[HN Gopher] MAPS Celebrates California Senate Passage of Psyched...
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MAPS Celebrates California Senate Passage of Psychedelic Reform
Bill
Author : pmoriarty
Score : 186 points
Date : 2021-07-20 20:12 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (maps.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (maps.org)
| vmception wrote:
| > The bill also decriminalizes substance analysis tools
|
| What does this mean, it was illegal to test our drugs in
| California?
|
| Or does it mean that research facilities don't have to operate in
| fear at least from California authorities
| dbt00 wrote:
| Yes it is illegal to test people's drugs to make sure they've
| not been substituted or adulterated.
| prutschman wrote:
| If you happen to know: Is it the performing the test itself
| that's illegal, or is it "merely" that to perform a test for
| someone you'd have to take possession of the substance,
| however briefly? (Bad for both harm reduction and liberty
| either way, I'm just curious which it is.)
| pmoriarty wrote:
| I've heard that the justification for this is that allowing
| testing would let illegal drug manufacturers to become more
| effective at making drugs.
|
| Of course it could save a lot of lives too, but that's
| apparently never been the true motivation of the War on
| Drugs.
| deelowe wrote:
| I think it means it was illegal. Geez. That's just dumb as
| hell... Reminds me of prohibition when the government poisoned
| illegal alcohol.
| xor99 wrote:
| One of the major impediments to widespread use of psychedelics is
| actually difficulty in finding or envisioning profit models. For
| this reason, I'm not really looking forward to psychedlic
| startups. In this sense decriminalisation may be a good resting
| point for this whole debate.
| rootsudo wrote:
| Which is what I don't get, isn't there a profit motive in
| monopolizing or branding the PTSD/Depression sector of care, or
| is that high liability?
| dylan604 wrote:
| Can you monopolize a plant? There's multiple reason the
| BigPharma have figured out ways to synthesize equivalent
| things to naturally occurring plants, but one of the reasons
| is they can patent their process and ensure they can keep
| that strangle hold in place.
| jdavis703 wrote:
| You probably can't monopolize a plant unless it's GMO,
| patented, and much better than the competition. But it is
| possible to brand a plant. At the US chain grocery stores
| it can be hard to buy any strawberry that isn't sold by
| Driscolls.
| pie420 wrote:
| You cannot envision a profit model for selling psychedelics?
| mekoka wrote:
| It's akin to envisioning profit models for open source
| software.
|
| They're out there, just keep looking.
| pmoriarty wrote:
| It's the ethics of involving the profit motive in substances
| which are sacred to many people that I have a problem with.
|
| Unfortunately, capitalism eats everything, so it's probably
| going to happen whether we like it or not.
|
| I just hope the people who really respect and understand the
| potential of these substances retain some control of what
| psychedelic use of the future looks like, instead of being
| controlled by clueless MBA's with dollar signs in their eyes.
| pmoriarty wrote:
| The next step is passage of the bill in the California State
| Assembly.
|
| If you care about this issue and want this landmark bill[1]
| passed, contact your State Assembly representative: [2][3][4]
|
| Also, consider joining and supporting Decriminalize Nature.[5]
|
| [1] -
| https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml...
|
| [2] - https://www.assembly.ca.gov/
|
| [3] -
| https://www.assembly.ca.gov/assemblymembers?order=field_memb...
|
| [4] -
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_State_Assembly_dist...
|
| [5] - https://www.decriminalizenature.org/
| renewiltord wrote:
| A comprehensive win for personal liberty. Onward to more freedom.
| Church on Sundays was always good (for those in the Bay) but this
| should just be a storefront experience, not limited to those of
| us who treat it as religion.
| adoxyz wrote:
| I was so confused as to why Google/Apple Maps would be
| celebrating this until I clicked the link. lol.
| vnchr wrote:
| Scott Forstall may have been influenced by psychedelics during
| the period leading to the release of Apple Maps.
