"Psilocybin possession would remain illegal but would become police’s 'lowest law-enforcement priority.'"
So... it's not like marijuana. You won't be able to go to Denver and buy these mushrooms at the mushroom store. It's just that if you have them, they want you to know they'll leave you alone. It's not mushroom tourism time. Yet.
Supporters extolled emerging research showing potential health benefits with psychedelic mushrooms.... Last fall, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration granted psilocybin “breakthrough therapy” designation for its potential to help with treatment-resistant depression, a status that speeds up the development and review process for a medicine containing the substance.It might work! Come on, Denver, give us a chance. I know you've got marmots too. I have seen the tourists toying with them in Rocky Mountain National Park. I'm thinking of Denver restaurants with marmot-kidney-and-psilocybin sushi. At least let us try!
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81 comments:
They'll leave you alone until they need some reason to search you.
Our country gets weirder and weirder. There seems no end to the descent.
Were there that many people getting arrested for this in the first place?
Denver first in U.S...
You mean there's more?
Our country gets weirder and weirder. There seems no end to the ascent.
Well the intellectuals did say that we need to ship the silly Christian Northern Europeans back home and give the land back to the Shaman Powered Peyote Cults of Indigenous North Americans. So it's Progressive.
A law blog should point out that Denver's action is tantamount to nullification. There is no jurisdiction in the US in which drugs are legal, none. Marijuana and other recreational drugs are illegal under federal law in every jurisdiction, but we have prosecutorial discretion in play, or maybe political cowardice.
What Denver is doing is no different than a locality deciding to reimpose school prayer or ban abortion or enact the Jim Crow laws.
The difference between attitudes to tobacco and other drugs is striking. Marijuana smoke has many of the same tars and particles as tobacco smoke, and it must produce many of the same diseases, like lung cancer and heart disease. Cannabinol is also more brain-damaging than nicotine, so there are good health reasons to ban it. Not to mention impaired driving.
The last desperate hope of the boomers. Psychedelic drugs may, just may:
1. Make you personally wise somehow--in touch with the secrets of the universe, etc.
2. Make the world a more peaceful place. You'll see the folly of most or all of the causes of war. (Although interestingly enough, the Dude is prepared to fight over his sofa or some goddam thing). Willie Nelson says losing your long-term memory might be a good thing.
Where's the evidence for anything like this? Woodstock may have been pretty peaceful (one suspects there were some rapes--it wasn't politically correct to mention them at the time), but Altamont was definitely not peaceful. Where's the wisdom? Where are the books? Has every last other source of hope finally petered out, so it's really just drugs?
Psychedelic drugs probably don't bring the risk of fatal overdose that heroin does, or fentanyl. That's hardly a great recommendation. Timothy Leary, of all people, the wisest teacher of all teachers of the boomers? Whatever happened to Marx and Freud, themselves probably not first-raters?
My dad grew his own psylocibin 'shrooms. Tricky business, the spores aren't aggressive so you've got to be careful that the 'shrooms sprouting from your growing media are the right kind before you eat them.
He was taking on and off in the months before he hung himself, so I guess they don't always work.
Shrooms are a great high if you can get the dosage right, which is pretty damned difficult.
Decades ago, a friend raised 70 pound batches and sold them to the Mafia in the Bronx. A very dangerous transaction.
He was eventually busted, not for the shrooms, but for his marijuana fields. He couldn't do all the work on his own, so he hired local teenagers who, of course, could not keep their mouths shut.
@Lloyd W. Robertson:
I'm not so sure. I know enough people whose opinions I respect who have reported extremely positive, lasting effects from using mushrooms. There is a lot of "oneness with the universe" mystical mumbo jumbo that goes along with it, but it does seem to be some kind of psychological experience of transcendence. Some people get it while visiting the grand canyon or facing a near-death experience.
I'm always amused by people who think that pot or shroom use is a search for "one last desperate hope."
Mostly, it's just about feeling good for a period of time. Pleasure.
Yeah, it's a vice. Yeah, we should all do better. So what?
The notion that a utilitarian purpose should be involved is kinda odd and Puritanical.
sykes.1 said...
The difference between attitudes to tobacco and other drugs is striking. Marijuana smoke has many of the same tars and particles as tobacco smoke, and it must produce many of the same diseases, like lung cancer and heart disease. Cannabinol is also more brain-damaging than nicotine, so there are good health reasons to ban it. Not to mention impaired driving.
