> different hallucinogenic compounds, mainly nicotine, tryptamines and tropane alkaloids have been chemically documented in Prehispanic artefacts from the Americas, and psychoactive compounds of Cannabis in archaeological wooden braziers from China.
> The alkaloids ephedrine, atropine and scopolamine were detected, and their concentrations estimated [in human hair]
> The results furnish direct evidence of the consumption of plant drugs and, more interestingly, they reveal the use of multiple psychoactive species.
Basically, we have long discovered "drug paraphernalia" and other adjacent materials, suggesting drug use (namely cannabis, tobacco, various psychoactive mushrooms, opium, various stimulants like areca and ephedra, deliriants like Datura, and of course alcohol). But we haven't known for sure that these meant the drugs were consumed recreationally/medicinally. This gives direct evidence the drugs were in fact consumed deliberately.
tl;dr - Homo sapiens got high.
Since hunter gatherers naturally passed along knowledge of the safety of edible plants, at what point did they figure out how to get high and start passing that along too? It's entirely plausible that our species and immediate ancestors have been getting high for millions of years! Since we have to eat anyways, we might have discovered our first high before our first stone tool!
Kinda puts the war on drugs in an even worse light.
People had no aspirin, no painkillers, multiple parasites, diseases, rotting teeth, etc.
While getting high may have been part if it, for some, it may have been relief.
Wait what? Nicotine is hallucinogenic? What sort of ungodly dose do you need for that.
>The analysis showed the presence of atropine, scopolamine and ephedrine in the three replicated hair samples (Fig. 5) at the following concentrations: 6.7, 9.2, and 10.7 (mean = 8.9) pg atropine/mg hair, 384, 423 and 504 (mean = 437) pg scopolamine/mg hair, and 295, 328 and 367 (mean = 330) pg ephedrine/mg hair.
Drug use in the broadest sense.
Atropine and scopolamine are no fun drugs as deliriants they require extraordinary skill. In this case the ratio of atropine:scopolamine could be indicative of Datura stramonium [0] growing in the region.
Most recreational drug users who try to experiment with Datura et al. quickly realize after "waking up" ~ 24 hours or so totally disoriented in questionable disposition with little to no memory with what had happened that it is nearly impossible to put them into "good use" and leave it be at some point. Regular use is mostly documented by highly experienced shamans (i.e. experienced in different forms of altered state of consciousness).
[As a note aside: In 1934 Bill Wilson a struggling alcoholic and later founder of AA had a transformative experience under the heavy influence of atropine and scopolamine ("Belladonna Cure") after which he became sober:
>At Towns Hospital under Silkworth's care, Wilson was administered a drug cure concocted by Charles B. Towns. Known as the Belladonna Cure, it contained belladonna (Atropa belladonna) and henbane (Hyoscyamus niger). These plants contain deliriants, such as atropine and scopolamine, that cause hallucinations.
It was while undergoing this treatment that Wilson experienced his "Hot Flash" spiritual conversion. While lying in bed depressed and despairing, Wilson cried out: "I'll do anything! Anything at all! If there be a God, let Him show Himself!" He then had the sensation of a bright light, a feeling of ecstasy, and a new serenity.] [1]
Ephedrine on the other hand is a stimulant (methamphetamine analogue with a hydroxyl group at the β position), now mostly used by bodybuilders in much higher doses (an order of magnitude higher than measured in the hairs above) to effectively burn fat.
[0]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datura_stramonium
[1]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Alcoholics_Anonym...
I loved his books when I was a kid - but with serious grains of salt, obviously.
In Wickard v. Filburn, a farmer grew grain on his farm. He did not sell this grain, whether across state lines or otherwise; he merely fed it to his own livestock on the same farm. SCOTUS ruled that this could be regulated via the Commerce Clause because, if he grew his own grain, he could be expected to buy less grain on the open market, which could indirectly affect interstate commerce. By that logic, virtually anything can affect interstate commerce, and be regulated as such.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judicial_Procedures_Reform_Bil...
I have always thought Wickard v Fillburn was wrong decided, though.
It just says that any mere omission shouldn't be construed to mean anything. The lack of an enumerated right to privacy doesn't forbid the courts from deciding we have one.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Necessary_and_Proper_Clause
[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commerce_Clause (technically an enumerated power, but the broadest and vaguest one by far)
"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
Probably because most people want regulations and enforcement around pharmaceuticals. If we decide that the government has no power to pass laws surrounding drugs we'd be hurting ourselves.
This isn't how we do things and to some these ideas seem like madness, but it's hard to argue that our existing system doesn't harbor its own brand of lunacy. Putting everything in the hands of an central government is a path we've chosen, but it's not the only path.
