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Bigger one to me is decriminalizing all personal amounts of drugs:
https://www.oregonlive.com/politics/2020/11/oregon-decrimina...
This includes heroin, does anyone know if it also covers psilocybin?
Edit:
_It reduces misdemeanor drug possession to a non-criminal violation on par with a traffic offense. People with small amounts of drugs including heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine, ecstasy, LSD, psilocybin, methadone and oxycodone will get a ticket and face a $100 fine or have the option of being screened for a substance abuse disorder._
Makes it sound like they'll send people to rehab for psychedelics, which is pretty funny.
Honestly I think it's great. If you're doing heroin or meth, you definitely don't have $100 lying around for a fine, and not paying it would just land you in jail anyway. This gives people who don't have or want to pay the fine a way to stay legal without doing so, and _also_ gives someone a chance to talk to them and potentially help.
This seems really well thought out, however with sale still being as illegal as it was, I'm not sure crime/danger on that side of the transaction will decrease at all.
Crime and danger from the drug trade will always be lurking around. Even with legal cannabis there is a black market around, diminished but not gone.
This law seems to be more for harm reduction, for people to seek help without fear of prosecution, to enable others to call for an ambulance in case of something bad happens without fear of being arrested because they were shooting heroin.
I read that sentence as saying “If you could afford the drugs but not the $100 fine then you probably have a substance abuse disorder and we will force you to get treatment.”
The law states that _all_ I, II, III, and IV class drugs will be decriminalized, however certain listed drugs will only be decriminalized when found with quantities below a threshhold.
It’s about time
Portugal did it. (okay they decriminalized, not legalized, sadly)
I read a HN comment here from a resident of Portugal the decriminalization has been significantly mischaracterized. The main reason it worked at all was due to a huge rise in heroin use, which the criminal system was having trouble handling. And the areas where people used drugs rapidly went downhill. I am not sure it can be declared a unilateral success.
I'm not doubting, but is there evidence for the negative effects in some regions? From what I remember years ago it seemed like a significant success based on a number of metrics
Here's one comment:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24704986
The writer claims the decriminalization was forced by a heroin epidemic, and it coincided with an economic downturn. So, my statement that it caused areas with drug use to decline is most likely false, as the decline is better attributed to the economic downturn.
I wouldn't legalize all drugs. Meth is one hell of a drug. Same for heroin.
I like how they approach safe injection sites to make up for not legalizing everything.
Criminal prohibition of drugs just drives sales underground where there’s no regulation or testing of substances for potentially lethal contaminants. It also creates a huge economic opportunity for violent cartels/criminal organizations which can destabilize entire regions. Furthermore it does almost nothing to reduce the supply or availability of illegal drugs - we’ve been fighting a war on cocaine for 50 years and cocaine has never been more readily available or cheaper. The only thing criminal prohibition of drugs has accomplished is an explosion of the prison population making America the country with the highest level of incarceration in the world.
The war on drugs causes more death and damage than drugs. The only way out is for the government to legalize, regulate and tax drugs just like alcohol and cannabis. If heroin were sold at a pharmacy there would be laws against selling to minors... dealers today will sell to anyone.
> The only thing criminal prohibition of drugs has accomplished is an explosion of the prison population making America the country with the highest level of incarceration in the world.
Some would argue this is actually by design, and I'm inclined to believe them. The prison pipeline is horrifying
> just drives sales underground
Yes it does drive sales underground, but it does not _just_ drive sales underground: it likely also reduces drug consumption.
When you make a resource harder to get you decrease the supply, when you decrease the supply, prices tend to go up and access goes down. Despite all the other negative externalities of the drug war (and there are many), I believe there is still a good case to be made that it also makes it harder to obtain dangerous and highly addictive drugs.
Now we may be able to partially legalize these drugs in a way that still makes them hard to get, but then you still have the black market.
"when you decrease the supply, prices tend to go up and access goes down."
