California lawmakers on Thursday narrowly approved a bill supported by veterans and criminal justice reform advocates to decriminalize the possession and personal use of a limited list of natural psychedelics, including “magic mushrooms.”
Gov. Gavin Newsom will now decide the fate of Senate Bill 58, which would remove criminal penalties for the possession and use of psilocybin and psilocin, the active ingredients in psychedelic mushrooms, mescaline and dimethyltryptamine, or DMT, known as ayahuasca. The bill also would require the California Health and Human Services Agency to study the therapeutic use of psychedelics and submit a report with its findings and recommendations to the Legislature.
I think the point is that it isn’t bad for you, or at least not any more so than alcohol.
As far as I’m concerned, we should either make drugs legal or alcohol illegal. The double-standard makes no sense.
I agree with most of what you’re saying aside from the part about making all drugs illegal.
The drug war is more about political violence than it is about keeping America safe, for one. A Nixon aide is on record describing how the drug war was about disinfranchising people who may stop his reelection.
For, two. Bodily autonomy is a right. Remember, the bill of rights is not meant to be all inclusive. And it’s not our job to prove our rights but the governments job to justify its power.
In this case, the government has utterly failed to justify this power. We’ve criminalized medicine that can cure addiction and consumerism. And put people in prison, destroying families. Both hippies just trying to grow some shrooms to share with friends, and suffering addicts who need medical help.
And for three, prohibition doesn’t work. We’ve seen this proved again and again in multiple countries and now over a full century.
It’s time to end this civil war that destroys families, and robs people of their political power. A war started so the second most corrupt president in history could angle for a second term.
This issue isn’t about safety. But control.
I think they should all be legal, but I also think laws should be consistent. If we’re going to make drugs illegal, include alcohol, cigarettes and caffeine or legalize the rest.
They should be consistent for sure.
But drugs is a word man made up. Kids get high on sugar and social media can be as addictive as meth.
So, we should make it all legal. And regulate it so people stop dying of fentanyl.
Full stop.
Because trying to police dopamine rewards that come from things outside ourselves is a very slippery slope.
Depends on the drug. Stuff like Marijuana or those Psychedelics, sure. Cocaine and Heroin on the other hand… aren’t really comparable to stuff you can “”safely”” take for decades.
So continue throwing people in prison for using them?
Prison is a different issue. I think they should seize the drugs and direct them to a rehabilitation center (or force them if it’s repeat offenders). Prison is for dealers.
But what constitutes a dealer? Because we throw people in prison now who are intending to sell a single vial of meth for $20 (or whatever Meth costs). They might be addicts who are so desperate for money that they’re selling their own supply. Don’t those people also need help? This is the problem with the drug war- it’s too vague. And there’s no real way to not make it vague.
Even if it was someone desperate for money, they still tried to sell a very dangerous drug to another human. That’s not ok, in my opinion.
That’s where I draw the line: if you’re only harming yourself you need help. If you’re trying to fuel others’ addiction, it’s jail. At most if it’s clear that the person has a huge drug issue you could force the rehabilitation center in that case as well (but again, the first time. If you still sell meth after that you’re asking for it).
Considering I had a friend with cancer sell me some of his weed so he could pay his medical bills that month, I can’t say I’d agree.
That’s weed. Weed is far less dangerous than the stuff we were talking about.
Also my view might be skewed due to living in Europe, so “selling to pay cancer bills” wasn’t really what I thought of.