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 think about this a lot when I see cannabis dispensaries popping up all over the place in my hometown while I've also seen an acquaintance's life completely ruined (hard prison time and property seizure) due to growing a small number of plants on his property. There's a pretty extreme impedance mismatch regarding how these issues are handled, and it's anything but just.
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.
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..
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.
The problem is peoples’ notions of justice are capricious and savage. The draconian laws over psychedelics represents yesteryear’s popular conception of “true justice.”
The legal system will always trail behind the reality on the societal ground out there - that's almost by definition, and you actually kinda want them to be quite cautious and thorough before they make decisions.
But you also need to watch for outliers - laws that are WAY past their prime, and should have been put to pasture long ago.
Basically, the legal system needs a garbage collection mechanism.
"The Breitbart Doctrine is the idea that "politics is downstream from culture" and that to change politics one must first change culture.} [cited from Wikipedia]
I'm not sure why you're being downvoted. I agree that many penalties in the system are overly harsh. Even very minor offenses can ruin people's lives. I also agree that laws tend to lag behind society's views.
A very significant result for drug policy modernization efforts everywhere. California is larger than many countries. Policymakers and politicians will be looking at the results of this change with great interest as they contemplate the risks and benefits of such a move in their own jurisdictions. If things goes broadly without incident (as I bet they will), then Prohibitionists will have less ammunition against policy modernization.
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 higher quality drugs more available to regular people?
Yeah I'm pretty interested in future research. It always bugs me how most harm reduction or drug "facts" are basically pseudo science that just gets repeated over and over with slight modifications from anecdotes
Idk i found home growing mushrooms is basically another hobby to be invested. I tried it once, the final result was pretty weak, and I didn't get a lot for how much effort went into it.
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.
> 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.
Who exactly considers that the "classic problem" of prison? Your reasoning strikes me as perverse. This "social contract" is the rule of a few elites with racially charged political agendas over the many, look into the history of drug laws. It's not a just contract if you are manipulated with false propaganda and coerced by force into signing.
> "social contract" is the rule of a few elites with racially charged political agendas over the many, look into the history of drug laws
There are a lot of violent crimes with shockingly short terms. Including for repeat offenders. This isn't a problem for elites, who can afford to stay away from these problems. It's a problem for common, law-abiding, unexemplary Americans.
It seems likely more people will try it, given the rosy-colored picture most sources paint of psychedelics (vs. something like meth) and the fact that it's legally available.
100%? Of course not, but some who are susceptible will likely be in that percentage of people who decide to give it a shot.
Psychodelics are not something that one will use everyday.
From the list: " psilocybin, psilocyn, dimethyltryptamine (DMT) , ibogaine, mescaline, lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) , ketamine, and 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA)" - I think only MDMA is abusable.
The street people of CA are already breaking drug laws. Smoking crack on the sidewalk is illegal, but they do it right next to transit security the metro station in my old neighborhood no less. This doesn't realistically change much, since this sort of thing hasn't been enforced for these people in parts of CA.
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.
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...
There are lots of rehab and recovery links like the previous one and this one, but it is quite hard to find specific details of what triggers sever psychosis/breakdown in the context of psych drug use.
I do know an RN who nursed someone who had taken LSD in the late 60's and never recovered mentally, which had quite an impact on my perception of this class of drugs
I strongly support decriminalization, but I'm curious: are people in California getting arrested for the possession of psychedelics for personal use in any real numbers? That is, is this bill going to change anything on the ground, or is it just a step in the right direction?
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 intoxicants.
It is worth stopping and wondering what is behind this trend of increasing the number of intoxicated people (whether it be through recreational drugs or prescribed drugs.)
I don’t know the answer, but you’re whistling past the graveyard by telling yourself it’s simply about cleaning up or reforming the criminal code. If it were, we would be starting with truly harmless activities such as taking money to put a weave in your girlfriends hair without a license (misdemeanor).
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
, many lives would not have been ruined by these outrageous laws.
Any sources for your comments about Kesey and Leary? I've always found them both fairly interesting (if flawed) characters but my knowledge mainly comes via Tom Wolfe, Robert Anton Wilson and some pop-history books.
I read their works. They were on about the ability of LSD to undermine the establishment. (They may have been right). The result of their success was a vicious clamp down.
My view was crystallised by HST in his "Looking west from Vegas with the right kind of eyes..." monologue in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (it is in the film, if reading books is not your thing. The film is, IMO, a faithful portrayal of the book)
When it comes to drugs, I am more of a follower, not a imitator, of HST than Leary. Drugs should be fun. When they stop being fun, stop doing drugs. Real simple!
