I would like to remind all the readers of this post that the united states government used to try to use LSD as a mind control drug. They (IIRC it was the CIA) got into all sorts of shenanigans, dosing people (including CIA officers) without their consent. Some people died and other people's lives were affected very negatively. This was back in the 1950s- a time at which American had little or no conception of the concept of a "psychedelic" at all.
Also, the Grateful Dead- whose parking lots were famous as large scale drug distribution sites- went from being counterculture to establishment in some ~25-30 years (the "house band" of the Clinton administration).
We apparently live don't live in the strangest timeline, but it's definitely the trippiest one.
FWIW there were deaths caused by the MKULTRA program[1], but the implication that LSD caused the deaths is probably not correct.
This is sort of just a historical dump since it’s a fascinating story: The notable death people remember is the Army officer who “jumped” out of his hotel window in NYC. Years later the Watergate investigation revealed the MKULTRA program and connected it to the Army officer’s death. CIA sort of implied “yeah we were doing stuff with LSD mind control and he went crazy,” but some (like the officer’s son) believe that is also a cover story. AFAIK the son still believes his father was going to blow the whistle on some sort of chem or bio weapon development (the father was a scientist at Fort Detrick, the US military’s bioweapon development center at the time) and he was assassinated before going public.
Anyway, the son’s theory almost seems like the most believable part of the whole MKULTRA universe.
[1] Among MKULTRA’s damage is arguably the creation of the Unabomber. Ted was an unknowing test subject at Harvard where he was basically emotionally tortured by a CIA agent posing as a fellow student. He had his beliefs — which he was always strongly identified with — systematically dismantled in order to cause emotional distress.
They also used massive doses of LSD combined with electroshocks and managed to entirely wipe some patients’ memories, this person describing their experience is pretty mind-blowing:
Ken Kesey of merry pranksters fame "discovered" LSD via being a volunteer in the CIA's MKUltra experiments. So, interestingly, the CIA's experiments were one of the major triggers for the whole 60s counterculture.
They used to try.. then they succeeded with some of their research, rolled it into the private sector, and closed the official record with the notion that it was a waste of time.
It's super important because it's really hard to do research with controlled substances.
E.g. MDMA was a widely used substance in psychoterapy before 1980 (they used it to "open" patients before sessions), but it got banned and almost nobody could carry on with their research. Without research, you cannot claim practical uses and be taken seriously. And pharmas are not interested in spending on some product that they can't market anyway.
Psilocybin chocolates are a great way to consume the substance, but they are a bad f'n idea in my opinion. A lot of the people that get a hold of them are not always in a vigilant state, and one of these could easily get into the hands of a child. They just look like a normal chocolate.
It’s not really any different from cannabis though, right?
Unlike cannabis, you can’t smoke it, so ingestion is an obvious choice. I suppose pills could be an answer but kids eat pills all the time too. Granted, perhaps less enticing than chocolates but still a problem.
The better option would be to forgo purchase of these substances until you're ready to consume them. Legalization makes this a reality. I could go to the store, buy the drugs, then drive straight home and consume them in a safe environment.
The prohibition we have currently is what tempts people to stock up all at once and ultimately leads to higher risks for children finding/consuming them while mommy and daddy are at work.
Very "but think of the children!" sort of argument against the countless things that should be kept away from children, including vitamins, medicine, cleaning products, and sharp objects. Yeah, thanks, keep the drugged candy away from kids. We know.
With cannabis, in states that legalized it in edible form, there are usually fairly stringent "child proof" packaging requirements such that it's not something you can just unwrap or tear.
> This is San Francisco we're talking about, psychedelics already weren't a priority for the police in any practical sense.
Whenever someone says something like that, you know they don't have much experience trying to get hold of illegal drugs! It's rarely easy, and often falls through.
Two weeks ago I was picnicking with friends at Mission Dolores Park in San Francisco and multiple vendors came by with cute baskets full of weed and psychedelic mushrooms for sale. They even accept Venmo for payment. We weren’t looking, these people just wander around offering them to every group they walk past.
