Regardless of your position on drugs I can't see anyone believing that criminalisation of drug use actually helps anyone stuck in drug abuse. Also punishment in general doesn't seem to dissuade...
Regardless of your position on drugs I can't see anyone believing that criminalisation of drug use actually helps anyone stuck in drug abuse. Also punishment in general doesn't seem to dissuade people from crime... Anyway, the sensible approach to this might be to have high taxes on the sale of substances. Then use that tax revenue to finance rehabilitation. This way you could also ensure some standards on the products being sold. Might seem a bit backwards, but I think the result would be more humane.
The Wire managed to pull me from uncertain -> decriminalize. If you know someone who thinks this is a bad idea, I'd suggest watching that show with them.
The Wire managed to pull me from uncertain -> decriminalize. If you know someone who thinks this is a bad idea, I'd suggest watching that show with them.
I'm mixed on this point, because decriminalizing them may pave a path for other countries to do the same. A major reason why there's so much violence is precisely because it is criminal. Mob rule...
the US decriminalizing all substances would help those cartels
I'm mixed on this point, because decriminalizing them may pave a path for other countries to do the same. A major reason why there's so much violence is precisely because it is criminal. Mob rule over alcohol more or less went away entirely really not all that long after prohibition ended. Something similar might be seen with drug cartels, but it's hard to know without somewhere where it's legalized. We can look at marijuana and how local grow operations have taken over most of what the cartel has been doing as a guide, but it's mixed because in some states it's not legal yet.
the opioid crisis has left me skeptical at any rate
How is this related to drug legalization at all? This problem is shitty oversight of doctors and greed lending them to over-prescribe in order to get kickbacks from pharma companies. This has only become worse because instead of attempting to treat the problem (opioid addiction) we have been trying to target the people who contributed to the problem (making it harder and harder to prescribe these drugs) so the addicts turn to illegal sources and end up killing themselves with overdoses.
alcohol abuse is also a bit of a problem
It's also something we more or less ignore as a society. "Oh he's just a drunk" is a socially acceptable excuse. "Oh he's just a heroin addict" is not. This is problematic. While we tax alcohol and do use it to help fund addiction recovery programs, we don't tax it a ton as compared to other drugs. We could very easily raise taxes and provide better education for all and resources for addicts.
Weed or MDMA are comparatively harmless as far as we know, heroine or the like is quite a different story.
There's a fantastic paper that came out a decade ago that helped to classify drugs on a variety of axes to understand how harmful they can be to one's self and others. I would highly suggest a read. There's plenty of knowledge in this realm and the fact that the most harmful drug is currently legal says a lot about what can be (and should be in my opinion) legalized.
As a side note, MDMA is quite powerful and can damage your brain in the medium to long term if it is abused. As @TheMeerkat brought up, it's possible to mitigate this damage with antioxidizing supplements as well as strategies such as smaller doses and/or waiting longer between doses.
Poor folk still gonna be poor and bad underfunded public education still gonna be bad and underfunded.
Yes, these are other problems we should tackle as a society, but if we already know that legalization is correct and right it shouldn't dissuade us.
Am former hardcore raver and former addict who has quite a bit of experience with MDMA (though ketamine, coke, and speed/meth were my drugs of choice), and in my opinion MDMA at typical...
Am former hardcore raver and former addict who has quite a bit of experience with MDMA (though ketamine, coke, and speed/meth were my drugs of choice), and in my opinion MDMA at typical recreational doses is actually far more harmful and risky than alcohol, at least in the short-medium term. Even though MDMA makes you feel amazing while you're on it, the serotonin crash afterwards often leads to serious mental fatigue and bouts of depression that can last for weeks afterwards until your natural serotonin levels finally recover, which both get worse the longer you regularly use MDMA recreationally. And for people already suffering from depression or other mental illnesses, that can lead to some pretty dark places.
Alcohol has more potential to harm you with long term use/abuse though.
can you please expand on your statement how drug cartels would actually profit from decriminalisation/legislation? because that seems obvious on the surface but is not what i read what happend in...
can you please expand on your statement how drug cartels would actually profit from decriminalisation/legislation? because that seems obvious on the surface but is not what i read what happend in other places that did it (or other times. e.g. end of prohibition)
Regardless of the election results, this is a big win for humanity. FWIW posting this in ~health instead of ~news because it's more than just current events, it has everything to do with long-term...
Regardless of the election results, this is a big win for humanity.
FWIW posting this in ~health instead of ~news because it's more than just current events, it has everything to do with long-term health of people.