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.
> - 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 this?
> 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.
People already do this. I guess you're arguing against increased incentives but that's a bit of a leap.
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).
Ending the WoD prohibition and decriminalization is the way to go to stop incarcerating poor and minorities, ending violence in many countries, and decriminalizing personal choices.
PS: Ketamine, acid, and shrooms are on my bucket list.
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?
> Whenever I have taken psychedelic drugs (mushrooms), or taken cannabis, it has often made me more paranoid.
Suspending one's mind into an altered state while being aware of the grave consequences that would result if getting caught –effectively defenseless while high– makes me think hypervigilance is almost a rational response to that situation.
I've seen heavy users succumb to conspiracies but such cases were ultimately a symptom of schizophrenia. There has been research into use of drugs and mental illness.
Alcohol intoxication on the other hand, doesn't share the taboo, but paranoid ideations seem plenty. Intoxicated people misread signals, pick up malicious intent wherever and the paranoia that results blows back on the people most important to the person.
Yes! I'm surprised this isn't more studied. I used to have fairly strong paranoia with pot— but that was reasonable given the consequences of getting caught. Post legalization, I just don't get paranoid anymore.
yes, i think there is a correlation, but you don't know if that is causative. i think people drawn towards psychedelics are also more inquisitive and imaginative with a fascination for grand narratives behind the scenes.
David Icke, was he writing or speaking about conspiracy before he encountered psychedelics or after? What about Terence McKenna and his intriguing Timewave Zero nonsense?
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.
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.
Ketamine is schedule III in the US. That makes it less restricted than meds like adderall and most prescription opiates. Decriminalizing it wouldn't really matter for research studies.
I was recently surprised to learn about how big of an industry already exists around ketamine therapy. A search in your area (if in the US) would likely turn up several clinics nearby.
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?
It -can- be messed up brain chemistry despite what all the "only therapy helps" folks who are out to make a buck and prevent people from at least trying it.
Different states are allowed to draw up different allowances, but Ketamine has shown significant promise in the realm of long-term depression treatment. I'd imagine this is mostly to allow for experimental treatments in that field to be allowed.
I agree. Long term ketamine use can lead to some severe problems; addiction and physiological issues (destroying bladder, urinary incontinence, etc.) Not really in the same category as LSD. Only a very few and... brave ... people do LSD "recreationally" and in large quantity.
Ketamine may (or may not, I have no idea) have legitimate medical and recreational uses...but those aren't what worry me. Ketamine has a long history of being a popular choice to subdue a kidnapping victim.
I've heard about police using ketamine on arrestees to subdue them (often leading to serious health complications or death), but never non-LEO criminals. Found one news story where victim claims drug was ketamine, but seems there was just one big story, not many.
What is the scenario that concerns you?
I think ketamine's dosage (100s of mgs) and oral activity (low) is not conducive towards secretly drugging someone. To drug someone with ketamine without their consent, you'd likely have to inject them. If someone is injecting a victim with a drug to knock them out, ketamine seems like it'd be a lot safer than heroin and somewhat safer than benzos - both of which would have a higher chance of respiratory depression.
I suspect this "long history" is drug war propaganda - ketamine would be more expensive and less convenient than other similar options for incapacitating someone via injection.
If it's being used as a weapon, that sounds like it should be protected under the second amendment.
I imagine guns and knives are the most popular choices for subduing kidnapping victims, and they're explicitly legal because they can be used in that way
They meant as an ongoing way of controlling the kidnapee in a more cooperative state not the initial gun to the head "come with me, we're kidnapping you"
I meant her addiction and death are a clear example of the dangers of ketamine.
The practice of astrology (believing in it or not) in itself doesn't necessarily lead to substance abuse. I'm personally quite interested in astrology as a framework and it's psychology.
"the cause and circumstances of her death are still unknown"
"there are some conflicting accounts related to her disappearance and death"
You're making a lot of assumptions based on your own biases. I'm pointing out (tongue-in-cheek) that a different set of biases can create an entirely different narrative, equally correlated.
Ah, you're right.. I missed the tongue-in-cheek :-)
..but I remembered it from reading it in the Ketamine book by Karl Jansen long ago. At the time she was doing it daily and slept 3 hours a day.
