6 ms·

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, det

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.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  - throwaway894345 4y ago
    I don't have a strong opinion, but there's a difference between "making drugs illegal solves all problems" and "making drugs illegal minimizes drug use".
  - robomartin 4y ago
    > Thank God none of this currently happens with drugs being illegal. This has nothing to do with the vast range of laws we have in the books. It's a question of complete lack of enforcement. When defecating in public at a park carries no consequences whatsoever, do you really have a law that makes that illegal? Some guy just shot and killed four people in Memphis. Google it. The man was arrested in 2020 for "attempted first-degree murder, aggravated assault, using a firearm to commit a dangerous felony and reckless endangerment with a deadly weapon". It took until April of 2021 to convict him to three years. He was released 11 months later. As the Mayor put it, four people would be alive today and, my addition, a number of others would not be wounded in the hospital, if this person --who is and was an obvious danger to society-- had been where he belonged, in prison. Laws mean nothing when they are not enforced. Another tragic example is what has been happening at the US border since the new administration took office. It's a mess. It's criminal, but nobody is enforcing the laws. So much fentanyl and other drugs is coming in that I am sure we have lost control. In my town alone I think we've had over 300 deaths so far this year due to fentanyl. We have laws. Things are illegal. And yet, you can't sit at the park with your kids to enjoy a nice sunny afternoon because the laws mean nothing when the people we elect to look after society choose not to enforce them. This is not a formula for a society that trends towards better outcomes. It's crazy. You have people who have never even thought about owning guns asking about gun ownership and buying firearms because they no longer feel safe. Not to go too far. Over a year ago, I caught and arrested a guy who broke into my neighbor's home across the street. The guy probably caused over $10K in damage to the home entering, destroying the security system and breaking through the door from the garage into the home. This guy, we came to find out, had a prior record in another state. We finally went to the hearing last week. It took almost a year. I don't think the guy did more than 30 days in jail. What did the DA's office, led by George Gascon (I can only describe him as demented and, yes, with history in San Francisco) do? They let the guy go. He is supposed to enroll in some kind of a counseling program. Brilliant. I hope he doesn't kill anyone when he returns to crime.
- mdcds 4y ago
  I'm not well-versed in political... philosophy!? but for the sake of the argument: perhaps SF didn't fully embrace libertarian ideals? "you can do what you want, but you must not impose on others" sounds fair. you can take any drugs you want, but if you shit in the street - you suffer consequences. Pose danger to others - you suffer consequences. etc. That's not what I'm seeing happening in SF.
noduerme 4y ago
Arresting people who are psychotic from meth and forcibly preventing them from accessing that and Fentanyl would pretty much completely solve the homeless problem where I live. Unfortunately, those drugs have now been decriminalized, and somehow the "systemic" problem of homelessness has shot through the roof. The freedom to kill yourself in public is no kind of freedom at all. I also don't see the legalizers working to "solve homelessness", just to enable it, while expecting the government or someone else to "solve" it.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- altruios 4y ago
  Whoa there... the right to kill yourself should be an inalienable right - regardless of your location. Without the option to crash - you aren't a pilot. If and when we find the secret to immortality - this right to end your own life how you see it will be eroded by corporate greed. Tangential point, back to the main one. There are 2 classes of drugs I would not legalize and you named one of them. the opioid and amphetamine are a chemical moth to the flame trap - And I support making that trap harder to find/get into... Psychs on the other hand, RC's of course are dangerous due to their inherent novelty, Don't do the same things as Meth/fentanyl/crack, and generally are less dangerous/abusable. Basically anything that rewires the dopamine reward circuit should be highly suspect at best - and banned at worst. Most psyches build a tolerance quickly in the brain - resulting in weeks/months between effective 'trips'. To abuse psyches is tough - and not desirable (after a trip most people want a rest for a long while from doing that again) Yeah - freedom of brain chemistry should also be an unalienable right. If the government tells you what is allowed brain chemistry and what is not: that's government mind control... If someone controls what you ingest, see and hear: they control (to some extent) what you think.
