> Psychedelics (serotonergic hallucinogens) are powerful psychoactive substances that alter perception and mood and affect numerous cognitive processes. They are generally considered physiologically safe and do not lead to dependence or addiction.
Decriminalizing psychedelics is likely to help with the treatment of mental health problems that often lead people to substance abuse.
The idea that substance abuse is a character flaw is outdated and harmful. Some substances are certainly dangerous. Psychedelics are not in most cases. Condemning people who are using dangerous substances perpetuates the cycle of shame which keeps people from being able to heal.
> The idea that substance abuse is a character flaw is outdated and harmful.
Sure, once you're already physically addicted, taking the next hit isn't a character flaw. But being willing to take the first hit before you're addicted is absolutely a gigantic character flaw.
-- the idea of getting "hooked" on psychedelics is - frankly - laughable - primarily because - well - they're not physiologically addictive - and additionally - because they're medically used to treat addiction --
thats why people never get addicted, oh wait people abuse them habitually all the time.
drugs of any kind are addictive, infact even mere behaviors are addictive let alone drugs.
Its truly a mark of an individual in denial when they claim their favorite drugs aren't bad for them.
yes drugs are bad for you.
yes even weed is bad for you and is very addictive.
And people always bring up the medical use, but we all know what its going to be primarily used for.
We need to treat these drugs like we do other medicine, criminalize it if its not a prescribed one unless its very weak.
Its a huge problem if we let people ruin themselves with this garbage under the guise of decriminalizing for medicine, when we already are able to just prescribe them as medicine usually.
-- a long conversation - anything in excess seems unhealthy(bad) for humans - be it - gossip - caffeine - cannabis - religion - all abused habitually - since as long as we've documented - excess has ruined civilizations - true -- on one side - dictatorship - the other - chaos - humans are strange emotional - primal creatures - frameworks for education would be ideal - societal resource is low - so time ticks on - we try our best - learn from the past - iterate into the future - hope for the best --
I was just there for the first time in two years. Based on all the comments here on HN, I expected to walk through a hell-scape. After spending a week, mostly on foot in the city... a lot of this talk seems overblown.
Not sure what you define to be a hellscape, but Market St definitely fits the bill especially after 8pm. I've never before had to worry about zombies but in SF you do.
If you think SF is the norm then you should visit a city with competent governance and see what normal should be.
I visit SF occassionally from East Bay. Absolute disaster. Where did you go? I think situation is more dire than it seems in East Bay. Both are succumbing to third-world urban decay and infrastructure rot.
It really is area specific, and I think that is on purpose. When there was the superbowl in SF, all of a sudden certain BART stations stopped smelling like piss and homeless population in those areas were not there any more. Tell me where the homeless camps are around the marina or other wealthy neighborhoods of SF with high foot traffic. Suspiciously missing or hard to find...
Since it's done on purpose, if SF wanted to actually revitalize their downtown they would lay down the law on their mainline tunnel transit stations, caltrain stations, ferry stations, tourist hotel hot spots and market st like they lay down the law in the marina with it's crazy high foot traffic. Yes it is 'moving the problem around', but at least it makes people feel safe and not nauseated where they enter and exit from SF. I bet one good chunk of why people are not coming back to offices to SF is because the transit safety and cleanliness experience is not good there.
I've had my car broken into 3 times in different parts of SF. Nothing visible anywhere inside the car. They took things like coins and a utility knife from the center console, and once I made the mistake of having a dash cam which was promptly stolen. Never again.
Criminals are not localized in SF. They roam around in cars smashing and grabbing.
You don't get addicted to experiences. You get addicted to chemicals. You are approaching a scientific topic from an emotional stance. You cannot do that.
Have you ever tried psychedelics? What makes you think they're problematic? I'm sure opiates are the primary driver of many of the problems in San Francisco, combined with a failure to charge anyone with petty property crimes. Drug prohibition doesn't work and just hurts the wrong people.
> Research has shown that the use of LSD can trigger the onset of schizophrenia in people prone to schizophrenia. People who use LSD are more likely than anyone else with a psychotic disorder to consume it over a period of more than a few days at a time.
I am an educated adult who understands my family's history of schizo means that these drugs are no gos for me. It's just not worth it.
However, I worry that teenagers and such in their developmental years will experiment. The way these drugs are marketed by true believers you'd think they're a cure all. However, in some people they cause long-lasting, even permanent effects. A significant number of people taking psychedelics experience symptoms for years after. This is a very bad change to make to one's psyche that calls one ability to reason and decide into question.
