8 ms·

It's nice to see progress being made towards more rational drug policy, and also disappointing that this a "plant medicine = good" bill instead of a "criminaliz

It's nice to see progress being made towards more rational drug policy, and also disappointing that this a "plant medicine = good" bill instead of a "criminalizing psychedelics is stupid" bill. Chemically-derived ones like LSD and MDMA are not in-scope in Wiener's bill, even though (like mushrooms) they aren't the kinds of drugs that cause social problems.

LinuxBender 3y ago
"plant medicine = good" That's risky. I and millions and others have natural hallucinogens growing in the fields in North America and much of Europe. Henbane is pretty hard to completely eradicate, is likely one of the most naturally powerful hallucinogens and is also one of the most dangerous to use as a recreational drug safely as potency varies wildly in each plant. Every part of the plant is a drug and every part of the plant is deadly. It can be and has been used in the medical field but has been replaced with chemicals that are safer to measure.
corethree 3y ago
We need more progress on this. I don't see enough homeless people getting high on the streets of SF. Priorities.
- Pxtl 3y ago
  Well obviously the homeless people are getting drugs just fine so since prohibition failed why not let law-abiding folks have a hit?
- callalex 3y ago
  You are aware that different drugs have different effects right? Or do you take Tylenol for allergies and Benadryl for headaches?
electrondood 3y ago
They were originally, from the article, this is a narrower version that removed ibogaine, LSD, MDMA. Which is silly, because LSD is comparable to mushrooms and MDMA is a powerfully therapeutic substance.
- bsimpson 3y ago
  I didn't read the article because paywall. My comments were from memory - I had heard about this bill earlier (but it was also only plant medicine then).
somenameforme 3y ago
I think it's relevant to point out that even Amsterdam eventually chose to ban magic mushrooms, though less potent magic truffles remain legal. This happened after a rapidly increasing number of incidents of people having psychotic episodes while tripping and injuring or killing themselves, usually while trying to fly. I don't really see how legalization could work, let alone in an area with extremely high numbers of people with mental illness. Shrooms + mental illness go together like ammonia and bleach. And how many 'flying deaths', particularly of otherwise healthy young people, will society accept before backtracking? One can already easily envision the commercials for the inevitable proposition over it.
- _a_a_a_ 3y ago
  [flagged]
- ShellfishMeme 3y ago
  Is there any proof that people trying to fly and jumping off a building is actually real? I always assumed it's some sort of anti drug meme that had been around since forever.
  - Fezzik 3y ago
    That does seem… odd. I’ve been enjoying mushrooms multiple times a year for 22 years. I’ve been around a lot of other people doing mushrooms. On fire lookouts. Rooftops. High in the mountains of Oregon, Washington, and Colorado. And I have never, ever seen anybody try to fly.
    - abletonlive 3y ago
      You haven't been around enough people doing psychedelics then. Psychotic breaks are not uncommon. Once you're at a music festival where n=thousands you realize this. Flying and drowning in lakes is not unheard of. Everybody thinks they are immune to psychotic breaks until they do enough psychedelics and have one. This could be you some day.
valec 3y ago
it's even sillier. LSD is derived from very small modifications to compounds produced by the ergot fungus. and certain synthetic psilocin analogues like 4-ho-met and 4-aco-dmt have few if any meaningful differences to psilocin itself (aka 4-ho-dmt)
sargun 3y ago
Early versions of the bill had Ketamine in it. It was villified as a "date rape drug". I don't remember why MDMA got removed, but babysteps if my guess.
- fluxem 3y ago
  Well, because it is
  - theptip 3y ago
    Alcohol too, if we are applying rigor equally. And yet not many bite the bullet and say “alcohol, the well-known date rape drug, should be banned and its users put in jail”.
    - rightbyte 3y ago
      Isn't the victim unaware of being drugged when you speak of these "date rape" drugs? With alcohol you can maybe put more spirits in a drink than you claim. It is not tasteless.
      - baq 3y ago
        > It is not tasteless. It definitely is harder to notice after the first couple normal alcohol content drinks. I've played pranks on my friends like this in the past. They were surprised how wasted they'd been the night before.
    - WesolyKubeczek 3y ago
      Also because when this had been attempted in Prohibition and during Perestroika, it failed quite spectacularly both times.
- theragra 3y ago
  Pretense to disallow self-meciating depression and paying instead?
Animats 3y ago
> "plant medicine = good" That's a problem. The other side of that is "natural = unstandardized doses" That's become a big problem with cannabis, which has had huge potency upgrades through both selective breeding and concentrates.[1][2] The good thing about cannabis used to be that the effective dose and the hazardous dose were a long way apart, and it was hard to reach the hazardous dose. That's changed. [1] https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/11/201116092241.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/11/201116092241.h... [2] https://www.nbcnews.com/health/kids-health/states-legalized-marijuana-now-researching-mental-health-risks-high-po-rcna26351 https://www.nbcnews.com/health/kids-health/states-legalized-...
- danielbln 3y ago
  You can thank the black market for that one. Same as you couldn't buy much beer and such during the prohibition, because hard liquor was more lucrative to smuggle. And while psychosis occurrence might raise with increased doses, at least LD50 for THC in rodents (I know, but hard to ethically gauge it in humans) is 1250mg/kg orally. If we naively scale this up to humans, a 70kg human would have to consume 90g of pure THC, which is an incredibly outrageous, absolutely unattainable amount. I would also argue that you need less cannabis to reach a desired state if it is of higher potency. Do people measure their intake in "joints" which are consumed no matter what the actual potency is?
  - saiya-jin 3y ago
    That argument indeed doesn't make much sense to me. If I smoke, its not "this amount regardless of potency or method" rather "to get this high". If I smoked joints which I don't do since I like my lungs it would just mean much more unhealthy hobby. So yes strong stuff is a godsend, can get to desired state more effectively and cheaply too. The only situation where it may make sense is some inexperienced users taking too much, which can easily happen with random illegal street stuff. But its like arguing to ban hard liquors since people can get shitfaced from few shots easier than from beer. And indeed getting properly wasted increases the chance to develop some bad mental issues, father of one of my ex gf ended up with lifelong schizophrenia just from excessive drinking at ripe age of 18. Which is all true but response is - don't do stupid stuff, as it should be with other drugs. Legalizing and having easy available advice / guide is much better.
