"but there's zero reason for a free country to police personal use of such things."
There are a lot of reasons.
The people on HN and their social circles are waaay on the high end of conscientiousness. They have nary any risk from something like LSD for the most part.
But - wide open and fairly unregulated use? Available at the corner store?
So many types will try it, more than a few times. Younger kids will definitely try it and I think for developing minds it's totally a no-go.
At least 1/3 of the population are very susceptible to vices or risky behaviours - in my 'very mixed' neighbourhood there are so many people who might be using it as part of their 'escape mix' (currently crack and alcohol) and consistent use of this stuff is just bad news, moreover, there's too many ways to have a 'bad trip' (in the psychological sense) even for those of us on the conscientious side.
Let's say I know 'a guy' who only did it twice but the second trip was so whacky he wouldn't ever touch it again and suffered a some of ego/identity collapse issues from it for a while.
Psychedelics are generally safe enough, and non-additive to the point where we really don't see a lot of crossover among the street level problem folks who's vices are crack and alcohol ... but that's because the supply/demand equation in the current 'regulated' scenario implies very little demand.
'Unregulated' almost means 'ubiquitous' and also much more integrated as part of 'accepted behaviour' in society, and there are just way, way too many people for whom this would be risky.
'Legalizing hard drugs' is kind of a theoretical issue because I think it's hard for us to contemplate what actual widespread use would look like, and also hard for us to consider how regular people behave.
More to the point: the regulations are not for you, they're for the 33%-ish of folks who have all sorts of problems.
It should definitely be decriminalized, to the point wherein anyone who wants to jump through a few hoops can have access, but I don't think we want to have widespread availability.
Maybe we might want to do an experiment in a city somewhere to see, but even then, I feel the results would be highly politicized, as they are with 'harm reduction clinics' ... it's hard to get at the truth of it.
You said regulations. Regulations are set after there is a problem. In case of psychedelics, it is a law.
If there is a problem, the regulation may be changed, and additional measures taken to get rid of it.
The main issue with these laws is that they are speculative. It is actually very likely that nothing would change much if at all, except number of arrests and related costs. Oh and reduced cut for the black market.
Psychedelics have been available and used throughout history with few problems in ritual settings.
(As opposed to drugs like opium, tobacco or alcohol which have always been one with few exceptions yet are less regulated.)
"Think of the children" is a cheap shot that can be used to set any number of odious laws. Show evidence of harm and how the law helps with it.
The real reason psychedelics were banned in the US is to have a reason to jail politically inconvenient people in Vietnam era and bunch of the world has followed the leader.
> The main issue with these "laws" is that they are speculative
Sorry to pull that quote out of context, but this is just peak HN. It's beautiful.
> Psychedelics have been available and used throughout history with few problems in ritual settings
So we should only allow them in ritual settings then?
> The real reason psychedelics were banned in the US is to have a reason to jail politically inconvenient people in Vietnam era and bunch of the world has followed the leader.
I actually agree with that point. However, I don't see how from any of this follows that you should simply allow them without any precautions or any restrictions. Alcohol, tobacco, even coffee is regulated.
As an analogy, we deem it useful that you can purchase a car and drive around with it. Nevertheless, we demand that you get a driver's license first, because there is enough evidence that driving is an often highly counterintuitive activity that can lead to serious damage unless you had proper training first. There is also evidence that you need certain prerequisites even with that training, which is the reason we e.g. wouldn't let a 10 year old drive at all.
In what way are they anything other than speculative?
Drug laws are certainly not evidence based (in most places). They are based on ideologically driven speculation about the imagined consequences of legalisation.
Some actually were evidence based, such as opium laws. There was a big public health problem with opium a few centuries back - complicated with politics and economics of opium trade.
Likewise how barbiturates, amphetamines, cocaine and benzodiazepines are scheduled in various schedules.
Many and high profile cases with deaths or major harm were linked to misuse of these drugs.
It's still immensely hypocritical to claim that these drugs cause harm and death while giving a pass - and sometimes subsidies and tax breaks - to the commercial alcohol and tobacco dealers.
There is literally no argument that can be made about the dangers of psychedelics that can't be applied to alcohol addiction. Put crudely, alcohol really fucks people up.