> Whenever someone says something like that, you know they don't have much experience trying to get hold of illegal drugs! It's rarely easy, and often falls through.
As this is a public record, I'm in total agreement with you. I have zero experience acquiring illegal drugs, none.
To not distinguish psychedelics from "illegal drugs" however, especially in the context of San Francisco, suggests to me you don't have much experience with the city.
I think if you can get some cryptocurrency and have access to the internet using Tor, it is incredibly easy. In fact I'd say, DO NOT buy acid on the street.
If you live in the EU, you can even acquire a legit derivative legally on the 'clearnet'.
Great news. Whether or not you believe these substances have significant therapeutic potential (I do), it's basically indisputable that they are socially harmless. Nobody gets addicted to them, there are no known negative health effects. There is absolutely no justification whatsoever for their criminality, and there never has been.
I agree there was no justification to their criminality but would like to caution against portraying them too widely as harmless. Specifically, psychadelics should be considered very carefully(and potentially not partaken in at all) in context of those who have experienced psychosis or are relatives of people with psychotic disorders.
I have known too many people with "psychotic disorders". I have learnt the hard way to show such people enormous respect. A person who cannt distinguish a real thing from a thought is somebody that can do very surprising things.
These can be wonderful things, great artists etcetera. But it can also mean unexpected violence.
Yes "psychadelics should be considered very carefully... in context of those who have experienced psychosis". Everything should in that context.
While I am also in complete favour, stating that there are no negative health effects is somewhat false. Abusing any kind of psychedelic can lead to HPPD [1], a very real long term disorder.
I would classify HPPD as widely harmless. If you poll non-users you'll find that many people have HPPD like effects and can't recall ever not having them. Seeing a slight trail behind a bright fast moving object is inconsequential in life.
"it's basically indisputable that they are socially harmless."
I wouldn't go that far. Any substance that alters perception, inhibition, etc has the potential for some social impact. For example, public drunkenness, DUI, liquor license etc were created because intoxicated people caused some sort of problem and laws were created around that. While these were created for alcohol, it's likely similar laws would be created for other substances.
My state has no law against public drunkenness and there is no discernible difference here between other states I have lived in which had such a law. Honestly I think that was written as a religious feelzy.
> socially harmless. Nobody gets addicted to them, there are no known negative health effects.
Not true.
My friend woke up handcuffed to a hospital bed after a bad trip on mushrooms. He saw his dead body in the street and was convinced he was dead and a ghost. He then went running around Manhattan traffic jumping on cars.
An English teacher in high school witnessed her friend jump to her death from a balcony after taking LSD. The woman said she felt light as a bird, took off running, hopped up a chair and dove over the railing to the pavement 20 feet below. She broke her neck.
I am not saying psychedelics should remain banned. But to casually call them harmless is incredibly irresponsible. They need to be taken under supervision by people with experience. This is called trip sitting. Not all trips are good as emotions and state of mind can effect the outcome. Things can go wrong fast. Be safe.
From my read of the scientific literature, most situations like the ones you describe are at least partially caused by underlying disorders that pre-existed (and manifested). And the second one you describe is a pretty common story to be told (same rumor at my college).
Basically a chemist gets secretly drugged with a massive dose of LSD, then nine whole days later allegedly jumps out the window of a hotel... this was after he was declared a possible security risk...
So more than likely he was helped out that window.
If not that - it was probably the guilt: for being a part of MKUltra and the clandestine drugging of American citizens - he had a moral crisis, that much is certain.
I'm not saying your story isn't true... but I've been on the internet long enough to see how stories morph over time.
Psychedelics, especially in conjunction with SSRIs, can cause serotonin syndrome. They can cause visual disturbances that far outlast the trip: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallucinogen_persisting_percep.... They can trigger psychosis in certain people, i.e those with bipolar disorder.
Alcohol, especially in conjunction with acetaminophen or other OTC pain meds, can cause liver damage.
As long as alcohol is a legal substance to consume, it makes no sense to criminalize substances widely shown to have lower harm coefficients than it. There's tons of studies which mostly-objectively quantify harm/addiction caused by substances. The only drugs squarely as bad or worse than alcohol are tobacco products (also legal, contains many more psychoactives beyond nicotine), meth, crack cocaine (delivery route matters), cathinones, GHB, certain gaba-ergics, and most opioids.