Mushrooms are... intense. I tried them for the first time this year, and while I definitely didn't have the best experience, it was an experience I was glad to have. I think this is one substance...
Mushrooms are... intense. I tried them for the first time this year, and while I definitely didn't have the best experience, it was an experience I was glad to have. I think this is one substance that, like alcohol, can be harmful if entirely unregulated, but has a spot, with some regulations, in a healthy society. This is also an early and happy outcome from this election cycle, and I am glad to have some good news right now.
Not sure exactly where Oregon is going with this, but I'd love to see easily accessible psilocybin therapy. Leave people no reason to venture into it on their own. Sign up for a trip on Saturday...
Not sure exactly where Oregon is going with this, but I'd love to see easily accessible psilocybin therapy. Leave people no reason to venture into it on their own. Sign up for a trip on Saturday and get charged a co-pay.
For anyone thinking of using shrooms my only advice is to ask yourself "where would I be mentally if I started to lose grasp on reality?"
To aspiring users, I feel compelled to explicitly reiterate that it can be pretty dangerous to use psychedelics outside of a monitored, therapeutic context if you aren't already in a good mental...
Exemplary
To aspiring users, I feel compelled to explicitly reiterate that it can be pretty dangerous to use psychedelics outside of a monitored, therapeutic context if you aren't already in a good mental place. That includes depression, anxiety, insecurity, stress, or general irritation. I think it's great that Oregon is legalizing psilocybin mushrooms for use in therapy sessions, but people shouldn't take this as an indication that they were "perfectly fine all along." They can still mess with you a lot. A trip changes you in a way that smoking doesn't.
I had a good experience the first time I did mushrooms, but it was equal parts drug and mindset. My attitude was "I'm feeling good about myself, and I'm excited about this experience. I'm not anxious." Emphasis on the "not anxious" part. I had already talked through it all with our trip-sitter and was confident the day before. I woke up still feeling good and decided that I was going to be positive about whatever happened. That was only possible because I was not lying to myself, or hiding anything, or feeling insecure. I accepted that the mushrooms would play with my brain a little, and I would observe (and live) those changes for a few hours in a fun way. That's it. I would've been having fun that day regardless. I'm a very kinetic person, so when I ended up running, dancing, jumping, and touching everything, the drug had not "introduced" anything new so much as it heightened what I already felt to an extremely high degree. Fortunately, it's not like I ever had a problem "dealing with" being in a good mood. But I cannot say the same for negative mindsets.
People can easily have a bad trip on an otherwise good day, but that will really just make it "unpleasant." If you have a bad trip on a bad day then it will be absolutely terrible, or terrifying, or both. So ultimately my suggestions would be to 1) make sure you're feeling very good day-of, 2) have an experienced trip-sitter keep an eye on you, 3) if doing it in a group, make sure you genuinely trust and like those people (a lot), and give yourselves and them space if needed. I recommend chocolate pudding. Just be safe about it.
I absolutely love mushrooms, and have only ever had extremely positive experiences with them... but even so, your comment is still a very pertinent warning and full of sage advice IMO. Several of...
I absolutely love mushrooms, and have only ever had extremely positive experiences with them... but even so, your comment is still a very pertinent warning and full of sage advice IMO. Several of my friends have had some really bad trips on them over the years, and in high school one even suffered a rather severe psychotic break while on them. He wound up totally freaking out in public, was subsequently arrested, and put on 72 hour psychiatric hold as a result... although to be fair, he had combined the shrooms with speed and a shit ton of booze too. So yeah, they are not to be taken lightly and should absolutely never be mixed with other drugs (even alcohol).
And I also want to add to your already excellent advice by stating that, at least in my experience with them, the environment you do them in makes a huge difference on how the trip goes. All the bad trips I know of took place either in public, or at parties (Halloween parties are an especially bad place to trip!). Whereas all my trips were with a small group of close friends, either in the comfort of our own homes or back yards, or isolated in nature (cottage or camping), and have only ever resulted in incredibly positive experiences for all involved (at least so far, fingers crossed!).
p.s. Much like THC edibles, they can take quite a while to kick in... so don't eat a bunch more 30 min later just because you haven't felt anything yet. Give them adequate time to kick in before doing that, or you could wind up seriously regretting it. The trip can last 5-6 hours after it starts, so there is really no harm in waiting a full hour (or more if you ate a bunch of food first since that will slow the process down) to feel it out first before making that decision.
p.p.s. Shroom tea is definitely the best way to consume them IMO, since even though it tastes like shit it gets it over with quickly... but sprinkled on a peanut butter sandwich can also be tolerable in a pinch. ;) Just forewarning: You might vomit no matter how you consume them though, since the initial wave of nausea it causes once they start digesting can sometimes be pretty overwhelming, so be prepared for that.
