Denver Becomes First US City To Decriminalize Psychedelic Mushrooms (reason.com) 276
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reason: In a surprise turn of events, a Denver ballot initiative to effectively decriminalize psychedelic mushrooms, previously thought to have failed, now appears to have narrowly passed after all. This would make the Mile High City the first in the U.S. to decriminalize psilocybin. If the unofficial final tally holds, Denver law enforcement will be directed to treat psychedelic mushrooms owned for personal possession as the lowest enforcement priority. The initiative will not legalize commercial sales. "After trailing in results postings Tuesday night and early Wednesday, final unofficial results just posted show a reversal of fortune -- with Initiative 301 set to pass with nearly 50.6 percent of the vote," The Denver Post reports. "The total stands at 89,320 votes in favor and 87,341 against -- a margin of 1,979 votes. Denver Elections expects to continue accepting military and overseas ballots, but typically those numbers are small."
Reason's Jacob Sullem points out that this decriminalization will have only a modest real-world impact, as Denver has only prosecuted a handful of psilocybin cases over the past few years.
Reason's Jacob Sullem points out that this decriminalization will have only a modest real-world impact, as Denver has only prosecuted a handful of psilocybin cases over the past few years.
intoxication (Score:2)
and they of course will crucify upside down anyone found operating motor vehicle under influence?
Legalize all drugs (Score:5, Insightful)
As an added bonus it's much, much cheaper than any other method of control short of forced labor camps and/or instant death.
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Mental health care is health care (Score:3)
It is not a medical condition. It is a self-induced injury.
Desire to self-induce injury is a mental medical condition. Treat that.
Because unless you're willing to be very cruel (Score:2)
1. Brutally repress and/or kill drug addicts. This is kind of what we do today, but we don't do it in a cost effective manner because drug addicts retain some human rights.
2. Treat the underlining cause that turned them into addicts. Ask yourself why some people become addicts and some don't. This costs less than our current hodge podge system.
So you can start either killing or enslaving people caught with a bit of pot or a gram of cocaine and yeah, you'll com
Nope (Score:2)
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Actually, this: http://www.oculardatasystems.c... [oculardatasystems.com]
There are effective ways to tell if a driver is impaired without collecting samples from them.
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Same for alcohol, tobacco, fatty foods, lack of exercise, lack of sleep, failure to meditate?
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I've done a bunch of PCP when I was younger. Never once did it make me violent. Sure that's not the same for all people, but I have seen people become violent on it. That was the all ready violent assholes.
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Understandable.
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Apparenly your brsin is broken. Don't use PCP please.
What I have never been able to figure out... (Score:5, Insightful)
For the record I am not now nor have I ever been part of the drug culture, I live in a place where pot is legal, and still have no interest.
I say take the money currently used for drug enforcement, and move it to education, and treatment. I expect there would be a huge financial upside.
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Society falls down because someone becomes a dopehead?
Do you really think that suddenly everyone is going to think "hey, let's try heroin, the junkies at the train station all look so happy!"?
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Because the rest of us have to put up with their fucking druggie nonsense.
Re:What I have never been able to figure out... (Score:5, Insightful)
Because the rest of us have to put up with their fucking druggie nonsense
The rest of us have to put up with their fucking druggie nonsense either way.
Having it leagal means that their fucking druggie nonsense pays taxes much like my recreation is taxed and it doesn't waste money on trying ineffectively to stop their fucking druggie nonsense.
An and further they'll be able to engage in their fucking druggie nonsense with safe, legal drugs rather than illegal often contaminated ones, further reducing problems.
Thing is I'm not purtianical about it. Much like the GP, I have no intention of starting: pot isnt legal here but to say it's easy to get is something of an understatement. However, I am pro liberty and practical about it.
Also, IIRC you're a republican, right? I thought that was the party of liberty and small government...
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What fucking druggie nonsense?
Trust me, it's trivial to outwalk, let alone outrun, someone who is high on psychodelics. If everything fails, tell him Jesus sits over there in the corner and asked for him, and he'll bother the dust bunnies sitting there instead of you.