Based on an 1998 interview with Moore's Journey's into the Bright World (1978) co-author Howard Alltounian, M.D. he wrote:
"Moore went to visit John Lilly at his ranch in Decker Canyon, Malibu. She was astonished to find that he was, at that point, describing "Vitamin K" (his preferred term) as an "extremely dangerous" substance. Lilly had just been through a massive binge ending in a near fatal accident, and out of his original ten person study group, one had "driven his car off a cliff" (Dr. Craig Enright) and another hd met an "equally lugubrious end" (Carol Carlssen).
"John Lilly's last words to me were, "You'd better be damn strong if you're going to play that game."... As this book goes to press I have once again increased the doses."
Moore disappeared from her house on January 14, 1979. Her husband spent a year searching for her, including journeys to Hong Kong and Thailand, places to which she had traveled in the past. Her skeleton was found in early spring, 1981, in the place where she had frozen to death. She had made a journey at night into the dark world of the forest, a potent Jungian symbol, curled up in a tree, and then injected herself repeatedly with all of the ketamine she had been able to find."
I am not sure if Howard or Karl are assuming things here.
That sounds very consistent with her husband's (Alltounian's) conviction that she committed suicide. I'm not sure what this says about the dangers of ketamine, especially considering that ketamine seems to mitigate suicidal ideation.
I had never heard this person's name before today, but I can easily imagine a different narrative: She was self-medicating for depression and might not have lasted as long as she did without the drug. Sounds like we'll never know.
Regarding suicide people could get strange ideas due to ketamine, perhaps it's accidental death - perhaps she wanted to try the biggest dose to get the ultimate revelation and while being in the so called K-hole, the cold got her.
Like a few unlucky souls experimenting with psychedelics, they want to fly to close to the sun and fall down. Zoe7.
Ketamine or psychedelic use can be a form of self-medication. But you'd think that if she had depression it was written about after her death or mentioned in one of her books or articles
Some people have very positive experiences with it, however I believe it's also dangerously addictive, which does make it stand out compared to the others.
Though, I'm sure the risk of ketamine is still better controlled in a legalized environment, hence it's inclusion.
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.
If I recall correctly about ketamine, the mind altering effects diminish without sufficient restorative period between dosage. This could further be an issue in two ways. Individuals may associate the effects of ketamine to the mind altering effects only, not realising that it affect the body even if they're not getting the same high ("what I can't perceive can't hurt me"). It could also make individuals try higher dosage more often ("maybe it's bad product, it didn't do anything last night, let's try again").
Modeling themselves after the US Congress, itself modeled after the British Parliament (House of Commons and House of Lords).
I personally believe bicameral legislatures - allowing houses to deadlock on a bill - are a terrible idea. Either unicameral (used by one US State, Nebraska) or tricameral legislatures, with 2 out of 3 houses needing to approve a bill for it to pass, make much more sense.
I think some state legislatures actually predated to federal one. I know some states had constitutions before the US did, but I don't know if they included the legislature structure.
Why only one house or three? What exactly would that fix? Sure you eliminate most deadlock, but how does that representation? Also, is deadlock really a bad thing in all scenarios?
That only begins to make sense if it's actually modeled on the US Congress, with proportional representation in one chamber and specific representation of subdivisions in the other, but to have two chambers both with proportional representation, as California has, makes no sense.
Using the USA congress it was viewed a compromise between having reps for the people aka "democracy" and the Senate preventing the tragedy of the commons with a more "stable", less influenced by the populace groups of reps who would be more intellectual and conservative. They would represent the states at large (population not being a metric) rather than districts in the states more of a "republic" idea. That's why you'll hear the USA called a Democratic Republic and why idiots who say "we're a republic and not a democracy!" are almost completely wrong.
It makes plenty sense. It was meant for the Senate to tame the more erratic decisions of the House of Representatives. However, since the GOP has become what is essentially a fascist party with a Mango Messiah, no amount of balance is currently possible.
“ This bill would make lawful the possession for personal use, as described, and the social sharing, as defined, of psilocybin, psilocyn, dimethyltryptamine (DMT) , ibogaine, mescaline, lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) , ketamine, and 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) , by and with persons 21 years of age or older.”
Amazing! I’ve been curious about LSD but it’s kinda hard to get. Also glad to see ibogaine, ketamine, and MDMA on here in addition to psylocibin as they all have great medical potential.
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.
> (6) Existing law states the intent of the Legislature that the messages and information provided by various state drug and alcohol programs promote no unlawful use of any drugs or alcohol.
> This bill would repeal those provisions.
