
The Great Colorado Weed Experiment - isaacdl
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/03/opinion/sunday/high-time-the-great-colorado-weed-experiment.html
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MarkMc
Since cannabis is on the path to full legalization, should we also legalize
LSD, Ecstasy and Mushrooms for the same reasons? Particularly since they cause
less harm than cannabis:
[http://m.imgur.com/Pz1NIEQ](http://m.imgur.com/Pz1NIEQ)

Source:
[http://www.sg.unimaas.nl/_OLD/oudelezingen/dddsd.pdf](http://www.sg.unimaas.nl/_OLD/oudelezingen/dddsd.pdf)

~~~
virtualwhys
Mushrooms, sure, but synthetics I'd say no unless there was a means to produce
a quantity and quality of LSD or X akin to seeing the alcohol content written
on a bottle of beer.

LSD in particular is no joke, you're relying on word of mouth re: quality and
quantity (if they even know, 75, 150, or in some cases 300 micrograms per tab
for blotter), and even then you can't be sure it's LSD or some other cheaper-
to-produce substance until you yourself try it.

I think the less harm factor referenced in the imgur link has a lot to do with
frequency of use. Nobody in their right mind trips everyday for years on end,
while many heads break out the bong, pipe, papers, etc. daily.

~~~
ghshephard
" synthetics I'd say no unless there was a means to produce a quantity and
quality of LSD or X akin to seeing the alcohol content written on a bottle of
beer."

Trivial for your modern pharmaceutical organization. Also, LSD in particular
has a huge ratio between it's normal dose and it's LD-50 - I did a bit of
searching, and I couldn't actually find a case of someone having overdosed to
the point of dying of LSD, so it's unclear to me what the LD50 is - but it's
big - having a 10x overdose of LSD isn't going to kill you.

This is unlike caffeine of course, where I've personally had friends
hospitalized for caffeine overdose, and there are certainly records of people
having died from too much caffeine. People have died from drinking too much
water as well.

Anyways, the entire idea behind legalization of things like LSD, THC, MDMA,
Heroin, etc... is that you normalize the dosage, and reduce the number of
fatalities resulting from poor quality control.

~~~
virtualwhys
> having a 10x overdose of LSD isn't going to kill you

Toxicity is meaningless in the face of losing your mind; you may not
physically die in the above scenario, but rest assured you will be absolutely
out of your fucking tree for quite some time, if not hospitalized.

Compare that to eating too many ganja brownies, drinking too much alcohol,
etc. Yes, you _could_ die, but if you don't you'll be out of sorts for a
couple of days and then more or less back to normal.

~~~
ghshephard
Too much alcohol certain can, and frequently does, kill people.

Doing 10x overdose of MDMA has a not insignificant chance of killing you.

Doing 10x overdose of Heroin will likely kill you.

Never having tried LSD, I can't comment on what the psychological effects of
10 hits of LSD will be, but given that Erowid suggests starting with a dosage
of 25 ug, and that the optimal dosage is between 50 and 200 ug, it's not clear
to me that 250 ug (a 10x over the base dose) will really be that big a deal
(beyond how big a deal LSD normally is). Perhaps you are referring to 10x of
your optimal dose (i.e. if normally you take 200 ug, suddenly taking 2000 ug)

Regardless, I think it's a bit of a stretch to suggest that, "Toxicity is
meaningless in the face of losing your mind" \- I had some pot brownies once,
and went to a very twisted universe. At the time it was pretty scary for the
better part of an hour, I just curled up into a tiny ball, but I look back
fondly on the experience.

I don't know anybody who has ever done drugs, and thought that "toxicity is
meaningless in the face of losing your mind." Some people do drug just _to_
lose their mind.

~~~
virtualwhys
Hmmm, I may have misunderstood what the OP meant by 10X overdose. If he meant
"just" 10 hits of typical street acid (75ug) for most that would be way, way
too much, but far from what I was understanding (overdose to me equating to
something like 1,000ug, an amount very few would ever take).

re: losing your mind, sure, THC can trigger all manner of darkness, have been
on my knees a couple of times praying to get me through it -- hallucinogens
can bring the good _and_ the bad ;-)

re: people doing drugs to lose their mind, right, keep in mind the context
(10X overdose = 10,000ug). There's losing your mind, and then there's lost
your mind.

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jwatte
We might think that smoking can be bad for individuals, and decriminalization
is good for society at the same time. However, a seven month time period is
not enough to read the experiment on many the variables claimed in the article
(blight, drop outs, etc.)