| nanna wrote:
| I rember the day in the UK when you could no longer walk into the
| shop with alien shaped bongs in the window and come out with a
| bag full of Thai magic mushrooms. The politicians said they were
| a slippery slope to hard drugs. As if. Shrooms make you see the
| world in a different light, a very colourful and fluid one, they
| don't make you want to smoke a crack pipe. Idiots. Fifteen odd
| years of lost visions. When can we have them back, damnit.
| MeinBlutIstBlau wrote:
| My cousin got pretty messed up by them and lost a great
| apprenticeship job. I'm not entirely blaming Joe Rogan, but he
| definitely did not help.
| GordonS wrote:
| Why would you buy Thai mushrooms?
|
| I grew up in rural Scotland, and in Autumn mushrooms were
| _everywhere_. Seriously, in any park, field of grass, or area
| given over to wilderness. We 'd forage for only an hour or so,
| and come back laden with _hundreds_ of them. I understood from
| friends down south that it was the same situation there.
| [deleted]
| pmoriarty wrote:
| I know why _I_ don 't pick them: I'm afraid of getting
| poisoned.
|
| I don't buy them or grow them either: afraid of getting
| arrested.
|
| I suffer from debilitating depression, anxiety, burnout,
| social phobia, and suicidal ideation, and the many therapists
| I've gone to over the decades haven't helped.
|
| I look forward to when psychedelic therapy, which has
| evidence of being much more effective than conventional
| therapy for some conditions (like treatment-resistant
| depression) is legal and I don't have to risk getting thrown
| in jail, being poisoned by buying mystery drugs, or getting
| my life ruined with a felony conviction in order to get the
| healing that I desperately need.
|
| If psychedelics were legal all along maybe I could have
| gotten some effective treatment and maybe my life would not
| be as fucked up as it is right now.
| pbk1 wrote:
| I don't know where you live but it's been decriminalized in
| plenty of places in the West, so even if it's not fully
| legalized the worst you face would be a nominal fine, not
| getting arrested.
| igravious wrote:
| title should read: M.A.P.S. Celebrates California Senate Passage
| of Psychedelic Reform Bill
|
| or just: MAPS Celebrates California Senate Passage of Psychedelic
| Reform Bill
|
| but not: Maps Celebrates California Senate Passage of Psychedelic
| Reform Bill
| pmoriarty wrote:
| Thanks. Yeah, it was MAPS originally, but HN automatically
| changes words in the title from all caps to just having the
| first letter in the word capitalized.
|
| Usually I notice when it does this to my submissions and
| manually fix it, but this time I just submitted it and forgot
| to proofread the title afterwards.
|
| I wish HN just had a hands-off policy to titles and
| submissions, but they've never listened to me.
| AdmiralAsshat wrote:
| > Fifty years after the War on Drugs was officially declared and
| psychedelic substance prohibition began in contravention of
| evidence supporting therapeutic use, the California State Senate
| has taken the first Legislative step to dismantle psychedelic
| prohibition with a 21-16 vote on June 1, 2021, in favor of Senate
| Bill 519 Controlled substances: decriminalization of certain
| hallucinogenic substances sponsored by California State Senator
| Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco).
|
| Just want to point out that if even Liberal Bastion California
| could only pass this with a 57% majority, it likely doesn't stand
| much chance of being passed anywhere else.
| pmoriarty wrote:
| _" if even Liberal Bastion California could only pass this with
| a 57% majority, it likely doesn't stand much chance of being
| passed anywhere else."_
|
| Not right away, but never say never.
|
| Having lived through the nightmare prohibition of the 80's and
| 90's, I am constantly amazed that cannabis is effectively legal
| (not just for medical purposes but recreationally) in so many
| places around the US today. I never thought I'd see it in my
| lifetime.
|
| Now psychedelics are on their way to being legalized in some
| places, and Oregon has decriminalized all drugs.