dr_dshiv 3y ago
I think all drugs should have licenses that can be obtained and taken away. I think it’s ok to require IDs and a certain level of test performance. Heck, I wish alcohol was the same (at least for 18-20 year olds).
- sneak 3y ago
  Upon what reasonable moral authority can anyone claim to control what another person does to their own body that does not harm another person? I claim an absolute, perpetual, inviolable, and inalienable moral right to my own person, and modifying it in any way I see fit: tattoos, scarification, branding, piercing, amputation, et cetera. I get to choose what medical procedures I will or will not accept. I get to choose when my life ends voluntarily. I alone choose what I will or will not eat, will or will not insert into my bloodstream. The same moral authority that tells me I cannot put a specified substance into my bloodstream must also simultaneously claim the authority to tell me that I must swallow a certain substance or food, which is ridiculous. Does looking at it in that way reveal its absurdity to you? If you don't have the moral basis to force me to eat a food I do not wish to eat, you do not have the moral basis to deny me the right to ingest a drug I do wish to ingest.
  - debatem1 3y ago
    It turns out the state can restrict what you say, what you do with your body, what you ingest, and all the rest. This is demonstrably true to anyone with a passing familiarity with the criminal justice system.
    - sneak 3y ago
      Not in my experience. Nobody really agrees with the state here, and their restrictions are ignored by everyone (when it comes to their own body). The people who support these restrictions support them only when applied to the bodies of other people. https://joycearthur.com/abortion/the-only-moral-abortion-is-my-abortion/ https://joycearthur.com/abortion/the-only-moral-abortion-is-... My question was not what authorities the state claims - my question is about upon what moral or philosophical basis such claims would be morally justified. I am of course aware the state claims such authority. I am also aware that they further claim the authority to enslave me, arm me, ship me across the earth, and execute or imprison me if I then refuse to commit murder on their behalf. The state claiming an authority does not actually provide them with a moral basis to do so. On what reasonable moral basis could anyone claim the authority to strip someone of their rights to final disposition over their own body?
Melting_Harps 3y ago
> Chemically-derived ones like LSD and MDMA are not in-scope in Wiener's bill, even though (like mushrooms) they aren't the kinds of drugs that cause social problems. I think that is a mistake; both have a long record of use and potential in clinical trials dating back since the 60s in Harvard, with a litany of uses from depression, alcoholism, schizophrenia etc... We all know the work of T. Leary, but the research needs to be continued and implemented at a time when we seem to need it more than ever. Thus why this portion is perhaps the most notable take-away and not the decriminalization aspect (Oakland, like Denver, has been decriminalized for sometime): The bill also would require the California Health and Human Services Agency to study the therapeutic use of psychedelics and submit a report with its findings and recommendations to the Legislature. Oregon was supposed to lead the way in this respect but has effectively stalled out in the process despite having first mover advantage [0], so I hope CA takes over in it's place. Colorado doesn't seem to have any interest in anything other than decriminalization, either. 0: https://www.opb.org/article/2023/08/23/psilocybin-mushroom-therapy-oregon-psychedelic-bendable-bend-ptsd-ocd-mental-health/ https://www.opb.org/article/2023/08/23/psilocybin-mushroom-t...
wil421 3y ago
I’ve met people who were addicted to both LSD and MDMA. One guy took LSD for a year straight. Decriminalization is a step in the right direction but where’s the support structure? California probably has the most drug problems in the states and mushrooms are not going to cause anymore problems. The other piece for support and therapy needs to improve. Alcohol is included as well as legal marijuana.
alienicecream 3y ago
This is the opposite of rational. They are decriminalizing it based on a fashion that drugs are good and when it comes to drugs people should be able to do whatever they want without regard to consequences. Compare this with the fanaticism against smoking you see from the same quarters, that should be enough to tell you this is nothing more than hippy fashion.
- amanaplanacanal 3y ago
  I don’t see anybody trying to make tobacco illegal.
  - alienicecream 3y ago
    Then I would say you're not looking closely enough. The impetus is there, but so far there is enough resistance to it to prevent it. That wasn't the point anyway, the point is the contradiction in the antipathy towards tobacco on the basis of health vs the libertine attitude towards drugs. The kinds of people who tend to be pro drugs, pro prostitution, etc are the same people who will scold others for smoking.
    - bsimpson 3y ago
      A lot of people believe in the freedom to do what you like if you don't harm others. People doing MDMA or LSD generally don't harm others. People smoking do. Bartenders, card dealers, etc have their workplaces polluted by cigarettes. I'm sure there are plenty of libertarians who are against social restrictions on smoking. There are others who tolerate the restrictions because they personally find it to be a nicer experience to not have ambient smoke out in the world. Nevertheless, nobody thinks you should be thrown in jail for carrying cigarettes. Taxing cigarettes and decriminalizing psychedelics are not the same conversation. Your attempt to conflate them is a fallacy. ----- Moreover, that aspect of the conversation is just about the "should"s - should someone be free to alter their minds/bodies in the privacy of their own homes/if they aren't causing undue harm to others? The strongest argument for legalization is to defund the cartels. Countless dollars are being funneled to violent mobs because of the remnants of Richard Nixon's paranoia. The world would be a better place if the cartels were less powerful, and the drug problem would be much less of a problem if drugs weren't adulterated. The cartels and fentanyl poisoning are causing trauma for way too many families. There aren't enough pros to Nixon's line of thinking to justify that.