Also if you're still relatively present but having a bad trip, a hot shower works well to reset your state. I've used one before on a stressful (but by no means terrifying) LSD trip. That plus a...
Also if you're still relatively present but having a bad trip, a hot shower works well to reset your state. I've used one before on a stressful (but by no means terrifying) LSD trip. That plus a setting change worked wonders.
D.C. also approved psilocybin: https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-politics/dc-magic-mushrooms-result/2020/11/03/bb929e86-1abc-11eb-bb35-2dcfdab0a345_story.html Will be interesting to see if...
Will be interesting to see if this stands as it was done as a ballot initiative and not passing a law. The mayor voted against it personally, but we'll see if she marshals an attempt to overturn this ballot initiative similar to how the district overturned an initiative to abolish the tipped minimum wage.
Regardless of your position on drugs I can't see anyone believing that criminalisation of drug use actually helps anyone stuck in drug abuse. Also punishment in general doesn't seem to dissuade people from crime... Anyway, the sensible approach to this might be to have high taxes on the sale of substances. Then use that tax revenue to finance rehabilitation. This way you could also ensure some standards on the products being sold. Might seem a bit backwards, but I think the result would be more humane.
The Wire managed to pull me from uncertain -> decriminalize. If you know someone who thinks this is a bad idea, I'd suggest watching that show with them.
I'm mixed on this point, because decriminalizing them may pave a path for other countries to do the same. A major reason why there's so much violence is precisely because it is criminal. Mob rule over alcohol more or less went away entirely really not all that long after prohibition ended. Something similar might be seen with drug cartels, but it's hard to know without somewhere where it's legalized. We can look at marijuana and how local grow operations have taken over most of what the cartel has been doing as a guide, but it's mixed because in some states it's not legal yet.
How is this related to drug legalization at all? This problem is shitty oversight of doctors and greed lending them to over-prescribe in order to get kickbacks from pharma companies. This has only become worse because instead of attempting to treat the problem (opioid addiction) we have been trying to target the people who contributed to the problem (making it harder and harder to prescribe these drugs) so the addicts turn to illegal sources and end up killing themselves with overdoses.
It's also something we more or less ignore as a society. "Oh he's just a drunk" is a socially acceptable excuse. "Oh he's just a heroin addict" is not. This is problematic. While we tax alcohol and do use it to help fund addiction recovery programs, we don't tax it a ton as compared to other drugs. We could very easily raise taxes and provide better education for all and resources for addicts.
There's a fantastic paper that came out a decade ago that helped to classify drugs on a variety of axes to understand how harmful they can be to one's self and others. I would highly suggest a read. There's plenty of knowledge in this realm and the fact that the most harmful drug is currently legal says a lot about what can be (and should be in my opinion) legalized.
As a side note, MDMA is quite powerful and can damage your brain in the medium to long term if it is abused. As @TheMeerkat brought up, it's possible to mitigate this damage with antioxidizing supplements as well as strategies such as smaller doses and/or waiting longer between doses.
Yes, these are other problems we should tackle as a society, but if we already know that legalization is correct and right it shouldn't dissuade us.
for the record, MDMA is not “completely” harmless; you need to supplement to prevent seratonin receptor damage.
Am former hardcore raver and former addict who has quite a bit of experience with MDMA (though ketamine, coke, and speed/meth were my drugs of choice), and in my opinion MDMA at typical recreational doses is actually far more harmful and risky than alcohol, at least in the short-medium term. Even though MDMA makes you feel amazing while you're on it, the serotonin crash afterwards often leads to serious mental fatigue and bouts of depression that can last for weeks afterwards until your natural serotonin levels finally recover, which both get worse the longer you regularly use MDMA recreationally. And for people already suffering from depression or other mental illnesses, that can lead to some pretty dark places.
Alcohol has more potential to harm you with long term use/abuse though.
can you please expand on your statement how drug cartels would actually profit from decriminalisation/legislation? because that seems obvious on the surface but is not what i read what happend in other places that did it (or other times. e.g. end of prohibition)
Regardless of the election results, this is a big win for humanity.
FWIW posting this in ~health instead of ~news because it's more than just current events, it has everything to do with long-term health of people.
Mushrooms are... intense. I tried them for the first time this year, and while I definitely didn't have the best experience, it was an experience I was glad to have. I think this is one substance that, like alcohol, can be harmful if entirely unregulated, but has a spot, with some regulations, in a healthy society. This is also an early and happy outcome from this election cycle, and I am glad to have some good news right now.
