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California Bill to Decriminalize Psychedelics Is Approved by Senate

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Re: California Bill to Decriminalize Psychedelics Is Approved by Senate

#151

Post by kstrauser »

bluepanda928752 wrote: post #119
beepbooptheory wrote: post #38

As someone whose life was very much thrown into turmoil and difficulty for getting caught with a relatively small amount of mushrooms in Texas, to the point that it will soon be a decade and I have not really completely recovered financially or emotionally, and also still blocked from a lot of jobs, news like this is so good but hard to hear on a personal level.

I hope one day we will have a Nuremberg-style trial for all those friendly chaps who orchestrated (and profited from) this pointless life-destruction machine called war on drugs

Did we have one post-Prohibition?

Re: California Bill to Decriminalize Psychedelics Is Approved by Senate

#152

Post by mustacheemperor »

Morvan wrote: post #58
ticviking wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of the time when people call something "degenerate" it seems like they're making an argument based on the idea that progress depends on self-control and personal sovereignty. Everything I see labeled that way, psychedelics included, has a reputation of being either a cause of loss of self-control or a consequence of lacking self-control. If you want to be in the habit of understanding people who use words like t…

You're trying to reframe the problem around the people who call it out. That's a good way to distract from said problem but not a way to address it. That kind of drug usage is a manifestation of degeneracy, itself part of a bigger cultural trend. Fixing the symptoms (or rather, absorbing them into legality so they seem less noteworthy) won't get rid of the root cause. edit: to respond to greyface- below since I am no…

This sounds like a tautological argument. Can you provide your definition and/or evidence of "a bigger cultural trend of degeneracy" that does not simply point back to the decriminalization of drugs? I am reading the merriam-webster definition of "degenerate" to try and make sense of what you are saying, is it that there is some kind of society-wide or worldwide phenomenon of mass brain failure that "manifests" itself in the use of psychedelic drugs which have themselves been known to humans throughout our recorded history?

Referring back up to the earlier comments, what I read here strikes me as similar to the opinions the earlier commenter was describing, the idea that the success of society relies on some inherent concepts of self-control and personal sovereignty that are somehow threatened by use of psychedelic drugs. You are completely entitled to your own opinion, but throwing the d-word around isn't doing anything to clarify why you hold that opinion for me. It reads like an argument based on emotion.

Re: California Bill to Decriminalize Psychedelics Is Approved by Senate

#153

Post by stickfigure »

fsiefken wrote: post #140
ravenstine wrote: post #6

I get LSD and psilocybin, but why ketamine? In either case, I feel like this shouldn't have tried to include ketamine since the perception of it might jeopardize the bill.

yes, i remember the tragic story of marcia moore https://erowid.org/culture/characters/moore_marcia/moore_mar... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcia_Moore

A clear example of the dangers of astrology.

Re: California Bill to Decriminalize Psychedelics Is Approved by Senate

#154

Post by bluepanda928752 »

kstrauser wrote: post #151
bluepanda928752 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope one day we will have a Nuremberg-style trial for all those friendly chaps who orchestrated (and profited from) this pointless life-destruction machine called war on drugs

Did we have one post-Prohibition?

If we don't either in this case, there's always a second option of doing the same thing Israel did to those who decided not to face a trial and ran away..

Re: California Bill to Decriminalize Psychedelics Is Approved by Senate

#155

Post by kstrauser »

lurquer wrote: post #131
kf6nux wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fewer criminal statutes is almost always a good thing. Discriminatory enforcement is a huge problem. My local Police Chief told me he thinks of discriminatory enforcement as a good thing, so you can only solve it as a problem by removing the ineffective/undesirable law.

You can’t cut someone’s hair in California without a license. You can’t sell corrective eyeglasses without a license. You can’t buy (or sell) penicillin without licenses. I could go on. California has thousands of ridiculous, out-dated, laws. Yet, I see no groundswell of support for getting rid of them. My point is, this isn’t about generic ‘decriminalization’ or libertarianism or personal liberty. Rather, it’s about…

You listed a whole bunch of healthcare laws that restrict what you can do to other people. It's perfectly reasonable to be for each of them:

- I don't want an untrained barber spreading disease.

