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LSD chemist William Pickard to be released from prison

psymposia.com

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Re: LSD chemist William Pickard to be released from prison

#371

Post by WillDaSilva »

melq wrote: post #354
WillDaSilva wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd argue that if the intention is entirely to rehabilitate (and incapacitate if necessary) then a prison sentence would only incidentally be a punishment.

If the intention was to rehabilitate, then they wouldn't have sentenced a non violent offender to 2 life sentences. Giving someone a life sentence means you (or the justice system at large) are either unwilling or unable to rehabilitate that person.

Don't get me wrong - I don't believe that the US "justice system" is at all concerned with rehabilitation. Giving 2 life sentences to a non violent drug offender is ridiculous.

Re: LSD chemist William Pickard to be released from prison

#372

Post by [deleted] »

yaktubi wrote: post #193
worldsayshi wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 20 years for each one That is incredible. For a crime that harms noone.

Not sure I’d agree with “harms noone.” I have taken LSD and easily walk in the middle of the road with no cause for concern. Imagine a child accidentally eating some of it, etc. Could be worse than a loaded gun. I’m all for legalizing natural stuff (mushrooms, cannabis, even coca plants) but once chemists start concentrating things or turning them into droplets it becomes extremely dangerous. For instance, mushrooms…

[deleted]

Re: LSD chemist William Pickard to be released from prison

#373

Post by sooheon »

perl4ever wrote: post #356
pessimizer wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As long as you think the same arguments apply to toilet bowl cleaners, oven cleaners, windshield washer fluid, tylenol/paracetamol, antifreeze and visine, this makes sense.

Yes, I think the same argument applies to everything. That's not to say all hazards are equal or all substances need identical regulations.

> That's not to say all hazards are equal or all substances need identical regulations.

This is a non informative answer. Let's talk numbers, is 20 years a reasonable time to be incarcerated for a sheet of LSD? How many years is appropriate for a pack's worth of hand smoke, then? How about carbon monoxide from driving year round?

Re: LSD chemist William Pickard to be released from prison

#374

Post by say_it_as_it_is »

quickthrowman wrote: post #309
say_it_as_it_is wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Government is very familiar with LSD, having used it for a wide variety of research over an extended period of time. LSD has proven exceedingly effective at behavior modification, and has already been put to use by the wrong hands. So, they know better than anyone as to how dangerous it is: https://www.amazon.com/Tom-ONeill-ebook/dp/B07K6J273Q This is why the sentencing was so harsh.

> LSD has proven exceedingly effective at behavior modification, and has already been put to use by the wrong hands. Please provide evidence for this claim.

What do you think I cited the book for? That's how one backs a claim.

Re: LSD chemist William Pickard to be released from prison

#375

Post by chmod775 »

rdmirza wrote: post #363
newbie789 wrote: post #341

This is delightful news. I really hope in the coming decades the research of organizations like MAPS get more attention and become completely mainstream. Making psychedelics Schedule 1 set us back decades that could have been spent doing important research on a large number of mental health conditions.

MAPS (multidisciplinary association of psychedelic studies) is systematically demonstrating the positive effects of psychedelics. Their most impressive work is in PTSD. In Phase 2 trials, they took people with established PTSD (for years) and undertook ~3 guided psychotherapy sessions with MDMA. Within 2 months, 53% no longer met criteria for PTSD and at 12 months 68% didn't. Far more efficacious that anything else w…

What about the control groups in those trials? How many people?

Hard to tell how effective the treatment is with nothing to compare to.

Re: LSD chemist William Pickard to be released from prison

#376

Post by quickthrowman »

cik2e wrote: post #319
quickthrowman wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But the laws don't cause the violence, they make it so violent individuals are the only one's willing to fill the supply. This is untrue. The vast majority of the US drug trade is done without violence. There’s violence in the powder/pill drug game because the profit margins are so high, creating an immense amount of competition. Sometimes you can 5-10x your money off powder, that isn’t really possible with marijua…

You’re forgetting about coke, heroin and meth, and the massive amount of related violence down the supply chain.

