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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

#51

Doesn't california have a massive drug problem and literal armies of drug addicts shitting in the streets and harassing families and tax-payers? How will this help?

1. You seem to be confused about the significant amounts of homeless people[0] having been dumped into the state by various others: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeless_dumping

2. Most people with addiction issues (whether cause or consequence of issues) are not users of psychedelics.

3. How about you explain how criminalizing drugs helps the situation? Because that's the regime under which you got the current situation, why would "keep doing the same thing" yield a different result, exactly?

4. And to my knowledge, the result from Portugal's drug strategy (which essentially decriminalised all drugs back in 2001) has kept looking better and better as the years have gone by. At worst, there seem to be no ill effect compared to other more repressive countries in europe, just less money wasted on possession policing.

[0] not necessarily drug addicts, and for those which are, not necessarily the cause of their homelessness, often the consequence of it or the consequence of shared causes e.g. untreated mental disorders and trauma

Re: California Bill to Decriminalize Psychedelics Is Approved by Senate

#52
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you saying taking psychadelics makes you a degenerate? If so, why do you think so?

no, the other way around.

Care to explain what you're trying to get at in greater detail?

Re: California Bill to Decriminalize Psychedelics Is Approved by Senate

#53

Whenever I have taken psychedelic drugs (mushrooms), or taken cannabis, it has often made me more paranoid. Has there been any research into how psychedelic drugs may fuel conspiracy theories?

This sounds like a conspiracy theory...

Edit: satirical joke

Re: California Bill to Decriminalize Psychedelics Is Approved by Senate

#54
post #21

I hope this won't be similar to decriminalizing weed where people assumed it's also fine to drive while high :/

Legalizing weed didn't do that. There's always been an opinion (argument?) that driving high is fine. Carl Sagan even discusses it in Mr. X (1969): > I have mentioned that in the cannabis experience there is a part of your mind that remains a dispassionate observer, who is able to take you down in a hurry if need be. I have on a few occasions been forced to drive in heavy traffic when high. I’ve negotiated it with no…

Yea, it's actually a banned substance in esports racing because of it's known performance enhancing qualities.

Re: California Bill to Decriminalize Psychedelics Is Approved by Senate

#55
post #21

I hope this won't be similar to decriminalizing weed where people assumed it's also fine to drive while high :/

Legalizing weed didn't do that. There's always been an opinion (argument?) that driving high is fine. Carl Sagan even discusses it in Mr. X (1969): > I have mentioned that in the cannabis experience there is a part of your mind that remains a dispassionate observer, who is able to take you down in a hurry if need be. I have on a few occasions been forced to drive in heavy traffic when high. I’ve negotiated it with no…

And Sigmund Freud spent a decade using cocaine daily. Doesn't mean it's OK for everyone else to.

Re: California Bill to Decriminalize Psychedelics Is Approved by Senate

#56

Doesn't california have a massive drug problem and literal armies of drug addicts shitting in the streets and harassing families and tax-payers? How will this help?

It seems much more likely that the people shitting in the streets are actually people who have nowhere else to shit. That's what happens when you have a lot of homeless people in a very urbanized area and don't do anything to help them except 'kindly' pretend they don't exist.

Is there any evidence that "helping" people by handing out free money actually results in good outcomes? Seems that it usually results in a bigger population of homeless, as they flock in from other parts of the country. Seriously, data-based evidence of how to help homeless populations that has actual real-world testing would be really useful. Vague "provide them help" seems to usually just translate into "spend non-specifically to feed and clothe people."

Re: California Bill to Decriminalize Psychedelics Is Approved by Senate

#57
post #47

Pretty cool, I think they way we all talk about psychedelics and drugs in general is harmful and misleading. I guess we need baby steps but idk if social sharing is enough. A big problem with the current drug world is not getting clean and pure substances and in predictable doses. I didn't see anything about like lsd labs and stores or mdma production being allowed in the bill. Did i miss something about making highe…

Decriminalization and Legalization are two pretty different things.

Re: California Bill to Decriminalize Psychedelics Is Approved by Senate

#58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you saying taking psychadelics makes you a degenerate? If so, why do you think so?

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 not longer allowed to reply. what you seem to be hinting at amounts to reasoning by extremes, a trite fallacy.

Re: California Bill to Decriminalize Psychedelics Is Approved by Senate

#59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you saying taking psychadelics makes you a degenerate? If so, why do you think so?

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…

That's funny, most of the time I see people call something "degenerate" it's a political slur against a group that does not align the with the users personal ideals of society. Different contexts, I suppose.

Re: California Bill to Decriminalize Psychedelics Is Approved by Senate

#60

Doesn't california have a massive drug problem and literal armies of drug addicts shitting in the streets and harassing families and tax-payers? How will this help?

All you gotta do is change the metrics, and the study shows a success. Incarceration rates are easy to tally. "We made something legal, and -- who would have thought -- now we aren't arresting them! What a great success this law is!" Second order effects are more difficult to assess. That's why my objection to legalizing drugs -- especially psychedelics -- is not based on "evidence".

Care to define success?
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