor. Plus, wider awareness means better overall substance education and understanding, meaning fewer folks getting in over their heads and acting a fool. The same "can of worms" argument was leveled against cannabis legalization, and turned out to be overblown, there was no outbreak of reefer madness.

WFHRenaissance 4y ago

itake 4y ago
You think the homeless people were choosing not to do psychedelics because its illegal?
- WFHRenaissance 4y ago
  regret

Nifty3929 4y ago

I think these "no enforcement" things are the worst. It always leaves people in a legal grey-area where they want to do something, and they are allowed to do it, but it's still technically illegal with all the baggage that goes along with that. In fact, it relieves pressure to legalize, since most people are now able to do what they like. Take speeding laws (in the US): (almost) everybody breaks them since the limits are so low, which gives officers discretion to basically go out and just start ticketing anybody they like. Everyone is guilty, but we just don't enforce it against you, at least for today. Clearly (I hope), when a large number of people are breaking a law, and we all just accept this - then it's not a good law. But speed limits don't get repealed, because very few people are actually prosecuted, so the general public doesn't get mad enough about it. If speed limits were universally enforced, the public would get mad and the limits would be removed or raised within a week.

dsl 4y ago
There is no gray area here. San Francisco can make murder legal and refuse to arrest people for it. State and federal law enforcement will just step in. The DEA still busts dispensaries and grow operations in California for example, it just isn't newsworthy.
- int_19h 4y ago
  It's a bit more complicated than that. When the state makes something legal and refuses to prosecute, it can do so because it possesses sufficient sovereignty for that under the commandeering doctrine. But the relationship between the state and its municipalities is not equivalent - the state has all the sovereignty while the municipalities only have such power that the state delegates to them, and that power can always be withdrawn (in the most extreme case, by de-chartering). Thus, the state can actually force San Francisco to remove this law, and compel its law enforcement agencies to enforce state law. It just chooses to not do so.

yrgulation 4y ago

Oh boy prepare for more “AI is conscious” “whistleblowers” and headlines.

rglover 4y ago

bosswipe 4y ago

Already happened across the bay in Oakland. Unfortunately Oakland police is so dysfunctional that it's impossible to know if decriminalization has caused any change in problematic public behaviors.

throwaway_4ever 4y ago
> Oakland police is so dysfunctional https://www.reddit.com/r/bayarea/comments/guqz5t/comment/fsk85fd/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3 https://www.reddit.com/r/bayarea/comments/guqz5t/comment/fsk...

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torpid 4y ago

This growing fad of partial "psychedelic decriminalization" initiatives covers only plant-based ones, which is ridiculous. Ingesting shrooms are harder to dose than a hit or two of acid. Eating the weight equivalent of one cap or stem can be a completely different experience, from the same spores. This will make the gradual path to full legalization even harder because people aren't trying things that are more easier to dose. There is no good reason why non plant based drugs like LSD, MDMA and Ketamine are not included so we could really call this a true psychedelic decriminalization measure.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
ebb_earl_co 4y ago
I think that one at least passable reason for just the “natural” substances to be focused on is to bring religious people under the big tent of eventual psychedelic legalization. Leaning on arguments such as God wouldn’t have made the substance if He didn’t want us to use it resonates with a lot of potential allies to the overall psychedelic legalization cause. A second reason comes from the group Decriminalize Nature [0] in their resolution to the Oakland City Council when pushing for decriminalization there[1]: “…reestablish humans’ inalienable and direct relationship to nature.” That is, some have this explicit goal and might not care much for the synthesized psychedelics. 0: https://www.decriminalizenature.org/ https://www.decriminalizenature.org/ 1: https://www.decriminalizenature.org/media/attachments/2019/06/13/dno_resolution-oforentheogenicplantsandfungi.pdf https://www.decriminalizenature.org/media/attachments/2019/0...
- oh-4-fucks-sake 4y ago
  Agree with this incremental step from a political perspective as an easy sell / quick win. But, it's imperative that this be understood as an incremental step. The hazard here is equating "natural" with "safe" and "synthetic" with "unsafe". Eventually, this mindset will have to be dropped because morphine, cocaine, and cyanide are natural (heck, methamphetamines is found in trace amounts in some species of acacia). MDMA is synthetic but can be lethal in a single dose. LSD is semi-synthetic and one of the safest of the bunch--in fact, it's safer than the "natural" chemical feedstocks of its synthesization routes (LSA or ergot). The shift will have to be to evaluating each molecule on its merits and risk profile. Sure, the whole "natural" argument feels warm-'n'-fuzzy for a lot of people--but sadly it's a poor metric for determining safety. After all, our brains' receptors can't tell whether a molecule originated from a plant or from a lab. TL;DR: LSD, Cannabis, Psilocybin, Mescaline, DMT, (maybe) MDMA, and their various pro-drugs/analogues should be legal and regulated--regardless of their source. Morphine? I mean, the libertarian in me says "OK", but the more practical side says "probably not a great idea". In the end, none of this is rocket science--but the DEA, the broader US Government, and religion have turned it into a far more complicated thing than it needs to be.