That link makes claims not backed up by any sources it links to that are accessible online. If you follow the chain, it eventually gets to a book unavailable online, but I am skeptical.
Other research has shown no link between psychedelics and psychosis. [1]
This same [1] article discusses old research which may have shown a link, and speculates that the wide prevalence of various psychotic disorders may have led to spurious findings.
Sorry, but I'm just going to trust my own observations of reality over some random paper. It's plainly obvious that these drugs trigger schizophrenia and other mental illnesses in a percentage of people who use them. Sometimes all it takes is a single use even. If you haven't met people who have had this happen to them then I advise you to search online for people's stories since it's not that hard to find them.
However, what's unknown is whether people who develop schizophrenia due to psychedelic use wouldn't have developed it anyway for some other reason. Latent schizophrenia can be triggered by things such as stress.
Besides, it's not like even given this there's no way to consume the substances safely. A simple method is to way until 25-30 years of age. Since schizophrenia most commonly develops during a person's teenage years through to early adulthood, a person who hasn't developed it by 30 probably will never develop it.
If you're prone to it (family with history of mental illnesses) you shouldn't use it no matter your age. Why risk it? Something like schizophrenia is no joke and ruins your life completely. And if you don't find meds that work for you you literally can't fix it and go back to normal.
People do all sorts of dangerous things that don't seem to be worth it to others. The reason is really very simple: because it's fun. What's important is that it's each person's right to decide for themselves whether it's worth the risk, without having others force their decision onto them.
I believe a society where one is not free to use one's body however they see fit is not worth living in, and not worth keeping together. It should be opposed and sabotaged at every turn, dismantled, and remembered as an example of how good intentions can create monsters.
>I hate this "live and let live" type thinking with drugs because it enables people to ruin their lives.
Yes, one of the consequences of self-determination is that you're able to make wrong choices. You know what doesn't make any wrong choices? Cattle. The farmer decides for his cattle what and when they eat, where they sleep, when they mate and who with, and when they die. It's completely impossible for a cow to make choices so wrong that it ruins its own life. Now, I personally don't find living like cattle to be very appealing, but perhaps you disagree.
This is what your mentality creates by the way: https://twitter.com/ShellenbergerMD/status/15682375482748641... At some point you have to be pragmatic and realize that some mental illnesses can't be fixed with more freedom. Some people need boundaries and structure in their lives or they'll make society worse for everyone. A responsible society provides said structure for those people who need it, and lets the ones who don't be free as you claim they should be.
I'm not sure what you're pointing out in particular. The homelessness or the fighting? Homelessness is caused by poverty, not by drugs. People fight, with or without drugs. If you don't want to see people fighting in public places, you need a police force patrolling the streets that will actively break up fights, or you need a culture where people will intervene in fights they're not involved in and break them up. It would appear San Francisco has neither.
>At some point you have to be pragmatic and realize that some mental illnesses can't be fixed with more freedom.
I'm fine with a world with more than the absolute minimum number of mentally ill people. Put another way, there are things that are not worth sacrificing in order to have fewer mentally ill people.
>A responsible society provides said structure for those people who need it, and lets the ones who don't be free as you claim they should be.
Well, correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the goal of a society is to organize efforts in order to accomplish tasks that would not be possible by individuals or smaller groups. "Providing structure to those who need it" seems more like the responsibility of a hospital, not of societies in general. While a society that works like a hospital (rather than merely containing them) is conceivable, I think asserting that one that doesn't is irresponsible is going too far.
>I'm fine with a world with more than the absolute minimum number of mentally ill people. Put another way, there are things that are not worth sacrificing in order to have fewer mentally ill people.
Cool, that's your opinion. It has been tried. Your opinion creates the tweet I linked as well as this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YB6gwOBClwE. I can post many more videos like these as there are plenty.
My opinion is that your principles are completely idiotic and they're not worth sacrificing other people's well being for. You disagree, that's fine. But you're obviously and verifiably wrong based on the state of reality and anyone with two eyes and a brain can see it.
The state of reality is more complex than "drugs are bad m'kay". Drug use and addiction are symptoms, not the disease. Cure the disease and you cure the symptoms.
No, it actually is that simple. Recreational drugs that significantly change your state of mind and that create chemical dependencies (this includes alcohol), or that permanently make you mentally ill are, in fact, bad, and their careless use should be shunned.