Watch out Sykes! They came for me a few days ago for (trying to be) saying the same thing. Soon respondents here will be coming down on YOU for pointing out that Tobacco is now considered the devil weed.
Question? which would you rather have your loved ones do daily? Tobacco? or Psylocibin mushrooms?
Mushrooms are dangerous. If you are not absolutely sure what kind you are looking at, leave them alone.
It's not mushroom tourism time. Yet.
Perhaps the most salient factor, I didn't see the article mention whether the law change encompasses cultivation or intent to distribute.
God, I swear I will never do dangerous things!
I will hole up in my house and always do the safe and respectable thing!
No more whoring, drinking and drugging for me!
I'm saved!
(On the other hand, that whoring, drinking and drugging was a hell of a lot of fun.)
more brain-damaging than nicotine
Nicotine is a brain stimulant. Einstein presented his finished form of the general theory of relativity while "stinking of cigarettes".
The collapse of civilization is picking up speed.
Back in the "day"...Timothy Leary dearie.... when we were trying about everything, and I did give it a try: I drew the line at several mind expanding experiences.
Heroin was one. "Are you crazy? I'm not trying heroin. It is addictive and a downer." Dropped those 'friends' like a hot brick.
The other was peyote and magic mushrooms. They sounded kind of awesome to my mush brained 1960's self. I had used LSD and it was not bad. Kind of amazing in fact. So I asked....what is it like?
Well. First you eat these mushrooms/peyote. They don't taste very good. Then you will throw up for a while...............screeeeeech........
"Throw up. How is THAT great?".
They went on to explain how great, mind bending, yada yada yada.
Had me at throw up. No thanks.
lol @ nicotine causing brain damage: there are studies showing it may have neuroprotective benefits (weak studies), and there are more promising studies on ADD/ADHD showing that, unsurprisingly since it's a stimulant, it seems to convey many of the benefits of the harder drugs we use to treat those symptoms without some of the worst side effects. I think the number of people who would not benefit from some experience with a strong psychedelic is pretty small, but I also think they're potentially quite dangerous for some people at least at some stages of your life. You're changing your brain all the time, but psychedelics can significantly rewire you.
Polis and company have their prioritizes.
Party.
Why are conservatives not cheering this move? Let the branch closest to the people make these decisions. Maybe Denver will be right and these things can be beneficial. Or this could lead to more dependency and homelessness and other cities or states will not follow the path.
Is no one amazed, mystified, horrified by the local/state decision to NOT enforce laws?
Sanctuary cites, deputies won't enforce gun laws, MJ is a federal offense, but who care- come to Colorado. Now magic mushrooms.
When is this a bridge too far? Civil rights laws? Pedophilia?
I can see a dying small town provide a laundry list of laws they WON'T enforce to attract people to relocate there.
What parent would send his kid to attend college in Colorado?
And former NYT reporter and novelist Alex Brenson has a new book on the real dangers of pot. The stats have been rigged. Just like global warming.
From Cormac McCarthy's "No Country for Old Men"
Sheriff, "I think if Satan was sittin' around and wanted to bring mankind to its knees, he'd come up with narcotics."
Are you guys really all sissy goody two shoes prudes?
Legally, that is an odd ballot measure. When did people vote on police policy? How could that even be put to a vote?
Our people get freer and freer. I'm afraid of those people.
Question? which would you rather have your loved ones do daily? Tobacco? or Psylocibin mushrooms?
Mushrooms and such are anti-addictive, if anything, and literally nobody uses them daily. Other than possible anti-PTSD etc effects, the main attraction is the novelty.
So that was a stupid question even though you were responding to an even stupider post.
I tell you, I had a hell of a good time whoring, drinking, drugging and rocking when I was young, and I'd do it all over again.
Shit, my only complaint is I'm too damned old to keep doing it.
And, I'm retired with a nice nest egg and it looks like I'll make it to 80.
I know you've got marmots too. I have seen the tourists toying with them in Rocky Mountain National Park.
The ones encouraging their kids to feed cheetos to the indigenous rodents, right next to the sign saying "Please don't feed the wildlife", with a detailed explanation in smaller print explaining exactly *why* it's a bad idea? (Mostly for the animals, but also for themselves.)
Not that I'd wish plague on them or anything. That would spread to other people.
