Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

California Could Legalize Magic Mushrooms in 2018

hightimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 145 posts

Re: California Could Legalize Magic Mushrooms in 2018

#71

Post by trowaybloway »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #32
jlebar wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Humans used psychoactive substances for centuries, usually under the supervision of a shaman or some type of religious figure to undergo a journey. I don't have a position on legalizing psychoactive mushrooms, but I don't think this is a good argument. For example, humans also used lead to sweeten wine for centuries, but that's not evidence that lead is harmless. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead(II)_acetate#Sweet…

Nobody is running about trying to purchase, at least for their own account, lead sweeteners on the black market. We know the risks, and we don't want it. With psychoactive substances, however, many people who know the risks still want it. It strikes me as absurd that inhibiting them should be a public matter.

you wouldn't allow drugs in traffic and you wouldn't want them in public. Alcohol use shows that not always is drug use constrained to private settings, so there is the argument against it, because what starts in private might under the influence end up in an inappropriate place.

Re: California Could Legalize Magic Mushrooms in 2018

#72

Post by chess_buster »

bamboozled wrote: post #18
djsumdog wrote: post #6

You can currently buy psychoactive mushrooms in stores in The Netherlands. Buying mushrooms illegally from a legit dealer in the US means making sure they have several uniform bags of the product. You want to make sure they're grown safely in a lab or farm. There are too many people who will go out and just pick mushrooms, which is incredibly unsafe. Unless you're an actual mycologist, it's difficult to tell what's s…

You can currently buy psychoactive mushrooms in stores in The Netherlands. Unless something has changed within the last year, this is no longer the case (in Amsterdam at least). They do sell something called "Magic Truffles" but AFAIK they're no where near as potent. It was possible to buy mushrooms there until a few years back but apparently it was putting stress on paramedics and police due to "drug tourists" havin…

Magic Truffles is just a different name to circumvent the law. It's stupid, that this way the law can be circumvented, but it seems to be possible nevertheless.

Re: California Could Legalize Magic Mushrooms in 2018

#73

Post by jseliger »

djsumdog wrote: post #6

You can currently buy psychoactive mushrooms in stores in The Netherlands. Buying mushrooms illegally from a legit dealer in the US means making sure they have several uniform bags of the product. You want to make sure they're grown safely in a lab or farm. There are too many people who will go out and just pick mushrooms, which is incredibly unsafe. Unless you're an actual mycologist, it's difficult to tell what's s…

Humans used psychoactive substances for centuries, usually under the supervision of a shaman or some type of religious figure to undergo a journey

Likely even longer; if you're curious about some of the anthropology and botany behind mind-altering substances, Wade Davis's One River is excellent: https://www.amazon.com/One-River-Wade-Davis/dp/0684834960?ie.... It focuses on the first half of the 20th C in particular.

As far as I know, it's impossible to know for sure when humans began using mind-altering substances like psychoactive mushroom, peyote, or ayahuasca, but it's likely been a very long time.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/09/12/the-ayahuasca-...

Re: California Could Legalize Magic Mushrooms in 2018

#74

Post by [deleted] »

djsumdog wrote: post #6

You can currently buy psychoactive mushrooms in stores in The Netherlands. Buying mushrooms illegally from a legit dealer in the US means making sure they have several uniform bags of the product. You want to make sure they're grown safely in a lab or farm. There are too many people who will go out and just pick mushrooms, which is incredibly unsafe. Unless you're an actual mycologist, it's difficult to tell what's s…

[deleted]

Re: California Could Legalize Magic Mushrooms in 2018

#75

Post by petre »

djsumdog wrote: post #6

You can currently buy psychoactive mushrooms in stores in The Netherlands. Buying mushrooms illegally from a legit dealer in the US means making sure they have several uniform bags of the product. You want to make sure they're grown safely in a lab or farm. There are too many people who will go out and just pick mushrooms, which is incredibly unsafe. Unless you're an actual mycologist, it's difficult to tell what's s…

> There are too many people who will go out and just pick mushrooms, which is incredibly unsafe

That's why decriminalization is beneficial: mycoligists can earn a living and others can get high safely. Governments banned psychoactive drugs because people got ideas like draft dodging, protesting against the Vietnam war and writing some of the best literature of that time.