Basics of economics: inelastic markets, where demand does not respond to price. Oil and food are examples: the price moves, but goods must be moved, and people need food to survive. So price could double and demand would go down like 2%
Seond issue with your post: there is no shortage of supply, all drugs i can thing of are readilly avaliable. The police / etc. Have failed to restrict supply. The only thing they can do is drive up the price as cartels / criminals have to employ more elavorate methods.
You know what else drives us the price? Taxes. You could set insane rate of tax on any substance so that it's legal version costs as much as the black market one, or even more. Legal one still nakes more senxe to buy, because you'd know its pure and does not come with baking powder, horse shit or rat poison mixed in. Its a well known fact that drugs on the street are of very low purity.
In fact it is very common for a drug user to die because they suddenly get a dose of 'clean' drug and what used to be a normal dose of 10% drug just became a 10x dose of 100% drug.
"partially legalize"
- I would say currently legalized drugs are "partially" legalized (aka regulated with reasonable restrictions like minimum age of purchase and not selling to intoxicated persons)
Referencing alcohol prohibition, that led to a large black market which gradually shrank until it almost completely disappeared about a decade after prohibition ended. About 10 years after prohibition was enacted, alcohol consumption was at ~70% of pre-prohibition levels. Making alcohol illegal decreased consumption by 30%. I would guess alcohol consumption levels would have continued to rise if prohibition had continued. I don't think anyone today still thinks a small reduction in consumption was worth all the violence and corruption created by prohibition. Today the "black market" for alcohol pretty much consists of asking your older sibling/friend to buy you a case of beer.
> When you make a resource harder to get you decrease the supply, when you decrease the supply, prices tend to go up and access goes down.
I argue it's extremely easy to get illegal drugs in the US. I don't currently use any but I have complete confidence I could acquire some within ~1-3 days by tapping my social network if I wanted. Another very convenient alternative for acquiring drugs for those so inclined is the dark web (assuming you know how to use cryptocurrency and tor - something I'm sure the vast majority of young people in the US can do)
We're going to eventually get to a place where drug decriminalization is widespread. If we're not going to punish people for using drugs, lets just take control of the drug market away from criminals, regulate it, tax it and use that tax revenue for something good.
And right on time.
That's not going to help their junkie problem.
Yes, it is. “Their junkie problem” is a reasonably well understood addiction problem. Criminalizing addiction harms users and promotes addicts’ cycle of addiction. Even when legal, shaming addiction promotes relapse. Learn what you’re talking about. People’s lives depend on it.
I’m not sure it will help much. Was Portland arresting users on a regular basis? If it’s anything like SF, they aren’t.
This just more updates the law to reflect police practices.
It’s still illegal to sell drugs and users are stuck injecting dirty random substances into their veins.
I agree with you and I want to clarify the point to others: not punishing users is not enough. They need access to clean, cheap drugs so they don’t have to take more risks to their health than necessary and stay away from the criminal side of drugs.
I might add that at the same time they should have access to the help they need to fight their addiction.
Why can’t we just not use drugs? Why is that not an option? It sounds like a majority in this post are just anxious to start doing drugs.
I think you can also argue the opposite. Decriminalizing addiction incentivizes people to use, as well as cushions the potential consequences of their use and prevents them from hitting rock bottom. I don't think we should shame use and we should offer anyone who's addicted a path out of it through treatment etc.
If only there were other countries that had already tried it so we can see how it went there
Yup! (Hint for people not following drug legalization/decriminalization policy: Portugal)
Again, I question whether removing consequences from drug use incentivizes people to quit, and assert that for many people, having real consequences can be the catalyst to make healthy changes. I am speaking from experience. Of course there are many people in the world and I'm not claiming everyone is the same.