Does this mean that the bill lets California start promoting unlawful use of drugs and alcohol? What is the purpose of this change?
It can change with administration changes because that allowance is made under executive order (which is probably an abuse, but that's another story). There is one federally approved lab down in Louisiana that has been doing this research for decades.
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 that to describe others keeping that frame in mind may make their fears, and emotional reactions easier to understand, even when you disagree with their premise or judgements.
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.
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.
>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.
> 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
The word "degenerate" is reasoning by extremes. It signals puritanical zealotry from a palingenetic perspective.
Whatever glorious past you think society is de-generating from is a myth composed by people with rosy-eyed memories and an agenda that, were it not for the justifying myth, would be obviously absurd.
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.
You've rebutted an unrelated discussion about your motives without backing up your claims. What exactly makes taking psychedelics a degenerate act? What leads you to believe it is a result of degeneracy?
The only fallacy being employed here is your own. You have to provide evidence that psychedelic use is somehow morally wrong, or that it causes a problem. So far you have presented no evidence to that end.
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.
So criminalizing and imprisoning a person for drug addiction increases their chances of being re-integrated into society in a productive fashion? I thought a criminal record made it more difficult to land a job? Can you elaborate?
>... a deeper problem that legalization/decriminalization will not address but only obfuscate.
Not really. The idea is to stop arresting people for it and shift the focus to treating addiction/drug abuse which, to your point, starts addressing some of that "degeneracy", which is a terrible word to describe root causes for drug abuse. You don't get people to be open to treating their abuse issues by calling them "degenerates".
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
> 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.
“30% of respondents reported living in a home owned or rented by themselves or a partner immediately prior to becoming homeless” is quite low. Maybe some people got bus tickets and crashed on a friend’s couch for a couple of weeks?
> Thirty percent (30%) of respondents reported living in a home owned or rented by themselves or a partner immediately prior to becoming homeless. Thirty-threepercent (33%) reported staying with friends or family. Twelvepercent (12%) reported living in subsidized housing, and 5% were staying in a hotel or motel. Sixpercent (6%) of respondents reported they were in a jailor prison immediately prior to becoming homeless, while 4% were in a hospital or treatment facility, 3% were living in foster care, and 1% were in a juvenile justice facility
Partially agree - issue may not be due to psychedelics, but it is irrefutable that California's woes are due to its policies. I will go ahead and say this is not just California issue, but west coast policies in general that have created crisis after crisis - that includes Seattle, Portland, SF and LA. It is time we allow criticism of these policies with an open mind.
I would go further and say that none of the addiction is related to psychedelics - AFAIK you can't get addicted to then.
As with alcohol etc you can do stupid and dangerous things while on then, and you can have a very unpleasant experience but they are otherwise harmless.
Addiction is not necessarily physical. Pretty much anything which makes people feel good or different can trigger addictive behaviour e.g. gambling, video games, or shopping, all have related compulsive disorders which get more and more considered as addiction as time passes and studies increase (though only gambling addiction is formally recognised by the DSM at this point).
Psychedelic pharmacology pretty much ensures that the vast majority of people will not become physically addicted to the substances, as opposed to substances like nicotine, alcohol, opioids or amphetamines.
5-HT2A agonism induces a rapid tolerance, making it difficult to dose many times in a two week period. A second dose or more within that period will have vastly diminished returns.
Psychedelics can be addictive in the same way Magic: The Gathering can be addictive, but not so much in the same way that physically addictive drugs are.
No, the area of the country with the biggest drug problem is Appalachia [1]. California is better than most states in terms of drug overdose deaths. And as others have pointed out, psychedelics aren't really the problematic drugs.
If you have time I suggest watching the videos in this thread shot yesterday by Dr Shellenberger of Tom Wolf, a recovered SF addict, walking around in Venice beach Los Angeles and talking with Garry Featherstone, owner of Homeless Enterprise, who feeds the homeless in Venice Beach and works on the streets there.
There are only 6000 pysch beds in all of California. Psychedelic drugs can induce serious mental illness.
If California wants to decriminalize this is a good opportunity to greatly increase psychological services to help drug casualties and provide long term care.
> I'm not certain that drug overdoses directly correlates with homelessness,
No, but it does correlate with drug addiction.
> which is what I think the parent was highlighting.
They were attempting to insinuate that the homelessness problem.in California was due to “literal armies of drug addicts” and not prosperity combined with economic inequality resulting in housing price out of reach of more of the lower end of the working class than is the case in the country as a whole.
