Should Acid Be Legalized?

Even though LSD is illegal I find there is a certain interesting aspect to its illegality. It means you can't just go down to a store and buy it, you have to take a risk! Because in the end if someone wants to find out the truth about the the universe they have to take risks (and way bigger one's than illegally doing acid!). Also, in the end, there will ALWAYS be unjust laws/governments/societies one has to deal with and stand up to! so by the very nature of how our society works it makes perfect sense that their level of corruption and greed for power/money would exclude psychedelics! Haha So therefore by having psychedelics illegal it may be in a position to create more change then if it were legal because by its very nature of being illegal it stands in another sphere of understanding then societies assumptions. By doing acid you are inadvertently and unknowingly saying 'society you are wrong' (at least initially about acid) but then from that initially small 'rebellion' one can eventually try to cut off their connections to other damaging and self-destructive societal habits that tie us all down.

Also, RooRshack there is a middle ground! everything in life has a middle ground, to say there isn't one ridiculous and narrow sighted. Think about it, LSD being illegal has made a lot of problems! arrests, fear, etc. that have negatively hurt a lot of people! and has limited very promising research into it and limited the populace's access to a beautiful consciousness expanding molecule for too long! On the other hand though, completely legalizing LSD could be disastrous for many other reasons! Young children dosing, people being drugged with extremely high doses and never being the same, suicides, more people with underlying mental disorders could have their disorders start after doing acid, people who shouldn't be doing psychedelics ending up being peer pressured by their 'friends' to do acid too and end up having a crazy bad trip and doing something insane or hurting someone else. There's a lot of possibilities. If we can't analyze the pro's and con's and try to find some middle ground then either extreme will inevitably cause more problems.

Now I don't think acid should be illegal, but its not some simple issue like it is for letting weed be legalized. Now I do understand your idea that people should be free to affect their brain and affect their body in any way one wants. BUT the thing that most people overlook with when it comes to the idea of 'freedom' in some instances is that no events ever happen in isolation. What a person does to their mind or to their body can affect other people. Our society has obviously judged that drugs do things to our mind/body that are bad for the general good for society and therefore should be illegal. I obviously disagree with our society, but the issue should be looked at more in dept.

 

That is so true roorshack. I too would be down with being a cop if I knew I didn't have arrest drug users. No matter how bad the drugs are, if the only person you are harming is yourself, it is simply not up to the government to tell us what we can't put in our bodies.

That said, I think that to minimise the abuse of LSD, it should be phased back into society. Perhaps first with a period of decriminalisation, then a period where it is only available in a monitored shamanic setting, then where it is highly regulated. It might be an idea to have some sort of system in place to stop people from buying it too often, or maybe starting first time users on a small dose.

 

but you potentially can harm others on drugs. for instance if you take a decent amount of some good acid and jump into a car and start driving. there's potential danger there that can be linked back to the LSD

 

i feel too many people would be way too irresponsible with it. Lucy is wonderful, and can change a person's life forever. Legalization is a possibility, but HIGHLY unlikely to EVER happen in the United States..

 

i really like your sig pic btw :love:

 

i like yours too. gives me Tool vibes.

 

What happens in your mind does not affect others. Hurting others is hurting others, and should and will be punished as such. Thinking in new ways hurts nothing but potentially me. If you're trying to say taking acid and going for a drive can hurt others, sure, so can taking a drink and going for a drive. And that's why these are both illegal and will both result in a DWI.

Or maybe it hurts the emperor, as he is yet to put any fucking clothes on.

 

You can not take LSD too often, or it does not DO anything.

Heavy regulation does NOT work, we can look at alcohol and see this. We can look at anything the government tries to regulate, and see this. And then we can look at european alcohol consumption rates compared to alcoholism rates (excluding britan....They're notoriously rowdy, which just HAPPENS to coincide with being a notorious nanny state) and then look at the US.

Controlling people and what they do to their minds is just wrong, and does not work.

People don't take drugs because they decide not to, if they wanted the drugs most people could find them. They don't look for them, and they don't take them, because they don't want them, and this is the same with or without drug laws, though there would be an initial rise out of curiosity.

Everyone talks about drivers when drug legalization comes up. SO, people drive on all those drugs right now. It should be illegal to drive without proper mental and physical faculties, as it is right now. You can get a DWI for being tired and sober a lot of places.

The people who will choose to take acid would be a much safer group without the uneducated people who just want to get fucked up thinking that acid is a cool way to do that. And those people will keep taking acid while acid is illegal and lied about.

It is the responsibility of the government to protect the people from outside forces, not from their own thoughts or actions. An outside force includes a drugged driver. Great, so stop the drugged drivers. But the ends does not justify the means, it's not okay to have fascist drug laws to protect people from cars. Cars and psychedelics have little in common, limiting people abusing cars, sober or otherwise, has NOTHING to do with limiting psychedelics.


Personal responsibility may not always work, but that does not mean you can treat people like toddlers. The type of people who get in car wrecks on LSD are the type of people who would get in the same wreck, legal status notwithstanding.

 

The question shouldn't be "should acid be legalized?"
We should ask, "should someone have their freedom taken away or their lives ruined because they have LSD?"

In reality, similar and potentially much more dangerous chemicals are legal and can be easily obtained. Has it caused a problem? Not really. Except when there is a mixup and people take the wrong drug or take too much, which could be alleviated with education and safe sources.

Answer this question: "Will sending someone to prison and ruining their prospects for jobs and education in the future help someone who has LSD? Will it help their family?"

If you have done or possessed LSD any time in your life: "Would sending me to jail have helped me or helped others?"

NO NO NO NO

I think people are too brainwashed into thinking that if something is not illegal it will be too risky for the public...and everyone will go crazy doing it. In general, most people will still prefer to shut their minds off with booze, anti-depressents, etc. than have a psychedelic experience.