I looked up info on Portugal and this is what I found:
> The reality is that Portugal’s drug situation has improved significantly in several key areas... However, such improvements are not solely the result of the decriminalization policy; Portugal’s shift towards a more health-centered approach to drugs, as well as wider health and social policy changes, are equally, if not more, responsible for the positive changes observed. Drawing on the most up-to-date evidence, this briefing clarifies the extent of Portugal’s achievement, and debunks some of the erroneous claims made about the country’s innovative approach to drugs.
> Portugal decriminalized the personal possession of all drugs in 2001. This means that, while it is no longer a criminal offence to possess drugs for personal use, it is still an administrative violation, punishable by penalties such as fines or community service.
So it seems that there are certainly indicators that decriminalization has certain positive outcomes, but it's not entirely due to decriminalization, and as they allege may be more impacted by changes to social health policies and perspectives. And further, they have not completely removed consequence from drug use. There are still civil penalties and other consequences.
To me that strikes a sort of balance and seems preferable to cart-blanche decriminalization.
https://transformdrugs.org/drug-decriminalisation-in-portuga...
> There are still civil penalties and other consequences.
It looks like that is true for Oregon as well. They just downgraded misdemeanor drug possessions to infractions and downgraded felony possession to misdemeanor.
I just want the precursors. Iodine... really, iodine??? Getting more than 2 ounces of iodine per year is now restricted.
What's the difference between getting addicted to gambling (legal), alcohol (legal), prescription drugs (legal) vs. any criminalized drug? And why does the government draw this arbitrary line? Before we strawman me, I'm not advocating _all_ drugs become legal, but pointing out the absurdity of the legality of it all.
Decriminalization brings on a greater opportunity for rehabilitation without entering the legal system (which lots of people never escape from). Keeping more people in the legal system should not be the goal.
Continuing to make drug sales illegal doesn’t actually do much to limit the availability of drugs. Drugs have never been more accessible or cheap and that trend is likely to continue.
I think the government should legalize all drugs so they can control the drug markets and take them away from violent criminal organizations. They can also ensure the drug supplies are safe (devoid of contaminants) as well as tax them to fund social services.
There’s always going to be a market for illegal drugs. It gets bigger as time goes on. Better to have it under the control of government and taxed/regulated than underground under the control of cartels
Because government is elected by people. Only small portion of people is addicted to drugs, so majority pushed the law against addicts.
Because an addict should just be given whatever they’re addicted too to further their misery and keep them addicted.
Can you point out how making a drug illegal keeps it out of the hands of addicts? Sure seems like cocaine has been doing just fine while illegal...
Because you can’t just go to the store and buy it like you can MJ? We are already seeing an uptick in addictions from MJ, which is much less addicting than cocaine.
So, can you point to something showing how decriminalization doesn’t increase the availability, and therefore the suffering of the addicts? Also have you ever been an addict? Are you talking out of experience? If not, then kindly sit down and shut up.
> Because you can’t just go to the store and buy it like you can MJ? We are already seeing an uptick in addictions from MJ, which is much less addicting than cocaine.
Responding to a request for source without a source is great.
> So, can you point to something showing how decriminalization doesn’t increase the availability
Ignoring a request for source and then asking for source.
> Also have you ever been an addict? Are you talking out of experience? If not, then kindly sit down and shut up.
This is a garbage response and shouldn't be welcome on this site.
_edit_ Your response is also junk because decriminalization is not the same as legalization, and decriminalization is not the same as allowing dispensaries (medical or otherwise). So your point just kind doesn't make sense with the subject matter and scenario we're talking about.
You can “argue” a lot of things if you ignore evidence. Making use safe and reducing its stigma makes people safer when they do use. It doesn’t increase use or attract new users. Drugs aren’t an app, they don’t need to attract an audience. The audience is already there. The actual facts show that making use safe is key to making the drug that exists either way socially safe, by making recovery a personal process not a public justification of existence process.
