Posted on 06/30/2021 9:49:04 AM PDT by Right Wing Vegan
On Tuesday, California moved another step closer to decriminalizing psychedelic drugs amid a debate over whether their prohibition is an outdated remnant of the “War on Drugs.”
The bill cleared the Assembly Public Safety Committee 5-3, with proponents touting the benefits to military veterans and others they say can benefit from the use of psychedelics to treat trauma. The measure already passed the state Senate on a 21-16 vote and now heads to the health committee before it can go to the full Assembly, NBC Bay Area reports.
If passed, Senate Bill 519 would allow those 21 and older to possess for personal use and non-commercial “social sharing” of psilocybin, the hallucinogenic component of so-called magic mushrooms. It also covers psilocin, dimethyltryptamine (DMT), ibogaine, mescaline, lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) and 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA, often called ecstasy). In total, there are 23 hallucinogenic substances on the bill.
The bill also includes language to end promotion of abstinence in state drug and alcohol programs.
After successfully navigating through three committees, the bill’s author, Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), is optimistic about the legislature’s chances.
Wiener states he is pushing the measure as a way to expand treatment for mental illnesses and roll back criminal-justice policies that he sees as discriminating against people of color.
During his interview with ABC10, Wiener said the psychedelic drugs are showing “huge potential” in terms of treating mental-health and addiction problems, but these drugs are illegal right now in California because of the “War on Drugs.”
The senator argues that this “war” has been a complete failure. He stressed that the issue of drugs is a health issue, not a criminal one. “It’s time to take a health-based approach to drugs instead of just mass incarcerating people, which just wastes money and does not stop people from using drugs,” Wiener states. “And so let’s stop arresting people for possessing and using these drugs, in this case psychedelics, and then we can talk about other drugs,” Wiener added.
When arguing about the potential therapeutic use of psychedelic and hallucinogenic drugs, Wiener cited studies by Johns Hopkins University, the University of California, San Francisco, and UCLA that found psychedelic therapies can help where other treatments have failed. Among other things, the senator said research has shown the use of MDMA can help reduce the severity of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
The bill is co-sponsored by two veterans’ groups, Heroic Hearts Project and Veterans Exploring Treatment Solutions, which work to provide veterans with effective mental-health treatments.
However, the drugs’ implications on one’s health, potential of underage use, and threats of overdose have raised serious concerns among other lawmakers.
Republican Assemblyman Kelly Seyarto said he favors anything that helps veterans, but “it has to be done in a clinical setting, it has to be done under the watchful eye of a physician” to make sure there are no ill effects. Under Wiener’s bill, he said, “this will be just like beer, you just go get the 21-year-old to give you the stuff.”
California Narcotics Officers Association legislative director John Lovell stated that even though his organization doesn’t “seek” to put people in jail for drug use, the bill’s allowance of social sharing could lead to more overdoses and fatalities from contaminated drugs, and LSD should be excluded because “it is married to flashbacks” and can result in “a trip people can have for the rest of their lives.”
According to the American Addiction Center, LSD causes changes in the brain’s blood flow and electrical activity, and affects serotonin receptors in the brain. As a result, individuals may have trouble with motor function, suffer from poor judgment and impulse control, engage in behaviors that are out of character, and be a danger to themselves or others.
Like other hallucinogenic drugs, such as LSD, DMT, or “magic mushrooms,” is thought to produce most of its effects by acting on neural highways in the brain that use the neurotransmitter serotonin. More specifically, DMT affects the brain’s prefrontal cortex, part of the brain that regulates abstract thinking, thought analysis, and plays a key role in mood and perception.
Similarly, MDMA, or ecstasy, mainly affects brain cells that use the chemical serotonin to communicate with each other. Clinical studies suggest that MDMA may increase the risk of long-term, perhaps permanent, problems with memory and learning. The use may lead to long-term neurochemical and brain cell damage. It is also used as a date-rape drug.
Mixing any of those drugs together or taking them with alcohol can amplify the side effects of substances and increase the likelihood of an overdose.
So much for helping the vets!
Even if California makes the bill law, the drugs would still be illegal under federal law.
Hallucinogenic drugs have been approved for use in other states. Oregon voters last year approved decriminalizing small amounts of psychedelics among other drugs, and separately were the first to approve the supervised use of psilocybin in a therapeutic setting.
Oakland and Santa Cruz, California; Washington, D.C.; Ann Arbor, Michigan; Somerville and Cambridge, Massachusetts, have decriminalized certain natural psychedelics that come from plants and fungi. Denver was the first U.S. city to decriminalize hallucinogenic mushrooms for personal use two years ago.
We ’ll have drugs and sex prostitutes running the streets, drag queens teaching sex ed, and communists running universities. What a state! (of confusion)!
