
Denver to vote on whether to decriminalize 'magic mushrooms' - pseudolus
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-colorado-magic-mushrooms/denver-to-vote-on-whether-to-decriminalize-magic-mushrooms-idUSKCN1PR0PN
======
systematical
As someone whose done shrooms around 50x I don't think they should be illegal.
But I also don't think you want the average Joe to have easy access either.
Low doses of 1 gram or less are manageable by most but at high doses of around
3 or super high like 5 gram doses your connection to normal reality loosens.

When ever i consumed high doses I always marked the expected peak time and eta
to near baseline so I could use that to calm myself if I became too high. I
don't expect this approach from most people. And that worries me.

It's a amazingly calming feeling to be able to say to oneself "wow I am really
fucking high only 1.5 hours to near baseline" while staring at a third eye on
your best friends forhead.

I don't really use them any more as I am enjoying sobriety more and more as I
get older.

~~~
eeeeeeeeeeeee
Is the disconnection to reality persistent after it’s out of your system?

I agree about average Joe access. I live in Colorado and a lot of people,
“adults,” cannot even responsibly take marijuana edibles.

~~~
Liquix
Speaking from personal experience, residual 'disconnection' / difficulties
resolve after ~48 hours. I actually feel _more_ connected to 'reality'
during/after tripping, but everyone's experiences vary.

Lately there has been some promising research into psilocybin's long-term
effects on the brain and specifically depression - it's becoming clear that
the drug has a unique effect in breaking down old (potentially negative)
pathways/connections and allowing new (potentially healthier) connections to
form in their place. Really interesting stuff.

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5367557/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5367557/)

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5640601/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5640601/)

~~~
systematical
Do you have any experience with micro-dosing? I've personally never eaten less
than a half gram and I think a micro-dose is about a tenth of a gram.

~~~
Liquix
Yes, although a good amount of academic research and most of my personal
experience has been with LSD as opposed to mushrooms. Mainly due to the
increased duration and slight stimulant properties.

Nothing but good things to say about the practice provided you keep dosage and
frequency at the 'micro' threshold. My roommate and I ran a pseudo-blind study
(50% chance we'd get LSD on a microdose day, 50% water) and both noticed
increased energy, empathy, creativity, and general quality of life.

 _How to Change Your Mind_ as someone else suggested is a great place to
start.

------
krisroadruck
It really is kind of insane that we have a law that criminalizes possession of
a plant you can literally pick out of the grass in your lawn in some places.

~~~
dTal
Nitpick: fungus :)

The deeper insanity is that physically speaking, magic mushrooms are one of
the safest known drugs to man. Nobody's dying from magic mushroom overdose,
flying into violent rages, dancing until they pass out from dehydration, or
robbing stores to pay for their next mushroom fix. Along any metric you'd care
to name, psilocybin is a much safer drug than, say, alcohol.

~~~
vinceguidry
It's impossible to make money with a plant anybody can grow, so they just
criminalize it because it won't ever become a tax base.

~~~
gotocake
By that logic willow bark should be illegal. There might be more at play than
you assume.

~~~
vinceguidry
No one wants willow bark, they want aspirin. You can't grow aspirin in your
back yard, you need to do chemistry to turn the bark into the medicine. Plus
willow is a tree and you can't grow it everywhere.

Cannabis approaches that point where if it were any easier to grow, everyone
would. But it's not quite there yet.

Water requires organization but is plentiful enough to be mostly free for
typical amounts. Companies that do the organization are heavily regulated and
the people running it aren't getting rich.

~~~
gotocake
_No one wants willow bark, they want aspirin. You can 't grow aspirin in your
back yard, you need to do chemistry to turn the bark into the medicine. Plus
willow is a tree and you can't grow it everywhere._

Nobody wants willow bark (not totally accurate, but let’s accept it) because
aspirin was formulated. That’s not a defense of your argument, it’s the hole
in it. Why do you think that mushrooms, unlike willow trees and a thousand
other natural sources for what would eventually be synthesized, won’t be made
into a superior form by a drug company? Legalizing one opens up opportunities
for the latter, which then displaces the old.

Why do you think mushrooms are somehow the exception?

~~~
vinceguidry
You are trying to argue on the basis of truth. I can accept the truth of your
statements, despite it being irrelevant to the politicians who ultimately
drive regulation. The politicians do not see truth, they only see their next
re-election campaign. And since there's more political capital to be reaped,
right now, from being anti-drug, then there is in supporting a new drug whose
industry hasn't been built out yet, we won't be seeing psilocybin
decriminalization, much less legalization anytime soon.

The same mechanics are at work in the current push for cannabis
decriminalization and ultimate legalization. It takes the building of a tax
base in order to get politicians to take the cause of cannabis seriously.
Political economics neatly explain everything about the world we live in.