- I don't want a fake optometrist selling incorrect glasses.

- I don't want someone buying penicillin off Amazon to treat their flu, or taking it for 2 days and then stopping so that they incubate a PCN-resistant strain of whatever.

...while still thinking grown adults should be able to decide which recreational chemicals they want to use.

My drugs of choice are coffee and a monthly beer or nice whiskey. I don't have a moral high ground over someone who wants to occasionally use some weed to relax. Similarly, why do I care if someone (not me!) wants to take mushrooms? They don't get to tell me I can't sip a glass of whiskey, after all.

Re: California Bill to Decriminalize Psychedelics Is Approved by Senate

#156

Post by m-ee »

fasteddie31003 wrote: post #23

Probably 95% of people can handle psychedelics. That last 5% are not going to handle psychedelics well. I'm talking about the people on Market and 6th with schizophrenia. If you give someone with schizophrenia mushrooms they will have a total break with reality and might not come back easily. This is going to make the street people of CA even that more crazy.

You really think schizophrenics on 6th and market are holding off from drug use because it's illegal?

Re: California Bill to Decriminalize Psychedelics Is Approved by Senate

#157

Post by jeffbee »

Fauntleroy wrote: post #41
jeffbee wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone know why states have bicameral legislatures?

I actually have no idea, can you elucidate?

I can't. It seems totally irrational to me. Makes no sense at all.

Re: California Bill to Decriminalize Psychedelics Is Approved by Senate

#158

Post by bluepanda928752 »

aerostable_slug wrote: post #148
bluepanda928752 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope one day we will have a Nuremberg-style trial for all those friendly chaps who orchestrated (and profited from) this pointless life-destruction machine called war on drugs

How does that address those who voted for many of those men and women, knowing their policies and completely agreeing with them? I am acquainted with people who firmly believe the Devil's Plant is terrible and shouldn't be legal anywhere — what then?

I suppose we can extend the German analogy here as well, e.g. not trying to put half a country on trial might be the most reasonable option

Re: California Bill to Decriminalize Psychedelics Is Approved by Senate

#159

Post by kstrauser »

Morvan wrote: post #87
michaelbrave wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've heard it has a lot of promise in treating depression, decriminalization would allow for official medical studies.

again, if drugs is what you need to "treat" depression then you probably have a much bigger problem in life that needs to be addressed rather than looking for another band-aid. depression is not some random disease you catch like a bad cold, it stems from personal or systemic issues that will only continue to feed into said depression until fixed.

Can you imagine how idiotic someone would sound if they were saying that about type 1 diabetes, or maybe schizophrenia?

Robin Williams lived a pretty pleasant life, but he died of depression. If Robin Freaking Williams couldn't beat it, what chance do the rest of us have for successful self-treatment?

Re: California Bill to Decriminalize Psychedelics Is Approved by Senate

#160

Post by heavyset_go »

giantg2 wrote: post #49
beepbooptheory wrote: post #38

As someone whose life was very much thrown into turmoil and difficulty for getting caught with a relatively small amount of mushrooms in Texas, to the point that it will soon be a decade and I have not really completely recovered financially or emotionally, and also still blocked from a lot of jobs, news like this is so good but hard to hear on a personal level.

Don't worry, the system is so screwed up that they will continue to ruin people's lives over other infractions instead of producing true justice.

I lived in a state that legalized marijuana, and police unions lost their minds over it. They lobbied for "reform" bills that would allow cops to arrest people, and specifically kids, for marijuana offenses.

Before legalization, one of the biggest reasons for arrests was marijuana offenses. Not only were police the biggest expenses on many towns' budgets, but many municipalities relied on revenue from those marijuana arrests to balance their own budgets. Now cops are scrambling to manufacture other victimless crimes in order to justify their budgets and compensation, as well as keeping their employers afloat.

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