Counterpoint: PFOA / PFAS long chain polymers even at extremely low levels act as endocrine disruptors. DuPont leaks this stuff at its plants, people living near by have elevated types of specific cancers, and nothing is done.

If you can get 20 years for two sheets of LSD, I’d expect life in prison for everyone at the companies who continue to leak this toxic stuff, and full payment of affected people:s medical bills, for starters.

It doesn’t happen because LSD can be used recreationally, “drugs are bad,” and PFAS is only used by well-respected businesses.

https://theintercept.com/series/the-teflon-toxin/

Presumably they aren't dumping beyond the legal limits. That's how our system works. The EPA or other agencies attempt to determine what's safe, the government makes some regulations, and if you follow those regulations, you don't go to prison. Even if the regulations are bad.

> "Presumably they aren't dumping beyond the legal limits. That's how our system works."

They have and probably still do though[1]. Lived only a couple hours from the location of the film and my wife grew up in a city on the Ohio River they were dumping chemicals into. Was in the local paper here almost weekly during the late 90s and early 00s.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Waters_(2019_film)

That says they were dumping. It doesn't say they were breaking any government regulations.

In fact, it sounds like the government was lacking regulations on PFOA.

Sure, only because the chemicals weren't regulated yet by the government (and they fought as hard as they could to keep that from happening). Funny enough, DuPont actually had its own regulations for dumping such chemicals and knowingly violated them (which became the cornerstone for the class action lawsuits against them).

That said, there's plenty of cases of illegal dumping out there with chemicals that are regulated.

For example: https://apnews.com/9717f8be97db4944a825088dc5eee379/US-prose...

Please read these and then decide who's at fault:

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/10/magazine/the-lawyer-who-b...

https://www.salon.com/2016/01/04/teflons_toxic_legacy_partne...

In addition to a regulation’s existence, EPA must also do the testing and prosecute violations. I’m not sure they do here, even before the trump era, especially since for a while EPA was steadily lowering the safe limits. I think instances of that are contained within those articles, but unfortunately they are walls of text and you and I have no reason to greatly trust my memory.

My post was in response to this question:

> I can see the perspective that making, having, or dealing [LSD] is an unacceptable risk of harm to people who didn't consent. Is there some reason that's unrealistic?

My point was that the factors of “unacceptable risk” in regulations are laden with things that have nothing to do with actual levels of harm to people. You corroborated that point with your post; I’m only clarifying here. This is the system we have, and it can be quite bad at actual harm reduction due to cultural factors.

It’s weird to live in a world where a substance that showed great promise in therapy, fighting alcoholism and other addictions etc. has been banned for 50 years, while another substance that makes dish washing and floor cleaning easier but causes cancer and birth defects in people close to where it’s made is broadly sanctioned.

It is an unacceptable risk for people who didn’t consent, but that’s a different matter. We should punish people who give others dangerous things without consent.

Well, you can get into trouble if you start playing around with radioactive material, too. I think "The Radioactive Boy Scout" has been mentioned on HN a few times.

I think a reason why dangerous things are regulated is because even though they don't always lead to harm, the harm can be grave and impossible to undo. Even if an unexpected trip doesn't technically lead to permanent brain damage, if the behavior were misinterpreted (for instance as a psychotic episode) it could permanently wreck a person's life.

As long as you think the same arguments apply to toilet bowl cleaners, oven cleaners, windshield washer fluid, tylenol/paracetamol, antifreeze and visine, this makes sense.

Yes, I think the same argument applies to everything. That's not to say all hazards are equal or all substances need identical regulations.

> That's not to say all hazards are equal or all substances need identical regulations.

This is a non informative answer. Let's talk numbers, is 20 years a reasonable time to be incarcerated for a sheet of LSD? How many years is appropriate for a pack's worth of hand smoke, then? How about carbon monoxide from driving year round?

People don't experiment with household cleaners like they do with pyschoactive drugs.

Oh? https://www.thecloroxcompany.com/covid-19/learn-about-covid-...

Better to combat by certainly permanently wrecking someone's life with 20 years in prison.

I think there's no reason there should be a single person on both sides of the equation, never mind arbitrary choices of the harm scenario. In a contrived utilitarian scenario, you could save 1,000 people and send one to prison, or vice versa.

Apparently it's dead comment time, yay! But yes, some things are dangerous. LSD is less dangerous than many many legal things, such as guns, alcohol, driving, etc, so why is it illegal?

I read Stephen King's Firestarter at an early age, so that, and other things influenced by MKULTRA, factors in to why I think LSD is scary.

The other issue I have is that when people say that LSD can harm people with a predisposition to schizophrenia or whatever, it's frightening because it seems like a stereotyped thinking pattern that's useful for denying unacceptable causal hypotheses that might in fact be real.

There is no LSD radiation though. It can't beam itself into your mouth. Bystanders are never inadvertently drugged.

>Bystanders are never inadvertently drugged

I don't have a counterexample, as the allegations I was reading on Wikipedia are generally of intentionally drugging people,[1][2] but I wouldn't be particularly confident in your statement; how would one know it hasn't happened?

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1951_Pont-Saint-Esprit_mass_po... [2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_MKUltra#LSD

Yes. At any gathering of a certain type that’s large enough, like a music festival, you run the risk of eating or drinking something that’s been spiked with something. Most people who do so try to be up front about the “bonus content,” but because of legality they will often couch it in lingo like “space brownies” and the like. If you don’t know what that means, you could be in for a wild ride without anyone having ill intentions.

People playing around with radioactive stuff, even if they are well-intentioned, can easily mess up and contaminate themselves and others with it. Radioactivity is not detectable to any of our senses, only radiation poisoning is. Things are completely different with LSD and other drugs. You could argue that making meth is a dangerous activity in itself, but a properly regulated industry could evaporate any real need to home-brew large amounts.

Ah the whataboutism is strong here. The point is, life is inherently dangerous. We make laws to punish people for making it more dangerous. People have had massive overdoses of LSD [see Wikipedia entry for LSD], several thousand times the standard party dose, and gone on to lead normal lives. All the arguments you make are exactly the same as arguments against alcohol, but LSD is actually much safer.

By what mechanism will people who didn't consent come into contact with LSD? As residue accidentally transferred by physical contact? By that logic peanuts and other tree nuts should be illegal because trances of its oils can kill those who are sensitive, unlike LSD which is pharmacologically safe. Additionally, while there are many examples of trace residues of tree nuts triggering anaphylactic shock in those not directly handling the nuts, I haven't heard of a single person accidentally ingesting LSD that wasn't willfully handling the drug (which implies consent to any accidental ingestion in my book).

A friend of mine was dosed without her knowledge or consent at a festival. She thinks it was from a cup of punch she was given, input to this day can’t be sure of the route of ingestion. She was familiar with LSD and realized what was happening, but was not prepared for it and had a rough time.

It’s completely irresponsible to give someone a drug without consent, outside of some forms of medical intervention, regardless of your intentions.

Well, we don’t do much to regulate the most common date rape drug, Alcohol, so it’s not clear why we need to do so much to prevent adults from consensually taking it.

Is there a reason stealing 20 years is realistic for a victimless crime? Poisoning someone actually has serious criminal consequences.