Did you read my post? The following is a direct quote:

> There’s violence in the powder/pill drug game because the profit margins are so high, creating an immense amount of competition.

All 3 of those drugs are powders, so no, I didn’t forget those.

Re: LSD chemist William Pickard to be released from prison

#377

Post by MacsHeadroom »

chmod775 wrote: post #375
rdmirza wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MAPS (multidisciplinary association of psychedelic studies) is systematically demonstrating the positive effects of psychedelics. Their most impressive work is in PTSD. In Phase 2 trials, they took people with established PTSD (for years) and undertook ~3 guided psychotherapy sessions with MDMA. Within 2 months, 53% no longer met criteria for PTSD and at 12 months 68% didn't. Far more efficacious that anything else w…

What about the control groups in those trials? How many people? Hard to tell how effective the treatment is with nothing to compare to.

22% in the drug-free therapy control groups. It's a pretty major difference.

Psychedelics work at changing the mind and they work astonishingly well, provided their consumption accompanies skilled counseling.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00213-019-05249-5

Re: LSD chemist William Pickard to be released from prison

#378

Post by namelessone »

jowsie wrote: post #73
exdsq wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the UK we had an act introduced to combat legal highs by making essentially everything illegal and then legalising products, rather than trying to ban legal highs as they were discovered. https://www.politics.co.uk/blogs/2015/05/27/the-government-j...

Despite this 1P-LSD is still being sold in the UK in a supposedly legal way. It's sold as micro dosing pills that are low enough dose to not produce any psychedelic effects if you just take one. There's nothing stopping you from taking 10, though. (I have no idea if this supposed workaround would actually be seen as legal if taken to court, but the company has been active and selling in the UK for over a year now, th…

They do not appear to ship to certain countries, which is too bad.

Re: LSD chemist William Pickard to be released from prison

#379

Post by quickthrowman »

say_it_as_it_is wrote: post #374
quickthrowman wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> LSD has proven exceedingly effective at behavior modification, and has already been put to use by the wrong hands. Please provide evidence for this claim.

What do you think I cited the book for? That's how one backs a claim.

I’m dismissing the book as pure speculation and horseshit, because it is. Charles Manson used tactics that have been used to control people throughout history: fear, abuse, intimidation, isolation from society, and violence. He’s not the first or last person to develop a cult of personality.

I’m well aware of MKULTRA and the CIA’s involvement in that program.

Please provide a source that shows mind control is possible with LSD.

Re: LSD chemist William Pickard to be released from prison

#380

Post by wayneftw »

melq wrote: post #189
wayneftw wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s because everybody here already knows that keeping drugs illegal is what is actually funding criminal organizations.

No, what is actually funding those organizations would be the profits of the drugs they are selling. The law may be responsible for creating an environment that allows such groups to prosper, no argument there. But an unjust law doesn't make it morally permissible to work with violent criminal organizations. In any case I think it is unreasonable to downvote someone who is arguing in good faith simply because you dis…

> No, what is actually funding those organizations would be the profits of the drugs they are selling.

No, that's a nonsensical sentence. Profits are funding. What I said is correct: The law is what is actualizing the profits (or the funding). Without the law there would be no profits, no funding. Ergo, the law is causing the funds to happen. Profits are not self-caused. They don't just happen by themselves.

> But an unjust law doesn't make it morally permissible to work with violent criminal organizations.

Yes it does. Morals are subjective. I'm absolutely fine with it. These criminal organizations are far less violent and less criminal than my own government which I fund by paying taxes.

Furthermore, the vast majority of people buying illicit drugs are not buying directly from violent criminal organizations or even non-violent criminal organizations. They're buying from a friend who buys from a friend who buys from a friend who might buy from a criminal organization (who might be violent).

> In any case I think it is unreasonable to downvote someone who is arguing in good faith simply because you disagree with their premise.

You (and them) made poor arguments based on your ill-formed opinions and presented no evidence. You both deserve the downvotes.

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