4 ms·

If you are in society and altering your mind and impairing your judgement, you're no longer the default "you" but a chemically compromised and unpredictable act

If you are in society and altering your mind and impairing your judgement, you're no longer the default "you" but a chemically compromised and unpredictable actor, who may be out of control. In her third week of college, my daughter found the naked body of a student who leapt through the eighth story dorm window to his death while tripping on magic mushrooms. She is traumatized for life because somebody chose to make a choice with their body by ingesting unpredictable drugs. I am fairly confident, given the state of pro-psychedelics evangelism today, that the young man expected a fun trip. Instead, he died and could have killed another student with his fall.

armatav 4y ago
They’re not joke substances. But for every mushroom related death, there are literally tens of thousands of alcohol related deaths.
- sys32768 4y ago
  I don't disagree. Not long after that incident, a drunk frat student plunged to his death at the same college. Maybe what society needs is each city gets its own walled Sin City, a sort of padded playground where people can choose to risk hangovers, overdose or death by their substance of choice, without being amid general society. Then after they sober up, they get to return to society.
  - andrew_ 4y ago
    > Maybe what society needs is each city gets its own walled Sin City Or perhaps the inverse, where folks like yourself can live fully protected, and insulated from individual liberty.
  - armatav 4y ago
    Or just an indoctrination process focused on personal responsibility to one’s consciousness and loved ones; instead of a deranged “education” composed of a fixation on prohibition and self-repression.
  - cnelsenmilt 4y ago
    Perhaps you know already, but for the record the Oregon law only allows psilocybin use under trained supervision. In the case of alcohol, in my opinion we need a similar cultural attitude. Your state flips on your 21st birthday from absolute prohibition to...as much as you want. We need not so much a place for people to safely binge, as to guide them to considering for themselves why they would want to in the first place. Some people always will of course, just like there will always be people who drive like assholes.
andrew_ 4y ago
Was it this one this one [1]? They don't know if he fell, jumped, or slipped. They only have released anecdotals that he ingested psilocybin. You don't know what kind of trip the young man had, you don't know if he had suicidal tendencies, you're speculating that psilocybin, if even ingested, was responsible based on nothing but your own bias. Hell, we have people falling out of windows to their death trying to catch cell phones they've dropped. > If you are in society Here we go. Every time I see a sentence start with this, I know that there's a "we need to protect everyone from themselves" take that's sure to follow. This is the kind of boomer anecdote I call bullshit on. My father is in his late 70s and any time low-dose medicinal studies around psychedelics are brought up he defaults to the same kind of Nixon-esc paranoia about "gateway drugs" and "I heard about..." boomerisms, because he lived through the 60s and saw things he didn't like, and is incapable of considering new information. It's the same kind of thinking that has cannabis still illegal at the federal level. Psilocybin, like any intoxicant or stimulant, can be lethal when abused. You can die from taking too much Tylenol, and the doses aren't even that high [1]. [1] https://nypost.com/2010/11/08/death-plunge-at-the-st-george-hotel/ https://nypost.com/2010/11/08/death-plunge-at-the-st-george-... [2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK441917/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK441917/
- sys32768 4y ago
  No, it was this one. [1] I would respond more in depth, but your total lack of sympathy shows a dismissive bias as tenacious as any boomer you insult. [1] http://www.montanakaimin.com/features/a-death-at-aber-hall/article_65d5501a-608d-11ed-ab87-d7144c083c31.html http://www.montanakaimin.com/features/a-death-at-aber-hall/a...
  - TinyRick 4y ago
    Sad story, condolences to all who knew Otto. Something that stuck out to me from that article was that his floormates were aware of his condition prior to his death and were worried for his and their own safety, but weren't sure what to do. I imagine the legality of the substance played a role in that; they were likely conflicted as to whether to seek medical/police help which would almost guarantee legal issues for Otto, or do nothing and risk his well-being.
LevGoldstein 4y ago
> leapt through the eighth story dorm window to his death while tripping on magic mushrooms So if keeping them illegal apparently utterly failed to prevent people from having ready access to them as your anecdote suggests, what was the benefit of keeping them illegal in the first place? Other than funneling government coffers into the prison-industrial complex, itself perpetuating far more tragedy and engendering a far more dangerous society as a result...and not just for your daughter, but for everyone.

