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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

#81

Post by splithalf »

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.

The problem is peoples’ notions of justice are capricious and savage. The draconian laws over psychedelics represents yesteryear’s popular conception of “true justice.”

Re: California Bill to Decriminalize Psychedelics Is Approved by Senate

#82

Post by jjulius »

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…

>That kind of drug usage is a manifestation of degeneracy...

Please define "degenerate". Would you consider individuals who hold successful, stable careers (they may even hold down a high-level role), have a family, no criminal records, for all intents and purposes are 'normal' people, but maybe once every few years they go camping with friends and consume psychedelics, to be a "degenerate"?

Because to me it sounds like you're making a gigantic blanket generalization.

Re: California Bill to Decriminalize Psychedelics Is Approved by Senate

#83

Post by teawrecks »

bdamm wrote: post #56
stormbrew wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Who said anything about handing out free money? We're talking about decriminalizing drugs here.

But yes, as a country we absolutely have the funds available to fix the homeless problem and live in a much fairer/happier society. But we don't prioritize that over the freedoms of individuals to live excessively.

Re: California Bill to Decriminalize Psychedelics Is Approved by Senate

#84

Post by stormbrew »

bdamm wrote: post #56
stormbrew wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I mean, there've been a lot of studies done on what works and doesn't work in practice for both homeless people and drug problems. If you want to look for that research I don't think it's particularly difficult to find tbh.

Mostly, what works, according to empirical studies (housing first strategies, safe injection sites, etc), also tend to be politically unpalatable, even when it would be a lot cheaper.

A medical system that doesn't bankrupt people for getting a broken arm would be a hell of a good start though.

Re: California Bill to Decriminalize Psychedelics Is Approved by Senate

#85

Post by solutron »

Sadly the specter of fentanyl, heroine and methamphetamine ODs, ruined lives and crime will over-shadow the goodness that is decriminalizing psychedelics. The drug-war states will simply say, "so what, everything's legal there and that place is a mess" and they won't be entirely wrong. If SF could shit-can Chessa Boudin and get rid of the Honduran fentanyl gangs terrorizing the City that'd be great.

https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2019/08/07/tenderloin-hero...

Re: California Bill to Decriminalize Psychedelics Is Approved by Senate

#87

Post by Morvan »

michaelbrave wrote: post #11
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.

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.

Re: California Bill to Decriminalize Psychedelics Is Approved by Senate

#88

Post by 8note »

CabSauce wrote: post #57
tayo42 wrote: 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.

Decriminalization being looser than legalization, where the production and use is put into a legal framework

Re: California Bill to Decriminalize Psychedelics Is Approved by Senate

#89

Post by antognini »

masklinn wrote: post #51
sergiotapia wrote: post #27

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 situ…

> You seem to be confused about the significant amounts of homeless people[0] having been dumped into the state by various others

It's true that other states have given homeless people in their state one-way bus tickets to San Francisco, but it's a relatively small fraction of the homeless population in California. Something like 92% of the homeless in San Francisco had housing in California before they ended up on the streets.

See page 18: https://hsh.sfgov.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/2019HIRDRep...

Re: California Bill to Decriminalize Psychedelics Is Approved by Senate

#90

Post by masklinn »

Morvan wrote: post #61
jjulius wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Sure, see my post above. What I'm getting at is that degeneracy leads to many things one of which is drug use, thus reflecting a deeper problem that legalization/decriminalization will not address but only obfuscate.

> What I'm getting at is that degeneracy leads to many things one of which is drug use, thus reflecting a deeper problem that legalization/decriminalization will not address but only obfuscate.

Ignoring your utterly repellent[0] word choice, you could not be more wrong. Policy changes in Portugal, Switzerland, or Oregon show that decriminalisation, by avoiding the, well, criminalisation of an often symptomatic behaviour, allows addicts to more reliably look for and get help and stability.

Can't really try to find a job or get help from social services when going there might land you in a jail because there was a cop trolling for easy busts and pissing hot will blacklist you anyway.

Criminalising drugs actively dysfunctionalizes addiction, and breaks addicts away from society and support.

[0] and genuinely dangerous

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