Tuesday, February 2, 2016

How to Regulate the now illegal Drugs

A group in UK has studied the issues for a long time and has a comprehensive set of ideas as to how all currently illegal drugs should be regulated (instead of the crime and harm producing strict prohibition and drug war) for minimal harm and maximal benefits.

http://www.tdpf.org.uk/sites/default/files/Blueprint.pdf

They have sensible ideas for each and every drug which depend on the nature of the drugs themselves as currently known.

For psychedelics, the basic regulatory model is a membership based club model, which includes a specialist pharmacist model--a licensed drug administrator, licensed premises, and licensed users, each having clear minimum responsibilities and requirements such as training.  This sounds to me exactly how it should be done.

Even as a believer in personal liberation as well as an anti-prohibitionist, I would agree that LSD and similar drugs do require tighter regulation than Marijuana.  LSD in asocial or even less than ideal social situations can stimulate bad feelings of the kind which could lead to bad actions.  Bad trips are very possible without good planning!  LSD really only makes sense as a social icebreaker in a planned positive social scenario.  My first and far best encounter was in a short tour and concert in the desert, a great trip.  As that, it can be peerless, far superior to alcohol or marijuana or tobacco in bringing fellow users together with their warped perceptions.  Marijuana on the other hand is a relatively mild and safe general relaxant, useful both when alone and as an icebreaker, but is far weaker and only generates a weak feeling of "intersubjectivity."  But unlike Marijuana, I never got anything good out of LSD in personal solitary use.  It hightened the sense of isolation, alienation and paranoia.

I think Kesey and his thinking about intersubjectivity was correct, and that's what I mean that LSD can break the ice and bring people together as if reading from the same page.  That's a useful periodic thing, say on solstices or holidays.  We should have occasional parties like that with our tribe, I still believe.  Even as it only happened once in my life I can see the possibilities.  And it's something we greatly need in our more and more individually alienated society.  (It seems very much our masters want an isolated and alienated society--each person alone with their computer.)

The War on Drugs further isolates and alienates people.  We can't share our habits in public spaces, such as bars, parks, and coffee shops, and it gets difficult even in private spaces.  The potential for intersubjectivity is lost.



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