Conversely the reality is that many supposedly respectable people are high on coke and other drugs. Mandatory drug testing for politicians and CEOs would reveal all kinds of interesting recreational habits.
A cynic might wonder if the use of these drugs is actually a status symbol, and if legalisation would remove some of the thrill of being able to use illegal drugs with impunity.
Thanks for the correction, I shouldn't have made such a sweeping statement.
However I think my point still stands. The regulation of newer drugs seems to be dictated by ideology more than anything else. In many ways we've gone backwards.
I'm reminded of David Nutt, who was sacked from his job as UK Chief Drug Advisor, simply because the evidence he quoted disagreed with the government's rhetoric.
>Psychedelic is not a right category anyway. It is a label given by users based on perceived effects.
That's not my point. My point is that J-dawg stated that the laws prohibiting drugs in the group that we as human beings who are not trying to deliberately misunderstand each other for internet points all understand as "psychedelics" are not based on evidence.
You stated that there were evidence based laws prohibiting a different set of drugs that are not in the group that we as human beings who are not trying to deliberately misunderstand each other for internet points all understand as "psychedelics".
"Drug laws are certainly not evidence based (in most places)"
They are definitely evidenced based.
We don't have to have a complete scientific run-down of opioids or THC to know their general effects on people.
We've decided that these - among many, many other substances are not for the common good - and that's why they're banned.
We don't ban alcohol for cultural and historical reasons, though it's banned in many places in addition to the fact that alcoholism was a massive social problem for a long time.
There's no 'new science' in dope that has caused us to change our laws either, just a different view towards it, and probably a better common understanding of it.
THC is classified under schedule 1, "no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse."
There are heaps of evidence for it being useful in treating anxiety, appetite disorders, chronic pain (possibly better than opiods with much lower chance of addiction), and others.
LSD, schedule 1. Psilocybin, schedule 1. Both have been shown to be effective in treating ptsd. An analogue of the former has been shown to be the only thing clinically effective in treating cluster headaches.
the drug war is a politically and economically driven disaster that has created the single largest wave in history of disrespect for law, laws, and our legal systems.
Law, as a system, draws 100% of it's authority from the notion of being an externalized codified form of social morality. The minute Law ceases being moral and becomes merely an obvious instrument of power it's basis flounders.
If you want a world with less problems, the drug war must go immediately.
Coffee used to be regulated, until about 19th century in its countries, among them France, UK and Persia come to mind.
First two were to crack down on cafés which were sources of political opposition.
Likewise in Persia, the it was related to sultan not profiting and religious reasons.
Just wanted to say that I agree 100% with this, yet rarely hear it articulated elsewhere. The pernicious effects of pitting otherwise law-abiding people against the justice system and by proxy, the entire state, is something that I think has contributed a not insignificant part to the breakdown of community and subsequent alienation we're seeing today.
The police are supposed to be on our side, yet huge swathes of society must think of them as the 'enemy' because the law has made it so. It'll be at least a generation after legalisation, probably a couple of generations, before this toxic relationship gets healed, we can't start that process soon enough.
I wish to expound further:
The criminalization of possession and cultivation/fabrication of certain substances has created a highly lucrative black market providing revenue for entities that are less that concerned with our social welfare and more concerned with maintaining a hegemony of power.
Just a clue as to the overall impact lies in noting that the USA is the single largest consumer of Latin American cocaine production, and the role this has played in creating a climate where cartels drive governments.
(not to mention black money opportunities for shady governmental entities to dip in and out of, a la Oliver North...)
There is, but less than before most of this drugs were scheduled.
It used to be even recently that you could get strong opiates for cold and amfetamines for cough, weight loss and lethargy for instance. Or that barbiturates were prescribed for many issues related to insomnia.
> 'Legalizing hard drugs' is kind of a theoretical issue because I think it's hard for us to contemplate what actual widespread use would look like, and also hard for us to consider how regular people behave.
If we keep our focus on psychedelics, as per the article, then: no, not really. The Netherlands have had OTC, no-questions-asked, fully commoditised psychedelics available for decades.
Some got put back on the ban list in dec 2008, others still available as before. This should offer plenty actual, real world, practical data.
No need to guess or contemplate!