I view this as a pragmatic solution to a common problem amongst law enforcement agencies which is constrained resources. Focusing on the bad drugs and leaving the hippies alone seems like a sound step forward.
Exactly! Everyone here should hate this terrible place... why is the rent so damn high? I love the "I just moved here" crowd complaining about how bad things are, and I miss the pre-1999 days when artists could afford to live in the city. Even Oakland is expensive now.
I am frankly tired of hearing this non-sense. NYC is more expensive than SF and it is very much a vibrant place.
For a decade SF complained about tech and actively drove companies away, because they wanted “their culture” back.
Fine, then tech organizations left after covid (and their money left too), and now SF complains that tech organizations are not supporting the city anymore with their money and their employees, and you get entire areas of town (ie: Fidi) which are empty and small business are struggling. Who exactly do you think was supporting the outrageous spending and programs of San Francisco? Artists playing the piano in a bar, or hundreds of millions of dollar in taxes paid by tech and its employees?
You can’t have your cake and eat it too.
Now - finally - we get to see “SF culture” in full force without technology organizations and their employees: meth-addicted zombies with violent outbursts, tents everywhere, human poop and needles, salmonella outbreaks, go ahead and complete the list.
Nobody wants to live in a place like this: not the artists, not the families, and now not even tech workers. There are plenty of great cities to go to, why would anybody move to San Francisco and deal with these quality of life problems?
Wait, I'm complaining the tech money left?
Artists playing in piano bars... what kind of artists are you talking about?
Clearly, not the ones I am.
I agree there are some terrible policies and parts of town are struggling (and addicts too). But there were huge problems in the 90s as well (in SF an NY). Frankly, NYC is a MUCH bigger place with Manhattan alone being twice the population. But please, if you don't like it LEAVE!
Nobody likes poop or needles, nor drive-bys and side-shows those are symptoms of law enforcement and the city not giving a F#ck... but the tenderloin wasn't some beautiful panacea 25 years ago either, nor the mission, nor the dog patch. All of those places were hipster-gentrified and drove out people who did give a damn. Bringing money doesn't mean that a WETF attitude and boring consumerism won't make the place worse than you found it.
If you want to raise kids, go to the avenues or the marina or a suburb somewhere. Yes, it's horrible expensive, but why does the world owe you the lifestyle you want and the house you want in the place you want for cheap? Why does everyone else have to change the way they live for you? Because you got a FAANG job? I feel more for the people born in SF.
BTW we always called the Fidi "wine country" for the obvious reason (people drinking wine on the corner)... and that was 25 years ago when at least strip clubs could afford the rent.
> but the tenderloin wasn't some beautiful panacea 25 years ago either, nor the mission, nor the dog patch
The dogpatch was a waste land 10 years ago, it got redeveloped thanks to new money and the new tenants that were willing to pay $$ to live there.
The problem of San Francisco is not tech (which gives resources to the city, and which every other city would do anything to have) or the lack of artists.
The problem is San Francisco is the utterly incompetent leadership that fails their citizens at every level (supervisors, mayor, school board, DA, police, etc). Technology was an incredible opportunity for this town to become world class, and now they got nothing to show for it.
How about we refocus on the real problems that are affecting this town? The tenderloin doesn’t have to be this way, the Fidi was thriving up to 2018/2019. The alleged lack of artists is at the bottom of the pile.
A world class city like San Francisco can and should do more to guarantee that no kid steps on poop or needles. Take a step back please: this is a very low bar, and these are problems that every city in the world doesn’t have. So what’s wrong with this place? Why is San Francisco a poster child for disgraceful and incompetent leadership? Why can’t it remove poops from the street with a budget of billions of dollars. What is wrong with this town?
These are the problems that we should be focusing on.
If you want the perfect place to live look for a red state but a city thats moderate and large.
You get sweet sweet low tax rates, usually affordable housing, good jobs, political extremists are more rare since liberals aren't too powerful and the conservatives basically lost their previous dominance.
Red states with large moderate cities are the place to live in the usa.
Low taxes, less crazy people, good living.
If your city is dominated by one political side completely its basically time to run away.
Drugs are effectively legal in San Fransisco already. Just walk down the street and take a look around. Psychedelics are not addictive and 99.999% of the people you see walking the streets like zombies are not on psychedelics.
Maybe if they are high enough they will not be able to tell how bad things are.