  - throwaway0a5e 4y ago
    Low dose amphetamines are pretty safe. We've given a lot of them to kids with adhd over the years
throwaway0a5e 4y ago
yuhguhmuh 4y ago
Right because homelessness doesn't have anything to do with the substances you put in your body.
nimbius 4y ago
Ah absolutionists. Either we can all drink bleach or we're trapped in some orwellian hellscape of ruination to succor a distant memory of the time we could huff the sweet ichor of airplane glue in peace. We as a society generally need criminal justice reform, but it wont come at the hands of addressing the illness of addition through exploring space instead. better bus schedules doesnt magically demilitarize the multibillion dollar industry predicated on a loophole in the thirteenth amendment. I can only hope the decriminalization of psychedelic drugs is predicated on sound research but alas, it feels like most SF legislation is brinksmanship between seattle and portland to see who can pedal their city into oblivion fastest with random virtue signalling.
- int_19h 4y ago
  If bleach was only available in limited quantities after showing an ID, ostensibly so as to prevent people from drinking it, I think most people would rightly call that Orwellian.
- marricks 4y ago
  What are you even advocating for? Continuing to prosecute and lock people up when we already have millions in prison? That isn't helping anyone. The war on drugs is over and the drugs won.
- natpalmer1776 4y ago
  Purely pedantic however I just wanted to point out that everyone can in fact drink bleach if they wanted to.
  - borski 4y ago
    Careful, you're going to convince someone to stockpile it lest it become unavailable like toilet paper. :)
    - jen20 4y ago
      It's not that long ago that the actual president of the US suggested injecting it during a press conference.
throwaway894345 4y ago
I don't think SF's enormous homelessness issue has anything to do with spending too much money addressing addiction.
robomartin 4y ago
> you can't decide what to put in your own body I truly don't care what anyone wants to put into their bodies or do to themselves. My problem comes in when they affect others. That applies to a wide range of situations from excessive drinking to smoking (ever go to a concert and you have to sit in a cloud of smoke, breathing what came out of others' mouths?) and more. I think everyone should be free to do as they please to themselves. The red line is when their choices infringe on someone else's right to not be affected in any way by their decision. If you choose to smoke, that does not give you the right to have the smoke that comes out of your mouth go into my lungs. Respect for freedom requires respecting everyone's freedoms and rights. A self-serving stance will never result in expanding freedom. Why is this important? To continue with the hypothetical, if the smoker does not respect the right of the non-smoker to breath clean air, the non-smoker will eventually want to (need to!) seek ways to restrict the smoker's freedom to smoke. Everyone loses because society becomes more restrictive. In a sense, not much different from the concept of freedom of speech. In order to preserve it you have to allow --and protect-- that with which you disagree to have a voice.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
xwdv 4y ago
Those laws exist because it leads to homelessness. Homelessness is a drug addiction problem. Sick and tired of people ignoring this correlation.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
pvg 4y ago
Eschew flamebait. Avoid unrelated controversies, generic tangents, and internet tropes. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- hayst4ck 4y ago
  Yes, I am a bit embarrassed by how inflammatory that appears to be. I am actually a bit happy that the HN algorithm devalued the post fairly significantly.
  - pvg 4y ago
    Yeah that's exactly the effect the guideline tries to head off which isn't necessarily obvious from just reading the guideline but makes more sense when you see it happen even if you didn't intend it.
chasd00 4y ago
If you want to kill yourself with drugs then have at it. I’m 100% for the legalization. However, I don’t want to pay for your rehab nor your medical bills associated with your drug use. So no emergency services for overdose, your choice your consequences. Further, you can’t expect a sympathetic disposition when it comes to prosecuting people who commit crimes to further their drug use either.
- altruios 4y ago
  tell me you've never taken a psychedelic without having to say that you've never taken a psychedelic.