> Maybe we might want to do an experiment in a city somewhere to see, but even then, I feel the results would be highly politicized, as they are with 'harm reduction clinics' ... it's hard to get at the truth of it.
How about an entire country, for over two decades? :)
I was in Lisbon a few years ago, and on basically every (major/touristy) street corner there are people trying to sell you drugs
If they spot a tourist, they'll even go so far as to follow you down the street heckling you to buy some
In a legalized country it would be sold by regulated stores, where the supply is known where it originates from (i.e. Head Shops in CA as of the 1st of this year)
> More to the point: the regulations are not for you, they're for the 33%-ish of folks who have all sorts of problems.
What do you mean with "all sorts of problems"? Most people with "mental" problems do alcohol which is a really bad hard drugs. But if you mean with problems: treating depressions, treating all kinds of headaches, palliative treatment, not knowing what to do with your life, etc.. then what would you want to regulate for this group?
Psychedelics are a very harmless drugs; not addictive, there is no poisoning(like with alcohol), when the effect is gone you feel totally normal and healthy. The only thing you need to be careful with if you really want the best result from it is the dosage, never too much like with many other things in life.
Prohibition of psychedelics only causes criminality and harm, it doesn't solve a problem at all. It is an illusion to think that your children are not able to get their hands on it when it is prohibited. The truth is they'll get questionable quality LSD in the criminal circuit, or they'll pick magic mushrooms theirselves which can be quite tricky!
> Psychedelics are a very harmless drugs; not addictive, there is no poisoning(like with alcohol), when the effect is gone you feel totally normal and healthy.
None of this is true.
People like you promoting psychedelics are responsible for much suffering (bad trips, drug induced trauma and PTSD, long term psychological problems).
AFAIK it is MUCH more likely to feel normal and healthy after intoxication by alcohol than after intoxication by psychedelics.
All drugs should be legalized. Criminalization must not create additional costs and problems. Legal must not mean harmless. Many legal things (e.g. drugs, too much sugar, animal products, fossil fuel, ...) are harmful.
Portugal decriminalized all drugs in 2000. In the Netherlands many drugs, including psychedelics, have been available OTC for decades.
Both of these case studies show that you can decriminalize drugs on a wide scale. In Portugal, is had less to a decrease of abuse. I don't know the stats on the Netherlands, but I have not heard of any dire outcomes in that country either.
The key is to route a portion of the money that has been thus far used for enforcement and punishment into education, treatment, and rehabilitation.
> 'Legalizing hard drugs' is kind of a theoretical issue because I think it's hard for us to contemplate what actual widespread use would look like
You're conflating "this is now legal" with "lots of people will start using".
Aside from that point, I think we can make an educated guess about what will happen if you extrapolate even a little from countries where they are decriminalized. It obviously doesn't map one to one, but that's a far cry from it being so hard to imagine it's basically undoable.
Thirdly, you're talking about psychedelics and suddenly it's about all hard drugs. That's veering way off topic.
Sure, just look at the positive pressure I mentioned in the end of my post. If we took all the money spent in the police, courts, & prisons for non-violent drug use offenses, and funded totally free to use, no questions asked, walk-in rehab programs, I think that would be both a massive financial and massive cultural benefit. Throw in awareness programs, counseling, poverty-area involvement, etc, and you'd still be way in the black.
Regulating substances for purchase by minors is something that's well understood and much more agreeable. Getting it into stores and away from pushers (which can still be criminalized, just not the users) makes it much more manageable for the problem cases, and much more available for any beneficial cases (self-medication, etc).
Characterizing that everybody's going to start using hard drugs if they're decriminalized is really kind of jumping off the handle, too. People have few barriers to hard drug access as it is, where this problem affects us the most. Many value their mental & financial state and have seen too many negative examples already and abstain, even if they're a classified high-risk sort of person. Others use whatever they can get a hold of, and legislation is irrelevant to their use. Yet others dabble or use sparingly, like your bad trip example. It's a personal choice, not a legal one, that's already been made millions of times over.
Besides, consuming junk food, watching TV, internet use, etc, have none of these usage laws while having addictive and society-wide negative effects, too. The question remains why other behaviors "must" be regulated while these aren't.
Uhm... Same situation with alcohol or tobacco. It is very easy to find young adults or desperate people that will more than gladly buy you some for a share or some cash.