The war on drugs would have never gotten off the ground. We would have whole above board industries for recreational drugs which would just be "agriculture" instead of black markets and cartels. Government couldn't touch birth control, PrEP, or whatever bs de jour they want to ban. People wouldn't have to worry about living with chronic pain because they get labeled as a drug seeker.
https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2019/6/5/18518005/prohibit...
https://time.com/5501680/prohibition-history-feminism-suffra...
The Ninth is a reminder that the Tenth has its limits too.
I wouldn't be so eager to go back to the days of snake oil salesmen who can be fully honest about what something contains, while lying through their teeth about what effects it would have, or the research they've done.
Where if you do take something that makes you sick, or a batch of bad drugs floods the US market you can't possibly track down the people responsible because there are countless people on the street and the internet selling medications, with new unlicensed and untracked sellers popping up and disappearing all the time and no way to trace a particular pill or formulation back to the maker. Where the people who are sickened or the families of those who have died will be required to have enough money and time to take massive corporations to court and prove that a specific company and their drug was responsible for the harm, and that it couldn't possibly have been any of the other totally unregulated drugs the victim had taken at any point in their lifetime.
Where quality control is not mandated and there is no inspection or oversight of manufacturers. Where testing and clinical trials aren't required. Where there is no post-marketing monitoring for adverse effects. No rules against selling addictive substances to adults and children.
Where it's perfectly legal for pharmaceutical companies to bribe doctors to prescribe their drugs to the sick and desperate and to sell them at any price. Where there are no limits whatsoever on advertising them. No rules on how drugs should be labeled or regulations requiring sellers or manufacturers to make people aware of a drug's side effects or contraindications ("Our drug is perfectly safe! It isn't our fault the dumb consumer took it with that other drug and it killed them! They should have done their research! Caveat emptor!"). No rules about drugs requiring a prescription leading to people buying and taking them inappropriately and nothing to stop people from stockpiling essential medications making them scarce.
Over and over again we see how even our current regulations have been weakened and the regulators captured by industry and how and it's resulted in our regulations failing to protect people. We've already seen how totally ineffective those commercial speech and negligence laws you want to exclusively depend on have been at protecting Americans from cosmetics (https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/features/harmful-chemicals...) and supplements https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2015/10/14/diet-pills-and-...) that are almost entirely unregulated.
I'm all for the legalization of recreational drugs, but I want those drugs heavily regulated like any other pharmaceutical. Be careful what you wish for, and spend some time studying what things were like before the US had drug regulations before you go suggesting we throw away over a hundred years of progress. I promise that while things aren't great, they are much better now than they were before we regulated drugs.
UL is partially funded by taxpayer money in the form of grants, is itself regulated by the US government (https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-29/subtitle-B/chapter-XVI...) and for decades it was even tax-exempt! That's not a great example of some random but trustworthy body selflessly protecting the masses without the involvement or oversight of government.
> Finally, we could offer no direct regulation, but states could place strong penalties for any harms caused by dangerous products
And if you get seriously sickened by a product you then must have the resources to prove in court against a massive corporation that it was a specific drug, from one specific company that made you sick and that there's no chance it was any of the other totally unregulated and untested drugs from random sources that you've taken over the course of your lifetime that caused the problem. You'd also have to somehow trace a drug back to a manufacturer who could pop-up and vanish at a moments notice since nobody is keeping track of anything. Not ideal...
> to some these ideas seem like madness, but it's hard to argue that our existing system doesn't harbor its own brand of lunacy. Putting everything in the hands of an central government is a path we've chosen, but it's not the only path.
We've fought tooth and nail for what few protections we have today while pharmaceutical companies have worked tirelessly to exploit and undermine that same system of regulations. With so much at stake, it makes sense that people would hesitate to throw away what progress we have made to try some new unproven thing, but you're right that our current system has its flaws so changes need to happen. What's important is that the end result of those changes makes us all safer and makes it harder for companies to get away with abuses.
As far as leaving everything up to individual states, I know that if I were a drug manufacturer it would be a hell of a lot less of a burden if I only had one set of rules to follow, only had to allow one group of inspectors into my facilities, only had one set of licensees I had to acquire and maintain, only had one place I had to report side effects and submit approvals to etc. Putting everything in the hands of one centralized agency that covers the entire nation is a huge win for drug companies and consumers who don't need to worry that the drug they pick up on one state isn't held to the same standards as a drug they pick up in another. Sometimes centralization is simply the most efficient way to handle something and it'd take a lot to demonstrate that decentralization would be an improvement for pretty much anybody.
https://www.nytimes.com/1914/02/08/archives/negro-cocaine-fi...