hayst4ck 4y ago

Imagine thinking you have freedom when you can't decide what to put in your own body. Imagine being happy with your tax dollars funding the "investigation, detention, arrest, or prosecution" of people using substances rather than teacher's salaries, solving homelessness, public transportation, or exploration of space.

treeman79 4y ago
Do I still need a prescription to get medication?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
gotoeleven 4y ago
Yes they should try it in san francisco maybe there'd be less hobos and you could use the public spaces occasionally. I used to be super libertarian but Ive come to realize that this only works if you, the one availing yourself of liberty, are the one that bears the consequences of your bad decisions. Increasingly, it seems, you do not. The dumber and more anti-social you act, the more victim status you are awarded with as the left half of our polity trips all over themselves rushing to make excuses for you. And then all the people who'd just like to sit in a park while also not being menaced by drug addicts are told to shut up. No thanks. We, as a society, cannot handle the liberties we already have.
- virgildotcodes 4y ago
  Thank God none of this currently happens with drugs being illegal.
  - slickdork 4y ago
    We made being homeless be illegal too, so it's a solved problem.

cies 4y ago

> California is On the Brink of Decriminalizing Psychedelics — But It’s Not That Simple Sure, believe your government. Much of this stuff is grows in nature. It is a personal choice to take it. And it is forbidden by laws! So it used to be legal, before the law was enacted, and now you are a criminal for getting high. All that is needed is to remove the law! Which is not hard for the right politicians, but still they dont and have not for a long time. It is not hard to remove the law, and what we have to accept is that decriminalization is what we get. Pfff...

holyknight 4y ago

One of the few good legislations in SF in a long time

moneycantbuy 4y ago

safer than alcohol

formvoltron 4y ago

finally 16th & Valencia can compete with 16th & Mission. Seriously though this is pretty cool.

deleted 4y ago

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DocTomoe 4y ago

Given that San Francisco has decriminalised basically any crime, it's curious this took them so long.

jointpdf 4y ago

DC decriminalized psychedelics (well, entheogens like psilocybin) over a year ago: https://www.washingtonian.com/2021/03/15/magic-mushrooms-are-decriminalized-in-dc-as-of-today/ https://www.washingtonian.com/2021/03/15/magic-mushrooms-are...

yboris 4y ago
Detroit and Ann Arbor in Michigan both decriminalized it: November 2021: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/detroit-just-decriminalized-psychedelics-and-magic-mushrooms-heres-what-that-means https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/detroit-just-decrimina... September 2020: https://apnews.com/article/ann-arbor-plants-featured-ca-state-wire-mi-state-wire-b0ce69ca0961c150e0f900e8ea4cf432 https://apnews.com/article/ann-arbor-plants-featured-ca-stat...
yboris 4y ago
December 2020: Oregon decriminalized all drugs: https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/articles/2020-12-10/oregon-just-decriminalized-all-drugs-heres-why-voters-passed-this-groundbreaking-reform https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/articles/2020-12-10/...
- notwedtm 4y ago
  I wouldn't say that this has been going well recently.
  - aagha 4y ago
    I haven't followed. Why not?
  - archon810 4y ago
    As someone who just came back from Portland with high expectations and instead stepped into a city where in downtown we were outnumbered by drug users, homeless, and other sketchy characters, I have to say you're right. We observed an ambulance trying to revive someone and another druggie crying in fear within the first half an hour of walking around. The city is also covered in graffiti and full of shuttered, empty stores, it's almost apocalyptic. It's quite a sad state of affairs, and I say that as someone living in the Bay Area next to San Francisco and Oakland.

tiahura 4y ago

That's great. Every time I take my family on a leisurely stroll down Market Street I keep thinking what SF really needs are more people on drugs.