What could possibly go wrong?
Given the state of the State of California maybe being in a psychedelic state makes sense. Don’t worry be happy, and vote liberal dude. Dave? Dave’s not here!
I guess there is NO way any juvenile could possible get any of these drugs.
“nonsmoking people in a confined space with people smoking high-THC marijuana reported mild subjective effects of the drug—a “contact high”—and displayed mild impairments on performance in motor tasks.” - https://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/research-reports/marijuana/what-are-effects-secondhand-exposure-to-marijuana-smoke
The idea that passing exposure to pot smoke can get one high is Reefer Madness hysteria.
Drug tests, and even your own quote citing "mild" effects and impairment, show this drug is getting into peoples' systems and brains secondhand. And that does not require all that much of a "confined space".
So perceiving a high is not the standard. That pothead sleazes are dosing others with their drug is the standard, and that is what is happening.
Better every single degenerate pothead sleazeball be locked up 100 miles underground, than even one person, even a child be forced dosed even 1 microgram of THC by these pieces of filth potheads.
In fact, 5 feet underground may be the perfect depth--subsequent to trial and capital punishment.
I have nothing but the utmost, purest, unalloyed disgust and contempt for all the goblins and fairies who release marijuana into the air. Society will wake up from pro-pot bs and faggotry, and the backlash will of such a force you can scarcely believe possible at this moment of our society's corruption and weakness. Backlash is coming.
especially a child, that is.
‘And that does not require all that much of a “confined space”.’
I’ve posted evidence to the contrary; where’s your evidence?
Backlash is coming against the weedsucking demons and against the pushers who deluded them. Backlash is coming against the vile, corrupt politicians who colluded in the conspiracy to normalize the drugging of our society and the faggotize its culture.
“admits THC is found in the blood of nonsmokers even in a well-ventilated area”
“THC in the bloodstream in detectable amounts” is less than “high”. Your claim remains unsupported.
“perceiving a high is not the standard. That pothead sleazes are dosing others with their drug is the standard”
If that’s the standard, then smoked tobacco should be banned - and cannabis edibles should be legal.
Where do you get the idea that you have to have a perceivable high for THC to be detected in the blood? Where those nonsmokers in the well-ventilated area high then?
I'm not bother arguing about the differences between a stimulant and a psycho drug recognized as a hallucinogen for decades until demon degenerates try to reclassify it later. I could care less about tobacco anyways.
Marijuana edibles (%*#@ your cannabis word) you might be on to something there. At there pothead sleazes keep their drug out of everyone else's air. There are other problems with marijuana in general, but edibles-only regime would eliminate the biggest one from a human rights standpoint.
“the differences between a stimulant and a psycho drug recognized as a hallucinogen for decades”
That difference is irrelevant to your “dosing others” argument. And if the specific effects of marijuana are the problem, then amounts too small to have an effect are no problem.
Are kidding? What you posted recognized effects. And those aren't even long term. This crap stays in brain tissue for weeks.
You believe in being "Noble" and "Free" ? Is it true? True freedom is not allowing some deeeeegerate scumbag to determine what amount of THC in your brain is "no problem".
Any such degenerate attempting to dictate such deserves capital punishment, and I mean that literally! In interests of what is truly "noble" and "free".
Your other sentence doesn't make sense. You are the one trying to throw in other stuff. I don't support tobacco anyways. Stop screeching about tobacco and recognize that your degenerate drug is a filthy hallucinogen and I don't give a gottdang if someone lives in a tobacco chimney, there is still no moral right for a degenerate to force-dose them that nasty THC.
Backlash is coming. #@#$ potheads!
I mean they didn't address long-term.
The brown acid is not too good.....
That difference is irrelevant to your “dosing others” argument.
there is still no moral right for a degenerate to force-dose them that nasty THC.
Nor any other drug - including the stimulant tobacco.
And if the specific effects of marijuana are the problem, then amounts too small to have an effect are no problem.
What you posted recognized effects.
Not in every circumstance. When there are effects, there's a problem; when there are no effects, there's no problem.
This crap stays in brain tissue for weeks.
In fat cells, where it's not attaching to neuroreceptors.
I was clearly talking about dosing pot, without comment either way on tobacco. But if you really believed it's the same, I'd have no problem joining in to knock down both.
In fat cells, where it's not attaching to neuroreceptors.
Potheads' hallucinogen doesn't belong in others' brains, period.
Not in every circumstance.
Effects were recognized, the stuff gets in the blood, and in the brain. The article is your own share. You want potheads to gamble with others' brains? Backlash is coming, and condign punishment will be imposed. #$@* potheads.
Remember the “Dead heads?” LSD, bubbles, tie dies, patchouli, and minds so freaking fried they never could come down.
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