> Led by pietistic Protestants, prohibitionists first attempted to end the trade in alcoholic drinks during the 19th century. They aimed to heal what they saw as an ill society beset by alcohol-related problems such as alcoholism, family violence, and saloon-based political corruption. Many communities introduced alcohol bans in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and enforcement of these new prohibition laws became a topic of debate. Prohibition supporters, called "drys", presented it as a battle for public morals and health. The movement was taken up by progressives in the Prohibition, Democratic and Republican parties, and gained a national grassroots base through the Woman's Christian Temperance Union. After 1900, it was coordinated by the Anti-Saloon League. Opposition from the beer industry mobilized "wet" supporters from the wealthy Roman Catholic and German Lutheran communities, but the influence of these groups receded from 1917 following the entry of the U.S. into the First World War against Germany.
Direct evidence is that we still call tax on alcohol and tobacco "sin tax".
Other psychedelics were more popular in white communities. For instance, American Counterculture started in the 1960s and by 1966 Congress passed the Drug Abuse and Control Amendment. This was directly to address magic mushroom and LSD use. By 1970 we had the Controlled Substances Act which placed all psychedelics under Schedule I. The only exception being for Native Americans. [2]
Cocaine is a bit more interesting because it actually was commercially viable for a long time. It was in everything from Coca-Cola to wine and cigarettes. It was banned in 1914 with the Harrison Act. [3] This one was banned for a mix of legit and racist reasons. It's documented that internationally there was more crime due to addiction spreading like wildfire after the Spanish-American and Philippine-America wars. On the other hand, the language used in the US to gain traction to ban it was entirely racist and inaccurate as most users of Cocaine were white. [4]
Nixon did aim Marijuana enforcement at the Black community. Rhetoric in the 1800's used racist language to get the bills passed, but primary users were white. Almost all other prohibitions had to do with morals, religion, and crime. Sometimes it was a mix of all of the above. The commonality in almost all prohibitions was putting more of ones opponents in jail.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prohibition_in_the_United_Stat... [2]: https://psychable.com/history/history-of-psychedelics-in-ame... [3]: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8473543/ [4]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrison_Narcotics_Tax_Act
So people were likely to be limited to some degree, in what choices they had. And the winter was isolating for many, I recall reading newspapers from the late 1800s (eg, 1880 onward), about how small towns were so happy to "dig the road out" and talk of "getting fresh supplies".
Even with trains, and shipping, and world wide trade that the British Empire afforded at that time, if your road had 15 feet of snow on it, well.. you weren't going 50 miles to the next town.
So they had to store, locally, everything for the winter. And my point is, 19th century trade was immense.
I can imagine tribes had some trade, but I doubt it happened at most times of the year, and I imagine it wasn't guaranteed delivery of some items.
So I think, truly, local was it.
You do the math for us, you seem to have all the answers.
- Activities staying inside state lines should not be subject to federal regulation so that people don’t get sent to prison in droves for what is essentially a medical problem.
Seems to me like federal regulation is fairly value-neutral, as in usable in equal measure for both good and evil. The tricky part is deciding which is which, of course.
It's the most incredible form of mental gymnastics in order to grab power
Even with highly debased street drugs they're missing the additional herbal components.
Plus what's the point of making the distinction? And you mentioned that people in the past wouldn't snort drugs, and that's false, there's native tribes that would make powder out of seeds and snort them.
Firing a gun into the air is ill-advised and illegal because such bullets have a tendency to randomly impact and maim or murder bystanders within the radius of a couple of miles.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2017/02/15/firi...
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2011/03/can-falling-bull...
Good thing we’ve learned so much since then. You would never have anyone so short sighted as to jump up and down for that in these more civilized times.
> It is not otherwise to be supposed, that the Constitution could intend to enable the representatives of the people to substitute their will to that of their constituents. It is far more rational to suppose, that the courts were designed to be an intermediate body between the people and the legislature, in order, among other things, to keep the latter within the limits assigned to their authority. [0]
It is absurd to say that the Supreme Court “magicked out of thin air” the notion of judicial review in Marbury v. Madison. That was simply the Court's first assertion of the power the constitution gave it to wield, the wielding of which is the primary purpose of the judiciary as a separate but equal branch of American government.
0. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federalist_No._78#Judicial_r...
Some countries even have several dozen supreme justices, with a new one every year or two. That would rid us of this obscene phenomenon that turns one elderly person's health issues into a disgraceful politically polarized evening news issue. It also increases the RoI of extortion and assassination.
