I’m a Colorado native, and am living in Colorado Springs. I’m not worried about driving around people who are high. I’m worried about driving around people who are texting. I’ve already had my car destroyed by one of those. My anecdotal experience is that people who are high usually avoid driving. Grubhub and similar services make driving even easier to avoid.
As for this, great for those who want it.
My real world experience tells me that in one ER alone in CO, people are treated every single day for crashing cars while high.
I’m still pro-legalization of MJ, but people in this state believe (or pretend, bc it helps their business model?) that there are no dangerous effects and externalities to the legalization. The injuries, lives lost, and costs belay that belief.
At Red Rocks, it isn’t like these kids are all on mushrooms, so mushroom legalization itself may not increase the problem. One problem is that Red Rocks has become weekly (often nightly) mess of polypharmacy overdoses. Could it be bc RR is basically in JeffCo but is under Denver auspices? Or because the City profits indirectly from what goes on there, so turns a blind eye? I’m not sure - that’s mere guesswork.
But how many people in ERs tripping, screaming, needing sedation, being on ventilators, getting overdosed and falling off the rocks to their death, spending nights in the ICU unconscious, violently assaulting EMTs and Nurses, before we think maybe blanket legalization and availability aren’t ok? Is 15 kids in one night a “small” percentage of users? How about when that is from 2-3 concerts a week, all season long - and from only one venue and only one ER?
This! Controlling some of the access to this stuff, without the absurd draconian drug laws used in the US, has to be possible. I can’t think it is a decision between everything-anywhere-anytime and Jail-for-all-users. There must be a middle ground.
Maybe the people I know who smoke or eat edibles are more responsible, or I’m not around them when they are being stupid.
How do the numbers of people ending up in the ER due to getting into an accident while high compare to the numbers who end up there due to driving while intoxicated, or under the influence of substances that aren’t pot?
I agree with this completely. Part of the middle ground is people understanding when they are impaired, and choosing to stay put until they are back to normal. I believe many young people have trouble because they still think nothing will hurt them*, while older people have trouble because they’ve managed to last this long, so they must know what they’re doing.
Controlling access is an easier when the final product has to be manufactured. When tit’s something that anybody can grow, it gets trickier.
*I was the same; I drove my motorcycle at 50 mph, in the rain, without a helmet, while drunk when I was 17, because I was upset over a girl. I lived because I was lucky.
I guess ignorance is bliss.
Just stay off federal highways while holding or high in Denver. tada.
I am a healthcare worker who knows that taking psychedelics in public is a bad idea, a real waste of the experience. Having shepherded friends through the nightmare that we’re discussing (tripping too hard in public), I have a few takes. 1) Tripping in public is a terrible idea. 2) It can be a traumatic learning experience that’s usually self-limiting because it’s miserable. Many people over do this, just as with other substances 3) Psilocybin isn’t toxic like alcohol, coke, amphetamine derivatives (including MDMA) or other drugs people abuse.
As noted by fiatrn’s later post, polypharmacy is the biggest issue with people out of control at RR or most concert venues, not mushrooms alone.
Kids and adults already get mushrooms easily. I don’t think 301 will affect that at all, so I can retract my earlier statement that a few more kids might be puddled at concerts. Maybe so, maybe not.
So, while being stuck in an ER naked and screaming may be horrible for all involved, I prefer that people not go to jail with a felony on their records for possessing psilocybin.
Alcohol induced ER visits still greatly outnumber marijuana caused visits. Partly that is because alcohol effects so many more body systems that marijuana does. Neither is harmless, but it appears that marijuana caused ER visits are more related to behavior, while alcohol has the behavioral visits and the illness visits.
Plus, more people are jerks when drunk than are jerks when stoned!
I prefer that people not show up in my ER naked and screaming and violent and throwing poop… But doing 'shrooms shouldn’t end up getting people put in jail, either. That’s why I want someone to figure out a regulatory idea that keeps fragile people safer than full availability, but doesn’t jail folks for eating plants.
I bet I could convince them it was a good idea to legalize it in ten minutes, though.* People with EMT experience may have seen some bad results, but I guess my question is whether they called the police to have the people who were taking those drugs hauled off to prison. If the answer is no then they know criminal law is not the solution to the problem.
This is the issue with drug laws. The debate has to move away from whether we approve of drug use and towards whether the criminal laws against drug use are doing good or doing harm.
* This is not a blanket claim I could convince anyone. People with EMT and nursing experience likely don’t have massive empathy deficits and likely have a good mind for harm reduction.
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