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Can't speak for psychedelic mushrooms, but addictive substances violate your free will. The fundamental premise of democracy and a market economy is the assumption that people have free will to decide what they want and don't want. Addiction takes some of that free will away from you - you're no longer able to rationally decide to stop spending your re
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Needing food, clothing, and shelter violates free will too. I'm sure you've probably met more than one person who would sincerely like to tell their boss to shove it up his ass, but their free will is violated by needing to pay the rent next week.
Of course, what really destroys your argument is the fact that the penalty is taking away more of the person's free will by locking them up in a cage. Given free will, most of them would choose to go live somewhere else without guards ordering them around.
Re:Who knew? (Score:3)
Damn. Much like freedom, free will isn't really free, either.
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That was a big leap all of a sudden.
You need to read Robert Sapolsky's Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst (2017). One of the best biology books of the last decade, if not longer.
Robert makes it abundantly clear from the biochemistry on up that there are no hard and fast lines between behaviour, habit, and addiction. These are just different shades and degrees of
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100% pure bullshit.
but thanks for playing. you did type a lot of stuff there. too bad its all nonsense.
The fundamental premise of democracy and a market economy is the assumption that people have free will to decide what they want and don't want. Addiction takes some of that free will away from you
can I hire you as a comedian for parties? but only if you have funnier material than that, of course.
Re:What I have never been able to figure out... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What I have never been able to figure out... (Score:5, Insightful)
When you are high, you are not easy to be tamed. You can't be easily brainwashed with ads/social conditioning to turn you into a wage slave. You will be wild like a small child - a rebel. And you will see the pointlessness of most things that society says is great. So to self-preserve its current form, the society will fight against those practices which threaten the status-quo.
Either that or you'll act like an insufferable twat while claiming to be a "rebel". Seriously, high people are super tedious to non high people.
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Being an insufferable twat does not mean that you are wrong. Don't get me wrong - the list of stupid "revelations" from high people is a long one. At the same time, drugs can alter your perceptions of the world and can provide insights that you might not normally see.
I've taken a number of psychedelics in a number of different settings, and there were definit
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A fair comment, except the government does allow the only drug that subverts the will, directly kills body cells, is very addictive and causes violence, alcohol.
There are no greater hypocrites than those who drink alcohol, then tell others which drugs they can take.
All drugs can be used or abused. Addictive personalities will tend towards addiction and abuse, particularly when they see no decent future in their lives, and others will be able to control their use.
Ive used nearly all the illegal drugs over t
Re:What I have never been able to figure out... (Score:4, Insightful)
government is highly influenced by Big Religion(tm). at least in the US, it is.
the religious nutjobs have a problem with people enjoying themselves. (yeah, seriously.)
nothing more to it than that. "stop enjoying things I don't enjoy!" summarizes it, nicely.
this is why religion should have ZERO say in laws. haven't we gotton beyond imaginary sky friends? this is 2019, right? (sigh).
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government is highly influenced by Big Religion(tm). at least in the US, it is. the religious nutjobs have a problem with people enjoying themselves. (yeah, seriously.) nothing more to it than that. "stop enjoying things I don't enjoy!" summarizes it, nicely. this is why religion should have ZERO say in laws. haven't we gotton beyond imaginary sky friends? this is 2019, right? (sigh).
Yes, which explains why secular and atheist regimes across the globe also implement strict drug laws, sometimes even harsher than those in the United States. Drugs, particularly the nasty and addictive Schedule II stuff, have very real social consequences. We can have healthy debates about whether current policy approaches are the right way to address the issue (drug war, legalization, decriminalization, etc.), but to simply sweep the negative impacts under the rug as an overly simplified "they're denying
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Re:What I have never been able to figure out... (Score:5, Insightful)
Why does the Government make a person a criminal for choosing to put something into their own body. This has never made sense to me. Why do they get a say?