The problem with buying cocaine on the streets is that the quality is terrible (note: not anecdotal; I've never used cocaine AFAIK). The Dutch TV series Spuiten & Slikken (about sex & drugs, aimed at youth) broadcasted an item on that. The cocaine was ground up together with crap like washing powder, glass, and what have you.
You can get certain psychedelics right now with absolutely no regulation, even children can do it:
Walmart sells packets of ~60 morning glory seeds, it only takes a few hundred to have a pretty good high with visuals and everything. (use a coffee grinder because they’re hard enough to break your teeth and unlike LSD they will make you very nauseous) No one will stop you from buying these. Also, Mushrooms grow in the wild and it’s not super hard to find growing kits, although I’ve never tried that.
What makes LSD nice is that it’s safer than these and has fewer side affects. So this isn’t about giving everyone access to psychedelic drugs because they already have that, it’s really about helping them stay safe.
In my (rather extensive) experience, Psilocybe spp. are the safest psychedelics. LSD is generally harsher, especially at high doses. And peyote is harder on users GI tracts.
But gathering Psilocybe spp. in the wild can be iffy. You're generally OK if they turn blue soon after bruising. Also, ones growing on cow shit don't taste very good :(
Growing from spores isn't that hard. We used to grow them on cooked rice, in mason jars. You put rice and water in the jars, put the lids on with the seal upward (so they don't seal) and cook ~30 minutes in a pressure canner. After they cool, just inoculate with decent sterile technique, put lids on loosely, and keep warm in the dark.
In a week or two, you have shrooms. And they taste great! We used to freeze dry them. But you can also preserve in honey. Cultures produce shrooms for a week or two, and then gradually crap out.
You can also use a food dehydrator provided you don't put the temperature too high. There's stores available who sell growkits. In The Netherlands, growkits, spores, and truffles are still legal (lol @ illegal spores, btw).
>Walmart sells packets of ~60 morning glory seeds, it only takes a few hundred to have a pretty good high with visuals and everything.
Stop believing the stuff you read online. If they are hallucinating, it's from the pesticides or the methylmercury coating the seeds as a fungicide combined with a heavy dose of placebo.
I've used 2 kinds of LSA approx 12 years ago, including morning glory. I can therefore tell you from personal experience that morning glory seeds are, in fact, hallucinogenic. But don't take my word from it. Just read it on Erowid or Wikipedia.
OP asked a genius question and I hoped you have good reasons to counter him. But most of what you wrote felt like opinions and personal feelings.
I understand that non-regulated psychedelics use could potentially lead to many people hurting themselves, but that is not reason enough to regulate them IMHO.
We can not save people from themselves by regulations. What we could do is educate them.
> Unregulated' almost means 'ubiquitous' and also much more integrated as part of 'accepted behaviour' in society
Does it really? It's easy to think of examples of behaviour that's legal but unacceptable to lesser or greater degree (increasingly smoking, "exotic" sex practices like BDSM and sex parties, using the n-word, making fun of minorities, ...)
> The people on HN and their social circles are waaay on the high end of conscientiousness
You overestimate some of us. I'd say that I'm in that third of the population that's susceptible to my vices. It's just that I can afford less harmful drugs and I call myself a hedonist to legitimise my proclivities with a philosophy.
These communities that are ravaged by crack and alcohol (a legal drug) would continue to be ravaged by crack and alcohol, even if LSD was made legal. It's just not that kind of drug. If anything, it might benefit the community because they might gain some introspection. These communities already have access to these drugs anyway; drugs are everywhere, they just choose heroin and crack over MDMA and LSD, for whatever reason.
Despite the best efforts of the War on Drugs, they are easier to find now than ever before, in many places people can get cocaine delivered faster than pizza [1]. Anybody that wants to do drugs is doing them. There aren't many people who avoid drugs purely because they are illegal, especially in at-risk communities.
I live in a 'vulnerable' neighbourhood, ridden with heroin addiction; so much so that there's a safe injection centre for heroin and methamphetamine around the corner from me. Nobody here is missing out on heroin because it's illegal. All the addicts can have as much heroin as they can afford here, it's so easy to find. If I walk to the shops in the afternoon, I can usually eyeball at least 2 or 3 dealers, without even trying.