|
| MDMA therapy is very close to being available on a prescription
| basis (if it isn't already), and that alone has the potential
| to signal a sea-change in the way the US and the rest of the
| world sees currently illegal drugs -- especially psychedelics.
|
| Psilocybin is next, and once the mainstream culture starts
| seeing seriously broken people start functioning again after
| undergoing psychedelic therapy when the traditional medical
| establishment has so often failed them, they're going to start
| changing their minds about these substances, just as they have
| about cannabis.
| AdmiralAsshat wrote:
| I'd _love_ to be proven wrong, but I just don 't think it's
| ever going to happen on a federal level, when half of the US
| Senate consists of people like this guy:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NY6UTnS6Z-A
|
| And he's a "moderate".
| dntrkv wrote:
| That was also 14 years ago when recreational cannabis was
| illegal in every state. Since then, 18 states have
| legalized cannabis. It's only a matter of time before it's
| legal at the federal level.
| pmoriarty wrote:
| Lots of people didn't think that segregation would ever
| end, nor that humans would walk on the Moon, nor expected
| the Soviet Union to fall... yet they did, surprising a hell
| of a lot of people by how quickly it happened too.
|
| People are bad at predicting the future.
|
| Look at what happened with cannabis legalization. Not so
| long ago it was demonized and considered to be a gateway
| drug (still is in some places, but a lot of people --
| especially younger people and sick people who cannabis has
| helped -- have seen through that propaganda by now).
|
| Then there's the business side of the equation. A lot of
| formerly anti-drug idealogues jumped on the cannabis money
| train once it started to get legal in some states. Many of
| the politicians who are against legalization are also very
| self-serving opportunists, who may well switch sides once
| they see there's a profit to be made.
|
| Veterans and other people with PTSD and other mental
| conditions might be able to sway some of these people as
| well. Once they see that these substances actually have
| great healing potential and aren't the demon drugs they've
| been lied to about by the War on Drugs fanatics they might
| have a change of heart.
| adventured wrote:
| > Lots of people didn't think that segregation would ever
| end, nor that humans would walk on the Moon, nor expected
| the Soviet Union to fall... yet they did, surprising a
| hell of a lot of people by how quickly it happened too.
|
| It's an important point.
|
| The US rapidly legalized gay marriage at the federal
| level once serious momentum had begun. That's despite
| only modestly above half of the nation strongly
| supporting it at the time (according to polls anyway).
| There has been no war over it, no great social rebellion,
| no states attempting to leave the union, no mass acts of
| anti-gay terrorism over it, no religious revolt. Trump
| had zero political interest in attempting to turn it
| back, there was nothing to gain from that because there
| isn't much support for rolling it back. Not much happened
| at all overall, there have been very few negative events
| related to it culturally. Only a few years prior to that
| legalization, the liberal President was still publicly
| against gay marriage on the campaign trail.
|
| Obama changed his position to supporting gay marriage in
| 2012, shortly after Biden did. Gay marriage was then
| legalized in 2015. It was nearly unthinkable that that
| was going to happen as recently as the 2004-2008
| political timeframe. In ten years it went from only half
| of Democrats supporting gay marriage (2005 per Gallup),
| to being legalized nationally.
|
| It's always worth considering how many people answer as
| they do on polls because they're afraid to be openly out
| of majority alignment, yet they may support a position
| quietly or otherwise not oppose it (meaning they'd never
| actually pose any cultural resistance to change). That's
| exactly what the case was with marijuana legalization;
| serious opposition to legalization was never as great as
| it was portrayed to be. And that may also end up being
| the case with psychedelics, perhaps with more regulations
| (I'd expect the public to be more leery than with
| marijuana).
| bdamm wrote:
| Oregon already decriminalized Psilocybin, LSD, and IIRC MDMA as
| well.