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.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- throwaway894345 4y ago
  I don't have a strong opinion, but there's a difference between "making drugs illegal solves all problems" and "making drugs illegal minimizes drug use".
- robomartin 4y ago
  > Thank God none of this currently happens with drugs being illegal. This has nothing to do with the vast range of laws we have in the books. It's a question of complete lack of enforcement. When defecating in public at a park carries no consequences whatsoever, do you really have a law that makes that illegal? Some guy just shot and killed four people in Memphis. Google it. The man was arrested in 2020 for "attempted first-degree murder, aggravated assault, using a firearm to commit a dangerous felony and reckless endangerment with a deadly weapon". It took until April of 2021 to convict him to three years. He was released 11 months later. As the Mayor put it, four people would be alive today and, my addition, a number of others would not be wounded in the hospital, if this person --who is and was an obvious danger to society-- had been where he belonged, in prison. Laws mean nothing when they are not enforced. Another tragic example is what has been happening at the US border since the new administration took office. It's a mess. It's criminal, but nobody is enforcing the laws. So much fentanyl and other drugs is coming in that I am sure we have lost control. In my town alone I think we've had over 300 deaths so far this year due to fentanyl. We have laws. Things are illegal. And yet, you can't sit at the park with your kids to enjoy a nice sunny afternoon because the laws mean nothing when the people we elect to look after society choose not to enforce them. This is not a formula for a society that trends towards better outcomes. It's crazy. You have people who have never even thought about owning guns asking about gun ownership and buying firearms because they no longer feel safe. Not to go too far. Over a year ago, I caught and arrested a guy who broke into my neighbor's home across the street. The guy probably caused over $10K in damage to the home entering, destroying the security system and breaking through the door from the garage into the home. This guy, we came to find out, had a prior record in another state. We finally went to the hearing last week. It took almost a year. I don't think the guy did more than 30 days in jail. What did the DA's office, led by George Gascon (I can only describe him as demented and, yes, with history in San Francisco) do? They let the guy go. He is supposed to enroll in some kind of a counseling program. Brilliant. I hope he doesn't kill anyone when he returns to crime.
mdcds 4y ago
I'm not well-versed in political... philosophy!? but for the sake of the argument: perhaps SF didn't fully embrace libertarian ideals? "you can do what you want, but you must not impose on others" sounds fair. you can take any drugs you want, but if you shit in the street - you suffer consequences. Pose danger to others - you suffer consequences. etc. That's not what I'm seeing happening in SF.

noduerme 4y ago

Arresting people who are psychotic from meth and forcibly preventing them from accessing that and Fentanyl would pretty much completely solve the homeless problem where I live. Unfortunately, those drugs have now been decriminalized, and somehow the "systemic" problem of homelessness has shot through the roof. The freedom to kill yourself in public is no kind of freedom at all. I also don't see the legalizers working to "solve homelessness", just to enable it, while expecting the government or someone else to "solve" it.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
altruios 4y ago
Whoa there... the right to kill yourself should be an inalienable right - regardless of your location. Without the option to crash - you aren't a pilot. If and when we find the secret to immortality - this right to end your own life how you see it will be eroded by corporate greed. Tangential point, back to the main one. There are 2 classes of drugs I would not legalize and you named one of them. the opioid and amphetamine are a chemical moth to the flame trap - And I support making that trap harder to find/get into... Psychs on the other hand, RC's of course are dangerous due to their inherent novelty, Don't do the same things as Meth/fentanyl/crack, and generally are less dangerous/abusable. Basically anything that rewires the dopamine reward circuit should be highly suspect at best - and banned at worst. Most psyches build a tolerance quickly in the brain - resulting in weeks/months between effective 'trips'. To abuse psyches is tough - and not desirable (after a trip most people want a rest for a long while from doing that again) Yeah - freedom of brain chemistry should also be an unalienable right. If the government tells you what is allowed brain chemistry and what is not: that's government mind control... If someone controls what you ingest, see and hear: they control (to some extent) what you think.
- throwaway0a5e 4y ago
  Low dose amphetamines are pretty safe. We've given a lot of them to kids with adhd over the years

throwaway0a5e 4y ago

yuhguhmuh 4y ago

Right because homelessness doesn't have anything to do with the substances you put in your body.

