NZ - 'Revolutionary' legal high law means state regulated drug market

webbykevin said:
why not just legalize and regulate cannabis and ecstasy instead of go down the path of these whacky designer drugs, the only fucking reason these things were invented is because the cunts had banned the real thing in the first place.

Makes me shake my head in dismay, are these people making the laws really that fucking stupid.
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this.
 
Once the standards are defined for approving legal highs, I bet someone will submit illegal drugs to see if they pass all the tests. I don't know if it is possible to license scheduled drugs for research in NZ like David Nutt is doing in the UK but it would be interesting to see.
 
I've come to the conclusion that mass decriminalisation of scheduled substances is an idealistic and unachievable wet-dream in most western countries.

50 years of political capital has been invested into promoting a set of societal 'norms' about drugs. It is politically impossible for a mainstream party to do an about-face on that policy. To do so is to renege on just about every fibre of their legitimacy (illusionary as it may be) and to admit to perpetrating an intergenerational mistake. That will not happen.

Even if a group of politicians wanted to reverse the scheduling system in favour of something more humane and evidence-based (and there are a number in the UK who do), the web of lies and the policies on which they are built simply won't allow it. They are, in effect, tied by their own historical rhetoric.

The ONLY way in which sensible drug policy can emerge is one that can somehow maintain the lie that currently scheduled drugs are universally and unquestionably dangerous (thus allowing the establishment to keep face), yet permit the lie to be undermined over time. Policy shift on something this big just cannot happen overnight. It has to be incremental. And I will go further... I believe that some countries leaders want something like this to happen, largely because they know that the present system is economically unsustainable (although others seem to turn a profit from it).

The proposed system is - as others have pointed out - completely absurd in that it permits the regulation of non-scheduled substances (which are arguably less 'real world' tested), yet maintains the illegal status of better-understood scheduled substances on which the newer drugs are designed to 'imitate'. Truly insane.

But sometimes, one needs to be embrace the absurdity in order to triumph over it. Have you guys never heard the phrase: "you can't argue with stupid"?

Perhaps one has to go along with the stupidity and argue within it's twisted logic in order to make even a partial concession in how scheduling is determined. Besides, as others have pointed out, it's only a matter of time before someone starts campaigning to take the Pepsi challenge with their au naturel homegrown. One has to play the game to make progress.

The question is whether the game will be fairly run and whose science will be heard. Make no mistake, the establishment own the building and hold all the keys, so the success of this policy is far from guaranteed. The only thing you can be certain of is that your drug evangelism will always fall on deaf ears, or be perceived by the public as the ravings of another deluded victim.

True policy change occurs when people are allowed to believe that they discovered it themselves. I can't help but feel that this policy (or one much like it) might be the vehicle to do that - the mechanism through which that absurdity can be demonstrated and accepted as another 'norm'.
 
If slaughterhouses are fine and dandy, you can get the fuck off your high horse about testing substances on animals.
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I find the idea of a slaughterhouse to be absolutely detestable. I never purchase meat.
 
the toad said:
So theyre gonna legalize the more harmful ones created to replace the safer ones? This sounds counterproductive....
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It's sounds completely fuck-ass backwards is what it sounds like.

Could be the geographical factor. Everything's upside down in New Zealand =D

And how the fuck did this turn into an animal rights issue? I was vegan for 3 years but it you live in society you still have to consume SOMETHING that contributes to some horrible evil you find absolutely appalling, whether it be petrol for your car, the sweat shop shoes on your feet, the plastic bag that came with your newly legalized MXE (a petroleum product).

Slaughterhouses are detestable. So is just about everything else that comes out of a profit-driven community where waste is rampant.

I hope we start regulating non-toxic non addictive psychoactives like cannabis and cubensis mushrooms.

I liked Mckenna's "Drug/Vegetable Act" notion. If it's a vegetable it can't be a drug.

Nobody ever had problems with psychoactives until technology decided to distill and extract them. Coca is a great example, opium as well.

That was one hell of a tangent.
 
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Slaughterhouses are detestable. So is just about everything else that comes out of a profit-driven community where waste is rampant.
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True enough. But this sort of dissolute ennui, while justified, isn't exactly conducive to living in the real world in which some consequences are just too hard to abide. For instance, I do sparingly purchase dairy products, the mass production of which is hardly a moral example for the meat industry. The fact of the matter is, I prefer to do only those things whose imagined consequences I can stomach. For all the fundamentally ignorant/Evil/apathetic people of the world, this list includes just about everything.
 
So what do we here think would be a good first step in our own countries towards eventual decriminalization/legalization? Perosnally, I'd like to see some currently unregulated botanicals formally indicated/accepted by the FDA for recreational use in humans. Kava Kava is already prevalent, but I think kratom leaf would be a great step, mescaline containing cacti, MHRB (and other DMT containing plants), etc. etc. Aside from the obvious choice of cannabis/shrooms, ephedra and khat would be good options to add to it as well. They can mandate that it not be sold in extracts and make people do it themselves if they feel like it. I just predict that this sort of thing would produce less hullubaloo than evil white powders/crystals/whatever.