The real nature of California’s homelessness problem makes this law largely irrelevant to it, and vice versa.
The parent claimed without proof that California has a huge drug problem. I interpreted this to be part of an argument that this measure would contribute to this purported drug problem. But the first question I asked was "is California's drug problem indeed worse than other states", and the first objective metric I thought of was deaths by overdose.
The context of this exchange in a larger strain of debate is there is a long running caricature of California as a failed state with rampant problems, based partially on the truth, but usually perpetuated and exaggerated by people from out of state with a political agenda. California has a huge problem with homelessness and COL, but I interpret this as mainly caused by terrible housing policies, and am skeptical of people who conclude that this means California's policies and/or culture are generally terrible. Specifically, in this case, homelessness in CA in an insufficient reason for me to conclude that CA is heading the wrong direction on drug policy.
Literal armies of drug addicts? “Quick, deploy the Third Meth-anized Division!”
California has a homelessness problem (largely a side effect of economic success without sufficient redistribution driving housing costs out of reach of the poor, like most states with above average homelessness — Vermont is the most noteworthy exception, with above-median homelessness without elevated housing prices.)
> How will this help?
Decriminalization reduces cost directed (usually, ineffectively) at suppression, and straight-up legalizes (and thus brings into the formal, taxed, economy) various ancillary trade like paraphernalia, increasing resources to deal with associated social problems by means other than criminal suppression, which hasn't proven effective.
> California has a homelessness problem (largely a side effect of economic success without sufficient redistribution driving housing costs out of reach of the poor, like most states with above average homelessness — Vermont is the most noteworthy exception, with above-median homelessness without elevated housing prices.)
It's simply that California's strategy for economic success was that everyone bought homes in the 70s, then banned any new homes so their property values would go up forever. This makes the supply low enough that their own children will end up homeless even if there wasn't immigration from other states.
> It's simply that California's strategy for economic success was that everyone bought homes in the 70s, then banned any new homes so their property values would go up forever.
No, its not. California hasn't banned new homes, and its not the case, either (even loosely) that everyone in CA bought homes in the 1970s (the 1970s were actually a low point in CA homeownership rate, which reach its all time peak in 2006, and is currently well above where it was in the 1970s.)
There are real state and local policy issues that contribute to the homelessness crisis in California (and some of them—like Prop 13—do indeed stem from the 1970s), but its not, even at a loose and hyperbolic level that might contribute to understanding despite being cartoonishly oversimplified, “everyone bought homes in the 70s, then banned any new homes”.
Prohibition fundamentally doesn't work. If there are 'armies of drug addicts shitting in the streets', it seems that the drugs to sustain these armies must be readily available.
Prohibition creates a massive disincentive for users to interact or cooperate with the state. This could enable policing in communities where police usually aren't welcome, and this could enable social workers to reach communities who no longer have reason to fear a state authority.
If I'm a woman who has a stash of mushrooms and is a victim of domestic abuse- I'm significantly less likely to seek help for fear of arrest.
The opposition party thinks we will have re-education camps, might as well do it and re-educate people regarding drugs with specific studies instead of anecdotes
Good evidence, in Portugal and Oregon, that legalisation eases drug problems. The homeless problem is a result of Californian voters’ housing policy and policing preferences.
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.
Unfortunately, they usually have plenty of acceptable places to defecate. The fact that they are not always used is mostly due to the effects of coming down off of opioids. See the Trainspotting toilet scene as an example.
In Manhattan, public bathrooms are scarce and the ones that do exist close when the parks do, and businesses hire security guards to check receipts and make sure homeless people don't use their bathrooms.
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."
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.
Yes, giving people money makes them richer. (that's how rich people exist, in fact, someone gave them a lot of money)
Most homeless people in California were not bussed in, they're locals who lost their houses and now can't get them back. Some of them lost it due to drugs or mental illness, and some just developed a drug habit or a mental illness because being homeless is stressful.
This is certainly true for most homeless people in California. I wonder if it is true for the most visibly mentally ill people in the Bay Area, I am somewhat skeptical that they all grew up in SF.
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.
Not american, no dog in this fight, but I highly doubt the average "psychonaut" will be in the streets. Eating a few grams psilocybin would rather have the person rolling around in bed, talking to his pillow or have deep introspection, or zone out on the couch and watch cartoons, or play some musical instrument.
