US drug control agency will move to reclassify marijuana

Great, now do psilocybin, LSD and MDMA.

DMT and mescaline too.

Please. It's insane that people are dying from fentanyl overdoses taking molly, absolutely not the right societal trade off to be making any more.

Do all of them. To me, government exists to mediate interactions between parties. Not to get involved in personal choices. If someone wants to rip fat lines of coke, good for them. Not my business.

That Salvia divinorum is somehow legal (varies by jurisdiction) always blows my mind...

My personal opinion is that most people won't be able to regulate any large caches of the above-commented drugs... but after one or two rides on Salvia most'll keep a wide birth [which I recommend as "the worst experience possible; if somebody suggests you try Salvia they're bullying you; try something else"].

Do you think people who rip fat lines of coke will never interact with society in any way that affects you?

Of course government gets involved in personal choices. Every crime committed by a person is a personal choice. Interactions between parties are interactions between people. The distinction you're trying to draw here doesn't exist.

We don't live in libertarian utopia, let's first focus on substances that are *obviously* misclassified, the ones cited before have actual benefits, the most obvious one being psilocybin.

Also GHB. Sodium oxybate is currently schedule III, but it's basically just a bit of chemical sleight of hand to allow GHB to be prescribed.

Do they need to have benefits? Whether they are beneficial or not people are using drugs like MDMA. Making them illegal has only caused harm.

Legitimate crimes have a perpetrator and a victim. That's two parties in conflict. Drug possession only has 1 party, the person possessing or doing the drugs, and drug sales have two parties who aren't in conflict.

clearly you havent thought of the children /s

I'm just saying it's an easier sell, if we legalize these the demand for harmful drugs will go down too.

Yeah, no. We're already in a drug crisis as it is. We need to teach people that doing drugs (of any kind) isn't the answer to problems. Soft times seems to have created this problem where people would rather escape their lives than live them out.

I completely agree. People in the US need to learn that happiness cannot come from a purchase, whether it's chemicals to ingest or whatever else is being marketed to them. It's amazing what americans will do to their bodies and minds except get exercise and eat fresh healthy foods.

I don't think people do psilocybin and LSD to escape from reality. I'm not even sure how that would work, given how I understand tolerance works for those drugs?

DMT is a drug I’d highly recommend everyone take once but only once.

The experience of existing for a short time without the concept of self, experiencing zero sensory filters, and finally having your brain rebooted as it has a kernel panic (and going through the brain kernel load process as it does so) is mind blowing.

It’s enough to convince you that we live in a highly advanced simulation. Or one could just be high af.

Also I’m pretty sure it was based on an old version of Linux because I’m convinced I saw the kernel message “Based upon Swansea University Computer Society NET3.039“.

QED God is a programmer. :-)

You just reflexively replied with what you have been programmed to believe about mind-altering substances (aside from those exempted by the authorities). The use of "drug crisis" in reply to the substances mentioned is a clear indication of your prejudice and ignorance, given that MDMA has already been given breakthrough status by the FDA as a treatment for PTSD, psilocybin for major depression, and being studied for it's powerful anti-addictive effects, same as LSD (which had great results with curing alcoholism *in one session* when it was initially being studied in the 50s and 60s).

This entire thread is full of people who seemingly feel compelled to comment on things they are completely ignorant about, which one would hope to see less of on HN.

"we need to teach people" "people in the US need to learn"

Maybe you should volunteer to teach them, you make it sound so easy.

Meanwhile, try to inform yourself about the effects and usefulness of the above substances.

Of course not, the drugs to escape reality are available for free (or nearly free) and en masse, because they are useful as a means of control.