It seems counterintuitive that there isn't a subset of the population who is dissuaded from drug use _because_ of the danger (that could be danger of getting robbed or killed while purchasing, danger of arrest, danger of falling into addiction, whatever), and thus counterintuitive that making things safer wouldn't have at least _some_ increase in use. Certainly there are more per capita marijuana users in Colorado than Wyoming, right?
Cannabis use probably goes up with legalization, but I think that’s largely because the risks associated with the drug are relatively low and widely understood to be low. Legalizing or decriminalizing meth or heroin wouldn't cause people to think “okay now is the time for me to start a potentially life-destroying addiction!”
Except the US has already had an opioid addiction problem. Hell, I can remember sitting in the chat of an MMO where a particular user was trying to convince everybody, including children, that heroin was safe.
And yes, cannabis use did go up with legalization. Those that have troubles with addictions are in trouble.
It does attract new users. You see this with the legalization of MJ. People who are not users or not recent users start using.
Most addicts I know usually aren't too concerned about the legality of their drug.
That's a given, but are there people that choose not to use now solely because they are concerned about the legality?
I think my experiences are unique, so not really commenting in terms of the politics.
Yes, me. I chose not to use now because I am concerned with the legality (or rather the effects of illegality).
- When I'm somewhere with legal cannabis I'll go to a shop and buy 5mg Indica pills.
- I won't go to a weed dealer where cannabis is illegal and get something that's of dubious quality, potentially washed with something nasty, not tested and hard to dose correctly, and potentially funding violence in my community.
Today you learn people actually follow laws?
Since those who are concerned about the legality are not using. Now they have a good opportunity to start.
I CAN argue the moon is made of ten year old sharp cheddar... doing so would make me seem like an idiot. There are times the “other side” is an idiot’s game. Assuming, for no reason, decriminalization will incentivize addiction is absurd. And, if we’re going to be absurd, why waste our time on such woefully boring and depressing absurdities as “decriminalization incentivizes addiction?” I’d much rather debate why the moon’s core must be made of fresh nacho cheese to create its sharp outer layer.
>Assuming, for no reason, decriminalization will incentivize addiction is absurd.
Assuming that allowing people to consume a substance freely will increase the consumption of that substance is absurd?
> Assuming that allowing people to consume a substance freely will increase the consumption of that substance is absurd?
Not necessarily absurd. However that's not what you're responding to, which was a point about addiction increasing or being incentivised.
I don't think I need to point out that addiction is not the same as usage
But usage leads to addiction, especially in these drugs, which is why they were illegal.
I heard this reference to arguing the moon is made of cheese in my favorite fanfiction (Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality). Is this a common reference that I don’t know about?
Yes, this is an old one.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Moon_is_made_of_green_cheese
https://html.duckduckgo.com/html?q=the%20moon%20is%20made%20...
Calling addiction a "junky" problem is akin to calling obesity a "fatso" problem. It says a lot about your mindset towards it. And this mindset is very much the reason why it is still a problem.
Have this though experiment. If the obese would get as much hate as junkies (junkies steal vs obese make health care insurance expensive, etc), would that help them?
Honestly? Maybe.
There is almost no anti-obesity stigma in the US. Everyone’s fat, so nobody cares.
If being obese was stigmatized I bet people would care a lot more about avoiding the stigma.
There is absolutely a stigma against obesity in the US. The country’s fixation on weight is well-documented and the last decade of “body-positivity” has done little to change it.
That said, the stigma against obesity is absolutely less severe than the stigma against drug addiction. Personally, I think that’s appropriate.
One can be a healthy addict (i know very healthy people who cannot stop coffee without withdrawal), one cannot be a healthy obese person.
The problem in this comparison is that addiction has a very broad scale (e.g. coffee to crack) similar to body weight. Obesity already entails the person well over-weight (in terms of drug use that'd be "daily crack use" or smth).
I personally would rather be in a relation with a coffee addict than someone suffering from obesity.