The image you mention are people who are legit in trouble and in need of help, they might be abusing substances, sometimes several types at once, they might be sleep deprived, dehydrated, confused and don't know what they are doing and need medical/psych help. They might be in the middle of psychosis (it's absolute hell). Taking meth then heroin then some weed then some more meth over a 3 day period will have anyone running around in the streets - people need to respect the power of these substances (or rather, the thin line between feeling normal and madness).
There is a massive difference between 5 friends in the woods consuming psilocybin, playing drums and staring at the clouds for 5 hours in peace, than people running around naked and losing their minds.
The real bad stuff: heroin, meth, other opiates, mixing drugs.
The semi safe: cannabis, mescaline, psilocybin (lsd, dmt, salvia = risk for average folk).
And then I'd totally recommend a calm, safe environment, preferably out in nature. Simple musical instruments to play with. People who you trust an can hold your hand if you get stuck. It's that simple. Don't do it in public, crowds, noisy places with too much lights (well maybe a music festival, but still avoid them) or do it with intentions of getting high or for fun - rather try to use them as tool to commune with your deeper consciousness and get aligned to it. It can also be worthwhile to consume them in a ceremonial/ritualistic setting with a shaman person that can help you navigate certain aspects of it. For your first few times don't do it alone.
And also, the homelessness issue is partly due to economics and culture around property.
Some guy owns 7 apartments and rents them out for $1500 each. That same guy lives in a different neighborhood, different city or even different state (or even different country). That that person does not SEE what the neighborhood looks like, nor does he care. All that he cares about is his $1500 that he is "owed". He ignores all other variables and only focus on the spreadsheet and his income growth projections. Not a care in the world about his fellow citizens/people. Greed is prioritized and rewarded in your system. The owners are completely detached from the reality of how people live.
What you rather need is a cap on ownership. Two residential properties per person and no more. Or levy or non-linear tax on each addition property above the second one. The whole buy to let model is a rip off. I own my own place but I would never buy another place to rent out to make profit, I would legit feel bad about it. Maybe it's a cultural thing. I'm not sure, but I don't think living space should be a for-profit system at all.
And if you feel repulsed about what I said above, please go introspect on why you feel that way.
No way to know, really, but I'd wager the number of alcohol vs LSD users among the homeless on the streets is 99:1. Also, I've read a lot about homelessness and talked to a few of them, and I've never heard once that LSD, et al are even on the radar.
You do realize that drug convictions and felonies for victimless drug charges like psychedelic possession, manufacturing or distribution ensures that landlords won't rent to the convicted, employers will discriminate against them and that they're ineligible for government benefits, up to and including student loans to better their lives?
If you actually cared about homelessness, you wouldn't advocate for policy that creates more homeless people.
No not really. This sounds a lot like a Fox News sound bite to rile people up who don't live in CA to get out and vote republican.
Besides, decriminalization has been proven everywhere it has been implemented to decrease addiction and crime rates while helping to prevent the total dehumanization of members of society who happen to be addicts.
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".
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 difficulty at all, though I did have some thoughts about the marvelous cherry-red color of traffic lights. I find that after the drive I’m not high at all. There are no flashes on the insides of my eyelids. If you’re high and your child is calling, you can respond about as capably as you usually do. I don’t advocate driving when high on cannabis, but I can tell you from personal experience that it certainly can be done.
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 population.
Notice that fatalities are up significantly, but so are vehicle miles traveled. In fact, in 2013, Colorado had .0075 fatalities per million miles driven. In 2019, that number was... .0075. In other words, your likelihood of dying per distance driven was almost exactly equal to 2013.
This are the CO government's numbers, not mine or anyone else's.
I don't have a dog in this hunt. I'm not from Colorado, and I don't use marijuana. But it's really hard to say that legalizing marijuana in CO had any affect on traffic safety at all, when the fatality rate is essentially identical afterward.
The chart you linked says your numbers are wrong, and between those two years there’s about a 6-7% increase in fatalities per mile, with even larger fatality numbers in the years in the middle.
If you don’t have a dog in this hunt why are you posting wrong numbers, falsely stating there was no increase, and ignoring the deaths from 2014-2018?
That doesn't mean it made people's opinion of driving high more favorable. It could just mean more people are high period, but the rate of people who drive high remained the same.
Well, okay. I guess we’d have to read their minds to resolve this question. They might be less afraid of consequences for getting caught with weed, or caught while high, it being “just” a DUI.
I actually wasn't arguing from authority. I think the paragraph stands alone without the author's name attached (in fact it was originally published under a pseudonym, proving this point.)