Nicotine in isolation, ketamine, classical psychedelics, cannabis, MDMA, most of the Shulginoids (phenethylamines and tryptamines), all fall short of the harm caused by alcohol.
While most people harping on the "there are no known negative health effects." claim are talking about the drugs making people crazy I would point out that some psychedelics can also make people become sick. It passes, no long term harm, but it still seems like a miserable time and one I'd call a "negative health effect".
Sure, too much alcohol can cause people to get sick too, but then nobody ever said alcohol had "no known negative health effects" either.
Honestly I couldn't give a shit if there were horrible effects. Kidnapping someone off the street and throwing them in a padded room with a doctor over watching to make sure they're medically OK is perfectly safe, but ought to be illegal. Buying rat poison and eating it is completely unsafe, but if that's someone's thing then they're free to have at it.
Of course, if I buy rat poison, I have a pretty pure product and I can look up the ld50 and make a scientific estimate on how much I can take before I die. Not so with some random shit off the street.
> Of course, if I buy rat poison, I have a pretty pure product and I can look up the ld50 and make a scientific estimate on how much I can take before I die. Not so with some random shit off the street.
True.
Where I live (Aotearoa) drug testing has been made legal and there are many opportunities to take your stash along to the spectrometer (I am not a chemist, unsure about the actual nature of the instrument, except it is reliable) and get it tested.
Most rodenticides, and a great many other hazardous household chemicals actually carry a warning that they are illegal to use in a way different than described in the instructions.
No, if you are susceptible to schizophrenia, it can trigger it and turn it into full blown schizophrenia including all the other comments about potential downsides.
But also reading comments on the Internet can trigger that stuff. The only safe thing is to ban online comment spaces.
HN is just low quality commentary on a lot of stuff and this is just another example. It's full of Internet urban legends and junk like that.
The classic sign of the Internet person who's trying to make himself seem like an authority on some subject is to try to use the trappings of expertise: speaking in passive voice, using words like "evidence" to describe urban legends, speaking in pseudo-formal tones to simulate expertise.
It's so clear that there is collectively very little expertise among this group on most subjects.
Well, if you care about your mental health, you would visit a psychiatrist and a psychotherapist about any such suspicions prior to taking psychedelics, but it is obviously difficult to conceal your true intent from them if it is highly illegal, so decriminalization has the potential to reduce harmful side effects.
Depending on the dosage, the user's reaction to it, and what kind you psychedelic you're taking, it's very possible for people to end up tripping so hard that they think they're fighting for they're life, but they're actually attacking random people in the street.
I'm curious to see how often these events happen as more areas decriminalize it.
Society has figured out quiet quitting all on their own without the need of widespread psychedelics and capitalism has not ended because of it. There's definitely no need to hold back LSD now.
> it's basically indisputable that they are socially harmless
Considering that the place with the highest psychedelic drug use is also the place with the highest number of mentally ill and homeless, that seems a rather preposterous assertion.
Yours is an excellent example of how correlative observational studies (however formal or informal) are practically useless. Once you have experience interacting with the unhoused population, you will quickly learn that they are largely using things like crack, meth, and opioids (if at all -- many are in fact sober), not psychedelics.
I wholeheartedly disagree, psychedelics can amplify mental illness and result in bizarre behavior. Decriminalizing psychedelics in a city with a large homeless drug infused population is asking for trouble.
Not sure it matters; it's not like the police enforce any laws when it comes to the homeless population here, except for when it's politically expedient to do so.
I think these "no enforcement" things are the worst. It always leaves people in a legal grey-area where they want to do something, and they are allowed to do it, but it's still technically illegal with all the baggage that goes along with that. In fact, it relieves pressure to legalize, since most people are now able to do what they like.
