Why is LSD illegal?

Lotus, prohibition is never the answer. Two reasons, both of which I feel you, yourself, should know pretty well by now, given that you TAKE LSD.

1. The law doesn't stop people from taking anything they want to. If I spent all the money I've had the OPPERTUNITY to on psychedelics, I would have enough to trip weekly for the rest of my life at this moment. There's a lot of drugs out there, just because most drug users don't use psychedelics, there's still a lot of them.

2. Because even if it would hurt some people, that is their right. This is supposed to be a country of personal freedom, and watching out for you IS the governments job, but watching out for you does not involve abridging your personal freedom. It might, however, involve things like HELPING with drugs if you get into an opiate problem. There should be free high quality public education about drugs, but there should not be ANY oversight into what you personally take for psychotropic reasons.

I do support control of MEDICAL drugs without recreational potential, or with a potential to harm OTHERS with abuse. For example, if I abuse heroin, it hurts me. If I abuse amoxicillin, it hurts everyone when I make antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria. SO that should be a controlled drug, as it is. LSD should not.

Also the "but you'll hurt OTHERS" shit doesn't fly. First of all that's mostly because of drugs being ILLEGAL that people get hurt or hurt others, and secondly, if I run someone over with my car or jack a 711 for dope money, then charge me for running someone over with my car or jacking a 711. Simple as that. Because crimes are things that hurt others, the "motive" (heroin money) is not part of the crime, in this case, any more than it would be if I stuck up 711 for food or rent money.

 

This is precisely the standpoint I take on the legalization of drugs. People look at me like I'm a moron when I say that all drugs should be legal, but it really makes a lot of sense. It wouldn't change the amount of people doing drugs. It would only make drugs safer and get rid of the billions of dollars that are spent on the war on drugs. The idea of prohibition is just absurd. When people say that one drug or another should be legalized but not the rest, I think they're really missing the point of why it's wrong that drugs are illegal. It's not wrong that weed is illegal simply because it's mostly harmless, but because prohibition is infringing upon the rights of the people. The government spend billions of dollars of taxpayer money and accomplishes absolutely nothing. It's so hard to believe that so many people are supportive of the war on drugs when it's a blatant waste of their money.

 

I disagree with this, I wrote a paper on mephedrone and largely due to it's legal status mephedrone went from an unheard of drug to the 4th most popular drug in the U.K. in the span of 2 years when it was made available widespread, which is a rate of popularity growth that had never been seen before by any drugs. A certain percentage of individuals who had tried mephedrone had not even experimented with pot or even alcohol in some cases.

 

The reason it likely became just so popular is because it was a legal alternative in a class with exclusively illegal drugs. Sir, would you like to buy a drug that you could get locked up for or a completely legal one?

 

people in the UK are not very bright.. neither are their teeth..

 

This was a backlash caused by drug prohibition. It simply shows that the people want those drugs.

Then a few outraged soccer moms fuck the whole country over.

Those who scream the loudest are not necessarily right, or even the majority, by any means.

And the explosion of people who wouldn't do illegal drugs but who DID do mephedrone is a great example of what ignorant sheep who trust the government to protect them will do. There is VERY poor education on drug use around the world, where the LAW is a reason you don't take drugs, you have no ability to think for yourself. These are people who might not have even considered that this might not be good for you, because their legislators didn't say so yet. Drug prohibition makes people stupid and unable to think for themselves, and causes worthless pseudo-education of a type that reinforces this stupidity.

Anyway, if they wanted to take it, they should be able to. But this is not like LSD, which has a long history of being available, because it's worthwhile enough to manufacture even while being illegal. It has an established place as a drug that IS made and available, and will continue to be made and available. MMC was just a headshop product of oppertunity, everyone COULD get it, and who doesn't love a wave of easy-to-get legally-safe speed? now those people will go back to buying their classmates adderal, while saying that they don't take drugs.

 

You edited your post RooR, but, afaik, as far as anyone on the outside can know, it was 2Ce in the MN case, and in the OK case it was initially thought to be 2Ce but turned out to be bromodragonfly. There are quality posts with references at BL and DF.

The libertarian in me has not one valid criticism with those points. Deep at the heart of the matter is where, and if so, when, the government oversteps in their pursuit of 'watching out' for us. It's a slippery slope.

While valid on the face of it, that is a good example of how intention by 'the govt' can start out with good motive, and move to repressive.

And those last two points illustrate just how sticky that whole thing is. Point one is a case of regulation to prevent harm to others. Point two is the same, although the harm in that case is more indirect.
But it paints the case of how in the quest to protect the common good, regulation bogs down into repression. But also makes a good moral to the story. If we want "them" to trust us to be responsible with our psychedelics, it's our individual responsibility to be so.