LinuxBender 3y ago

"plant medicine = good" That's risky. I and millions and others have natural hallucinogens growing in the fields in North America and much of Europe. Henbane is pretty hard to completely eradicate, is likely one of the most naturally powerful hallucinogens and is also one of the most dangerous to use as a recreational drug safely as potency varies wildly in each plant. Every part of the plant is a drug and every part of the plant is deadly. It can be and has been used in the medical field but has been replaced with chemicals that are safer to measure.

corethree 3y ago

We need more progress on this. I don't see enough homeless people getting high on the streets of SF. Priorities.

Pxtl 3y ago
Well obviously the homeless people are getting drugs just fine so since prohibition failed why not let law-abiding folks have a hit?
callalex 3y ago
You are aware that different drugs have different effects right? Or do you take Tylenol for allergies and Benadryl for headaches?

electrondood 3y ago

They were originally, from the article, this is a narrower version that removed ibogaine, LSD, MDMA. Which is silly, because LSD is comparable to mushrooms and MDMA is a powerfully therapeutic substance.

bsimpson 3y ago
I didn't read the article because paywall. My comments were from memory - I had heard about this bill earlier (but it was also only plant medicine then).

somenameforme 3y ago

I think it's relevant to point out that even Amsterdam eventually chose to ban magic mushrooms, though less potent magic truffles remain legal. This happened after a rapidly increasing number of incidents of people having psychotic episodes while tripping and injuring or killing themselves, usually while trying to fly. I don't really see how legalization could work, let alone in an area with extremely high numbers of people with mental illness. Shrooms + mental illness go together like ammonia and bleach. And how many 'flying deaths', particularly of otherwise healthy young people, will society accept before backtracking? One can already easily envision the commercials for the inevitable proposition over it.