Take speeding laws (in the US): (almost) everybody breaks them since the limits are so low, which gives officers discretion to basically go out and just start ticketing anybody they like. Everyone is guilty, but we just don't enforce it against you, at least for today. Clearly (I hope), when a large number of people are breaking a law, and we all just accept this - then it's not a good law. But speed limits don't get repealed, because very few people are actually prosecuted, so the general public doesn't get mad enough about it. If speed limits were universally enforced, the public would get mad and the limits would be removed or raised within a week.
It's a bit more complicated than that. When the state makes something legal and refuses to prosecute, it can do so because it possesses sufficient sovereignty for that under the commandeering doctrine. But the relationship between the state and its municipalities is not equivalent - the state has all the sovereignty while the municipalities only have such power that the state delegates to them, and that power can always be withdrawn (in the most extreme case, by de-chartering). Thus, the state can actually force San Francisco to remove this law, and compel its law enforcement agencies to enforce state law. It just chooses to not do so.
Fantastic news for the US and the scientific research of psychedelics as a treatment for depression and anxiety. Meanwhile, on the other side of the atlantic, it's a nightmare to get our politicians to even begin talking about cannabis (Sweden).
The FDA is in the process of certifying psilocybin for therapeutic purposes, research should begin within a year or two, but decriminalization in oakland has already led to high quality, precision-dosed, retail-available gelcaps and such. I'm hoping those products hop the bay and show up in SF head shops, soon.
Reducing stigma helps research. It becomes easier to get institutional support, recruit study participants, collaborate with colleagues, obtain funding, etc.
Considering how things went with the fence in 24th St. when Ronen actually tried to "criminalize" something (https://twitter.com/HillaryRonen/status/1537599919090847745) I would say psychedelics are already decriminalized in the city wether the board instructs SFPD about making them "the lowest possible priority" or not.
This is probably a "propaganda law" to appear progressive while actually not doing anything at all except wasting ink and breath.
lowest priority of law enforcement is a meaningful law, sure the police do not typically target individual users, but producers and distributors are at risk - and nobody can get individual amounts without producers and distributors doing their thing. this also allows people to come out of the shadows which tends to ensure the product and the purchasing experience are safer.
Prior to Prop 64, we had a lowest priority ordinance for cannabis and it was a useful tool in defending our medical dispensaries.
People also have a tendency to get charged with possession when arrested for other things, even a traffic warrant or case of mistaken identity.
Surprised Ketamine isn't listed. I figured they'd lump that in. On the other hand, ketamine is extremely addictive, despite what you might read online. I know several people who have given up everything to sustain their Ketamine habit.
It also has bladder toxicity issues, it's not uncommon for ketamine addicts to piss blood AIUI. In extreme cases bladders have required permanent removal.
Edit: VICE even named their recent Ketamine episode "Pissing Blood" for this reason. [0]
>... it's not uncommon for ketamine addicts to piss blood AIUI.
I had no idea this was a thing until the morning after I woke up from my first time partying around people who were using it. Someone took a leak and I hear, "Hah! Yep, there's the good ol' orange K piss," and I couldn't help but be surprised that it sounded like they were laughing at the fact they were pissing blood.
I should clarify - nothing against ketamine in small doses recreationally, just take care of yourself.
Not uncommon for addicts, but quite uncommon for users.
You have to use high doses extremely regularly for this to happen. The vast majority of users do not use it at high enough dosage or frequency to get anywhere near this.
"Extremely addictive" is a bit of a misnomer I believe, in terms of both the scientific literature and also much consensus around treatment-focused communities. Please stop spreading this.
What I can say is a similar thing, that it can cause _dependence_ very rapidly. It can be extraordinarily useful for healing certain mental health conditions, but tolerance builds rapidly, and people on the street are often trying to K-hole repeatedly, a basically pointless exercise. Sustained low-dosage usage seems to have fewer bladder effects, the tolerance combined with people using it as an escape (and preferring K-holes), as well as people who are already mentally broken having a nice lever to pull, is what can cause it to get out of hand.
This is not everybody, however. I think it depends upon the circles, and I think it is hard to see people do that regardless of the world. But your circles around you are also not the world at large. Please stay factually rooted in what you're sharing online. To me, substances that would be dangerous would be directly opioidergic or dopaminergic substances (opioids, nicotine, opioidergic hallucinogens) as opposed to one that is opioid _sensitizing_, like Ketamine (which lets it be a kind of opioid replacement for pain relief clinics, for example. Even infusions are helpful.)