Re: California Could Legalize Magic Mushrooms in 2018

#76

Post by darpa_escapee »

chess_buster wrote: post #72
bamboozled wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can currently buy psychoactive mushrooms in stores in The Netherlands. Unless something has changed within the last year, this is no longer the case (in Amsterdam at least). They do sell something called "Magic Truffles" but AFAIK they're no where near as potent. It was possible to buy mushrooms there until a few years back but apparently it was putting stress on paramedics and police due to "drug tourists" havin…

Magic Truffles is just a different name to circumvent the law. It's stupid, that this way the law can be circumvented, but it seems to be possible nevertheless.

It's not just a different name, it's a different species.

Re: California Could Legalize Magic Mushrooms in 2018

#77

Post by yznovyak »

cimi_ wrote: post #38
oh-kumudo wrote: post #29

Why Californians so obsessed with drugs? Any serious explanation?

They're not 'obsessed': criminalization doesn't work because of many, many reasons I will not repeat here. I think that moving to legalise drugs (harmless or not) is the normal, rational decision to make and the fact that is receives so much push-back saddens me. I would be curious to what lead you to your conclusion? The press is pretty bad at painting this picture as most articles I've seen try to tickle people's s…

But criminalization does work. Every time subject of criminalization comes up people cherry pick Portugal as some kind of miracle example completely ignoring Japan, Singapore, Georgia (country) Davao city, South Korea and countless others examples where strict laws (and their enforcement) almost completely eradicated drug abuse.

In the US you guys have incompetent people running the show and despite throwing enormous amounts of money you still get abysmal results. You can't be seriously talking that USA has honestly tried to deal with drugs when you have whole genre of stoner movies (Pineapple Express, etc) and when Snoop Dogg alone smokes weed like a chimney.

The incompetence in dealing with this is stunning. It's akin to homelessness problem in San Francisco. SF spends ~$30k per homeless per year and the problem only gets worse. Maybe, just maybe, those who are in charge are complete morons? At 30k per year you could rent everyone a room in a nice place. But currently it sure as hell doesn't look like homeless people have 30k worth of goods and services provided to them.

Re: California Could Legalize Magic Mushrooms in 2018

#78

Post by tree_of_item »

darpa_escapee wrote: post #76
chess_buster wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Magic Truffles is just a different name to circumvent the law. It's stupid, that this way the law can be circumvented, but it seems to be possible nevertheless.

It's not just a different name, it's a different species.

Is it actually a different species? I was under the impression a "truffle" was just a different part of the larger organism that also contains mushrooms.

> Apart from the visual appearance there is no difference between magic mushrooms and magic truffles. The so-called truffles are objectively no real truffle (as those belong to the genus Tuber), but sclerotia of psilocybe mushrooms growing below the ground. Therefore, they are nothing more than an underground part of the fungus and completely identical to the part above the ground, the so-called fruiting body, which we call the actual mushroom. Both contain the hallucinogenic molecules psilocybin, psilocin and baeocystin, both are absolutely effective.

Re: California Could Legalize Magic Mushrooms in 2018

#79

Post by tree_of_item »

komali2 wrote: post #15
superplussed wrote: post #4

I wonder if this could be the birth of the legal microdosing industry?

How so? Isn't microdosing done with LSD?

Microdosing can be done with any psychedelic. It doesn't do anything since microdosing itself is unscientific, but you can try!

Re: California Could Legalize Magic Mushrooms in 2018

#80

Post by freedomben »

trowaybloway wrote: post #71
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody is running about trying to purchase, at least for their own account, lead sweeteners on the black market. We know the risks, and we don't want it. With psychoactive substances, however, many people who know the risks still want it. It strikes me as absurd that inhibiting them should be a public matter.

you wouldn't allow drugs in traffic and you wouldn't want them in public. Alcohol use shows that not always is drug use constrained to private settings, so there is the argument against it, because what starts in private might under the influence end up in an inappropriate place.

Following that logic we must also ban sex, because some people don't constrain it to private settings and sometimes take it into public places that are inappropriate.
Post reply on HN