Exactly.

And it makes one wonder... to suddenly legalize anything and everything would probably create a wild wild west for awhile. But how much of a 'burden to society' would drug use be if we had never gone down the road of prohibition? Would LSD use be as rampant as alcohol is? Cause as many problems? Since we'll never know for sure all one can do is guess.

 

I agree, it IS a tricky spot, located on a slippery slope, that government needs to stand on. But this can be accomplished by a more representative government with money and bribes eliminated. The pure food and drug act could be used, in a legitimate way, to control things like antibiotics, but it is obviously totally illigitimate to use it to prop up the current prohibition on recreational drugs.

I think, basically, a good rule of thumb is if it can inherently hurt others by it's misuse, it should have some control (and antibiotics do not have MUCH control, either). If I misuse LSD, there is no inherent harm to others, even if it would be possible for me to harm them (for which I should be charged). But if I misuse antibiotics, in concert with others abusing them, it could do everything from release diseases that have not been a problem in a long time, to destroying society as we know it. It could kill millions, or billions, without even thinking about it or even knowing. So I think some little control should be in place on that.

And yes, if things are legalized, it might get a little crazy for a while. But it doesn't matter, it's people's right to be a little crazy. If there is increased crime because of it, law enforcement should LOVE it, because they'll have to do SOMETHING without those pot smokers to bust.

 

Put simply,the corporatocracy can't have millions of people giggling in the woods when there are widgets to be made. And bought. And wars to be fought. If we were un-interested in the established process by dint of expanding our consciousness thru chemistry,particularly LSD,it would spell disaster for the widget makers. They will always deny citizens the right to change our beliefs away from what they want and need us to have. Alcohol is the perfect drug for this society. The results and ramifications of its use are very good for the widget makers.

 

Yah this is exactly the problem I have with the legalize all drugs camp. It's unfortunate that we have had the legislation put in place in the first place against drugs and it could very well possibly be a different scenario had many drugs not had legislation against them but I think were in such a hole with the war on drugs now that sudden legislation of everything would cause a huge mess, at least for a little while and I think we'd see much higher rates of hospitalizations, od's and misuse. In such a scenario of them being legalized in the sense alcohol is, imagine drugs like MDPV or crystal meth having adds making it seem as alluring as your average alcohol ad makes alcohol seem.

I know you are very firm in your beliefs on this issue Roorshack and it may be hard for you to accept but we have seen what happens when the free market gets ahold of drugs in Spice and Bath Salts in recent years and some of it wasn't all that pretty. And I don't really like that viewpoint that alot of those misfortunate events come from people that are just really stupid, you can't realistically expect the majority of people to be extremely knowledgeable about various drugs the way some of the individuals on this forum are, and even some who are really well versed about psychoactive drugs still run into problems.

 

People confuse what is wrong with what is illegal.
People confuse what is right with what is legal.
There were 'Nuremberg Laws' which created conditions for the Holocaust.
There are 'Hate Crime Laws' which enhance penalties based on who is victim.
There are 'Quality of Life Crime Laws' created to banish the poor. (loitering, vagrancy, illegal camping, ect.)
There are laws to protect rights (free speech) and laws to abolish rights (Patriot Act)
There are laws for driving to fast or to slow and who can drive, who can't.
I do not need laws to tell me what's right and wrong.
The only law we need: "do unto others as you would have them do unto you".
Love your fellow man. Love yourself. Respect life and property. Greed is vice, Charity is virtue.
But....yeah, traffic laws on second thought needed.
Everybody is in a hurry...including me...to be with who/what they love.
A good solution: Outlaw cars and build free public transportation systems that go everywhere....in heaven.

 

Honestly, given how dangerous and/or scary synthetic cannabinoids and MDPV can be, I'm absolutely amazed at the low rates of hospitalization with those substances, given the very widespread use. And the seemingly non-existent deaths..... There was one in the UK, that turned out to be a total media fabrication, on mephedrone..... I guess people have probably died on MDPV, I don't much care about that one though.

Again, people might hurt themselves, but that's their right. All that can be done is to educate them as well as possible.

As for ads, ANY drug should be like porno.... gotta buy the top rack magazine with the black sleeve to even see the ads, as far as I'm concerned. ESPECIALLY alcohol ads.

 

Roorshack, just curious, how would you defend the opium war? I mean the truth is, we don't know how to control our selves with drugs. We don't need lies shoved down our throats to stop it, but given the chance, I think we could lead our world to ruin, I agree with GB on this one

I think it would be possible to get all drugs legally eventually, but it'd have to be like a slow patient game of chess, we can't simply just open up the entire market. Even then, some drugs have chance for abuse, even though that's the individuals right to do what they want, the world would go down hill if we set up for abuse.