It really is important that we all don't take our personal experiences to say "don't listen to what you hear online" too strongly, I guess even myself included here. Hope that helps shine an alternative perspective on the matter.
Ketamine, is foremost a NDMA antagonist (Ki=0.25uM ), sure it act on some type of opioid receptor also as an antagonist (a blocker) (Ki=12uM at KOR2), but this effect is 50x less important. Other NMDA antagonist like PCP that don't act on the opiate receptors are as strong if not stronger at pain suppression.
Ketamine is also a direct dopamine agonist (Ki=0.5uM at D2).
I don't think it makes a lot of sense calling Ketamine a psychedelic. It is very much unlike any known psychedelic, and acts in a very different way in the body as well.
This resolution mentions SB 519, a state bill, and looks to be matching it. SB 519 had ketamine but dropped it since it was more contentious than other drugs.
Readit News
Also, the Grateful Dead- whose parking lots were famous as large scale drug distribution sites- went from being counterculture to establishment in some ~25-30 years (the "house band" of the Clinton administration).
We apparently live don't live in the strangest timeline, but it's definitely the trippiest one.
This is sort of just a historical dump since it’s a fascinating story: The notable death people remember is the Army officer who “jumped” out of his hotel window in NYC. Years later the Watergate investigation revealed the MKULTRA program and connected it to the Army officer’s death. CIA sort of implied “yeah we were doing stuff with LSD mind control and he went crazy,” but some (like the officer’s son) believe that is also a cover story. AFAIK the son still believes his father was going to blow the whistle on some sort of chem or bio weapon development (the father was a scientist at Fort Detrick, the US military’s bioweapon development center at the time) and he was assassinated before going public.
Anyway, the son’s theory almost seems like the most believable part of the whole MKULTRA universe.
[1] Among MKULTRA’s damage is arguably the creation of the Unabomber. Ted was an unknowing test subject at Harvard where he was basically emotionally tortured by a CIA agent posing as a fellow student. He had his beliefs — which he was always strongly identified with — systematically dismantled in order to cause emotional distress.
There was plenty of unethical psychological research going on at the time, so there's no need to assume the CIA was involved at all.
- relevant section ends at 1:01:15: https://youtu.be/4-DMH_myil8?t=1h20s
- continues for another crazy 20s: https://youtu.be/4-DMH_myil8?t=1h3m30s
Are you sure that wasn't just ergot poisoning[0]?
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ergot#Effects_on_humans,_other...
This is San Francisco we're talking about, psychedelics already weren't a priority for the police in any practical sense.
E.g. MDMA was a widely used substance in psychoterapy before 1980 (they used it to "open" patients before sessions), but it got banned and almost nobody could carry on with their research. Without research, you cannot claim practical uses and be taken seriously. And pharmas are not interested in spending on some product that they can't market anyway.
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He had a Harley motorcycle that he accidentally dropped while moving it for street cleaning, and injured his back trying to pick up.
Sadly, after a very risky surgery to fix the injury, that was completely botched, he got addicted to oxycontin and eventually took his life.
There are a lot more stories there, but I'll leave it as that for now.
RIP Marcello.
Supposedly one of them works with a prof at Berkeley to make their product
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Unlike cannabis, you can’t smoke it, so ingestion is an obvious choice. I suppose pills could be an answer but kids eat pills all the time too. Granted, perhaps less enticing than chocolates but still a problem.
The better option would be to forgo purchase of these substances until you're ready to consume them. Legalization makes this a reality. I could go to the store, buy the drugs, then drive straight home and consume them in a safe environment.
The prohibition we have currently is what tempts people to stock up all at once and ultimately leads to higher risks for children finding/consuming them while mommy and daddy are at work.
Whenever someone says something like that, you know they don't have much experience trying to get hold of illegal drugs! It's rarely easy, and often falls through.