Are you guys really all sissy goody two shoes prudes?
Yes, they are.
Maybe stuff like this is why Colorado has school and theater shootings. Too many whackadoodles running around.
There is a substantial difference between drug taking and drinking.
You can enjoy a great and nutritional glass of wine or beer with dinner. But meth and Oxy has no caloric content and it doesn't taste good. The sole purpose of drug taking is to alter your mind.
Compare a great vintage of Cabernet vs. a great vintage of Maui Wowie. You can't do it.
The sole purpose of drug taking is to alter your mind.
I'm pretty sure that the popularity of alcohol at parties is due to its effect on our mood and sociability via the mind.
It used to be routine for the local cop/sheriffs to not enforce certain laws.
Drinking and driving. Unless you were so obviously blotto that you were a danger, they just gave you a warning and let you go home. Sometimes they would follow you there to make sure you were really going home and getting off of the road.
If you were a kid and got caught, they usually also threatened to tell your parents and sometimes drove you home themselves, leaving your irate parents who have been woken up by the cop car in their driveway to then to have to go get your/their car from the side of the road.
Frankly, this is still the situation in many small towns and rural areas. We...obviously don't drink and drive anymore :-)
The sole purpose of drug taking is to alter your mind.
No, it has another purpose... pleasure.
You guys must be old as hell and sitting in wheel chairs.
Maybe stuff like this is why Colorado has school and theater shootings. Too many whackadoodles running around.
The kids from the STEM school shooting walked out of a rally organized by a gun control group asking for mental health to be the concern as they mourn their classmate. They were angry at politicians trying to take over the meeting.
The kids chanted “Mental health” and hurled expletives at the media, according to the report.
The students returned, and some of them took the microphone, saying their grief was being used for political purposes.
Bill, RoT: Why are conservatives not cheering this move?
I'm pretty sure the people who belong to the school of conservatism that cheers this sort of thing, are cheering it. "Conservative" is a pretty uninformative label these days.
ST
Since you are the expert, do drugs taste good? Subtle flavors? Bubbles? Good smell? Nice color?
Indeed, the different varietals of marijuana are as distinct as varietals of wine.
Yes, marijuana varietals are cultivated for flavor, smell, color and general appearance.
Since legalization in CA and OR, thousands of different strains have been cultivated.
ST:
Buy the book at the link below through the Althouse AMZN portal and then tell me how great pot is and that Cormac McCarthy is wrong.
http://www.alexberenson.com/tell-your-children-the-truth-about-marijuana-mental-illness-and-violence/
"Our country gets weirder and weirder. There seems no end to the descent."
Why descent? Preferable to an alcohol-saturated populace.
I love the smell of rich pot. Have since the first time. The stuff I bought on my card, I ended up just putting in a tight jar and smelling it once in a while. It dried up so I tossed it.
It's too goddamn strong. I'd like to be able to, you know, smoke it awhile. But everyone else apparently just wants to get fucked up out of their minds.
"The last desperate hope of the boomers. Psychedelic drugs may, just may:
1. Make you personally wise somehow--in touch with the secrets of the universe, etc.
2. Make the world a more peaceful place."
3. Make the checkout process easier?
Dave Begley: There is a substantial difference between drug taking and drinking.
Depends on who's doing the drinking. Some people's drinking habits are about as healthful as a meth-head's drug-taking habits.
You can enjoy a great and nutritional glass of wine or beer with dinner. But meth and Oxy has no caloric content and it doesn't taste good. The sole purpose of drug taking is to alter your mind.
I drink wine with my dinner to alter my mind - to the state my brain registers as "pleasure". That nice, relaxed, convivial state feels good, and it's different from the non-wine state. If it's a really good bottle of wine, I might even allow myself to drink more than is strictly healthful, and my mind will be altered to an even more pleasurable state.
If it were just a matter of being "healthful and nutritional", with none of the attendant pleasurable taste and mood-alteration, I wouldn't bother. So in that way I'm just like any other drug-taker. That's not where the difference between destructive drug-taking and healthful wine-drinking lies.
Compare a great vintage of Cabernet vs. a great vintage of Maui Wowie. You can't do it.
I don't like marijuana and don't use it so I wouldn't know. I do know that there are people who are alcoholics, and people like me who know how to enjoy an excellent vintage and, to use the Grundian phrasing, "drink responsibly", and then again people who know how to enjoy an excellent vintage and at the same time consume an unhealthy amount of alcohol.