SavageBeast 4y ago

Like LE in SF had any priorities anyhow - not big news here.

29athrowaway 4y ago

Now you can have business "trips"

dekhn 4y ago

I would like to remind all the readers of this post that the united states government used to try to use LSD as a mind control drug. They (IIRC it was the CIA) got into all sorts of shenanigans, dosing people (including CIA officers) without their consent. Some people died and other people's lives were affected very negatively. This was back in the 1950s- a time at which American had little or no conception of the concept of a "psychedelic" at all. Also, the Grateful Dead- whose parking lots were famous as large scale drug distribution sites- went from being counterculture to establishment in some ~25-30 years (the "house band" of the Clinton administration). We apparently live don't live in the strangest timeline, but it's definitely the trippiest one.

iancmceachern 4y ago
What a long strange trip it's been!
Mo3 4y ago
They used to try.. then they succeeded with some of their research, rolled it into the private sector, and closed the official record with the notion that it was a waste of time.
- edem 4y ago
  Can you elaborate?
  - Mo3 4y ago
    I'm not quite sure what you would like to know, but this is a regular process that has been going on for a long time.
ethanbond 4y ago
FWIW there were deaths caused by the MKULTRA program[1], but the implication that LSD caused the deaths is probably not correct. This is sort of just a historical dump since it’s a fascinating story: The notable death people remember is the Army officer who “jumped” out of his hotel window in NYC. Years later the Watergate investigation revealed the MKULTRA program and connected it to the Army officer’s death. CIA sort of implied “yeah we were doing stuff with LSD mind control and he went crazy,” but some (like the officer’s son) believe that is also a cover story. AFAIK the son still believes his father was going to blow the whistle on some sort of chem or bio weapon development (the father was a scientist at Fort Detrick, the US military’s bioweapon development center at the time) and he was assassinated before going public. Anyway, the son’s theory almost seems like the most believable part of the whole MKULTRA universe. [1] Among MKULTRA’s damage is arguably the creation of the Unabomber. Ted was an unknowing test subject at Harvard where he was basically emotionally tortured by a CIA agent posing as a fellow student. He had his beliefs — which he was always strongly identified with — systematically dismantled in order to cause emotional distress.

deleted 4y ago

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WalterBright 4y ago

In a free society, consenting adults should be free to take whatever drugs they want. Committing a crime while on drugs should be a crime - the drugs should not be a valid defense.

yadaeno 4y ago
Why is that a given without any thought of the consequences? Heroin and fentanyl addictions ruin peoples lives forever, many regret ever taking it and wish they could escape the cycle of addiction but cant no matter how hard they try. One reason they cant escape is because fentanyl use is so widespread and normalized the option to return to their old lifestyle is always extremely easy. Freedom to take fentanyl and live on the street isnt freedom, its quite the opposite. Go walk around the tenderloin or pioneer square to see what this "free society" looks like.
- solaceb 4y ago
  Addiction is a problem, and it's a problem now, even with the harmful substances being prohibited. The fact that fentanyl and heroin are criminalized doesn't make anyone less likely to end up using them; the criminal penalties just make them even more dangerous to use. You're assuming that legalizing / decriminalizing fent and h possession the addiction situation would get worse -- I'm not convinced that is true. If we legalized / decriminalized the possession of all drugs including fent and heroin, then people using them would not suffer criminal penalties for being caught with them. Oftentimes it's social factors like incarceration that make it doubly hard for addicts to escape the cycle of addiction. You are caught using and so you enter jail, and catch a felony on your record, making it even more difficult to land work. Or you end up with trauma from being imprisoned, further damaging your mental health, further driving you to escape with your drug of choice. Long story short, prohibitionism doesn't really work in the sense that criminal penalties don't really deter drug users from using drugs. It just makes it even more dangerous to use the drugs!
  - WalterBright 4y ago
    Criminalization creates other problems: 1. addicts can't get predictable, reliable, pharmaceutical quality drugs. Street drugs aren't predictable, and cause overdoses because of that 2. addicts become criminals because of high street prices, leading to all sorts of associated crime 3. illegal drugs lead to massive profits for criminal organizations 4. people suffering from terrible diseases die in agony because painkillers that would work on their pain are illegal 5. people who suffer from chronic pain, which is not diagnosible, are forced to turn to street drugs 6. legalizing heroin is not going to tempt me to use it. Is it being illegal stopping you from using it? 7. being an addict is punishment enough. Why does anyone think punishing them further will improve matters? 8. consenting adults have a fundamental right to their own bodies. As the pandemic showed, our government is not very good at determining what drugs are best for people. It's more politics than science.