As this is a public record, I'm in total agreement with you. I have zero experience acquiring illegal drugs, none.
To not distinguish psychedelics from "illegal drugs" however, especially in the context of San Francisco, suggests to me you don't have much experience with the city.
Also, the chocolate brownies are pretty good and even sometimes have drug-free versions too!
https://mushroomoneupbars.com/
IDK, people cheaply deliver these politely, promptly and dependably to your door where I live, and I don't live in CA.
If you live in the EU, you can even acquire a legit derivative legally on the 'clearnet'.
Been doing this for years too. It ain't even new.
https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/articles/2020-12-10/...
November 2021:
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/detroit-just-decrimina...
September 2020:
https://apnews.com/article/ann-arbor-plants-featured-ca-stat...
I have known too many people with "psychotic disorders". I have learnt the hard way to show such people enormous respect. A person who cannt distinguish a real thing from a thought is somebody that can do very surprising things.
These can be wonderful things, great artists etcetera. But it can also mean unexpected violence.
Yes "psychadelics should be considered very carefully... in context of those who have experienced psychosis". Everything should in that context.
A cup of tea should be.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallucinogen_persisting_percep...
In the case of recreational drugs it is relative to alcohol.
So not "completely harmless" but "relatively harmless"
Psychedelics radically impact cognition and consciousness, and not always in a safe way.
It's not always just a 'woah man' giggling in a park.
People climb high things and fall. They run into traffic or harms way. They often attack first responders that are attempting to deescalate.
Thought loops are dangerous and psychotic breaks are an obvious possibility to anyone who has done these substances.
Dead Comment
I wouldn't go that far. Any substance that alters perception, inhibition, etc has the potential for some social impact. For example, public drunkenness, DUI, liquor license etc were created because intoxicated people caused some sort of problem and laws were created around that. While these were created for alcohol, it's likely similar laws would be created for other substances.
Not so much "chalk and cheese" but "feather and revolver"
Not true.
My friend woke up handcuffed to a hospital bed after a bad trip on mushrooms. He saw his dead body in the street and was convinced he was dead and a ghost. He then went running around Manhattan traffic jumping on cars.
An English teacher in high school witnessed her friend jump to her death from a balcony after taking LSD. The woman said she felt light as a bird, took off running, hopped up a chair and dove over the railing to the pavement 20 feet below. She broke her neck.
I am not saying psychedelics should remain banned. But to casually call them harmless is incredibly irresponsible. They need to be taken under supervision by people with experience. This is called trip sitting. Not all trips are good as emotions and state of mind can effect the outcome. Things can go wrong fast. Be safe.
* 15% of robberies
* 37% of sexual assaults
* 27% of aggravated assaults
* 60% of domestic violence (victim reported)
* 40% of child abusers (self reported)
* 40% of convicted murderers (self reported)
* 30% of traffic violence fatalities
https://www.alcoholrehabguide.org/alcohol/crimes/
psychedelics are essentially insignificant and are almost never involved in violence.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Olson
Basically a chemist gets secretly drugged with a massive dose of LSD, then nine whole days later allegedly jumps out the window of a hotel... this was after he was declared a possible security risk...
So more than likely he was helped out that window.
If not that - it was probably the guilt: for being a part of MKUltra and the clandestine drugging of American citizens - he had a moral crisis, that much is certain.
I'm not saying your story isn't true... but I've been on the internet long enough to see how stories morph over time.
As long as alcohol is a legal substance to consume, it makes no sense to criminalize substances widely shown to have lower harm coefficients than it. There's tons of studies which mostly-objectively quantify harm/addiction caused by substances. The only drugs squarely as bad or worse than alcohol are tobacco products (also legal, contains many more psychoactives beyond nicotine), meth, crack cocaine (delivery route matters), cathinones, GHB, certain gaba-ergics, and most opioids.
Nicotine in isolation, ketamine, classical psychedelics, cannabis, MDMA, most of the Shulginoids (phenethylamines and tryptamines), all fall short of the harm caused by alcohol.
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyt.2020.5921...
It still should be legal but we should be honest about risks.
