The bill, as far as I understand, reverses the normal presumption that everything is allowed unless it is banned to everything is banned unless it is allowed. All drugs have been subject to degrees of control, even those you buy at a chemist’s, for many years. Obviously drugs with a clearly defined medical use are permitted. But I wouldn’t want to get too many sprained ankles in London or any other part of the UK. If you regularly try to buy too many painkillers too frequently in any one locality you may well be refused service.
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Hallucinogenic drugs have just always seemed spooky to me, I guess. I absolutely admit that my perception of them has been colored by both media depiction and babysitting a lot of bad trips. People starting out having fun, then unexpectedly veering into scary territory.
From what I understand, from the literature and case reports, DMT (especially in a preparation like ayahuasca) is pretty much the most powerful life changing experience one can have. And most other psychedelics have that potential as well. And maybe I’m pretty comfortable with the drugs I know and have used already.
When I was younger, I would have taken anything and everything, besides heroin or other injected drugs. I’ve done a lot of different stuff. But I can pretty definitively say that I hate confusion, and don’t like getting too in touch with my inner self. That guy is scary.
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Boots in particular appears to be on a quest to deny me any medicine with effective properties whatsoever. I’ve gone in there coughing my lungs up & been refused point-blank a bottle of pholcodeine and offered sugar water instead several times,as well as being told by the same person who sold me them before that they didn’t sell anti emetics when my daughter was barfing every 60 seconds. Fuckers. I’m tempted to go in there in a suit & see if it makes a difference, but I don’t even want to give them money any more.
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the 8th amendment of the constitution. The courts cannot overrule the constitution.
It was, as I said above, a masterpiece of political trolling by groups that were ahead of the game in the culture wars, imagining futures most of us could not imagine.
One minor relevant nugget:
There is an election pending in Ireland…
c.f. "he told The Irish Times … that this would be a matter “for the next government”.
(i.e. “Vote for us!”)
In the US that would be an astounding opportunity. Possibly.
I don’t know enough about European or even Irish current politics to have an informed thought or opinion.
I follow both Australia and Canada better. Since that’s where most of the podcasts I listen to are from.
I don’t think hundreds of years of rule by religious authoritarians is really on the mark either. We were ruled by Britain/England , and before that by an imperial parliament and ultimately England. So while there was definitely a religious element to that it isn’t the crucial one. The education system as set up a was secular but as with Britain it got taken over by religious schooling. Hospitals tended to be chariities and therefore religious. Prior to the end of the occupation/colonial government there was a conflation in popular thought of national identity and the majority, Catholic, religion. This is not the origin of Irish republicanism which is, as the name suggest, republican, and was really the intellectual fruit of non conformist Protestants in Ireland realising from the French example that a republican government could in fact grow in a catholic country.
A better example to illustrate the process of how republican movements can be rendered regressive by religion would be in places like say Iran. You have a despised and illegitimate political entity, corrupt and cronyism, decrepit and incompetent which refuses reform from within. Legitimate opposition is violently repressed. Religion is tolerated and becomes an expression of political identity. Et.
Jack Goody came up with the analogy of Ireland and Muslim States a long time ago.
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I gotta think on that, and read further on the subjects.
Excuse incoherence, home with a cold and just typing that made me dizzy!
I’ve got a new Balanced Indica vape. I’m admitting that I bluster.
Yeah, I’ve babysat a few inexperienced trippers who did it all wrong from the start.
Have an experienced tripper when you trip. Do it during the day. Do it outdoors. Small group. No psychos. Only a few beers if you must. No hard liquor. lots of water. Half-dose first.
If your inner self is scary, then more reason to get in touch with him and make peace.
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As I understand it Ireland doesn’t have a formal, constitutional or legal separation between church and state.
The US first amendment and Article 44 of the Irish Constitution are pretty similar actually. Both are open to interpretation, and certain US lawmakers are no better than their corresponding Irish ones in letting their religious beliefs influence their legislative duties.