From the link in the comment you replied to:
“It funnels millions in marijuana tax revenue toward what it calls Addiction Recovery Centers, where people can be screened and directed to treatment options. Those tax dollars will also go to a Drug Treatment and Recovery Services Fund overseen by the state that could be used to pay for treatment, housing or other programs designed to address addiction.”
There’s not enough money. Millions doesn’t go very far in this arena.
Gotta walk before you can run. Still a long way to go in America towards treating addiction as a health issue, not something to be locked up in prison for. Prove effectiveness and then make your case for more funding.
Even if most of the money comes from the general budget, that still would be a huge saving compared to trying and incarcerating them. Whether it's paid for is the big question.
Is that a speculatuon or do you know / have data for how much is needed? Can you tell us at least roughly what percentage of expence will this revenue cover?
Quite the contrary, it shifts the problem from being a criminal problem into a medical one.
The medical community has a long history of wanting to ban substances that has a known history of causing medical issues in people. Like lead in paint.
You don't go to jail for licking an old window sill. I don't think you can compare the two.
You also don’t get high from lead, it’s not a mind altering substance. Poor example.
Next up: fixing healthcare in the US.
Uphill doesn’t fully capture the nuance of the climb ahead on that issue. I say this as an aggressive supporter of Medicare For All [1].
[1]
https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/112...
It's hard to believe it will harm them more than imprisonment.
I'm actually really sad this passed. This takes money that was earmarked for schools from the Marijuana tax fund and puts it in unproven addiction treatments.
It also takes away the only real leverage of consequence that legal authorities had at compelling people into a treatment programs and replaces it with a 150 dollar fine, which won't be paid anyways.
You want people to be compelled to undergo unfunded unproven addiction treatments?
why is it desirable to have leverage to compel people into treatment they wouldn't otherwise accept?
It's only in a therapeutic environment. It's not legalized for recreational use. While interesting - probably not what most people would expect from the headline...
Yes, but that’s what legal weed started out as too. I think a lot of people expect it to transition from medical to recreational over the next decade or two.
I think it is closer to recreational use than medical marijuana laws (in text, if not always in practice) since it is allowed without any particular medical condition. I think it is still to be determined exactly how theraputic the environment will be.
But personal possession was also decriminalized so as long as you gave a way to get it then you're technically _safe_ from there.
This won't directly provide a way to get it outside the approved environment since it must be used at the point of purchase.
Excellent. Let's hope that California will follow. They are one of the few states that don't even allow spores.
You can actually get a weed-store like experience today in California for shrooms in certain places. I've actually been and have, in my possession, shrooms from them.
Where would that be?
Maybe in Oakland? Not in Santa Cruz.
I've never heard anything about Denver either, but they have been decriminalized in all three
> don't even allow spores
"Isn't making a plant [fungi in this case] against the law the same as claiming that God made a mistake?" -- Bill Hicks
It’s California. Belief in God was removed here in a proposition in 2012 IIRC.
Still holds. Making a plant/seed/spore against the law is a good example of (retarded) politicians having too much power. (possibly getting voted in to offices by an equally retarded public)
Opium poppies for everyone.
(I'm for recreational legalization, even of drugs I do not intend to take. Just pointing out things folks gloss over when they speak of plants).
Are opium poppies illegal where you live? I don’t believe they are illegal here.
You might want to check closely. As in, the poppies might not be illegal, but if there are any signs that you are, or intend to, harvest opium from them, then those sign become evidence of a felony. For example, having a copy of the book "opium for the masses" (Jim Hogshire)
or, what you believe to be legal (because you can buy the seeds at the grocery store) may not be legal, depending.
> Opium poppies for everyone.
Yes, anyone should be able to grow any plant they want.
My body, my choice. Don't stop anyone from making choices for themselves, as long as it doesn't negatively affect others. If I get high and go on a rampage, there are laws to deal with the results. If I get high and don't bother anyone, leave me alone.
How can you claim “my body, my choice”, make a decision along those lines, then request public help if it doesn’t pan out?
invasive species?