diogenescynic 4y ago

This is going to make San Francisco even more sketchy and dangerous.

newdrugsyay 4y ago

classified 4y ago

About time. I'm hoping others will follow up soon.

graderjs 4y ago

This is fantastic! I hope they also decriminalize Salvia (if it's scheduled there) it's a (plant that has a number of) very very good molecule in my experience (which was way back around the millennium before it was scheduled)

sentrysapper 4y ago

While a bit dry at times, there is a fascinating history on the use and misuse of LSD and psychedelics in Michael Pollan's "How To Change Your Mind." In it he describes how Sandoz knew LSD had potential, they just couldn't figure out how to best apply it to human psychology. So they would literally give it out to anyone who asked for it. Would recommend it to those looking to learn more about how it got criminalized in the first place. None of the comments I've read so far capture the full picture.

filoeleven 4y ago
He’s also done a 4-part documentary on Netflix under the same title. It can’t go into the detail that the book does, but what you’re writing about here is covered broadly in the first episode.

UltraViolence 4y ago

It's time we started legalizing narcotics en masse, since half a century of fighting "the war on drugs" has made organized crime richer and stronger than anyone believed possible. Look at the cannabis industry, it's thriving yet hasn't led to a surge in medical emergencies. OTOH the states where it's been legalized have had a huge windfall in tax income which they can put to good use fighting other crime and prepping up social services.

buzzert 4y ago
> which they can put to good use fighting other crime and prepping up social services. Still waiting for that part.

nullcontext 4y ago

As an old head, lifelong Junglist and retired long serving Minister of Raves for the Party People Party, this is thrilling to hear. Please pass the MDMA, whatever Dutch doublestacks bearing a high dose warning (yes, a real label for 250mg+ per dose) you have in stock. Teslas would be wonderful. Thanks~~~ Now, when can someone enterprising small business startup stand themselves up an independent dispensary? What about the install of the drive through window? Until we allow for take out and achieve feature parity with alcohol these substances are being discriminated against. If intoxicants were races then LSD could use affirmative Action to get it on par with how we treat tobacco and booze. Treat it like alcohol already. Better yet don't concern yourself with what people put in their bodies unless they make you have to intervene for public order or safety's sake. Without the myopic and impotent moral bias these substances have suffered through since their discoveries this becomes pretty simple and surprisingly straightforward to live with socially. People don't typically abuse psychedelics to addiction. Notable exceptions being stimulants obviously. LSD is evil, mushrooms are great, and everything in between will have you feeling various degrees of regret and anxiety about what you just took and how long it's going to be warping your reality. That gets dicey if things take a downward turn and things spiral into a true bad trip. These chemicals are decompilers for the mind and should be treated with the respect you would give your mind's configuration files. The psychological consequences from a bad experience can be lifelong and stay with you forever, but we're adults and hopefully RTFM and follow best practices and take precautions. There should be no one telling me what I can't put in my own body... long as I accept the end result of it. Sorry for the /rant, this hits close to home and I have many feels about it.

anotherOneSound 4y ago

grubby 4y ago

literally got handed a chocolate bar of shrooms on the street in SF while I was joking about “killing me eagle”