This is ridiculous. A single French teenager(17yo) jumped off the Nemo Building[1], which lead to mushrooms being banned. There are several problems here. This building has a low railing around the tall publicly accessible portion, and no real safety features to prevent jumping. Teens this age are notorious for impulsively jumping from these types of structures, it's why The Vessel in Hudson Yards in NYC was closed. There's no real reason to suspect the mushrooms caused the incident given the previous two factors.

As for the animal sacrifices, I couldn't find a single news article from 2000-2007 referencing this. I also couldn't find any good crime numbers.

The whole illegalization push in 2007 from available news sources was tied to this one suicide and damage to French-Dutch relations.

[1]https://www.google.com/search?q=nemo+building+amsterdam&rlz=...

Having stayed on a crane in Amsterdam (Faralda crane hotel) which was absolutely thrilling and simultaneously insane, I can vouch for the fact that 'safety standards' in Dutch buildings are far lower than those in the US. I actually found it refreshing, to be honest, from the railings and gates I'm used to in the US, but there was nothing that was going to stop me from even accidentally taking a dive off the crane. The upshot of that is a rooftop crane hot tub, though, so I mean...

It's a cool place for sure. It seems like the US at 14 per 100,000 and The Netherlands at 11 per 100,000 have similar suicide rates. Jumping makes up a far higher share in the Netherlands at 3rd or 4th most common depending on the year (per statista.com), and barely registers in the US. Gun availability may be the reason here, but I wouldn't count out the total lack of safety infrastructure around heights as a factor.

For sure; I have to say, while it was expensive (to the tune of $800-1000 euros for a single night, hence why I only stayed a single night), there is very little more thrilling than staying on a crane that still moves in the wind (giving you a new view every few hours), or skinny dipping in a hot tub on the roof of said crane because you're the only ones staying there, etc.

I know it sounds like I'm writing a Yelp review, but it was fantastic. :)

That does sound fun.

So silly, considering all the noise and accidents alcohol directly causes. But then a single bad case after someone taking psychedelics, and they reverse.

Its not silly, for some psychedelics are fine and they can handle them ok. But others have psychotic breaks that are irreversible. I feel like SF is already a city that is very dysfunctional with crazies screaming at nothing, why make a really bad situation worse?

Some people who drink alcohol are fine and they can handle it okay. Others drink and drive and kill people, or become addicted and/or kill themselves. Should we go back to prohibition?

This is a straw man argument, having a permanent mental change after having a "bad trip" on psychedelics is not analogous to drinking a beer or too much whisky and doing something dumb(or worse). There is not evidence that a person consumes one drink and goes into psychosis or has permanent mental changes like with psychedelics. I am not against having psychedelics for certain situations(under controlled situations) but you are playing with fire and your mind and sanity are the tinder and are rolling the dice so to speak.

Citation required. I have yet to see a single reputable paper or study that describes a 'permanent mental change' for the worse, like psychosis, after a single encounter with psychedelics.

What are the negative permanent effects of a "bad trip"?

Perhaps not a single bad trip, but a couple years of bad drug habits can lead to permanent brain damage among those who aren't careful and knowledgeable about what they ingest and the dosage. It is a factor in the homelessness crisis.

Right, opoids and meth and etc can cause permanent brain damage over time. But psychedelics...?

So your solution is in principle to incarcerate the overwhelming majority of users who suffer no ill effects…

Do you also advocate for the criminalization of alcohol?

Textbook whataboutism--and I hate that phrase.

Yes, and both substances should be controlled. Uncontrolled hard drugs are harmful to society, but it seems like the ignorant, naive youth of today are going to have to learn some hard lessons on the topic from first principles.

Controlled hard drugs are harmful to society, the only country that has decriminalized everything is doing very good in that regard.

> Yes, and both substances should be controlled.

We tried that here in the US. The result was a a proliferation of organized crime.

Yes we made murder illegal and organized crime engages in that too. Guess laws are just pointless

Organized crime doesn't profit from murder to anywhere close to the same degree it did from illicit alcohol sales or still does from illicit drug sales.

Crying "whataboutism" isn't a rhetorical shortcut to dismiss a reasonable argument. It's hypocritical and silly to allow alcohol and not other recreational drugs with similar safety profiles. It's also untenable to completely restrict alcohol.

Similar safety profiles? I'm not a drinker, but I think you need to drink a LOT of alcohol to state hallucinating? I.e. most people don't do that.

Yes, but hallucinations aren't the main problem. Assaulting people and zigzaging on the road after just a few drinks is a bigger problem than having blurry vision and seeing weird colors. I took a shitton of psychedelics, I never saw anything that wasn't there.