This would get in with my belief though, that the smartest thing prohibitionism can do to stay relevant and avoid touching the already demonized things, would be to make milder drugs from various classes available (and not go too crazy with the price/taxation).


True enough. But this sort of dissolute ennui, while justified, isn't exactly conducive to living in the real world in which some consequences are just too hard to abide. For instance, I do sparingly purchase dairy products, the mass production of which is hardly a moral example for the meat industry. The fact of the matter is, I prefer to do only those things whose imagined consequences I can stomach. For all the fundamentally ignorant/Evil/apathetic people of the world, this list includes just about everything.
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But what to do with the problem that 100% ethical food production/livestock handling would raise prices by a lot? I can criticize your position by saying you only want rich people to be able to buy meat/dairy products, fuck the poor, they can eat beans/tofu/be stuck with crappy cuts of meat (actually this wouldn't offend me personally too much, but the hoi polloi...).
 
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I think ayahausca would be the way to go.

I think play the religious angle. DMT is the most spiritual thing I've ever encountered.
 
But what to do with the problem that 100% ethical food production/livestock handling would raise prices by a lot?
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I'm not an activist - I'm not campaigning in support of some radical ideology. I just (personally) prefer to abstain from products whose imagined origins make me queasy. How was this unclear to you?

I can criticize your position by saying you only want rich people to be able to buy meat/dairy products, fuck the poor, they can eat beans/tofu/be stuck with crappy cuts of meat
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I have no idea where this came from.
 
Never Knows Best said:
But what to do with the problem that 100% ethical food production/livestock handling would raise prices by a lot? I can criticize your position by saying you only want rich people to be able to buy meat/dairy products, fuck the poor, they can eat beans/tofu/be stuck with crappy cuts of meat (actually this wouldn't offend me personally too much, but the hoi polloi...).
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Fuck it then, lets bring back slavery... commodity prices will drop massively... and profits will go thru the roof for he masters...
 
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Fuck it then, lets bring back slavery... commodity prices will drop massively...
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And while we're at it, why not deregulate the market wholesale and return to the good ol' Golden Era of The Jungle?

Enjoy your two-dollar, shit-infested filet, NKB.
 
P A said:
How was this unclear to you?
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The words evil and detestable popped up, usually it's people pushing radical ideologies that use such language. I was reading between the lines.

In any case, when someone finds something completely reprehensible, they typically would find it preferable to be in a world without that problem. However, they don't always consider the practical implications that would have.

I guess I should have been weary of the fact you're a P&S mod, and probably are all into the semantics-obsession and pedantry based method of discussion popular there. Try to be understanding that my default mode of thinking on BL is that the person I'm talking to is likely a wide-eyed hippy type.
 
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The words evil and detestable popped up, usually it's people pushing radical ideologies that use such language. I was reading between the lines.
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Spoken like a true politician.

In any case, when someone finds something completely reprehensible, they typically would find it preferable to be in a world without that problem. However, they don't always consider the practical implications that would have.
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The fact that someone may or may not find a particular imagined state of affairs to be preferable to the one(s) they currently observe/suffer doesn't necessarily imply that they wish to initiate sweeping, misguided decrees for others' benefit. Not everyone is a covert despot. Your bizarre reaction to my simple statements of personal preference and parochial ethical sentiments was, well, pretty reactionary (and, as Toad pointed out, extremely cynical and backwards in its thrust). This leads me to believe that you have some other, more deep-seated, bone to pick with vegetarians. Care to share?

[the irony: I'm not even a vegetarian - I sometimes ingest meat products, but I rarely spend my money on them for the reasons mentioned above]

semantics-obsession
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No... :|
 
augustaB said:
Praise be to the NZ government. Perhaps they will be an example to other countries.
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No!
I will only give them praise when they decide that it would be safer to just legalize, regulate, and tax real cannabis not these god awful synthetic cannabinoids.
There is simply no way they are a safe alternative...
 
Roger&Me said:
Well just how do you propose that we test new pharmacological agents without the use of animals?

Its not even a question of being "right" or "wrong", its an absolute necessity. Every drug is tested on animals, its a literal cornerstone of the field of pharmacology, otherwise you can't see whether the drug is likely safe to give to people.
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Apparently ecstasy and coke dealers didn't get this memo.
 
mgrady3 said:
No!
I will only give them praise when they decide that it would be safer to just legalize, regulate, and tax real cannabis not these god awful synthetic cannabinoids.
There is simply no way they are a safe alternative...
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Yeah I agree.

I'm pretty sure i've read of at least a couple of deaths attributed to synthetic cannabis and other articles of some users having some major health issues with it too.

I must say personally when i tried it here before it got banned i was not very pleased with the result, i found myself sweaty, anxious, and i felt pretty shit.

There is no way I would wont to touch that stuff again, I didn't find it nice at all, i ended up throwing half of it away.
 
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