Your right to intoxication ceases precisely at the point where that particular freedom of expression impinges on the rights of other citizens entitled to the same.
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Why does the Government make a person a criminal for choosing to put something into their own body. This has never made sense to me. Why do they get a say?
Your right to intoxication ceases precisely at the point where that particular freedom of expression impinges on the rights of other citizens entitled to the same.
So what you're saying is, what someone does in their own home is none of the governments business, right? They should be able to produce and consume what ever substance they choose, as they aren't impinging on anyone else's freedoms.
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A few reasons. There are costs associated with other people (e.g. DUIs, ERs). There are addiction issues, and we prevent some forms of irrevocable decision making (e.g. a coin flip where you become a slave for life or get $1 million). There are issues with making it harder for children to find (it's easier for them to get cigarettes then booze than heroin). There are also issues with helping people who are trying to quit be less tempted to relapse.
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Authoritarians can't authoritize without a 'target' to marginalize.
Religious folk value faith over science and data (per definition), and 'common sense' is something of a faith.
Puritanism is ingrained and as such, 'common sense,' to these folk.
Therefore, additional data, studies and statistics will not sway these folks' opinions. And further, anyone partaking in these targeted activities are sinners and deserve
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Odd that this doesn't happen with alcoholics...
GD it. THis is wrong (Score:3, Insightful)
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Now that's a trip (Score:2)
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Personally (Score:2)
I'm all for it.
Not that I partake in any of it ( what can I say, I'm boring ) but my opinion is simple: If it is a naturally occurring substance, do with it as you will as long as you do nothing to modify or refine it. Once you start any modification process to turn it into something else, that's where the government should step in and at least regulate it ( for safety purposes at the very least ).
You want to eat coca leaves, have at it. You want to turn them into cocaine, get Big Brothers blessings firs
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You might want to rethink that, a lot of food for example is only healthy or even safe for consumption because we refine, i.e. cook, it.
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Can't wait. (Score:4, Informative)
For it to end up like Seattle. https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
if that's that legalization leads to, well I've changed my mind.
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For it to end up like Seattle. https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
if that's that legalization leads to, well I've changed my mind.
Concerning legalization... I don't know the situation in Seattle and I'm not going to spend an hour watching that to figure out because it may not even be discussed in that video. However, I do know of countries that have at the very least decriminalized drug consumption and the results are not the catastrophe you assume. Once you decriminalize drug use, you can look for solutions to the problem and treat these people as if they had a disease. If you put them in jail, you just use the strategy of assuming j
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Continuing my previous comment (I had an issue and submitted before ending my answer). The examples of Portugal and Switzerland show that some things do work. Not everything will work, but some things may. I don't know what Seattle did besides not sending people to jail and what Seattle could have done more (based on what federal and state laws govern the city). And this may very well be part of the problem. Maybe Seattle can't get more than a half-assed implementation of what needs to be done. Both Portuga
Conflicted (Score:2)
I'm conflicted on this.
As some one who has very safely taken mushrooms maybe around a dozen times in my life and will probably do them a few more times, I do think treating possession or consumption of them as major criminal activity is pretty dumb
On the other hand, people can't even take pot edibles correctly and I firmly believe that there are people who, by nature, are just super likely to freak out when they're on psychedelics (the mental state you take into a trip often significantly effects what you g
Right on Denver! (Score:2)
About time (Score:2)
Can you imagine living in Denver and having to face reality at the same time?
Proving the slippery slope (Score:2)
Re:The "Mile High" city - lol (Score:5, Insightful)
We'd keep more citizens out of prisons, give police more time to concentrate one victims of violent crimes and their perps, and we'd be allocating our public tax monies on something more positive.
Re:The "Mile High" city - lol (Score:5, Insightful)
No, no they shouldn't. There still needs to be governmental controls on what corporations are allowed to poison the citizens with, and what they're not. You're right that a lot of the currently criminalized drug use that is known to be no more medically harmful than the existing legal drug use, and that has only been criminalized largely for various highly-contrived political justifications, and is definitely very costly and otherwise relatively pointless to be enforced... yea, that stuff we should definitely stop wasting our tax dollars prosecuting and jailing people over. But letting some hippies get high in Denver is a far cry from allowing McDonald's to get away with giving cadmium-laced toys to children.