Legalising drugs won't have effects that are anywhere near as severe as you might think.
I live in a gentrifying neighbourhood in Montreal and crack is a thing.
The semi-homeless people who crash at the clinic in front of me are highly animated, talking to themselves loudly etc. for a few days after the provincial welfare cheques go out. Then it's all quiet.
It's the only neighbourhood in North America, where regular looking, polite folks come up asking for 'spare change' all the time.
>The people on HN and their social circles are waaay on the high end of conscientiousness. They have nary any risk from something like LSD for the most part.
As somebody who is pretty close to the bottom percentile of conscientious, I'd have to disagree :)
> But - wide open and fairly unregulated use? Available at the corner store?
The traditional psychedelics have the potential to become revolutionary tools in the hands of psychiatrists/psychologists, especially considering that when administered in a controled setting by a trained professional the risk of something going wrong is near zero. If you look into the literature involving the administration of LSD in the 50s, the concept of a "bad trip" was relatively unheard of.
When it comes to psychedelics "being sold at the corner store", I sincerely believe the government has no place in regulating consciousness, especially in adults. The entire idea of a bunch of monkeys locking another monkey in a cage for 20 years solely because he ate the forbidden fruit is absolutely absurd.
Let's consider the current legal framework surrounding alcohol. For the most part, It's completely legal to possess and consume, as long as you are not endangering anybody else in the process, and are an adult. This framework if applied to psychedelics, and any other drug for that matter, would still allow society to handle any problem users, while not criminalizing responsible use. The exploration of states of consciousness itself should NOT be criminalized, as long as said explorers are not causing problems for the people around them.
As a society we seem to handle alcohol pretty well, and alcohol itself has something close to the most severe health/behavioral consequences of any popular recreational drug. Alcohol use often leads to severe behavioral problems, especially violence, and can actually straight up kill you if you become addicted to it and try to stop cold turkey. If we can handle something as destructive as alcohol, we can certainly handle other comparatively benign drugs.
At the very minimum, the idea of a "schedule 1 drug" should be completely abolished. ESPECIALLY the clause which prevents research of any compound that is placed in schedule 1.
The United States has failed utterly in its "war on drugs". We've spent hundreds of billions in taxes, exploded our prison population to the largest in the world (rivaled only by russia), destabilized every country south of Texas, and yet have failed utterly in restricting the accessibility and usage of "illegal drugs". It's all absolutely ridiculous, especially considering that the stated purpose of mass criminalization in the first place was to silence political opposition.
There are a lot of reasons.
The people on HN and their social circles are waaay on the high end of conscientiousness. They have nary any risk from something like LSD for the most part.
But - wide open and fairly unregulated use? Available at the corner store?
So many types will try it, more than a few times. Younger kids will definitely try it and I think for developing minds it's totally a no-go.
At least 1/3 of the population are very susceptible to vices or risky behaviours - in my 'very mixed' neighbourhood there are so many people who might be using it as part of their 'escape mix' (currently crack and alcohol) and consistent use of this stuff is just bad news, moreover, there's too many ways to have a 'bad trip' (in the psychological sense) even for those of us on the conscientious side.
Let's say I know 'a guy' who only did it twice but the second trip was so whacky he wouldn't ever touch it again and suffered a some of ego/identity collapse issues from it for a while.
Psychedelics are generally safe enough, and non-additive to the point where we really don't see a lot of crossover among the street level problem folks who's vices are crack and alcohol ... but that's because the supply/demand equation in the current 'regulated' scenario implies very little demand.
'Unregulated' almost means 'ubiquitous' and also much more integrated as part of 'accepted behaviour' in society, and there are just way, way too many people for whom this would be risky.
'Legalizing hard drugs' is kind of a theoretical issue because I think it's hard for us to contemplate what actual widespread use would look like, and also hard for us to consider how regular people behave.
More to the point: the regulations are not for you, they're for the 33%-ish of folks who have all sorts of problems.
It should definitely be decriminalized, to the point wherein anyone who wants to jump through a few hoops can have access, but I don't think we want to have widespread availability.
Maybe we might want to do an experiment in a city somewhere to see, but even then, I feel the results would be highly politicized, as they are with 'harm reduction clinics' ... it's hard to get at the truth of it.