nimbius 4y ago

Ah absolutionists. Either we can all drink bleach or we're trapped in some orwellian hellscape of ruination to succor a distant memory of the time we could huff the sweet ichor of airplane glue in peace. We as a society generally need criminal justice reform, but it wont come at the hands of addressing the illness of addition through exploring space instead. better bus schedules doesnt magically demilitarize the multibillion dollar industry predicated on a loophole in the thirteenth amendment. I can only hope the decriminalization of psychedelic drugs is predicated on sound research but alas, it feels like most SF legislation is brinksmanship between seattle and portland to see who can pedal their city into oblivion fastest with random virtue signalling.

int_19h 4y ago
If bleach was only available in limited quantities after showing an ID, ostensibly so as to prevent people from drinking it, I think most people would rightly call that Orwellian.
marricks 4y ago
What are you even advocating for? Continuing to prosecute and lock people up when we already have millions in prison? That isn't helping anyone. The war on drugs is over and the drugs won.
natpalmer1776 4y ago
Purely pedantic however I just wanted to point out that everyone can in fact drink bleach if they wanted to.
- borski 4y ago
  Careful, you're going to convince someone to stockpile it lest it become unavailable like toilet paper. :)
  - jen20 4y ago
    It's not that long ago that the actual president of the US suggested injecting it during a press conference.

throwaway894345 4y ago

I don't think SF's enormous homelessness issue has anything to do with spending too much money addressing addiction.

robomartin 4y ago

> you can't decide what to put in your own body I truly don't care what anyone wants to put into their bodies or do to themselves. My problem comes in when they affect others. That applies to a wide range of situations from excessive drinking to smoking (ever go to a concert and you have to sit in a cloud of smoke, breathing what came out of others' mouths?) and more. I think everyone should be free to do as they please to themselves. The red line is when their choices infringe on someone else's right to not be affected in any way by their decision. If you choose to smoke, that does not give you the right to have the smoke that comes out of your mouth go into my lungs. Respect for freedom requires respecting everyone's freedoms and rights. A self-serving stance will never result in expanding freedom. Why is this important? To continue with the hypothetical, if the smoker does not respect the right of the non-smoker to breath clean air, the non-smoker will eventually want to (need to!) seek ways to restrict the smoker's freedom to smoke. Everyone loses because society becomes more restrictive. In a sense, not much different from the concept of freedom of speech. In order to preserve it you have to allow --and protect-- that with which you disagree to have a voice.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

xwdv 4y ago

Those laws exist because it leads to homelessness. Homelessness is a drug addiction problem. Sick and tired of people ignoring this correlation.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

pvg 4y ago

Eschew flamebait. Avoid unrelated controversies, generic tangents, and internet tropes. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

hayst4ck 4y ago
Yes, I am a bit embarrassed by how inflammatory that appears to be. I am actually a bit happy that the HN algorithm devalued the post fairly significantly.
- pvg 4y ago
  Yeah that's exactly the effect the guideline tries to head off which isn't necessarily obvious from just reading the guideline but makes more sense when you see it happen even if you didn't intend it.

chasd00 4y ago

If you want to kill yourself with drugs then have at it. I’m 100% for the legalization. However, I don’t want to pay for your rehab nor your medical bills associated with your drug use. So no emergency services for overdose, your choice your consequences. Further, you can’t expect a sympathetic disposition when it comes to prosecuting people who commit crimes to further their drug use either.

altruios 4y ago
tell me you've never taken a psychedelic without having to say that you've never taken a psychedelic.