This is a good point as well: Sometimes, it isn't even the plant one is worried about, but pests that might come from other regions as well. Sometimes there are good reason to ban things.
I'm not convinced these apply to most drug producing plants.
Agreed! It would also be great if these mushrooms were available in pill form microdoses.
I'm surprised it didn't come up through propositions
We also passed universal preschool, funded by taxing the rich.
> The preschool measure is a 1.5% tax on incomes of more than $125,000 per year and joint filings topping $250,000.
More like taxing the professional class
Don’t you know, we’re “the rich” and get to deflect attention from the actual capital class
Buy real estate in Vancouver, WA now. That 0% income tax is gonna look mighty nice.
You know I've lived in a place with 0% income taxes and the people it attracts are wholly worth paying to move away from.
Like the awful people of Seattle? Or Nashville? Or Miami?
I mean, yes? What's your point? Vancouver, WA is a nice town, too.
Or Austin, Houston, Dallas, El Paso, etc
Isn’t this 100% opinion? It’s equivalent to saying a republican is miserable living in blue country. 0% income tax is likely a red state and you sound like a dem. Of course you wouldn’t like it.
My experience differs: The higher end places I've lived had 0% income tax (because the wealthy had the means to work within the system to keep it that way), while I've lived in some pretty crappy places with surprisingly high income taxes.
So $1,875 per annum on a $250k income.
That’s some mighty good value pre-school. Who wouldn’t take that deal?
People without kids in preschool
I wouldn't mind paying this, for the greater good of the local community.
Maybe limiting the tax to families who claim children as dependents would seem more fair.
"So let me explain why I like to pay taxes for schools, even though I don't personally have a kid in school: It's because I don't like living in a country with a bunch of stupid people." - John Green
This. It seems like a small price to pay not to have half an electorate believe political rivals are child-abducting lizard people.
So brainwashed into believing one side? Why can’t we just want to make kids smarter instead of brainwashing them into being liberals?
I was agreeing with you unless you believe in lizard people.
yup you’re right, my head was melted when i read the chain last time. re-reading it now i dunno what i was thinking.
Stupid people both amuse me, and give me their money, so I don't really see a downside here.
I believe the cutoffs are for taxable income, not gross.
The professional class will barely even notice.
1.5% is a quite a lot for a specific state tax. oregon already levies a 9.9% tax on incomes over $125k. this is a ~15% increase to the highest bracket.
That is a fairly large amount. At least $2000 dollars for a childless single person. Or at least $4000 for a childless couple trying to in-vitro.
Is pre-school valuable or is it a babysitter?
Where did you get these #s from? This is a progressive tax and only affects income above the threshold. If you make 150k as a single earner, you don’t pay 1.5% on 150k, you pay 1.5% on 150k-125k, or 1.5% of 25k which is $375. And that’s if you didn’t reduce your income in other ways (401k contributions, pretax health or child care, HSA, etc.)
This is such a common misconception in the US. I'm amazed how it isn't understood by many.
I found a positive correlation between someone’s tax obligation and their understanding of tax law.
Well, either is fine, in that it allows people with low income a childcare option at all.
Preschool is extremely valuable for childhood development
Where do you propose people leave their kids at when both parents need to work?
At a pre-school they pay for.
I love that the funding is statewide. Most public schools are really weird in that parents are heavily incentivized to move to expensive school districts when their kids are school age ish, pay egregious income taxes while their kids actually attend school, then downsize somewhere cheaper when their kids leave. Those public schools get all the funding, and the schools in worse districts have rich parents fleeing them, leaving the less privileged behind with lower local taxes to work with. It’s a really non equitable system.
this is a common misconception. once you consider local, state, and federal funding, almost every state in the US has at least slightly progressive school funding (ie, low-income districts get no less, and sometimes a bit more, funding than high-income districts). [0]
the incentive still exists to live in expensive districts when you have school-aged children, but the main benefit is simply that your children go to school with children from other well-off families.
