"But Rachel also has another hobby, one that makes her a bit different from the other moms in her Texas suburb—not that she talks about it with them. Once a month or so, after she and her husband put the kids to bed, Rachel texts her in-laws—who live just down the street—to make sure they’re home and available in the event of an emergency.
“And then, Rachel takes a generous dose of magic mushrooms, or sometimes MDMA, and—there’s really no other way to say this— spends the next several hours tripping balls.”
If only people spent any time actually investigating what was said and not defaulting to pearl clutching because of the propaganda they’ve been fed, we could in a much better world.
We know people can use alcohol responsibly. And alcohol is the most debilitating, aggression causing and all around harmful substance. In some data, it loses out to hard core opiates, but in most aspects, alcohol is genuinely more risky.
Serotonergic substances, such as MDMA and mushrooms are less harmful than cannabis.
https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2019/06/25/what-is-the-most-dangerous-drug
Serotonergic substances have been shown to have extremely positive effect for mental health when used in a responsible and reasonable way, such as doing them once a month with good preparation. Usually most people trip perhaps once or a couple of times a year, but once a month isn’t “too much”. If it was weekly, then that would be a bit excessive. But remember that with drug abuse issues in terms of other substances, like alcohol, tobacco, meth, opiates, your would have to do them daily.
It’s rather impossible to binge shrooms, lsd or ecstasy. They just stop working so fast. If alcohol built tolerance at the same speed, after a few drinks, you’d need double to feel the same, and after a sixpack, you’d hardly feel anything unless you started drinking straight up booze and even that wouldn’t get you drunk.
As in, you could want to binge shrooms or lsd or mdma once you start, but even if you shove your face into it, 24 hours later you’re just not going to be high. You might be rather confused if you’ve just stayed up binging, as it will have an effect, but it’ll be more sleep deprivation at that point.
I wish I could relay all my experience and knowledge on the subject. I’m absolutely convinced you would agree. But I know how much of the drug war propaganda stands between that understanding and arguing against it. Took me years to accept we need to legalise all drugs after realising we have to legalise cannabis. And that was like 20 years ago. It’s not to increase use. It’s to prevent abuse and take the trade away from criminals. (Taxing the global drug trade would easily cover ending world hunger, for one.)
Here’s a great organisation to have a peek at.
Multidisciplinary Association of Psychedelic Studies.
Founded in 1986, MAPS is a 501©(3) nonprofit research and educational organization that develops medical, legal, and cultural contexts for people to benefit from the careful uses of psychedelics and marijuana. MAPS previously sponsored the most advanced psychedelic-assisted therapy research in the world and continues to support psychedelic and marijuana research with a focus on the people and places most impacted by trauma.
Hope that answers some of your questions, although, I expect a lot of the viewpoints I have are straight up unacceptable to you for some reason or another.
I think I made a lot of other points besides the remark that we need to reform most drug laws.
The other point you made was “psychedelics aren’t necessarily worse than alcohol or cannabis”, and I feel like I already responded to a similar point elsewhere.
Getting drunk (or high) with children in the house is also not good. I would not expect that to be applauded either.
You mentioned “responsible” alcohol use. Getting drunk around your children is not responsible alcohol use.
People who drink responsibly either have a single drink or two and stop before they get intoxicated, or they go out and hire a babysitter, or they send the kids to the grandparents for the night.
(If you are “tripping balls” and unable to drive, you are intoxicated.)
Wait, who is cannabis killing and how is it doing it?
Edit: Also, crack cocaine being worse than powder cocaine is racist bullshit, so I don’t trust this chart.
https://oxfordtreatment.com/substance-abuse/cocaine/crack-vs-cocaine/
It’s quantifying harm, among other things. The difference between free base cocaine (aka crack) and cocaine is nothing, you’re right. But unfortunately the method of using it usually smoking with crack, and that leads to more harm. If you’re a very casual user, you’re more likely to snort cocaine than smoke crack. Which is why there’s a seeming disparity.
The difference in userbase isn’t as big in the UK as it is in the US, afaik.