So I don't think it's apt to compare pot-smokers to one particular subset of alcohol consumers (people who participate in a civilized, disciplined culture of healthful wine-drinking). Though it does seem to be the case that weed is bad for the brains of adolescents and young adults in a way that traditional moderate alcohol consumption with meals isn't.
"You can enjoy a great and nutritional glass of wine or beer with dinner. But meth and Oxy has no caloric content and it doesn't taste good. The sole purpose of drug taking is to alter your mind."
Altering your mind may not be the sole reason for drinking, but it is certainly one of the reasons...even for people just enjoying a good vintage. People who have a scotch or glass or two of wine with dinner every evening? They're seeking mind alteration...even if it is only a mild relaxation.
Great book, Begley (Tell Your Children).
I definitely have a love-hate relationship with pot, ever since Newsweek splashed it all over its cover in the Spring of 1967. Boy I just had to try it then! lol
@Dave,
What I actually said was that pot is a pleasurable vice.
I didn't say how great it is.
You pay a price for vice, just like with alcohol.
I took a lot of risks during my life. It was worth it. I led a very adventurous, exciting life.
I make no claims to be a moral exemplar. I wasn't trying to be a moral exemplar, and I don't much like moral exemplars.
So, why the fuck would I read a book about the dangers of pot?
I don't give a fuck about the dangers.
Yeah I don't recommend it ST.
Others might be interested, esp those with kids or grandkids..tell them to wait until they're well launched as adults before partaking in these diversions.
If they'll listen.
What in the hell does "recommending" have to do with it?
Sigmund Freud died of bone and throat cancer from chain smoking cigars.
I'll bet he would do the same thing all over again if given the chance. He enjoyed himself and he lived into his 80s.
Yeah, you keep it away from the underage, just like with alcohol.
Since pot will soon be legal in my jurisdiction and stores will be everywhere, the kids will find out very quickly and the decision will be up to them. We are all guardians of our own souls.
Maybe the self-medicating will vacate the Jungle under I-5, and move to Denver!!
Mushrooms and such are anti-addictive, if anything, and literally nobody uses them daily.
People LITERALLY DO use them weekly, if not daily.
I personally knew SEVERAL people (back in the mid 1980's) that used LSD every 36-48 hours (that is, as soon as they started coming down; they dosed again).
They did That, right up until they died
I had roommates that Grew mushrooms, and they took them every thursday, friday, saturday.
They kept that up until they moved to california (after that, i don't know)
IF you don't think people abuse drugs; you are stupid
Recent political events in Colorado suggest that the population is already hallucinating. So why not?
IF you don't think people abuse drugs; you are stupid
Indeed, there are people who lose all control. Then again, I know and see hundreds of people every day who have lost all control of their appetite, who are killing themselves with food and sugar.
I don't think LSD can produce an overdose, but daily use can certainly produce psychosis leading to all kinds of bad things, including death.
People who have a scotch or glass or two of wine with dinner every evening? They're seeking mind alteration...even if it is only a mild relaxation.
I could see why you would believe this. What a sad life !
It's amazing how Puritanical we are about pleasure.
The vast majority of people, probably 99%, who use pot never experience any negative consequences and are just having a good time and enjoying themselves on the weekends and when they get laid.
Why does this bother you?
Next up - lick-able toads. The good news here is that you don't have to buy the toad; the fee would be based on the number of licks
https://oceanbreezerecovery.org/blog/licking-toads/#
Bread and circuses. Drugs and cable. The more things change the more they stay the same.
I think Gilbar OUGHT to DETERMINE what's best FOR Denver.
!
And Begley three!!
You turds don't give us credit for Prop 300 failing, do you?
DO YOU???
Turds.
It is easy to shit on CO when you live in the utopic NE.
What college in CO could compare to Lincoln parents must ask themselves?
Duh, none. Boulder has nothing to offer compared to Lincoln. Fort Collins is a shithole, and Disney was an ass to let his creation be modeled after it.
And Denver ain't no Omaha neither.
Don't know why sports franchises haven't figured this out yet. Any enlightened thoughts from NE about why the dummies who own sports teams don't show NE some love? There's plenty of room to build a big ol' stadium...
Lewis Wetzel said...
........
He was taking on and off in the months before he hung himself, so I guess they don't always work.