[0]
https://apps.urban.org/features/school-funding-do-poor-kids-...
That’s only Multnomah county, and it’s an income tax not a wealth tax. The actual rich will continue to not contribute a damn thing.
I'm also sad this passed. It's actually not universal at first. It starts in 2021 offering seats to black, brown, illegal immigrant, teen parents and other traditionally "disadvantaged" groups first when it kicks off in 2021 and doesn't ramp up to full universal service until 2030.
There's an additional tax increase that will take effect in 2026, that takes the marginal tax rate from 1.5 percent to 2.3 percent for single people making over 125k and joint filers making 200k. On top of all that, the measure would over-pay teachers 77k above the market rate, which is 33K. There's also the additional rider that they will prohibit suspensions. If you ask me, this bill only passed since it pushed the responsibility for paying for it to someone other than the majority of people in Multnomah county. It would have been more fair if there was a sense of shared sacrifice and skin in the game with everyone contributing to it. I imagine there will be more tax increases to help pay for all of the increase cost of a) people moving into the county for this free perk and b) people moving out of the county to not have to deal with this additional tax.
If you want everyone to have shared sacrifice in taxes then you need to start reducing income differences first.
And you seem to think any amount of payment over 33K is overpayment? That's about half of the median wage. Teachers should get better than 33K.
A flat tax is a shared sacrifice
It's also a terrible thing to do to poor people.
I'm bit bummed by this one. It sounds nice on the surface, but it seems like it's basically re-implementing a program that the state is starting to implement, but more expensive. The $300 million could be spent on problems that are city-specific: homelessness, adorable housing, economic recovery to name a few. I think we could get a lot more value for the community out of such a large price tag, especially without duplicating state-level work.
I think spending it on adorable housing is by far the most awesome choice.
What about people who don't have children, why should they pay?
For the same reason they still pay taxes that pays for schools, even if they don't have school-aged children.
Even if you don't have children, you definitely want other people's children to have had a good start in early childhood. For your own wealth, safety, and peace.
There's this thing about being part of a civil society.
I have been listening to the Michael Pollan audiobook "How to Change Your Mind"
https://smile.amazon.com/How-to-Change-Your-Mind-audiobook/d...
Fascinating subject and I am going through some personal issues which has put me in a funk, not that I wasn't depressed before the latest crop of issues. I am glad states have started the process of decriminalizing substances that hold therapeutic promise for mental issues. Nothing has worked on me so far so I hold out hope for psilocybin as the one that finally snaps me out of it.
This is incredibly exciting. Along with the bill I’m DC, things seem to be going in the direction I hoped.
I’ve been considering founding a startup in this space. If anyone is interested in chatting (cofounding, sharing stories, sharing ideas) my email is my last name at gmail.
at 40:20 this guy talks about a trial he participated in. He seems to be pretty well-connected in these circles.
Good step. Prohibition doesn't work. Evidence is in the masterful executed logistics of the drug markets, even if substances are illegal.
An addiction is a disease and should be treated as such.
I totally support Oregon in this move. Now, if Oregon could just abandon all the leftist, neo-Marxist shit, I might actually move there.
Go 20 minutes outside either of their two cities and you’ll be in like company
This is probably significant enough to make the front page.
This is very interesting. Not being in Oregon, I hadn't seen this.
This nonsense is out of control. Oregon needs serious help
3rd sentence: "Multiple cities have decriminalized the substance, but Oregon will become the first to permit supervised use statewide ..."
4th sentence: "... will allow regulated use of psychedelic mushrooms in a therapeutic setting."
5th sentence: "It creates a two-year period during which regulatory details will be worked out, including what qualifications are required of therapists overseeing its use."
Read the article next time. This has the potential to benefit numerous people with different types of psychological conditions. It is definitely not nonsense.
Why because people can eat mushrooms in their homes without having to worry about being thrown in jail?