Not sure exactly where Oregon is going with this, but I'd love to see easily accessible psilocybin therapy. Leave people no reason to venture into it on their own. Sign up for a trip on Saturday and get charged a co-pay.
For anyone thinking of using shrooms my only advice is to ask yourself "where would I be mentally if I started to lose grasp on reality?"
To aspiring users, I feel compelled to explicitly reiterate that it can be pretty dangerous to use psychedelics outside of a monitored, therapeutic context if you aren't already in a good mental place. That includes depression, anxiety, insecurity, stress, or general irritation. I think it's great that Oregon is legalizing psilocybin mushrooms for use in therapy sessions, but people shouldn't take this as an indication that they were "perfectly fine all along." They can still mess with you a lot. A trip changes you in a way that smoking doesn't.
I had a good experience the first time I did mushrooms, but it was equal parts drug and mindset. My attitude was "I'm feeling good about myself, and I'm excited about this experience. I'm not anxious." Emphasis on the "not anxious" part. I had already talked through it all with our trip-sitter and was confident the day before. I woke up still feeling good and decided that I was going to be positive about whatever happened. That was only possible because I was not lying to myself, or hiding anything, or feeling insecure. I accepted that the mushrooms would play with my brain a little, and I would observe (and live) those changes for a few hours in a fun way. That's it. I would've been having fun that day regardless. I'm a very kinetic person, so when I ended up running, dancing, jumping, and touching everything, the drug had not "introduced" anything new so much as it heightened what I already felt to an extremely high degree. Fortunately, it's not like I ever had a problem "dealing with" being in a good mood. But I cannot say the same for negative mindsets.
People can easily have a bad trip on an otherwise good day, but that will really just make it "unpleasant." If you have a bad trip on a bad day then it will be absolutely terrible, or terrifying, or both. So ultimately my suggestions would be to 1) make sure you're feeling very good day-of, 2) have an experienced trip-sitter keep an eye on you, 3) if doing it in a group, make sure you genuinely trust and like those people (a lot), and give yourselves and them space if needed. I recommend chocolate pudding. Just be safe about it.
I absolutely love mushrooms, and have only ever had extremely positive experiences with them... but even so, your comment is still a very pertinent warning and full of sage advice IMO. Several of my friends have had some really bad trips on them over the years, and in high school one even suffered a rather severe psychotic break while on them. He wound up totally freaking out in public, was subsequently arrested, and put on 72 hour psychiatric hold as a result... although to be fair, he had combined the shrooms with speed and a shit ton of booze too. So yeah, they are not to be taken lightly and should absolutely never be mixed with other drugs (even alcohol).
And I also want to add to your already excellent advice by stating that, at least in my experience with them, the environment you do them in makes a huge difference on how the trip goes. All the bad trips I know of took place either in public, or at parties (Halloween parties are an especially bad place to trip!). Whereas all my trips were with a small group of close friends, either in the comfort of our own homes or back yards, or isolated in nature (cottage or camping), and have only ever resulted in incredibly positive experiences for all involved (at least so far, fingers crossed!).
p.s. Much like THC edibles, they can take quite a while to kick in... so don't eat a bunch more 30 min later just because you haven't felt anything yet. Give them adequate time to kick in before doing that, or you could wind up seriously regretting it. The trip can last 5-6 hours after it starts, so there is really no harm in waiting a full hour (or more if you ate a bunch of food first since that will slow the process down) to feel it out first before making that decision.
p.p.s. Shroom tea is definitely the best way to consume them IMO, since even though it tastes like shit it gets it over with quickly... but sprinkled on a peanut butter sandwich can also be tolerable in a pinch. ;) Just forewarning: You might vomit no matter how you consume them though, since the initial wave of nausea it causes once they start digesting can sometimes be pretty overwhelming, so be prepared for that.
Also if you're still relatively present but having a bad trip, a hot shower works well to reset your state. I've used one before on a stressful (but by no means terrifying) LSD trip. That plus a setting change worked wonders.
My wife was deeply upset by the fact that our walls were flat white without much art. It's been fixed since then.
It can definitely bring front-and-center things your brain has long since filtered out.
D.C. also approved psilocybin: https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-politics/dc-magic-mushrooms-result/2020/11/03/bb929e86-1abc-11eb-bb35-2dcfdab0a345_story.html
Will be interesting to see if this stands as it was done as a ballot initiative and not passing a law. The mayor voted against it personally, but we'll see if she marshals an attempt to overturn this ballot initiative similar to how the district overturned an initiative to abolish the tipped minimum wage.