What are our thoughts about drugs. Namely illicit drugs and thoughts regarding decriminalisation and/or legalisation. Do you think it's a human right to manipulate your consciousness? What can we learn through psychedelics? etc etc.

Indifference.
Whether it's in societies best interest is beyond me....

In reality my on the fence stance has made me a hypocrite as it suits me..

I genuinely have no way of (as of yet) coming to a conclusion so I feel my ignorance is justified..

Although my lifestyle is so - that I have yet to argue against. (Perhaps perpetuating my ignorance?)

Do you think if drugs/psycs weren't illegal or didn't have negative connotations, you'd be interested in experimenting?

As far as legislation I believe we are to consider society as a whol(to some degree) some social groups steal because it is wrong, some social groups preach because it is right(relative to the groups of course) tricky tricky.,. how legislation would effect the immediate participants, time and consequence will decide how it effects the future participants.. Empirically and mostly theoretically it can be solved? Lol way beyond me. I think maybe masque is your man.

This is all without even considering the hedonistic value of such drugs..

Not sure what you're saying here. If we lived in somewhat of a shamanistic culture for instance where people who tripped weren't condemned, would you be interested in trying? It may be an obvious answer. Hopefully we'll hear from this masque!

Experimenting is fun. We are in a science forum. A no tolerance legislation breads experimentation?

Just a thought... Man I hope I can sleep soon!

Mother nature is under strict orders at when to reward us. Dopamine is released when we eat, have sex and that which ensures our survival.

When we don't follow her orders and manipulate our pleasure centres for other reasons she punishes us, but only if we push her too much. Everything in moderation, including moderation as Oscar Wilde would say.
The moderator being mother nature who seems to agree.

The thing is not about the right that you get, i think is more about the fact that humans can't control their self and at the end it becomes really catastrophic. In my opinion people can do whatever they want but it doesn't mean that they will be able to control this!

Society would be better if most people didn't do most drugs that they do (or if the right 5 billion ODd), but the mechanisms for achieving either outcome are fairly obviously worse than the problems.

Why do you think this, Tom?

Because they **** with your desires. They change what you want and how much you want things and the things you are willing to do to get what you want / continue getting what you want.

But its obv not just that they change your desires that makes them bad... If drugs made you have an increased desire for doing public good then they would not be illegal.

No more so than money, right? Can you explain to me how marijuana ****s with your desires more so than your hunger for the Doritos posted up over there?

Why is alcohol legal then? It is also a drug and by no means achieves this. There are plenty of things, actually, that in no way directly contribute to an increase in public good that are perfectly legal. i.e. hunting/gambling/deforestation/etc.

Because they're physically and mentally destructive in general even without the prohibitionist idiocy. Why wouldn't we want fewer addicts and fewer sicker, dumber people?

This is a pretty horrendous sweeping generalisation to make. How is marijuana physically destructive? What about LSD? Both of these have no long term adverse physical effects. In terms of being "physically destructive", your Big Mac is going to be far far more -EV for your body than the vast majority of drugs. Of course, if you're a heroine addict, this is a different story. Of course, if you're overdosing on MDMA, this is a different story. If you're stupid enough to do that though, perhaps the world is now a better place without you.

Now in terms of mentally destructive, certainly a benzo addiction is going to be very -EV. In terms of drugs generally, however, they don't come close in comparison to mentally malevolent (and legal) things such as gambling addictions, or dealing with depression, etc. In fact, many would say the benefits of taking psycs (LSD, psilocybin, DMT, etc) are very very +EV for you mentally. No adverse effects and the ability to better perspectivise as well as expand your own consciousness.

Certainly, we would love fewer addicts. Addiction is everywhere, however. Gambling, food, sex, etc. Most drug users are responsible, just like most gamblers are. You're conflating all drug users with addicts, which simply is not correct.

"fewer sicker [people]" Well, the only "sick" drug users are the ones with dependencies which, as I said, is only a very small number. Proper education (which would accompany legalisation) would take care of this to a large degree also.

"fewer dumber [people]" Obviously this is a red herring and has nothing to do with drug use. To think that drugs users are inherently dumb or will be cured of their dumbness through abstinence is naive. Many of the most intelligent people in the world have been known to use psycs/other substances regularly.