 

I just don't think it would be a problem if the country had not been hijacked by rich who profiteer from promoting a culture of stupid and of drug abuse and misuse, and of people who don't think for themselves.

Again, legalization needs to be part of a serious education campaign.

They're not legal, but they will look at you and keep walking if you're shooting up in the street, in portugal. They're doing just fine, and have decreasing drug rates. They're fixing their culture, we're pushing ours farther.

It's not something that will get better if it's illegal JUST a bit longer, it gets worse and worse the longer it's illegal, especially with the increasingly desperate lies of the drug warriors.

The sooner we stop this stupidity the better.

I'm a fusion of socialist and libertarian. I think that it's okay to do whatever you feel like if it hurts no one else in any way, but that the government should look out for people, like providing education to all. Personal freedom, including the right to knowledge and excluding the right to do things that hurt others, is paramount to a just society. Moral panic has no place in law.

I'm not saying to simply legalize drugs. I'm saying to implement wide-sweeping social policy changes and reforms, across the entire fucking board. And NOT republican "reform", which means cutting programs and increasing the power of government. Basically money needs to be taken OUT of the political equation, and policy needs to be about people, not corporations.






As for defending the opium war, of course I wouldn't. I don't believe that sovereignty of a nation supersedes civil rights or freedoms (like the freedom to take drugs) but I also do not support evil empire building, like that conducted by britan.... this type of behavior on the part of that nation in particular is a large part of the reason the world is fucked up today. They had serious problems at home, and serious human/civil rights/liberties issues at home and in all of their colonies, and it was a business motivated military action, not a liberty motivated one. The british didn't want to bring free legal drugs, they wanted to be the overpriced pushers with a monopoly on drugs. So I would not defend it.

And you know, at other points in history, I would probably be a grade A junkie and see nothing wrong with it..... but today, we know better, and people need to be allowed to choose for themselves.

 

The gov't is exceedingly bad at that too. It's as big a disaster as the 'war on some drugs' and an even bigger money pit.

BTW, how come hardly anyone grows opium? It's pretty damned easy apparently.

 

Get the fuckers out of our gene pool.

I say legalise it all. It's not as if you can't find drug information now anyway, it just needs a little push. UK has "Talk to Frank", which is still slightly bias but it's better than other shit. At high school we had a load of people come in and tell us why drugs were bad every 3 months.. Why not just sit on the fence?
Tell us the best the drug can offer, the worst the drug can offer, any possible impact said drug can have on your life afterwards, and let us make the decision ourselves. Sit on the fence and watch us play.
The reason I started exploring other drugs after I first smoked a joint wasn't because I wanted to directly "rebel" and get as mashed as possible, it was because I thought "Oh shit... all this fuss over a fucking spliff? The rest of it can't be that bad then..." etc.
The current system is a pointless waste of time, and something else needs to be done.

 

Well yes, they are. I'm saying how things SHOULD be, not how they ever WILL be.

I think that everything through higher ed should be free. If you want a free PHD or ten, as long as you're a good student, it shouldn't cost a dime. And I think that all levels of education should be much higher quality than they currently are, I deeply resent public school just being daycare.

 

It didn't cause the ruin of the world before, why should it now?
Remember most all drugs were not illegal until the early 1900's-1930-40's.

In the mid-late 1800's you could purchase cocaine, heroin, cannabis extract (hash oil) over the counter. Didn't destroy the world then, doubt it would now.

Thing is we already have the drugs that are "sanctioned" by the governing agencies readily available and legal.
Alcohol and caffeine.

As I pointed out in my prior post and scratcho nailed in his post is the fact that psychedelics produce effects that cause one to question rather than blindly follow. Not good for big business.
Alcohol doesn't elicit such insight, nor does caffeine, so from the "powers that be" perspective, they are safe and harmless.

 

same reason why every other conscious altering drug (that offers little to no medical benefits) are illegal.

 

I don't really see the point in having drugs in general illegal, clearly it does not stop people from using drugs. Also why is it some drugs are legal and others are illegal? what is so much more acceptable about drinking a couple beers than smoking a couple bowls for instance. I think it would be better if all drugs were legal and there was accurate information availible about the risks, effects, uses, benifits, downsides ect to the various drugs.

Of course some people would still develop addiction problems but rather than being treated like crimminals they would be treated as someone who needs help managing their drug use or getting off a drug they are addicted to. which I think is a much better way to go about it. Deaths would probably still occur from drug overdoses, much like deaths from car accidents occur, yet they aren't outlawing cars.

People should have access to accurate information about drugs so they can make an educated personal choice pertaining to them.....they should not be treated like criminals for using mind/body altering substances. I went a little off topic but yeah I think LSD along with other substances should be legal or at least decriminalized.