...then they'll nuke the moon!

Gotta nuke something!

Agreed, no need to further criminalize substances...stick to the logic of cognitive liberty and push for legalization of ALL substances.

That reminds me of the teller biography synopsis i read today in the paper. Apparently he wanted to commercially exploit nuclear bombs for all kinds of purposes like the mining industry. "you want a big crater somewhere? call us".

I suspect the real reason illegal drugs are so is a matter of productivity. "They" don't want people sitting around for hours contemplating the universe, their navel, or just zonked out, when they could be out spending money to support the economy. Tobacco and coffee do not interfere with someones ability to spend; alcohol gets people out spending money on food and entertainment; but smoking pot or dropping acid tends to result in people just sitting around--even the downsides of tobacco and alcohol generate money and jobs!

A more generalized way to express the same thing is: control. The only purpose of power is control. And, among other things, if those in power DON'T bother to impose control ENOUGH, then people would begin to see there IS no real reason to recognize the control imposed upon them...and THEN all hell would break loose!

Psychedelic drug use would NEVER have an impact on society. Ayahuasca is legal in Brazil, and it has no significant impact on the day to day affairs of the country. Those in power certainly KNOW this, and so laws against psychedelics are substantially nothing more than some ARBITRARY THING over which to exert power and control. Even the history of the legal issues surrounding psychedelics in the US shows that: at certain points in the 60's those in power were at moments DAMN SCARED of possibly losing control of things; making psychedelics illegal was very much a reaction to those moments.

So would a lot of substances if they were legal. Could you imagine the revenue entertainment cities such a Las Vegas could make if cocaine were legal? Not even off the drug itself, but from the economic results of the physical effects on the user. I'd posit that this holds true for a lot of other substances and settings as well.

Ya, no argument from me on that.

I probably should have written, `...is largely a matter of...', and made a distinction between the different addictive drugs based on the real and perceived serious of the consequences of addiction. E.g., while cocaine and other amphetamine-like drugs could be seen to keep people going longer and consequently spending more money if used rather than abused, crack and meth are seen as being highly addictive and destructive to more than just the individual and their immediate circle. So, while alcoholics often hold down jobs and remain productive, crack- and meth-heads often completely drop out. The same might be said of opiates because apparently heroin addicts can lead productive lives if they have access to their drug of choice, yet the perception is that they all end up turning to crime to support their habit.

I kinda wanted to avoid getting into those things because they are somewhat off-topic for a board focused on psychedelics.

But not so much when the topic is the War on Drugs and is going on in the "Hyperspace Tavern"

As to the addictive substances, I don't know that I believe crack and meth-heads would necessarily have as much difficulty holding down a job if their vices were not criminalized and they didn't have to struggle to hide their use. In many societies it has been shown that social taboos towards junkies and the resulting ostracization of them can be a more powerful tool for curbing their use (or at least encouraging them to provide something to the society) than outright criminalization and jail sentences. The use of opium in Hmong culture is an outstanding example of this. In a very real way criminalization is the root of all of these problems, not the substances themselves.

fair enough


Even though I'm one of those who believes it would be best to legalize all drugs, simply because the prohibitions appear to cause more problems than they cure and distorts the real story--the few people I've know who liked crack or meth way too much invariably deteriorated significantly both mentally and physically, losing the jobs they had and ending up ostracized by their non-using friends--some drugs appear to have have a bad vibe about them. It is possible my perceptions have been colored by the old, "Speed Kills", warning which I heard from the more experienced peers when I was a kid.

When it comes to the 'bad' hard drugs (strong opiates, freebase cocaine and methamphetamine) I'm doubtful that users of the stimulants amongst these would remain productive and able to hold down a job for too long.The nature of the buzz when the user gets to appreciate it is problematic because there is no point at which the user is satisfied, plus the psychic stimulation could be an obstacle to doing many jobs well.

On the other hand, I think opiates could be used pretty much indefinitely if supply was maintained and consumption didnt involve dirty needles etc.For a tolerant opiate user, the desire to take more and more in a session is limited by the nod.Also, as many of those who are experienced with opiates will probably agree, feeling a number kind of normal is often sufficient, and the need to be nodding is something that can be just for the evenings when the days work is done.This desire for just enough doesnt seem to be a feature of crack or meth use.

I can accept both of your points. I have no personal experience with "hard" drugs of any kind and very little experience with users aside from a few friends at various points in my life. I am aware of a few individuals who seemed to remain productive while on speed binges, but ultimately they did quit or were forced into rehab or other situations relating to their use. Do you think there's any way to safely regulate and allow the availability of these types of substances in our global society?

I don't know.