armatav 4y ago

They’re not joke substances. But for every mushroom related death, there are literally tens of thousands of alcohol related deaths.

sys32768 4y ago
I don't disagree. Not long after that incident, a drunk frat student plunged to his death at the same college. Maybe what society needs is each city gets its own walled Sin City, a sort of padded playground where people can choose to risk hangovers, overdose or death by their substance of choice, without being amid general society. Then after they sober up, they get to return to society.
- andrew_ 4y ago
  > Maybe what society needs is each city gets its own walled Sin City Or perhaps the inverse, where folks like yourself can live fully protected, and insulated from individual liberty.
- armatav 4y ago
  Or just an indoctrination process focused on personal responsibility to one’s consciousness and loved ones; instead of a deranged “education” composed of a fixation on prohibition and self-repression.
- cnelsenmilt 4y ago
  Perhaps you know already, but for the record the Oregon law only allows psilocybin use under trained supervision. In the case of alcohol, in my opinion we need a similar cultural attitude. Your state flips on your 21st birthday from absolute prohibition to...as much as you want. We need not so much a place for people to safely binge, as to guide them to considering for themselves why they would want to in the first place. Some people always will of course, just like there will always be people who drive like assholes.

andrew_ 4y ago

Was it this one this one [1]? They don't know if he fell, jumped, or slipped. They only have released anecdotals that he ingested psilocybin. You don't know what kind of trip the young man had, you don't know if he had suicidal tendencies, you're speculating that psilocybin, if even ingested, was responsible based on nothing but your own bias. Hell, we have people falling out of windows to their death trying to catch cell phones they've dropped. > If you are in society Here we go. Every time I see a sentence start with this, I know that there's a "we need to protect everyone from themselves" take that's sure to follow. This is the kind of boomer anecdote I call bullshit on. My father is in his late 70s and any time low-dose medicinal studies around psychedelics are brought up he defaults to the same kind of Nixon-esc paranoia about "gateway drugs" and "I heard about..." boomerisms, because he lived through the 60s and saw things he didn't like, and is incapable of considering new information. It's the same kind of thinking that has cannabis still illegal at the federal level. Psilocybin, like any intoxicant or stimulant, can be lethal when abused. You can die from taking too much Tylenol, and the doses aren't even that high [1]. [1] https://nypost.com/2010/11/08/death-plunge-at-the-st-george-hotel/ https://nypost.com/2010/11/08/death-plunge-at-the-st-george-... [2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK441917/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK441917/

sys32768 4y ago
No, it was this one. [1] I would respond more in depth, but your total lack of sympathy shows a dismissive bias as tenacious as any boomer you insult. [1] http://www.montanakaimin.com/features/a-death-at-aber-hall/article_65d5501a-608d-11ed-ab87-d7144c083c31.html http://www.montanakaimin.com/features/a-death-at-aber-hall/a...
- TinyRick 4y ago
  Sad story, condolences to all who knew Otto. Something that stuck out to me from that article was that his floormates were aware of his condition prior to his death and were worried for his and their own safety, but weren't sure what to do. I imagine the legality of the substance played a role in that; they were likely conflicted as to whether to seek medical/police help which would almost guarantee legal issues for Otto, or do nothing and risk his well-being.

LevGoldstein 4y ago

> leapt through the eighth story dorm window to his death while tripping on magic mushrooms So if keeping them illegal apparently utterly failed to prevent people from having ready access to them as your anecdote suggests, what was the benefit of keeping them illegal in the first place? Other than funneling government coffers into the prison-industrial complex, itself perpetuating far more tragedy and engendering a far more dangerous society as a result...and not just for your daughter, but for everyone.