Psychedelics never made me black out, piss on the floor/all over the room, never made me want to assault someone, or made me act like an asshole, but alcohol on the other hand....

You might be overestimating the effects of hallucination. Someone who's hallucinating is not necessarily more impaired than someone who is drunk.

Imagine this- you hear something behind you (a real sound), and for a moment you are startled, thinking someone else is in the room. You soon realize that this isn't the case.

Someone on hallucinogens might take a moment longer to realize that there is nobody there. They imagine the intruder a little more vividly, their heart rate goes up a bit more. But just for a moment.

In contrast, if there actually is someone there, a drunk person might not realize it. Their senses are dulled. Instead of seeing things that aren't there, they fail to notice things that are there. It's the opposite.

You're right that the safety profiles are dissimilar, but if anything it's the other way around: alcohol is significantly more likely to result in long-term illness or death than e.g. LSD.

To start hallucinating? Sure.

To engage in dangerous behavior? Hardly.

That said, alcohol is a lot more predictable in its effects for a given dosage. And also the dosages are a lot more reliable. There's a reason it's perceived "not as bad" as hallucinogenic drugs.

"Similar" does not mean "identical." Yes, they affect the brain in different ways. The net safety profile for individuals and society is (arguably) similar.

This isn't whataboutism, it's very specifically comparing the societal consequences of two drugs and the possible consequences.

It's not whataboutism bring up other risks that as a society we tolerate, when we are thinking about restricting one.

One drug is possibly more harmful but is already legal almost everywhere, deeply ingrained in many aspects of Western society and has a history of issues regarding criminalization

The other is possibly less harmful but it is currently illegal/controlled pretty much everywhere and has a niche demand.

I think its entirely reasonable to think that we should not open up a whole new can of worms.

How is the can of worms not already open? The War on Drugs has failed to put a dent in drug consumption habits.

My suspicion why there was an uptick of incidents in NL/Amsterdam was the influx of people specifically seeking those substances out, with little safety education or experience. If they were more widely available, the incidents would be far more diffuse, and likely fall below the noise floor. Plus, wider awareness means better overall substance education and understanding, meaning fewer folks getting in over their heads and acting a fool.

The same "can of worms" argument was leveled against cannabis legalization, and turned out to be overblown, there was no outbreak of reefer madness.

Another way of looking at it is that right now only the kids buy and consume shrooms, and they do so completely unsupervised.

Specifically for the psychedelics, the danger is that people will see capitalist structures for how ridiculous they are

They aren't dangerous to individuals, only rent seekers

Good time to quote the cosmic bard, Terence McKenna.

"Psychedelics are illegal not because a loving government is concerned that you may jump out of a third story window. Psychedelics are illegal because they dissolve opinion structures and culturally laid down models of behavior and information processing. They open you up to the possibility that everything you know is wrong."

That's the worst argument for socialism I've ever encountered.

There was no argument for socialism.

Such statements are never made in a vacuum. There's always context, even if unstated.

It’s not an argument, it’s a drug-induced psychotic musing…

> Public suicide, animal sacrifice, crime etc.

That's just normal in SF streets already lol.

No different than reefer madness. People do all that shit without psychedelics

Psychedelics still can’t legally be sold in SF. What good is criminalizing simple possession?

Besides, for every animal sacrifice on LSD there are 100 (probably more) drunk drivers crashing into trees, parked cars, oncoming traffic, and pedestrians, and alcohol is totally legal and widely used.

> Besides, for every animal sacrifice on LSD there are 100 (probably more) drunk drivers crashing into trees, parked cars, oncoming traffic, and pedestrians, and alcohol is totally legal and widely used.

That seems to ignore the fact that there are far more people drinking than tripping. I'm not saying that with an equal numbers of users the math wouldn't still make drinking more dangerous, I really don't know, but it's an unfair comparison.

Unsure if by "parked cars" you've meant crashing into parked cars or parked cars by themselves being a bad thing

I think they meant "crashing into parked cars". Because if you interpret it the other way, it implies that they also consider the mere existence of oncoming traffic and pedestrians a bad thing.

>it implies that they also consider the mere existence of oncoming traffic and pedestrians a bad thing

Why not?

I'd love to read a bit more about this. Do you have any interesting reading on how psychedelics were legalized or decriminalized in the Netherlands and the resulting affects on society? I'll Google it, but maybe you would know better :-)

Lol, these stories are like bringing up some horrific accident every time someone talks about cars.

Things happen, that's life, but it's really important to put things into proportion at some point.

You can already get hard drugs in the open here, the serious incidents would already be happening