~~~
ScottBurson
Did you read the part about California? "Medical" marijuana has been legal
here since 1996. As the article says,

 _Many call it de facto legalization, because medical marijuana ID cards are
laughably easy to get. While California’s experience shows the downsides of
ineffectual laws and lax enforcement, it has not turned the state into a story
of rampant addiction, crime or community upheaval. Support for full
legalization there has grown as dire predictions of disaster, made over two
decades, have not been borne out._

~~~
DanBC
A person can strongly want drugs to be legalised, and still be concerned about
potential problems from drugs.

It's possible that cannabis has a causative connection to some psychotic
illnesses. It seems reasonable that cannabis can trigger underlying illness,
or exacerbate existing illness. So while I am strongly in favour of legalising
drugs I am still concerned about possible harms from cannabis.

Researching this is difficult. Partly because cannabis is illegal and thus
recruiting subjects is fraught with ethical difficulties, but also because we
need very many years to research. EDIT: 1996 isn't even 20 years ago.

~~~
ScottBurson
> A person can strongly want drugs to be legalised, and still be concerned
> about potential problems from drugs.

Agreed. I'm sure there will be some problems from legal marijuana, though I
don't see any sign they'll be nearly as bad as the problems caused by
prohibition. In the case of other drugs which we might consider legalizing
eventually, this might be more debatable.

> 1996 isn't even 20 years ago.

It's within 10% of 20 years ago, and anyway, it's a lot more than seven months
ago. Not sure what your point is here.

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at-fates-hands
Just to play devils advocate here:

It sounds great, except for the fact there's a kind of product gentrification
going on.

[http://www.thecannabist.co/2014/07/30/colorado-marijuana-
bla...](http://www.thecannabist.co/2014/07/30/colorado-marijuana-black-market-
pot-illegal-marijuana-growing/17245/)

"In this light, taxation is seen as a blunt instrument of exclusion, driving
precisely the groups most prosecuted in the war on drug further into the arms
of the black market where they remain at risk for arrest or robbery. In one
Denver dispensary, a $30 purchase of one-eighth of the Trinity strain of
cannabis includes $7.38 in state and local taxes — a near 33 percent rate. As
Larisa Bolivar, one of the city’s most well-known proponents of
decriminalizing marijuana nationally and opening a true free market, puts it:
That seven bucks buys someone lunch.

“It’s simple,” she says. “A high tax rate drives black market growth. It’s an
incentive for risky behavior.”"

~~~
fossuser
Cigarettes are highly taxed and there doesn't seem too be much of a black
market for them.

Edit: Looks like I was wrong, but the black market is buying legal cigarettes
and driving them across state lines which is a bit different from growing your
own tobacco.

~~~
leoc
There's definitely counterfeiting of cigarettes too, and obviously the safety
of unregulated, falsely-labelled black-market counterfeits is not assured.

~~~
spacemanmatt
That's funny, because the safety of regulated, arguably truthfully-labeled
mainstream brands cannot be assured, either.

~~~
leoc
This is naturally true; however, there is at least no rat poison in them.

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omegaworks
Finally, a positive example of states rights that rational people can argue
for.

~~~
opendais
I think the problem is the people who shout about state's rights are easily
linked to racist loons. The rational ones think things like alcohol,
marijuana, etc should be state-level issues. :P

The Federal Government shouldn't regulate any good or service that doesn't
cross state borders.

~~~
parfe
>The Federal Government shouldn't regulate any good or service that doesn't
cross state borders.

Black people truly prosper when excluded from the local economy. Makes them
feel like Real Mercans.

Wait, no! That other thing.

~~~
opendais
Do you understand the difference between deciding if people can smoke weed and
discrimination? :/

I'm talking about whether or not the sale of a good or service is legal. An
example of a service that is legal in some places and not others would be
prostitution if you want an example.

There is a huge fucking difference between "Colorado can sell weed" and
"Colorado can discriminate against people of color". You seem very, very
confused on the difference between "people" and "a category of goods".

Shall I call you are a racist for equating black people with goods and
services then?

