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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

#181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes it did. Traffic deaths in Colorado have grown much faster than the population and much more than the national rate, since legalization.

Traffic deaths in CO were up 3% last year: https://kdvr.com/news/local/colorado-traffic-related-deaths-... CO population increased by 15% in the last decade: https://www.9news.com/article/news/local/colorado-news/color... It seems like it'd be really hard to defend the claim that the death rate (which isn't per-mile-driven, so lacks the context to actually evaluate it meaningfully) is growing "much faster" than the p…

It’s actually really easy. Colorado marijuana legalization happened in 2014, not last year. So why are you looking at last year’s change?

Re: California Bill to Decriminalize Psychedelics Is Approved by Senate

#182
post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Drugs like LSD and Mescaline are not, primarily, intoxicants. Technically they get you intoxicated, but that misses the point by a wide margin. These drugs should be important in our society, the experience is indescribable and not necessarily fun - but mostly. If it were not for the culture wars of the 1960s, and corrupt lecherous idiots like Timothy Leary and Ken Keasy scaring the bejesus out of the establishment ,…

Aren't they psychoactive, not intoxicating?

Alcohol is intoxicating because it damages cells but there's very little evidence that classical psychedelics are damaging in this way.

Re: California Bill to Decriminalize Psychedelics Is Approved by Senate

#183

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

I know of a police chief who just retired with a $250k/year pension whose primary contribution to the community was arresting high school kids for smoking joints.

Re: California Bill to Decriminalize Psychedelics Is Approved by Senate

#184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That last 5% are not going to handle psychedelics well I imagine the ratios are similar for alcohol, cannabis and tobacco. Subjecting the 95% to threats of fines and jail time for the 5% is wrong. But it would make sense to use this new tax base as a platform for addressing our homeless and mental health problems.

Kamala Harris sent Californians away for long haul prison sentences on drug-related infractions. Anyone here who thinks mass incarceration improves society should explain their reasoning, because I really don’t understand. Also the parent commenter on “tax base” is misguided. We’re not talking about legalizing and taxing drugs, just not locking people up for victimless crimes.

I mean mass incarceration for "long haul" (lets says 30+ years) prison terms absolutely could be argued to "improve" society by removing people who have broken the social contract.

The classic problem with prison is short and frequent sentences that fuck someones life up just enough to prevent them from being a "good" member of society but not long enough to really keep them away from the general population.

Re: California Bill to Decriminalize Psychedelics Is Approved by Senate

#185
post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean by if? I'd assume they're already on psychedelics regardless of whether they're legal or not.

Do you understand that psychedelics are not a mainstream choice even amongst habitual drug users? They are not an easy escape route from daily discomfort. People who want to escape or numb their pain have many less challenging options available. Very few people take psychedelics for long periods of time. If anything they are "anti-addictive".

> Very few people take psychedelics for long periods of time. If anything they are "anti-addictive".

The more "mainstream" ones like LSD and Mushrooms basically don't work if you're taking them every day. You can go on a multi week long Coke binge but LSD/shrooms would have near 0 effect at that rate.

Re: California Bill to Decriminalize Psychedelics Is Approved by Senate

#186
post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not hard to get clean and pure mushrooms if you take the time to learn how to grow them, or if you have a friend that does.

The grow route, the friend route and the onion route.

Don't forget the field taxonomy guide and hiking shoes route.

Re: California Bill to Decriminalize Psychedelics Is Approved by Senate

#187
post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ketamine addiction liability is low–moderate[1], not dangerously addictive. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketamine

Yeah, my wording could've been better. I was referring to that I've heard some horror stories of those who do get addicted. Overuse is really hard on the body. IIRC incontinence / bladder issues specifically.

I think it's an interesting issue you also see with some people and weed. The drug by and large is "too safe". Since fucking yourself up with it is actually kind of hard people get too comfortable and sort of slide down the slope from every so often to daily much easier than something you know is "dangerous".

Basically you respect heroine/meth/coke/etc since you know you can OD and it's doing all sorts of damage to your body but K is "safe" up to the extreme ends so people sort of handwave the risks away.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk_compensation

Re: California Bill to Decriminalize Psychedelics Is Approved by Senate

#188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wh…

> - I don't want an untrained barber spreading disease. This is a fairly weird statement. For a start conflating "unlicenced" with "untrained" and then jumping to "spreading disease". I'm not sure catching a disease has ever crossed my mind while getting a haircut. > - I don't want a fake optometrist selling incorrect glasses. The fact that they are "fake" surely already implies fraud - so how does licencing prevent…

I'm not sure barber is a good example of a profession that absolutely needs to be licensed, but it's worth noting that they use implements that a) can nick you, and b) may have nicked someone else recently. there's at least the possibility of blood-borne pathogen transmission (though likely not HIV).

Re: California Bill to Decriminalize Psychedelics Is Approved by Senate

#189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have any actual basis for claiming people with schizophrenia will have a "total break"?

https://dualdiagnosis.org/drug-addiction/psychosis/

I think I'm missing something. That article is about stimulants (not hallucinogens), and it concludes that long term use of them can cause anyone to experience psychosis. That's the opposite of showing people with schizophrenia will break down!?

Also, is it a foreign article? The language is weird and hard to follow in places, like it was written by an algo or translated automatically but chrome claims it isn't doing the translation...

Re: California Bill to Decriminalize Psychedelics Is Approved by Senate

#190

A rethink of US drug policy, particularly regarding psychedelics, is long overdue. It blows my mind that LSD is in a higher category (i.e. considered more dangerous) than cocaine.

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...

https://www.verywellmind.com/does-cocaine-have-any-legit-med...

Cocaine has very useful medical effects which is why it's a lower category.

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