Mushrooms have to administered by a therapist in a therapeutic setting
If that’s the case then it’s not as bad as I thought, definitely not worse than fentanyl
My God hacker news you are addicted to that down vote button. Let me give you all another one to click
And another because why not? What are these fake reputation points worth in the real world?
Will you try to explain why this is nonsense?
While I get the arguments that prohibition doesn't work, you need _some_ function to disincentivize people from being drawn to try drugs. Removing practically all barriers, especially to the hardest, most dangerous drugs, is a bad path for Oregon to have opened up.
And I fear that it also opens the doors to other countries / bad actors seeing that they have a new market to manufacture and sell drugs to (fentanyl, heroin, meth) without penalty.
I think there are major unintended consequences here that will materialize in years to come, and it could be possible that this hurts the people it claims to help (and more in fact). Those who voted for the symbol of decriminalizing the "harmless" drugs may get much more than they expected.
Your concerns may sound reasonable, but they are not evidence-based. So far the evidence beginning to accumulated from states/countries that have decriminalized and/or legalized previously prohibited drugs has been mostly contrary to your concerns.
Those states/countries decriminalized hard drugs like heroin?
Yes, Portugal did, as did several other countries... here's a complete list:
https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/countries-that-have-decr...
Don't forget Mexico back in 1940, although only for 6 months due to the US shutting off supplies of the drugs and the war preventing them from finding alternative suppliers:
https://www.historyextra.com/period/modern/1940-the-year-mex...
When I tried to find the Borderland Beat article where I first heard of this I found that the site has been closed due to (as best I can find with the site's own explanation no longer up) a lawsuit by a drug lord whose California driver's license was published on the site. Huge loss and I hope they get the site back eventually.
I did find one article I was looking for on the Internet Archive if anyone is interested, although the above is a much better link on just the legalization aspect (this one is mostly about one of the illegal drug trafficers affected). I think BB had another article on the legalization but I can't find a link to that one. As one might expect, the comments on BB tend to be more extreme than many sites in various ways.
https://web.archive.org/web/20200811192412/http://www.border...
https://web.archive.org/web/20190801143825/http://www.border...
Check out the Rat Park experiment or read Chasing the Scream for one idea of how incentives work when drugs are decriminalized.
Briefly: drug addiction, which is the bad outcome of drug use, emerges from hopelessness and mental trauma. Limited data suggests linking safe drug use to mental health resources, is an effective treatment plan for reducing drug addiction.
Those functions exist. They are culture and adulthood.
I'm not being glib here. I'm not a crack addict because as an adult I can recognize even trying that drug is a really bad idea, and because I exist in a culture where doing crack is not encouraged, to say the least.
I appreciate the comment. But if those were enough deterrent for everyone, why do we have any drug addicts at all?
This is an incremental lowering of the barriers to people getting involved with hard drugs, and I cannot imagine that it will not produce some incremental outcome of people getting addicted compared to before.
>you need some function to disincentivize people from being drawn to try drugs.
Got any suggestions? We all know DARE didn't work, so we can't work from the "drugs are bad, mmkay?" angle.
>you need some function to disincentivize people from being drawn to try drugs.
Something that Bernie Sanders talked a lot about that I found very compelling was the idea that a lot of people get into life ruining drugs (I'm talking heroin/meth, not weed/mushrooms) because they feel like they have no hope. A lot of them have little in the way of prospects. Drugs are an escape from the hopelessness in a lot of cases.
If our society had a better social safety net combined with education about drugs that is based on facts/truth (there's plenty of truth about heroin/meth that would put off most people from ever trying it - but for a long time a lot of lies were told about other recreational substances.) it's likely that usage would go down organically.
Really courteous and open-minded, to be downvoting an otherwise legitimately held opinion worth discussion, isn't it?
There is already an example of country decriminalizing all drug use. Portugal in 2001. Their experience is quite positive.