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You're mistaking two very opposite points of view as being the same.
Government should regulate what you are allowed to sell as "food products".
Government should not regulate what you are allowed to consume.
You want to eat mercury? Go for it. You want to sell mercury burgers? No deal.
Re:The "Mile High" city - lol (Score:5, Interesting)
The way to get heroin off the streets is not to ban it and arrest people for using it. We tried that in the US, and it failed miserably. In Switzerland, they tried the opposite strategy: they gave it out for free to addicts.
First of all, it was good for society as a whole: theft and petty crime dropped by ~70%, as the addicts didn't have to steal shit to buy their fix. Secondly, it was good for the addicts: they got access to clean heroin and clean needles at government-run injection sites. Moreover, they were offered free psychological care, medical care, and help finding an apartment and a job. This assistance led to most addicts getting clean of their own volition within 5-10 years. Finally, there's no reason to get addicted in the first place anymore: why should a drug dealer try to get people hooked on heroin, if they can just go get it for free from the government afterwards? Destroy the market, and you get much fewer dealers pushing the scary crap.
I'm also for eradicating heroin addiction. But why not try the Swiss model, which empirically works, instead of the American model, which empirically does not work?
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The US has 39 times the population of Switzerland. What works for a smaller population wouldn't necessarily be as effective as a much larger sample size.
Re:The "Mile High" city - lol (Score:4, Insightful)
The US has 39 times the population of Switzerland. What works for a smaller population wouldn't necessarily be as effective as a much larger sample size.
Care to back that up with, like, anything? Why would population size have an effect on a program like this? Would we be spending too much money on heroin or something?
Re:The "Mile High" city - lol (Score:5, Insightful)
And what works for a smaller population wouldn't necessarily fail in a much larger sample size. You have no data to back it up, and, one can only assume, are advocating sticking to a system that is failing over trying a system that is working elsewhere. See how that doesn't make much sense?
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Exactly, you'll need 39 more buildings!
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The population assertion is an excellent point. The bigger a population there is, the more diversity there is, making it more difficult to define a one-size-fits-all solution. Those who constantly tout European countries as models for the US persistently ignore this, especially when talking about healthcare issues.
The pro-legalization argument, in general, is strong and I agree with the principle. The needle exchange idea, however, is just a single idea out of many, and probably the most unpersuasive, or ev
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And just what are these policies?
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Anyone that's done mushrooms knows that they have the potential for helping people with addiction problems. Hell, they have the potential to help with many life-problems, as they come.
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Psychedelics make a person highly suggestible and make routine _bullshit_ seam like 'profound truth'. They will believe just about anything told to them by someone they trust when tripping, and remember they 'had the key' when they really had nothing useful. Worst case is spending the rest of your life looking to recapture something you never really had.
Hint: Write down some psychedelic 'insights', then read them sober.
Which could conceivably be used to straighten them out, or to convince them: Charlie
Re:The "Mile High" city - lol (Score:5, Funny)
But why not try the Swiss model, which empirically works, instead of the American model, which empirically does not work?
What?!? How in blazes do you expect the Prison Industrial Complex to fill the prisons and reap obscene profit when you aren't putting people in jail? The nerve of some people...
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The cost of enforcing drug laws and keeping drug-related criminals in prison would have been substantial. $50,000/year/prisoner - even after paying for the clinics, there would be a substantial net saving to the taxpayer.
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Who do you think pays for thefts, hospital stays from overdoses, policing, prisons? Providing supervised injection to addicts is a lot cheaper than those things.
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You're already paying for it, generally hundreds of times over, in the form of your taxes paying for medical care, prison staffing, prosecutions & defenses of the accused, etc. Additionally, your hospital bills and insurance rates are higher due to the issue and on average, victims of theft or property damage due to feeding a habit affects us all.