The way I see it you could make a graph with "healthy use" at the left-hand side of the x-axis and "destructive abuse" on the right, the y-axis is (a function of?) population. A more or less normal distribution curve can be drawn for each drug, and the peak will fall somewhere along the use-abuse spectrum. Cannabis probably has a broad curve peaking somewhat to the left of centre. Psychedelics probably have a much steeper, narrower, curve peaking farther to the left than Cannabis. Alcohol may be bell shaped (instead of spiking or flat-ish) and be pretty much centred. I imagine the meths and cracks would have a steep, narrow peak far to the right--if that is the case than the benefit of legalization for those types of drugs would only be to get their users out of the criminal system and into the health care system where they can get help.

The war on drugs has failed indeed. And I would love to see a change of this stupid policy. It had cost enough destroyed lives and resources already.
I can imagine a model when all the plants are legal. They should be anyway. Extracted and synthetic molecules could be controlled for medical use. For example poppy - legal, morphine/heroin/synthetic opioids - controlled. I would like to see what would free market available opium do to illegal heroin trade. Probably destroy it. Same goes for coca vs stimulants. Nonaddictive plants/alkaloids must be legal of course. There is no argument against that.

Wasn't it free market opium that kicked off the modern era of "drug wars"? After the British and Americans won the last Opium War the stuff started appearing in OTC preparations and turned out to be such a big problem that at about the turn of the 20th century it was made illegal.

Iirc, today India is the only place where opium production is still sanctioned. Tazmania is a centre of production but it is technically illegal (maybe was) and only allowed because opiates are in short supply; they are also the ones growing low morphine strains.

What may work is if the source plants were treated like homemade beer and wine--you can grow them and use them, but you can't sell them. Some product would be diverted into the black market because there will always be people who can't/won't grow their own poppies/cannabis/mushrooms/etc. Since anyone who wants to produce their own, could, the black market should be smaller or at least not controlled by criminal interests. So the theory goes.

All substances should be made legal, because there is no way to ever stop ANY substance that is desired by humans from being distributed. It is a simple case of supply and demand. We can make moral judgements based on what substances we personally believe to affect society in a positive way, but it does not matter.

Right now, the cartels have more firepower, technology, and money to spend on this "war" than any government possibly could. By making naturally occurring substances that are desired by the masses illegal, the governments created an underground economy where the profits are endless. No matter how many people any government puts behind bars, there will be more willing to take their places. No one sees the cartels SELLING BEER, do they?!

The United States is $14 trillion in debt, and yet we think the following rationale makes sense:

- spend tax dollars creating legislation that makes arbitrary substances illegal
- spend tax dollars enforcing the bullshit/racist/ignorant laws
- spend tax dollars housing/feeding all the non-violent drug offenders who gave into their innate desire to alter their consciousness
- spend tax dollars creating legislation destroying the personal records of drug offenders so they are incapable of pursuing higher level employment or education at any point in the future, thereby forcing them into lives of drug addiction and distribution.

I personally feel the war on drugs is similar to most problems with society in general, education is the only tool that will work.

Peace and Happy Journeys!!

"The United States is $14 trillion in debt, and yet we think the following rationale makes sense:

- spend tax dollars creating legislation that makes arbitrary substances illegal
- spend tax dollars enforcing the bullshit/racist/ignorant laws
- spend tax dollars housing/feeding all the non-violent drug offenders who gave into their innate desire to alter their consciousness
- spend tax dollars creating legislation destroying the personal records of drug offenders so they are incapable of pursuing higher level employment or education at any point in the future, thereby forcing them into lives of drug addiction and distribution. "


Don't think it could be said any better than this.

Yeah, I'm imagining it a similar way, but I still think plants should be legal(trade too). Possession of alkaloids to some extend decriminalized(for personal use for example), trade controlled. In my imagination drug pushers could go fuck themselves with lame and overpriced cocaine/crack soon if anyone could buy cheap coca leaves anytime from south american farmers on net. I personally would choose to chew coca leaves/smoke crude opium than snorting cocaine/iv morphine. But anyone could do their extracts as long they don't sell it to others. I would rather extract morphine from poppies I grow, than buy expensive dirty smack on street. It's just theory, but I think it could work better than this war on drugs nonsense.

You know you can do that even though there is a war on drugs going on, don't you? Opium poppy seeds are legal and if someone is able to extract DMT then they are easily able to learn how to extract morphine.

Well, I'm not sure if morphine extraction from seeds is efficient. There are virtually no alkaloids there, are they? That is why seeds are legal right? I'm little worried about jurema though. After custom seizures in UK, if jurema get scheduled we loose best source of spice there is. Spice need to get decriminalized!

I think seraph was saying buy the seeds, grow the poppies and extract from the flowers.