_a_a_a_ 3y ago
[flagged]
ShellfishMeme 3y ago
Is there any proof that people trying to fly and jumping off a building is actually real? I always assumed it's some sort of anti drug meme that had been around since forever.
- Fezzik 3y ago
  That does seem… odd. I’ve been enjoying mushrooms multiple times a year for 22 years. I’ve been around a lot of other people doing mushrooms. On fire lookouts. Rooftops. High in the mountains of Oregon, Washington, and Colorado. And I have never, ever seen anybody try to fly.
  - abletonlive 3y ago
    You haven't been around enough people doing psychedelics then. Psychotic breaks are not uncommon. Once you're at a music festival where n=thousands you realize this. Flying and drowning in lakes is not unheard of. Everybody thinks they are immune to psychotic breaks until they do enough psychedelics and have one. This could be you some day.

valec 3y ago

it's even sillier. LSD is derived from very small modifications to compounds produced by the ergot fungus. and certain synthetic psilocin analogues like 4-ho-met and 4-aco-dmt have few if any meaningful differences to psilocin itself (aka 4-ho-dmt)

sargun 3y ago

Early versions of the bill had Ketamine in it. It was villified as a "date rape drug". I don't remember why MDMA got removed, but babysteps if my guess.

fluxem 3y ago
Well, because it is
- theptip 3y ago
  Alcohol too, if we are applying rigor equally. And yet not many bite the bullet and say “alcohol, the well-known date rape drug, should be banned and its users put in jail”.
  - rightbyte 3y ago
    Isn't the victim unaware of being drugged when you speak of these "date rape" drugs? With alcohol you can maybe put more spirits in a drink than you claim. It is not tasteless.
    - baq 3y ago
      > It is not tasteless. It definitely is harder to notice after the first couple normal alcohol content drinks. I've played pranks on my friends like this in the past. They were surprised how wasted they'd been the night before.
  - WesolyKubeczek 3y ago
    Also because when this had been attempted in Prohibition and during Perestroika, it failed quite spectacularly both times.
theragra 3y ago
Pretense to disallow self-meciating depression and paying instead?

Animats 3y ago

> "plant medicine = good" That's a problem. The other side of that is "natural = unstandardized doses" That's become a big problem with cannabis, which has had huge potency upgrades through both selective breeding and concentrates.[1][2] The good thing about cannabis used to be that the effective dose and the hazardous dose were a long way apart, and it was hard to reach the hazardous dose. That's changed. [1] https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/11/201116092241.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/11/201116092241.h... [2] https://www.nbcnews.com/health/kids-health/states-legalized-marijuana-now-researching-mental-health-risks-high-po-rcna26351 https://www.nbcnews.com/health/kids-health/states-legalized-...

danielbln 3y ago
You can thank the black market for that one. Same as you couldn't buy much beer and such during the prohibition, because hard liquor was more lucrative to smuggle. And while psychosis occurrence might raise with increased doses, at least LD50 for THC in rodents (I know, but hard to ethically gauge it in humans) is 1250mg/kg orally. If we naively scale this up to humans, a 70kg human would have to consume 90g of pure THC, which is an incredibly outrageous, absolutely unattainable amount. I would also argue that you need less cannabis to reach a desired state if it is of higher potency. Do people measure their intake in "joints" which are consumed no matter what the actual potency is?
- saiya-jin 3y ago
  That argument indeed doesn't make much sense to me. If I smoke, its not "this amount regardless of potency or method" rather "to get this high". If I smoked joints which I don't do since I like my lungs it would just mean much more unhealthy hobby. So yes strong stuff is a godsend, can get to desired state more effectively and cheaply too. The only situation where it may make sense is some inexperienced users taking too much, which can easily happen with random illegal street stuff. But its like arguing to ban hard liquors since people can get shitfaced from few shots easier than from beer. And indeed getting properly wasted increases the chance to develop some bad mental issues, father of one of my ex gf ended up with lifelong schizophrenia just from excessive drinking at ripe age of 18. Which is all true but response is - don't do stupid stuff, as it should be with other drugs. Legalizing and having easy available advice / guide is much better.

dr_dshiv 3y ago

I think all drugs should have licenses that can be obtained and taken away. I think it’s ok to require IDs and a certain level of test performance. Heck, I wish alcohol was the same (at least for 18-20 year olds).