Somebody pays in the end-- and you're right, it is the taxpayer in the end. But you're paying more by criminalizing the drug epidemic instead of treating it as
Re:The "Mile High" city - lol (Score:5, Interesting)
You assume government cares citizens not being in prison... they don't. Lives are just number on some sheet of paper to them, if it wasn't like this - they would not have destroyed as many lives as they did with utterly backward drug laws, especially when it comes to pot and stuff like this. The laws were not there out of ignorance, they were intentionally malicious. [jackherer.com]
And then there's this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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Why is Government the answer to every problem? What is the government system where you are not just a number? What would that look like? Would a giant all-seeing government care *more* or *less* about individual people? The "prison industrial complex" is just a way to frame statistics, but surely there is a link between cultural values and criminal behavior.
Excusing lawbreakers to fix the "prison population issue" is, perhaps, one of the most stupid ideas I actually see people espousing (and, unfortunately,
Re:The "Mile High" city - lol (Score:4, Interesting)
Because the War On drugs has totally failed to work, everywhere, for every single targeted substance. And every time it fails, the governmental response is to give itself more power. US drug enforcement just arrested people in France and Israel for crimes not committed in the US. Caligula, Napoleon and Stalin all put together never enjoyed such worldwide power.
We have to start treating addiction as a medical problem, rather than a legal problem.
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Thanks for the Louisiana faggot traitor's perspective. Thank GOD someone as stupid as you've been proven to be over the years here isn't in charge of "that which we need" derp.
Dude, what's with the homophobia?
Re: Wonderful. (Score:4, Informative)
Fucking stupid potheads.
I'll be the first to admit that excessive pot use will likely place you somewhere on the mild end of the loser spectrum... but if their existence bothers you so much that you'd like to see your fellow citizens taxed and policed to prevent it... you're a far, far bigger loser than some annoying pothead... we're not talking about a "Do Something About It" Class 1 Loser but a genuine "Dear God, Somebody Punch This Dumb Fuck in the Face For the Sake of All That is Good" Class 3 Moron...
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It's not enough to have a drugged-up citizenry, they now have to decriminalize more drugs? Fucking stupid potheads.
If the citizenry is already drugged-up, what good is the prohibition doing?
I would also guess that you have never tried psilocybin mushrooms. They can be quite valuable when used correctly. In my estimation a lot of people could stand to have their consciousness expanded.
Re:Interesting move, Denver. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Interesting move, Denver. (Score:5, Insightful)
Man, see, I don't think I could do that. My intoxicant days are way behind me now, but the idea of trusting my judgment regarding which mushrooms would be safe to eat scares me.
And how did your townhouse lots get psychedelic mushrooms in it? Did someone plant them there? Do you even plant mushrooms? How do you know which ones will get you high? Although I suppose picking them yourself can't be that much more dangerous than buying them off some guy named "Angel" with prison tattoos and greasy hair.
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Because they arent rare at all. People who think they are mostly do because they cant spot them.
I live in scandinavia. Pretty much any meadow or field will have liberty caps(psilocybin shroom) growing in it. And they grow from the warmer southern parts to the cold mountains in the north. Its one of the most common magic shrooms and its pretty potent. I'd be really surprised if it didnt grow throught the US and Canada. But make no mistake, they are hard for beginners to spot and identify because they sorta l
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They grow all over Canada, pretty much wherever there are pastures.
Re:Interesting move, Denver. (Score:4, Informative)
There are old mushroom hunters and their are bold mushroom hunters. There are no old, bold mushroom hunters.
Take a local with you, even if you know what to look for in your home. It's not the ones you want that will necessarily have changed, it's the ones you DON'T, that look almost identical.
Tricks like 'break the stems, eat the blueish ones', can get you killed. Don't depend on books, local _experienced_ mushroom hunters.