We already have plenty of regulated drugs which are used recreationally.
Adderall, narcotics. You're saying psilocybin isn't special compared to other
drugs. You'd be right, except for the fact that there isn't already an
industry that exists to cultivate and bring psilocybin mushrooms to people,
simply because anyone can go out and pick them themselves. There already was a
cannabis industry before legalization, albeit an illegal one. Where is the
illegal mushroom business? It's just random people doing it for side profits.
Nobody's getting rich off of it.

Because nobody can get rich off of it, there isn't a political economic reason
for legalizing it. There might be a public-interest reason, but that means the
public has to actually generate more political capital than the anti-drug
crowd generates from saying it's horrible in order to get it legalized.

I'm not saying nobody can make money off of psilocybin or that research can't
be done. I'm saying that because nobody is already getting rich off of it, its
political heft is forever going to be limited to 'mere' public interest.

Cannabis required a public-interest campaign before it could be regulated in
one state, because the existing black-market industry had a vested interest in
cannabis remaining illegal. Once the regulation enabled taxes, now we're
seeing more regulation and legalization.

------
spicymaki
I never understood the whole: we are throwing you in jail to protect you from
yourself approach with the war on drugs. Decriminalize it!

~~~
chasd00
more like we're throwing you in jail to protect the rest of us from your
addiction. Anyone who has ever crossed paths with an addict short on money to
feed their addiction knows this all too well. Also, finding syringes on the
sidewalk where kids play isn't good either.

~~~
spicymaki
The syringes at the park are a direct result of drug policy. Perhaps the
person had social/mental problems before becoming an addict. Why not divert
resources to making life more livable for more people rather than cages that
do not fix anything?

------
justtopost
This just makes them 'lowest priority', and only to denver police and courts.
Still very much a crime, still prosecuted, just way less.

Yay selective local enforcement! What a huge leap forward! /s

While I am happy any effort and attention is here, it doesn't do anything even
for people who get busted. The colorado courts are still happy to assume any
more than one is intent to sell, and weigh the box the came in to charge you.
I welcome a step forward, but this is closer to a twitch.

~~~
eeeeeeeeeeeee
It seems like these laws often slowly follow what is already taking place
unofficially. It makes sense because most police really don’t want to be
spending time on pointless arrests.

~~~
notinmycity
>> most police really don’t want to be spending time on pointless arrests.

Most police are happy to confiscate and personally use or make use of
contraband as an alternative currency.

When arrests are incentivised as paths to promotion, most police seem to be
fine with them, and when they are disincentivised to skew statistics and
optics they seem fine with that as well.

~~~
eeeeeeeeeeeee
Do you have evidence of this other than from the movie Training Day? Saying
"most" is a huge generalization. I would agree it probably happens, but
"most"?

------
GeekyBear
There was a study that was conducted in the UK which looked into the relative
amount of harm caused by the various legal and illegal recreational
substances.

>It examines nine categories of harm that drugs can do to the individual "from
death to damage to mental functioning and loss of relationships" and seven
types of harm to others. The maximum possible harm score was 100 and the
minimum zero.

Overall, alcohol scored 72 – against 55 for heroin and 54 for crack.

[https://www.theguardian.com/society/2010/nov/01/alcohol-
more...](https://www.theguardian.com/society/2010/nov/01/alcohol-more-harmful-
than-heroin-crack)

Magic mushrooms scored a 5.

~~~
filoeleven
It’s perhaps also worth mentioning that he lost his government position due to
the conclusions of that study.

~~~
GeekyBear
Well, no.

He lost his job after publicly calling out the government for ignoring the
conclusions of the study.

>Nutt was sacked last year by the home secretary at the time, Alan Johnson,
for challenging ministers' refusal to take the advice of the official Advisory
Council on the Misuse of Drugs, which he chaired.

[https://www.theguardian.com/society/2010/nov/01/alcohol-
more...](https://www.theguardian.com/society/2010/nov/01/alcohol-more-harmful-
than-heroin-crack)

------
chuckgreenman
> “Denver is quickly becoming the illicit drug capitol of the world,” Jeff
> Hunt, director of the Colorado-based Centennial Institute, a conservative
> think tank, said in a statement.

Slow your roll, Jeff. Denver is pretty far from Amsterdam.

~~~
Nursie
If it's legal, regulated and taxed, it's hardly illicit any more anyway!

------
samcday
The cynic in me fears that most psychs will never be legalized. Can you
imagine the threat posed to the elite if you had a large portion of the public
regularly engaging in unrestrained free-associative thought?

~~~
usrusr
I can't. I totally fail at imagining any form of threat the elite might face
from a "public regularly engaging in unrestrained free-associative thought".
Their positions would be safer than ever.

~~~
samcday
Really? Well let me elaborate then.

Instead of the majority of people mindlessly consuming media and products
without questioning the impact it's having on their minds, their future, the
environment, other cultures, etc, they might pause to ponder these things.

Rather than accepting society as an immutable construct that they couldn't
possibly influence in a positive way, people might choose to participate in
challenging the status quo.