> would you not consider modern ayahuasca consumption as a drug
From the context of what I wrote, obviously not. In colloquial usage, I would call it a drug, but I was obviously making a distinction here.
> Plus what's the point of making the distinction?
The context and particularities of what I was saying is the point!!!!!!!!!!
Herbs do not naturally standardize their active compounds. These compounds are subject to variable expression based on the genetics, environmental conditions in which they are grown, and time of harvest. Purified drugs, and even some herb-based supplements, are standardized. Even when they're being debased on the street, they're being debased in the batch in a standard manner (assuming they were well mixed, of course).
> and that's false, there's native tribes that would make powder out of seeds and snort them.
Thanks for letting me know. I don't see that this fact detracts from the larger point I'm making. Please stop nitpicking and try to see the larger point I was trying to make. I'm not trying to have an argument here, I'm trying to have a discussion.
I see the point better now, but I still think the distinction is misguided. In a clinical context, dosage is more accurate, that's true, but this is not a distinction to be made between "pure molecule" and "herbs" in any other context.
For example if you use a scale for mushrooms, which under this idionsycratic distinction would be more of a "herb" than a "drug" (the drug counterpart being the psilocybin molecule), then dosage would likely be more accurate than a tab of LSD, because you really have no way of knowing how much LSD is in there.
In other words yes, the natural variance and additional components within "natural" drugs exists, but it is not inherent that this variance is significantly more than that of what you can get with synthetic drugs, specially if you consider that there's likely less hands between a person growing a plant/mushroom, and a chemist making something fairly difficult such as LSD.
This is not nitpicking, rather elaborating on the context, and trying to illustrate that the distinction you are making is only really applicable to comparing a clinical to a non-clinical setting, and it's not something inherent to the origin of the molecules.
> The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution …
Let’s not continue this conversation. The view I’m presenting is long established and can be found better and much more extensively made in a great many sources which no one should have any trouble finding, should he wish. You, I infer, do not wish.
The odd thing, really, is that it took a decade and a half, until 1803, for the Supreme Court first to find it necessary to tell another of the other branches of government that it had broken the rules.
If you have money, opioids are easily available via dealers throughout the world and there is no epidemic of addicts. Yes there are individual cases, but most of these would be destroying their lives in some other available way if opiods weren't available, like heavy use of alcohol.
Most people don't know a dealer, and don't have the confidence to try to find one without worrying about the risk of contacting a narc or a tattletale or in some other ways destroying their lives because of the legal system.
Hurdles matter. It's like common sense gun control- red flag laws, waiting periods, assault weapon bans, etc. None of those things make it impossible to have a mass shooting - but they make it a little harder, and that will stop a certain percentage of people.
Dangerous drugs like opioids should be available, cheaply, by prescription only, and "addiction" should be a sufficient reason for the prescription. This makes the safe and secure drug source the correct choice for vulnerable addicts, still lets us drive the black market and drug cartels out of business, it prevents crazy impulse purchases, and the requirement to renew your prescription periodically gives you a chance for a responsible adult to non-judgmentally offer you resources for achieving sobriety. It's a win-win-win, guaranteed to lower death tolls and crime rates, but unlikely to increase the number of addicts.
Yes, we definitely are sacrificing some of everyone's bodily autonomy because we think it's less bad than the consequences of putting no limits on it.
Caffeine, Alcohol, Cigarettes, Cannabis, Cocaine, Meth, Heroin, Fentanyl, biological weapons
and on some parallel track:
BB gun, .22, Glock, AR-15, automatic rifle, RPG, cannon, tank, land mines, nuclear warhead
If there's even one thing on the above list that you'd not want to be automatically OK for every person in the world to own and operate (at least on a "until you hurt someone" basis), then you're putting an arbitrary limit which values "preventing likely harms to others" over absolute autonomy.
Even if you'd allow the warhead I don't think either of us can be said to be 'right' or 'wrong' -- just that it's most productive if we acknowledge which "paramount value" (perfect freedom vs. reduction in predictable harms to innocent others) we are prioritizing, and acknowledge that we have to make a significant sacrifice in the other one in order to do that.
With opioids not really, not easier than with rat poison.
With guns it's super easy, so they should be regulated.
I would not limit your freedom which allows you to hurt yourself, but I would limit your freedom which allows you to hurt me, because that would limit my freedom. Worry about yourself and your loved ones, leave my wellbeing to me.
Not to mention, do people use biological weapons recreationally? That's news to me
There is absolutely an epidemic of opioid addicts.
I know I'm happy certain drugs aren't easily available.
Teaching what addiction is like is much better at curbing it.