Sure, too much alcohol can cause people to get sick too, but then nobody ever said alcohol had "no known negative health effects" either.
https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/teendeathbridgefal...
Of course, if I buy rat poison, I have a pretty pure product and I can look up the ld50 and make a scientific estimate on how much I can take before I die. Not so with some random shit off the street.
True.
Where I live (Aotearoa) drug testing has been made legal and there are many opportunities to take your stash along to the spectrometer (I am not a chemist, unsure about the actual nature of the instrument, except it is reliable) and get it tested.
HN is just low quality commentary on a lot of stuff and this is just another example. It's full of Internet urban legends and junk like that.
The classic sign of the Internet person who's trying to make himself seem like an authority on some subject is to try to use the trappings of expertise: speaking in passive voice, using words like "evidence" to describe urban legends, speaking in pseudo-formal tones to simulate expertise.
It's so clear that there is collectively very little expertise among this group on most subjects.
I'm curious to see how often these events happen as more areas decriminalize it.
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Considering that the place with the highest psychedelic drug use is also the place with the highest number of mentally ill and homeless, that seems a rather preposterous assertion.
Take speeding laws (in the US): (almost) everybody breaks them since the limits are so low, which gives officers discretion to basically go out and just start ticketing anybody they like. Everyone is guilty, but we just don't enforce it against you, at least for today. Clearly (I hope), when a large number of people are breaking a law, and we all just accept this - then it's not a good law. But speed limits don't get repealed, because very few people are actually prosecuted, so the general public doesn't get mad enough about it. If speed limits were universally enforced, the public would get mad and the limits would be removed or raised within a week.
San Francisco can make murder legal and refuse to arrest people for it. State and federal law enforcement will just step in.
The DEA still busts dispensaries and grow operations in California for example, it just isn't newsworthy.
This is probably a "propaganda law" to appear progressive while actually not doing anything at all except wasting ink and breath.
There was some quote with her that her district "went to shit during her term" and she seemed confused as to who was responsible...
Prior to Prop 64, we had a lowest priority ordinance for cannabis and it was a useful tool in defending our medical dispensaries.
People also have a tendency to get charged with possession when arrested for other things, even a traffic warrant or case of mistaken identity.
https://sfgov.legistar.com/View.ashx?M=F&ID=11095427&GUID=46...
I think it is useful because it provides a fairly compelling and surprisingly specific list of justifications.
Edit: VICE even named their recent Ketamine episode "Pissing Blood" for this reason. [0]
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99XQY7Elwhc
I had no idea this was a thing until the morning after I woke up from my first time partying around people who were using it. Someone took a leak and I hear, "Hah! Yep, there's the good ol' orange K piss," and I couldn't help but be surprised that it sounded like they were laughing at the fact they were pissing blood.
I should clarify - nothing against ketamine in small doses recreationally, just take care of yourself.
You have to use high doses extremely regularly for this to happen. The vast majority of users do not use it at high enough dosage or frequency to get anywhere near this.
What I can say is a similar thing, that it can cause _dependence_ very rapidly. It can be extraordinarily useful for healing certain mental health conditions, but tolerance builds rapidly, and people on the street are often trying to K-hole repeatedly, a basically pointless exercise. Sustained low-dosage usage seems to have fewer bladder effects, the tolerance combined with people using it as an escape (and preferring K-holes), as well as people who are already mentally broken having a nice lever to pull, is what can cause it to get out of hand.
This is not everybody, however. I think it depends upon the circles, and I think it is hard to see people do that regardless of the world. But your circles around you are also not the world at large. Please stay factually rooted in what you're sharing online. To me, substances that would be dangerous would be directly opioidergic or dopaminergic substances (opioids, nicotine, opioidergic hallucinogens) as opposed to one that is opioid _sensitizing_, like Ketamine (which lets it be a kind of opioid replacement for pain relief clinics, for example. Even infusions are helpful.)
It really is important that we all don't take our personal experiences to say "don't listen to what you hear online" too strongly, I guess even myself included here. Hope that helps shine an alternative perspective on the matter.
Ketamine is also a direct dopamine agonist (Ki=0.5uM at D2).