In lieu of othering demographics that they don't understand, people might
realize that despite some minor cosmetic differences, we're all humans that
have a pretty vivid subjective experience of pain.

The elite benefit from a complacent majority. I would even go so far as to say
they _rely_ on a complacent majority to maintain their position. You don't
have to venture very far to read stories about people who experience tectonic
shifts in their patterns of thought after taking psychs.

The current fully legalized and regulated substances just don't have that kind
of effect. Alcohol just lowers your inhibitions and arguably makes you
stupider.

~~~
usrusr
> people might choose to participate in challenging the status quo.

Never met a drug user who did that. Met scores of drug users who thought that
they did.

------
dpflan
Does a step like this help lead to research opportunities (in a few more years
an legal pushes)? [Like this?
[https://www.colorado.gov/pacific/cdphe/marijuana-
research](https://www.colorado.gov/pacific/cdphe/marijuana-research)] I'm
interested in how long it takes for this to make research on such chemicals
easier/accessible. How could this affect MAPS?
([https://maps.org/](https://maps.org/))

Regarding general trends in the legalization movement and related spaces:

> The interest in CBD currently seems like a soft, first step for many people
> into the realm of what was once perceived as very bad or dangerous (e.g.
> _Reefer Madness_ ). Plus the wave of recreationalization in the US.

> Canada is an interesting position due to the legalization movement; I'm
> curious if they are poised to become the global leader in " _mj_ " research
> and the pharmaceuticals/medicines derived from that research. Or is the
> market just waiting for the US to become federally unfettered ("sleeping
> giant")?

------
yboris
A brilliant book - a careful philosophical argument for decriminalizing all
drugs: _Legalize This!: The Case for Decriminalizing Drugs (Practical Ethics
Series)_ by Doug Husak

[https://www.amazon.com/Legalize-This-Decriminalizing-
Practic...](https://www.amazon.com/Legalize-This-Decriminalizing-Practical-
Ethics/dp/1859843204/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1549379709&sr=8-1&keywords=legalize+this)

The gist: whenever someone is about to be put in jail for any reason, they
ought to be given a reasonable answer to the question "Why am I being put in
jail?" There simply is no satisfactory answer for current drug charges.

Bad answers to this question would require, out of consistency,
criminalization of alcohol, tobacco, skiing (dangerous!), pizza (bad for your
health!), etc.

------
Reason077
It wasn’t that all that long ago (mid-2000s) that these were _banned_ in the
UK and Netherlands.

I remember little mushroom stalls in Camden market which sold all kinds of
interesting fungi, packaged and shrink-wrapped just like you’d see in a
supermarket.

------
sovietmudkipz
Too fast too soon?

I fear this gives rhetorical ammo to folks who don’t want any “drugs” (besides
caffeine and alcohol, of course) in their communities legal. I can hear the
argument now. “Maybe you want weed, because it’s harmless? How about magic
mushrooms? Where do we stop? Cocaine? Meth? How about we empty out the
pharmacy for all to get high on whatever they want!” Slippery slope.

I fear the successful movement thus far is about to have breaks applied in the
“on the fence” states after this news.

~~~
Dumblydorr
Call it psilocybin and have it officially used for addiction treatment,
depression, anxiety, and terminally ill patients. The transition from medical
psilocybin to recreational can be gradual, and should prevent the slippery
slope you mention. Though are you serious with meth and cocaine? No one is
advocating legalizing those.

~~~
bryanlarsen
"No one is advocating legalizing those."

I am. You should be able to walk into a doctor's office and ask for a
prescription to treat your addiction and withdrawal symptoms. If there's no
methadone type reduced-harm variant of your drug of choice, it should be
straight up prescribed to you so you can buy it in a metered, safe and pure
form from a pharmacist. And your doctor should continue to try and keep you
safe even if you are never able to beat the addiction.

The moral hazard into turning doctors and pharmacists into pushers and dealers
is obvious, but bringing it above board should make the problem tractable.

You'd definitely save tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands of lives per year in
reduced overdoses, elimination of the drug war and reduction in gang warfare.

~~~
plasticchris
There direct counterpoint here is that many doctors treated opiates in this
way - allowing people to walk in and ask for them, and it let to significant
issues for society.

~~~
bryanlarsen
Was the harm when they started or when they stopped?

~~~
plasticchris
It's not that simple. By prescribing these kinds of drugs an ethical
obligation is assumed to prevent the patient from becoming addicted or
experiencing withdrawals unnecessarily. If we allow anyone free access to
drugs, would we not bear a similar responsibility?

------
ianai
I wonder, if trump declares an emergency for his wall, whether the next
president could declare an emergency and legalize all drugs.

~~~
chewbacha
No, the declaration of emergency is used to free up funds not change the law.

~~~
b_tterc_p
True, but could the same result not be achieved by an even easier to justify
executive action?

~~~
chewbacha
Executive orders can’t change law or allocate money though. Both of those
responsibilities reside with congress.

------
globlist
It's a crime against humanity for a government to ban shrooms.