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And how did your townhouse lots get psychedelic mushrooms in it? Did someone plant them there? Do you even plant mushrooms? How do you know which ones will get you high? Although I suppose picking them yourself can't be that much more dangerous than buying them off some guy named "Angel" with prison tattoos and greasy hair.
People have been eating mushrooms for food and recreation for thousands of years.
Just like there are computer nerds, physics nerds, [any other field] nerds, there are nerds that study "plants that alter your consciousness" and mushrooms. There are plenty of resources for learning how to safely identify and/or grow edible and tasty mushrooms, and how to safely identify and grow plants/fungi that can be enjoyed recreationally and/or therapeutically.
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You already are.
I don't want to be on the road with drunks, but that doesn't mean I think alcohol should be illegal. I'm not sure I believe laws against recreational drugs really do much good, if any.
Re:Interesting move, Denver. (Score:4, Insightful)
OK, I'm with you. A blanket law against operating a motor vehicle under the influence. That's a traffic law, not a drug law.
But not a ban on weed or shrooms. Those would be drug laws. The difference is substantial.
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Well I've never driven on shrooms, I think most people on shrooms wouldn't attempt it under most circumstances. But either way, that's a licensing enforcement issue. You can get equally fucked as that on benedryl or common hooch.
If not more so. You can fall asleep in a car and get woken up suddenly, have cops think you're drunk and lock you up for not responding properly in the moment, perfectly sober. Ask how I know.
But you were whining about liberals who take drugs, I heard the dogwhistle as you did. L
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Oh Jesus, that reminds me that way back in the day I drove my '77 Civic wagon on shrooms. I never went above 2nd gear and ruined a clutch. I'm surprised I didn't blow the engine. You could smell something burning. The funny part is I was the designated driver because everyone else had been drinking. I didn't notice the awful sound because we had the stereo up so loud. I believe we were listening to an 8-track of Iggy & the Stooges Raw Power.
You younger Slashdotter
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To be fair, "Raw Power" is the sort of album that
A) demands to be turned up to full, ear-splitting volume, and thus
B) can lead, on its own, to full immersion in the music and not noticing the transmission is eating itself.
I'm not convinced that shrooms are required; the sheer destructive potential of songs like "Search and Destroy" is mind-boggling.
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And people too fucked up to grind it until they find it.
Re:Won't Save Your Job. (Score:5, Funny)
Meanwhile, Amazon notices an increase of pressure cookers and small Mason glass jars being shipped to Colorado addresses.
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"Amazon notices an increase of pressure cookers and small Mason glass"
and they can't figure out why "Frequently Bought Together" suggestions list bags of vermiculite, perlite and hygrometers for Colorado buyers.
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Sterilize your grains while keeping them moist.
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Who wants to work for shitty employers that think they own your life anyway?
Re:Won't Save Your Job. (Score:5, Informative)
OTOH, small doses of psilocybin can give long term relief from migraine and cluster headaches, which improves employability not to mention quality of life.
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"Legal or not, I suspect that the intersection of psilocybin users and the employed is pretty nearly the null set."
You suspect wrongly. People are micro-dosing like hell in the top level of the employment category.
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And who works in marketing? Don't tell me those people ain't high on some shit, not gonna believe that.
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Seriously, most people using psychedelics aren't frequent users, unless we are talking about microdosing. Microdosing is the usage of amounts that do not alter your perception, and you wouldn't know if the person next to was doing it or not. Unless you noticed their increase in creativity, focus, and energy.
Taking amounts that do alter your perception isn't something most people can or want to do every day. It takes seriously increasing amounts of a psych to get to the perception cha
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You're wildly mistaken.
Go to a regional burning man event, there's plenty of people with fancy jobs blowing off steam, and the general attendee is a pretty average person.
Sure, there's more burn out just travel around types that likely do odd jobs and sell small amounts of drugs for a living than an average grocery store, but it's not so shockingly skewed that way as you imply.
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The team documented some potential risks: the dosing regimen significantly increased bodyweight in male rats, for example. It also caused neuronal atrophy in female rats.
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