| newnamenewface wrote:
| Denver, Colorado has previously decriminalized magic mushrooms.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Individual cities, yes, but Oregon is the only state. I've
| gotten my shrooms in Oakland for instance (since Oakland has
| decrimmed psychedelics for a while).
| LatteLazy wrote:
| Colorado's legalisation of weed passed the popular vote 55:45.
| In these days of partisan bickering, 57% is a massive majority.
| alecfreud wrote:
| I went to a MAPS event in like 2012. It was at a children's
| science museum with Flying Lotus and Eoto + others performing.
| Everyone sloppy and spun out if their minds. It was hilarious.
| Several adults at a time chilling in a kids sand pit or doing the
| Ms Frizzle Magic School Bus interactive exhibit.
| unchocked wrote:
| Way to go MAPS. I'm continually impressed by the standard of
| ethical care and compassion they represent - and the
| effectiveness of their political advocacy.
| lifeisstillgood wrote:
| Is it just me, but ...
|
| The sort of people of _today_ search out and take mushrooms and
| psychedelics and don 't violently run amok, but sit down quietly
| going whee are the sort of people who when offered crack or just
| when perfectly sober, will also go whee and not shoot anyone.
|
| And the sort of people who when offered a pipe of crack _today_
| and then go on a shooting spree, are the sort of people who will
| rob a seven-11 on mushrooms or sober.
|
| Its not _just_ personal responsibility - 99% of the latter group
| are going to correspond with abusive childhoods, poverty, mental
| health issues and so on.
|
| (So the difference between me and a Republican congressman is
| that I believe that if we solve all those issues, 99% of the
| latter group will also sit in a room and go whee.)
|
| Personal Responsibility matters, but it matters about as much as
| willpower does in dieting - its a lot more likely to work if
| there are no fatty sugary foods around. The 1940s had healthier
| thinner people because we were all on a government enforced diet.
| mekoka wrote:
| The issue with psychedelic is not (so much) about personal
| responsibility. It's very much about the wrongful
| classification of the drugs themselves based on how they tend
| to alter cognition and behavior.
|
| I don't mean any offense, but by squeezing crack in the same
| bag as psychedelics, your comment exhibits the exact
| misunderstanding that led to the latter's prohibition.
|
| Good people on crack are more likely to do bad things over
| time. Bad people on mushrooms are much less likely to be worse
| than their usual selves (based on studies).
| lifeisstillgood wrote:
| There are (in my limited understanding) too many confounding
| issues to be able to say that its ok to get off your head
| regulars with drug X but not with drug Y.
|
| In my (again limited) understanding, saying "all these are
| bad for us long-term (to wildly varying degrees), but it
| seems likely that other factors (childhood, mental illness,
| social position, economic, family and social) all play as
| important if not _more important_ roles.
|
| Lets unban them if they have some medicinal purposes, but
| lets not pretend that having mushrooms and amphetamines
| marketed by the same socially-minded people pushing Marlboros
| for decades is going to make the world a better place, and
| please lets not think that if we strike a blow for freedom,
| its ok to stop worrying about all those other confounding
| issues. (But I concede its a lot easier to legislatively fix
| banned psychedelics than to fix childhood abuse, poverty and
| mental health. But that's why we pay government the big
| taxes, to take on the big jobs. )
| pmoriarty wrote:
| _" Good people on crack are more likely to do bad things over
| time. Bad people on mushrooms are much less likely to be
| worse than their usual selves (based on studies)."_
|
| Of all drugs, legal and illegal, the drug that is most
| associated with violence is alcohol.
|
| Yet most people don't get in to a moral panic over alcohol
| anymore, as they used to during the original Prohibition of
| the 1920's.
|
| We've learned from the original, failed prohibition of the
| '20s. We understand that when people abuse alcohol it is a
| medical issue, not something to throw people in jail for.
|
| We need to learn the same lesson about all the other drugs,
| almost all of which are far less harmful than alcohol.
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(page generated 2021-07-20 23:00 UTC)