 

are you fucking kidding me man? take 5 hits of some potent shit and you won't even know what driving IS. Atleast i wouldn't. And that doesn't make me a shitty driver sober. Granted, i HAVE driven on acid before, but it was on a low dose and it wasn't a very far drive, and it was right when i was coming up. But if you're going through an existential ego-loss peak experience the last thing you should be doing is getting behind the wheel. But then again, at that point i don't know if you would be capable of putting the key in the ignition anyway. So i do see your point to an extent that you shouldn't be linking drugs of any kind so much with driving. But it CAN be dangerous, and it seems that if it were legal you would have atleast initially a flood of a lot more kids doing it and then hopping in a car to go to a party. But fuck it, you are right the more i think about this. You can't make a law to protect people from getting in a car.

 

THANK-FUCKING-YOU:2thumbsup:

Not to mention, if someone tries to escape with acid, it may well be the last time in their lives they choose to take a drug, but it may fix the problem that they where trying to escape from with booze or whatever... They might have the world's worst trip, but still be fixed.

 

Couple of thoughts.

An underlying assumption in this discussion seems to be that things will evolve (or not) in an orderly and predictable way so that the past predicts or leads to the future. That may or may not be true. Relatively recent history, e.g., LSD, the internet, 9/11, and other events were pretty much unforseeable.

Because LSD and other substances are in the public domain (so to say, LOL) does not mean that profits can't be made. The generic drug industry is a multi-billion $ business.

And I wouldn't go hating on others because they have a different opinion.

 

Realistically, we're not going to see LSD legalized, but how about decriminalizing it and only prosecuting people if it were sold to people under a certain age or if someone synthesized acid for distribution. LSD research could resume too. By preventing corporations and drug dealer chemists to manufacture acid the supply could be kept down to a 'manageable' level while not punishing or ruining peoples' lives for taking it. Thoughts?

 

^ True! ya we have no way to know for sure how things will or will not progress.
For all we know tomorrow the 'next lsd' could be made in some lab and change the world and our perceptions on certain drugs and psychedelics!
I also have a feeling that our generation will be the one that will have a shot at accomplishing these types of changes in the future. More so than any other generation of our western society in the past.

 

Also, on a related note, does anyone know how certain aboriginal tribes incorporated psychedelics into their societies? Could anyone do them or just shamans? Were there age restrictions (such as adult initiation)? etc?

I don't know much about these cultures and have been meaning to read books/research more about them. But in the mean time I'm sure their are people on this forum with way more knowledge about them then me that know what's up! haha :sunny:

 

From psypressuk:
Dave King, an organiser of Breaking Convention, convened the Bold Visions track in the main hall. MAPS founder Rick Doblin put forward his ideas for the integration of psychedelics into society, which were very ordered and structural, working with and through existing mechanisms. On the other side there was Andy Roberts; he painted a justifiably bleak political picture, proposing instead the more organic method of integration by changing people’s attitudes at grass roots. It seems to me that these two approaches are the two legs we must attempt to walk forward with. Any one might lead to a restriction, but the two can help transform one another; an “evolving consciousness”.

Well said! I can't get from here to a situation where these substances are legal. But I can see us limping forward toward a better place that may include widespread acceptance and it seems like we are going forward. But then, Boom!, I may be addled in some way or another.

This from Monday NYT: Study from Columbia U. showing that "on college campuses each year, as a result of alcohol abuse about 100,000 women are sexually assaulted, 700,000 students are injured, and 2,000 students die from violence and accidents." I wonder how this compares with THE DANGERS OF 2C-E? This drives me insane. Maybe one thing that will happen is an >awareness of the principles of harm reduction, e.g., MDMA is waaaay safer than beer.

 

^ Yeah, whatever, they'd rather have their combat veterans suffer, their daughters sexually assaulted, and their children crippled than look at reality and the relative risks of all substances.

 

Ya from my psychology textbook it said that:

On the job accidents 75%
Drowning 70%
Murders 60%
Suicides 55%
Highway Fatalities 50%
Rape 48%
Child Abuse 49%
Pedestrian Fatalities 40%

Were all alcohol influenced/related incidents.

Those are extremely high statistics when you think about it! But alcohol's been around for so very long though that its highly ingrained in our culture and is the 'normal' drug of choice. Also, unlike LSD and other psychedelics, alcohol does not pose a threat to the world order because it just makes people stupid. And stupid people = easily manipulated people. People just spend their lives working away at a profession and then spend their money getting stupid and forgetful for a night of unrestrained actions (then repeat). Many people end up drinking (with varying frequency) their whole lives. It's really sad when you think about it and all the suffering and societal problems that arise from it. I'm not even saying necessarily that alcohol should be made illegal, people will always want and find a way to get a substance that makes them feel unresponsible for their actions and unrestrained. But as thismoment said harm reduction is probably a good idea, or atleast should be considered by the authorities.

 

No offense to you personally man, but that's a very ignorant statement. Nothing in the universe is one sided, absolutely nothing, there is 'good' and 'bad' in everything! Acid and psychedelics are not drugs like cocaine, heroin or meth. There are no 'Acid Junkies.' You should go read some positive posts and look into all the amazing life changing experiences that psychedelics can cause. Go smoke DMT or do 5 tabs of acid and come back to me

 

The problem with allowing the masses to take LSD is that taking it allows them/us to to "SEE". When one is able to "SEE", critical thinking may follow. Critical thinking is not conducive to being compliant -complacent to events deleterious to oneself, ones country, or in fact,the world. Bad news for the status quo.

The rest of the drugs are money makers for the establishment. I don't consider MJ,mushrooms and other natural substances drugs,as such.