sneak 3y ago
Upon what reasonable moral authority can anyone claim to control what another person does to their own body that does not harm another person? I claim an absolute, perpetual, inviolable, and inalienable moral right to my own person, and modifying it in any way I see fit: tattoos, scarification, branding, piercing, amputation, et cetera. I get to choose what medical procedures I will or will not accept. I get to choose when my life ends voluntarily. I alone choose what I will or will not eat, will or will not insert into my bloodstream. The same moral authority that tells me I cannot put a specified substance into my bloodstream must also simultaneously claim the authority to tell me that I must swallow a certain substance or food, which is ridiculous. Does looking at it in that way reveal its absurdity to you? If you don't have the moral basis to force me to eat a food I do not wish to eat, you do not have the moral basis to deny me the right to ingest a drug I do wish to ingest.
- debatem1 3y ago
  It turns out the state can restrict what you say, what you do with your body, what you ingest, and all the rest. This is demonstrably true to anyone with a passing familiarity with the criminal justice system.
  - sneak 3y ago
    Not in my experience. Nobody really agrees with the state here, and their restrictions are ignored by everyone (when it comes to their own body). The people who support these restrictions support them only when applied to the bodies of other people. https://joycearthur.com/abortion/the-only-moral-abortion-is-my-abortion/ https://joycearthur.com/abortion/the-only-moral-abortion-is-... My question was not what authorities the state claims - my question is about upon what moral or philosophical basis such claims would be morally justified. I am of course aware the state claims such authority. I am also aware that they further claim the authority to enslave me, arm me, ship me across the earth, and execute or imprison me if I then refuse to commit murder on their behalf. The state claiming an authority does not actually provide them with a moral basis to do so. On what reasonable moral basis could anyone claim the authority to strip someone of their rights to final disposition over their own body?

Melting_Harps 3y ago

> Chemically-derived ones like LSD and MDMA are not in-scope in Wiener's bill, even though (like mushrooms) they aren't the kinds of drugs that cause social problems. I think that is a mistake; both have a long record of use and potential in clinical trials dating back since the 60s in Harvard, with a litany of uses from depression, alcoholism, schizophrenia etc... We all know the work of T. Leary, but the research needs to be continued and implemented at a time when we seem to need it more than ever. Thus why this portion is perhaps the most notable take-away and not the decriminalization aspect (Oakland, like Denver, has been decriminalized for sometime): The bill also would require the California Health and Human Services Agency to study the therapeutic use of psychedelics and submit a report with its findings and recommendations to the Legislature. Oregon was supposed to lead the way in this respect but has effectively stalled out in the process despite having first mover advantage [0], so I hope CA takes over in it's place. Colorado doesn't seem to have any interest in anything other than decriminalization, either. 0: https://www.opb.org/article/2023/08/23/psilocybin-mushroom-therapy-oregon-psychedelic-bendable-bend-ptsd-ocd-mental-health/ https://www.opb.org/article/2023/08/23/psilocybin-mushroom-t...

wil421 3y ago

I’ve met people who were addicted to both LSD and MDMA. One guy took LSD for a year straight. Decriminalization is a step in the right direction but where’s the support structure? California probably has the most drug problems in the states and mushrooms are not going to cause anymore problems. The other piece for support and therapy needs to improve. Alcohol is included as well as legal marijuana.

alienicecream 3y ago

This is the opposite of rational. They are decriminalizing it based on a fashion that drugs are good and when it comes to drugs people should be able to do whatever they want without regard to consequences. Compare this with the fanaticism against smoking you see from the same quarters, that should be enough to tell you this is nothing more than hippy fashion.

amanaplanacanal 3y ago
I don’t see anybody trying to make tobacco illegal.
- alienicecream 3y ago
  Then I would say you're not looking closely enough. The impetus is there, but so far there is enough resistance to it to prevent it. That wasn't the point anyway, the point is the contradiction in the antipathy towards tobacco on the basis of health vs the libertine attitude towards drugs. The kinds of people who tend to be pro drugs, pro prostitution, etc are the same people who will scold others for smoking.
  - bsimpson 3y ago
    A lot of people believe in the freedom to do what you like if you don't harm others. People doing MDMA or LSD generally don't harm others. People smoking do. Bartenders, card dealers, etc have their workplaces polluted by cigarettes. I'm sure there are plenty of libertarians who are against social restrictions on smoking. There are others who tolerate the restrictions because they personally find it to be a nicer experience to not have ambient smoke out in the world. Nevertheless, nobody thinks you should be thrown in jail for carrying cigarettes. Taxing cigarettes and decriminalizing psychedelics are not the same conversation. Your attempt to conflate them is a fallacy. ----- Moreover, that aspect of the conversation is just about the "should"s - should someone be free to alter their minds/bodies in the privacy of their own homes/if they aren't causing undue harm to others? The strongest argument for legalization is to defund the cartels. Countless dollars are being funneled to violent mobs because of the remnants of Richard Nixon's paranoia. The world would be a better place if the cartels were less powerful, and the drug problem would be much less of a problem if drugs weren't adulterated. The cartels and fentanyl poisoning are causing trauma for way too many families. There aren't enough pros to Nixon's line of thinking to justify that.