Not to be cruel- but maybe that end result was because of them, not despite them.
No way to actually tell.
"Psilocybin possession would remain illegal but would become police’s 'lowest law-enforcement priority.'"
So....they didn't really decriminalize it. The police just have better things to do.
When you have more harmful actions to stop and serious things to deal with and have a limited group of people (cops) to do the work. You prioritize.
Dave Begley said...
What parent would send his kid to attend college in Colorado?
Probably a parent who raised their kid to be self sufficient and capable of making good decisions.
People who believe a citizen is responsible and capable.
I am sure there are police states you can send your children to where they don’t need to make any decisions. The world has a lot of police states where the police keep you safe from those decisions.
"Based on an analysis of prior research, the Johns Hopkins study estimates that more than 250,000 Americans die each year from medical errors. On the CDC's official list, that would rank just behind heart disease and cancer, which each took about 600,000 lives in 2014, and in front of respiratory disease, which caused about 150,000 deaths." - https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/05/03/476636183/death-certificates-undercount-toll-of-medical-errors
You all must need to start taking drugs if you're so stupid as to think drugs are a major problem but not the stupid-but-arrogant doctors and nurses killing their patients. 684 people a day. Dead. By doctors and nurses. Put that in your damn pipe.
gilbar said...
Question? which would you rather have your loved ones do daily? Tobacco? or Psylocibin mushrooms?
Neither. I would give them support and train them to make good decisions.
I would also prefer they didn’t have police around constantly monitoring their activities and making sure they lived up to your or any other jerkwads definition of morality they had that day.
Dave Begley said...
There is a substantial difference between drug taking and drinking.
Of course.
You drink, so that is good.
Other people take drugs, so that is bad.
And you want the police to enforce your mores on everyone else.
I am giving you the benefit of the doubt. If you meant somehow that alcohol is not mind altering, or a "drug," or abuse is not costly to society and is somehow different from other drugs in this respect then you are just too stupid to converse with.
Lots of hostility in this thread. Interesting. Effect of drug use ?
Well, I see that it's beer thirty, so let me give all of you some good solid advice... don't do narcotics.
Michael K said...
Lots of hostility in this thread. Interesting. Effect of drug use ?
I assume this kind of this is what you were talking about:
Dave Begley said...
Compare a great vintage of Cabernet vs. a great vintage of Maui Wowie. You can't do it.
Alcohol obviously makes these people mean. I have never and will never smoke pot and I will never drink more than a few tablespoons of wine because I am keenly aware of the effects it has on my inhibitions and personality. I would never want to be that ignorant and blindly snobby and elitist and hypocritical.
And people who want polices states to enforce their hypocrisy and stupidity do make me mean.
"do drugs taste good? Subtle flavors? Bubbles? Good smell? Nice color?"
If by "drugs" you mean marijuana, yes, it does taste good. I love the smell of marijuana. I don't smoke it, haven't for years, but I love the smell. I hate the smell of tobacco cigarettes, and I absolutely detest everything about alcohol, including even the taste of your bubbly, colorful Cabernet or whatever yeast piss you think is so wonderful.
Alcohol obviously makes these people mean.
Alcoholics also make their children mean.
I remember the first time I felt the change. I was too young (maybe 6 years old?) to express what was happening to me with words, but I felt like my heart and soul was being permanently damaged, like I was being handicapped and helpless to stop it, and that I would never become the person I was meant to be. I remember praying to God, crying that I didn't want to be Evil.
There is a substantial difference between drug taking and drinking.
Is it that difference relevant to the argument?
88,000 alcohol related deaths per year, and that doesn't even consider the intangibles, like the children of alcoholics and the mental health issues they carry.
So, we can't even get a handle on alcohol abuse, and we want to legalize other drugs too?
Fen said...
So, we can't even get a handle on alcohol abuse, and we want to legalize other drugs too?
We banned alcohol once. That worked out so well.
Then the feds who were out of a job when prohibition ended needed something to do.
We got refer madness.
I am constantly shocked that people think the government is the best solution to many problems like this. It is so obviously incompetent and corrupt, but when you have a hammer everything looks like a nail right?
Pot heads might make their kids dumber. But they wont beat them up.
And people who want polices states to enforce their hypocrisy and stupidity do make me mean.
I am actually in favor of most drug legalization. I was just commenting on the hostility in this thread and you made my point.
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