In all honesty, it just comes across as if you have some sort of personal vendetta against drug use. It's the classic rightist case of "drugs are bad"; "drug users are deadbeats", etc etc without actually putting any thought into it. You think drugs are bad because this is what you were told. You inherited this ideology and have failed to question it before adopting it as your own.

Apologies for typos etc, spell checker is broken currently.

So your answer to meth, heroin, coke, tobacco, alcohol, and god knows what else (PCP, pills, etc) is to list one that's a lot less harmful. Nice argument. Smoking marijuana is obviously bad for you.

Pretty sure eating a Big Mac is slightly, slightly healthier than doing a line. Barely.

Saying "X isn't bad because Y is worse" isn't an actual argument- it's just a display of stupidity.

Of course there are adverse effects- you have to be a completely ignorant imbecile to not realize LSD has a well-studied history of adverse mental effects (no, not on everybody). And the world would be much, MUCH better if most of the "get stoned for creativity" folks just put a bullet in their head instead. About 99.9% of you (yes, you, personally, included), are complete good-for-nothing imbeciles who get drug-fueled Dunning-Kruger episodes that they've come up with a) something interesting b) that they think people give a **** about when they're just glorified bar drunks.

Instead of staying dumb ****s who keep more to themselves, they become dumb ****s who think they're insteresting and annoy everybody else. Believe me, you aren't the first such jackoff to come along and sadly I'm sure you won't be the last.

Maybe you should try a heroic dose of LSD. I'll bet in one of those altered realities you'll find a version of yourself that thinks it can read. And you'll be too ****ing high to post here and let everybody else know otherwise. It's a win-win.


God you're a ****ing idiot. Non-addicted coke users have heart attacks from using. Non-addicted smokers **** up their lungs. Non-addicted drinkers drive into trees (and other people) and do numbers on their livers. ****ing yourself up from drugs is more than possible without being addicted to them

There are drugs that literally cause loss of brain matter (among plenty of other issues). It's not "drugs are stupid" or "drug users are stupid" (although you are), it's "plenty of drugs make you stupider".

If this closed-minded passive-aggressive ignorance has resulted from your years of well-adjusted sobriety, then this is a better argument I could ever make.

http://time.com/4338947/magic-mushrooms-for-depression/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=454zquzSU-c

Seems that those who have a moral responsibility (e.g. towards family members) not to do drugs (illicit or otherwise) tend to be those whom drugs have morally bankrupted already.

PASSIVE-aggressive?

https://youtu.be/G2y8Sx4B2Sk?t=2

Yeah, alcohol is bad. Have cut down once again, trying to optimize. The optimal amount appears to be somewhere half-way to heavy drinking. 500ml of 40% spirits (preferably whisky) a week that is.

Do less, not more. That will forever be the tricky thing, but nice when you succeed. Often people don't get it. Though, it's a bit late to ban alcohol, but let's try! When tobacco is eradicated, we may give it a shot!

Good point. Looked quite ACTIVE-aggressive to me.

https://mic.com/articles/110344/14-y...ing#.HXHmfKKQ3

Or if drugs simply didn't make you dysfunctional. As deadly as alcohol and tobacco are, and as frequent as users use, most can hold down a job. That's important until automation and AI take over.

DMT is the kind of drug users claims to only want to experience once in a blue moon ( according to Joe Rogan and Terrence McKenna at least).
Legalising DMT wouldn't have a detrimental effect on society, therefore. There just isn't any incentive for legislators to do so.
The same can be said for MDMA and to some extent LSD, unlike heroin and cocaine which are a daily thing for users and thus clearly destructive.

But the question is the one that is in the OP. Drugs are a reality, they aren't going away so what do we do about them. I've argued recently how the war on drugs is what led to the rise/market of deadlier, understudied, so-called designer drugs. But I'm not arsed finding it.

^ you're right re the war on drugs. Legalisation is +EV in just about every possible way.

I agree re the LSD and DMT. Most people aren't doing it too frequently, some people I know once or twice a week (not DMT though). MDMA however I disagree. A lot of people do this every time they go out. Multiple times a week. You develop a tolerance but nothing really bad like heroine or benzo withdrawals.

Drugs are never going to be a healthy choice (excluding medicinal and shamanic usages). But I don't think this is good reason for people to be rotting in prison for drug -related offences. There are plenty of unhealthy legal things. You can be anti -drugs as a matter of personal choice , just as some people are anti-meat as a matter of personal choice, but I don't know why the govt has decided we shouldn't get a choice re drugs.