Personally, I enjoy smoking/using marijuana. I think it should be legal. I agree with all the typical talking point about legalizing it and the social harm caused by the drug war.
But nothing is more annoying that potheads pretending that some minor study somewhere showing that marijuana has some minor positive effect on something or other means it's a "miracle drug."
What is even worse - various nefarious actors - from intelligence agencies, to Big Pharma, to various players with their own agendas, have a long history of, and a very obvious financial/power stake in, promoting - or perhaps over-promoting - certain social trends, including recreational drug use - and have co-opted a HUGE group of people who should know better to exaggerate the benefits of various things.
St. John's Wart, ten years ago, was "just as effective as Prozac," and everyone was talking about "herbal remedies." The reality was that daily exercise was, for most people, "just as effective as Prozac" but that doesn't have the "cool factor" of being "like, against the drug war, man."
Intelligence agencies have been trying to use drugs like LSD for a half-century to do what in their own lingo is "mind control" yet every time some ad supported, Fortune 500, In-Q-Tel publication like Wired.com tells us how "all the super-smart Silicon Valley execs are micro-dosing on LSD" even hinting at a slight objection will get you downvoted to hell on these social media sites like Hacker News and reddit.
There's a reason for that but no one wants to risk their social media karma pointing it out - you might be accused of being a "alt right neo-nazi trump kkk racist sexist homphobica" something or other.
Your LSD theory is, um, odd.
Just because these drugs have overly enthusiastic users doesn't diminish the fact that they do have some real value.
Really? You must be completely unfamiliar with the history of LSD, which was introduced to American (and Britain) by the CIA (and MI5/6.)
Odd? I was 15 when I went to the public library and read the well-documented history via such famous books like "Acid Dreams" and "My Problem Child" and "Storming Heaven."
What I say is "odd" is how the Silicon Valley/In-Q-Tel has been able to reintroduce LSD - and make it "cool" again - while conveniently ignoring the well-documented history of why stuff like LSD was made illegal in the first place.
HINT: California parents in the 1960s were not particularly happy that intelligence agencies used their college aged children as subjects for unethical and in many cases out-right illegal drug experiments - and continued to do so when they used the democratic process to try to stop it.
>Just because these drugs have overly enthusiastic users doesn't diminish the fact that they do have some real value.
"Drugs" is a pretty wide category, isn't it? Heroin is a drug - so is aspirin. Would you care to be more specific?
The intelligence community thought they might have a miracle "mind-control" drug on their hands. Please show me the evidence (or reporting of such) that these programs were successful and are is still employed today.
It wasn't just the "intelligence" community that thought they had a powerful new tool -- legitimate researchers did plenty of work with it too.
HINT: Researchers are showing significant results using MDMA and Psilocybin for treating PTSD.
HINT: Plenty of California parents were not happy that their college age kids were exposed to LSD through non-governmental agents (a.k.a. dealers). Do you have any evidence that Owsley Stanley worked for the CIA?
You wanna know why they really made it illegal? Because unlike alcohol, which deadens the senses and is responsible for tens of thousands of deaths each year, LSD has the power to expand the consciousness of the user and they might question the status quo.
Is that prior paragraph correct? Nopes, can't prove it, but it makes much more sense than your conspiracy theories.
As to the other "drugs" which you inserted: they should be legalized and regulated too. Any sort of ostensible "harm reduction" is eclipsed by the damage that the criminalization itself causes.
My brother died of a heroin overdose. Having it be illegal didn't stop him from getting hooked and only made treatment harder to get.
Self-righteous moralizers such as yourself only continue to let the madness of prohibition continue.
Of course, this is only one vector of incoherence in your rambling bundle.
> one vector of incoherence in your rambling bundle.
All the evidence of harm is played down while minuscule "benefits" are widely exaggerated in the media - by the same media companies that "just happen" to be funded by the same people promoting these same drugs.
If I was instead talking about private industry, like say, Monsanto, I would be social media points on social media properties like Hacker News and reddit.com, which are typically funded by In-Q-Tel.
But going against the institutional agenda of In-Q-Tel (i.e., intel agency) funded sites like Hacker News and reddit.com will - obviously - get downvotes and hostile trolling like "rambling bundle."
I would challenge anyone to find In-Q-Tel funded media properties publishing anything even slightly negative about LSD - or even marijuana.
In fact, try to find a published article that is not overtly pro-LSD in the various online publications funded by In-Q-Tel (CIA) since the 1990s - it's more difficult than it would seem.
You will, on the other hand, be greeted with a well coordinated campaign of insults and "trolling" typified by such ad hom as "incoherence" and "rambling."
It's a pattern that is extremely easy to detect."
Meh, I say stuff against the grain all the time. It is how you say it, defend it, and listen to replies.
Stick around, you'll figure it out. Loads of smart people here. I often get voted down and then someone comes along and reads it. Votes don't much matter, so long as you try to follow the written rules.
If you do make a claim, be ready to defend it with civility. Like all forums, some are more receptive than others. Here? I notice a higher percentage of reasonable and smart people. Keep am open mind, you can learn a lot here.
HN is a great educational resource. That's how I typically see it. Sometimes, I get to share what I know but I usually just learn and click links. I lurked for like a year and a half before I posted.
Seriously, stick it out. Civility goes a long ways here. It's sometimes amusing to see the crowd deal with uncivil responses.
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Are there risks with LSD, fuck yeah. Is cannabis completely benign? Fuck no.
The problem that you just don't seem to fully comprehend is that demonizing and criminalizing them are actually in the government's interest far more than your conspiracy theories.
And as far as this rash of celebrating newfound drug freedom, maybe that's because it's been in the shadows so long that people get excited to have it come out into the light?
Take a break from the reefer and get your head on straight.
It's a drug. Yes. It has medicinal value but most people like the recreational aspects of it. Deal with it.
Marijuana has been used for millennia as medicine why all the hate? Let it help the sick people and let the others enjoy it's other aspects. No one will force a joint into your mouth. You will be safe...
What "hate?" I read the whole thread and I cannot fathom anything even close to anything that could be considered "hate?"
What I read was an extremely mild annoyance at how potheads have developed something extremely similar to a religious cult where their favorite (and my favorite) recreational drug must always be praised and its minuscule benefits must always be exaggerated and paired with a ridiculous and frankly comical pretense at "oppression" because it's not technically legal (although it is de facto legal for virtually everyone reading this website and most like it.)
>"When I first started this project, I really thought of medical marijuana as a joke"
http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2015/07/14/42287697...