The easiest way to do that is to have someone hold their breath as long as possible until their body is screaming for air each time, for about half an hour.
Because that is what drug addiction is like, and taking the drug is like taking that breath of air, instant relief, until you run out of air again and you're in hell waiting for the next fix. Over and over. Never ending.
I'd say films like Trainspotting did a much better job at stopping heroin than any outright ban ever did.
People have some funny notions about the health consequences of opioid addiction.
In 1942, Burroughs enlisted in the U.S. Army to serve during World War II. After being turned down by the Office of Strategic Services and the Navy, he developed a heroin addiction that affected him for the rest of his life, initially beginning with morphine.[1]
Prohibition has become known as a failure because there was still a vibrant underground alcohol trade, but it didn’t mean that everyone continued drinking at the same rate. It really did reduce alcohol consumption.
Mostly, after the brief sharp drop to around 30% of pre-Prohibition levels, just the much smaller (consumption at around 60-70% of pre-Prohibition levels) effects of the de facto tax collected by organized crime that prohibition imposed (“Changes in consumption were modest given the change in price. This suggests that legal deterrents had little effect on limiting consumption outside of their effect on price. Social pressure and respect for the law did not go far in reducing consumption during prohibition”.) [0]
And, both nicotine and alcohol have substantial regular taxes now, which serve the same purpose without fuelling organized crime, so prohibition would just redirect funds from the public coffers to criminal enterprise.
[0] https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w3675/w3675... , p. 8
I don’t find this argument convincing at all in the modern era. Synthetic drugs and even commercialized organic drugs are significantly more potent than anything that could be found a century ago.
Synthetic cannabinoids are vastly more addictive and dangerous than cannabis ever could be, for example. Synthetic drugs like MPDV are known to produce compulsive redosing even in people who could moderate their intake of traditional drugs like cocaine.
You can’t compare what’s available now to historic drugs.
Make the really hard stuff only available by prescription.
It’s possible to do a lot of damage with heavy drinking, yes, but it’s not true at all to suggest alcohol is the most damaging drug. There are numerous synthetic drugs that can produce long lasting damage or even death even in experienced drug users who believe themselves to be consuming responsibly.
I find in general drug discourse making these comparisons isn't super helpful. The risk and damage profile of different drugs is very complex. Mdma in frequent use isn't very damaging in one sense, but can really impair cognitive function long term which can reduce quality of life as much as liver damage of drinkers or COPD of heavy smokers (as a simplified illustrative example)
I think presenting a view that all things are toxic and that healthy use of anything is down to how, why and when it is used is better for normalising the conversation rather than doing X vs Y showdowns.
I definitely think cannabis is less harmful than alcohol.
If consumed in the same quantity, it might be.
> do people use biological weapons recreationally? That's news to me
Botox is a neurotoxin originally derived from a bacterium. And various pesticides are regulated. Nicotine actually is a naturally occurring pesticide, though these days BigAg companies produce far more potent "Neonicotinoids" for killing insects.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desomorphine
> While desomorphine was found to be faster acting and more effective than morphine for the rapid relief of severe pain, its shorter duration of action and the relatively more severe respiratory depression produced at equianalgesic doses, as well as a high incidence of other side effects such as hypotension and urinary retention, were felt to outweigh any potential advantages.[15][16]
From [15] we have: short duration which is independent of dose, tolerance, persistent decrease in respiratory rate, <when used to treat severe chronic pain> less sleep compared to morphine, possible greater withdrawal symptoms than morphine.
For medical uses [15] cites some good uses where it is preferable to morphine, but this is a drug that's even more worthy of regulation than morphine itself.
...at a price they can afford. Otherwise it still would be a thing, regardless of schedule 1 legality.
Anyone can just claim something is "harmful" but if they can't really state how then why is there any reason to believe the statement
> People who use marijuana have an increased risk of heart disease and heart attack, according to a large study led by researchers at Stanford Medicine.
> The study also showed that the psychoactive component of the drug, known as THC, causes inflammation in endothelial cells that line the interior of blood vessels, as well as atherosclerosis in laboratory mice.
> The inflammation and atherosclerosis can be blocked by a small molecule called genistein that occurs naturally in soy and fava beans, the researchers found. Because genistein has limited brain penetration, it doesn’t inhibit THC’s ability to stimulate appetite, dull pain and tamp down nausea — characteristics vital to medicinal marijuana users.
...> I expect we will begin to see a rise in heart attacks and strokes in the coming years.
If you go the Fava bean route, know that it can cause illness in some people. Soy is safer, and purified genistein (available as a supplement) probably safer still.