For example as far as I’m aware Irish public schools are still often directly tied to the church.
The great majority of Irish public schools are not run by the state (though they are in charge of the curriculum and testing systems), they are mostly owned by religious organisations and are so are free to teach whatever they wish in addition to the state-curriculum. Most of them are significantly funded by the state though (as long as they are not fee-paying schools), and I think this funding should be denied to any school that has enrolment policies based on religion (the Labour party recently tried to reform this, but it was abandoned before it really got anywhere). I was fortunate enough to attend a non-denominational primary school.
So as it was explained to me Ireland could legalize abortion tomorrow by the same sort of national vote that legalized gay marriage (or normal legislative action). But practically speaking abortion would still be completely inaccessible, and in more than a handful of specific situations it might actually remain illegal. Because there’s a whole host of extent laws and practical precedents that give deference to religion, religious bodies, or religious individuals over state, medical or other secular bodies in determining what’s offered, when and how, what’s necessary medically, whats prioritized in terms of infrastructure and dozens of other things.
This is not true, it would require constitutional change (not just normal legislative action), but assuming that amendment was worded correctly all laws would need to be in accordance with providing such services, and hospital boards would have to abide by those laws. The current law is in accordance with the current constitutional position, if the constitution were to change a new law would be required, that’s how our constitutional system works.
So you get a situation where a lot of state functions and laws are reliant on or defer to religion even if they don’t specify an actual religious body or organization. Because of history and population dynamics that basically means it all just defaults to the Catholic church.
No, the main mistake you’re making here is confusing what is and isn’t part of the state. The law and state institutions can make no special consideration for any religion.
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If anything, I would argue that’s more of a dosage level, or an understanding of proper dosage when doing hallucinogens in general. The trips I took in the past almost always involved a moment where I thought to…myself, “Hey, this was fun, but I’m a little tired of it now and I’d like it to stop”. Maybe somewhat like the drunken moment of putting one’s foot on the ground to stop the world from spinning.
FTFY
Apologies if that seems like PC nonsense, but my inner self, while quite manly (hey ladies? Barely finishes 1.3 mental pullups) is not firmly rooted (hee hee) in any gender, and if anything is a beer-making, rainbow colored Orca. I think.
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only if we can get this guy involved:
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While this is definitely good news, I would caution the use of the term “evidence based” to describe the decriminalisation of drugs.
There’s definitely plenty of evidence that decriminalisation works, it’s not just a slightly less bad situation, it’s a significantly better one. Look into Portugal, especially the heroin and criminal justice situation. Imagine the benefits the US would see with decriminalisation, especially with regard to incarceration rates (a major source of social ills in the US in general). Obviously outright legalisation (regulated though, not laissez-faire) would be better again, but that should naturally follow on after decriminalisation.
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I have a lot of very politically active family over there, so I try to keep up with whats doing over there. Like I said I’m in the US so so can’t really argue with you as to the specifics on actual laws. I just know that’s the debate I see. Reproductive rights (and a few other issues) are so intimately tied to the weird status of religion in Ireland’s government that discussion of it tends to lead directly into arguments about secularizing the state properly. Then it tends to get ugly and go no where. Making abortion both technically legal, and actually available in a practical sense becomes more complex than simply fixing the laws as they stand.
I think the mistake your making is conflating things like freedom of religion and lack of a formal state religion with full separation of church and state:
See that’s not separation of church and state. The government is paying for and setting standards and policy for schools that are operated by religious bodies. A religious body is executing a critical state function on behalf of the government.
In terms of constitutional concerns, I’m obviously not as familiar with Ireland’s constitutions as laws as I should be, and nowhere near as familiar as I am with US equivalents. But there’s some key differences there. The religious aspect of the US 1st amendment is really short and really broad: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”. Additionally this was specifically included to create a complete separation of church and state (the guys who wrote it said so explicitly). So after that was written there was a concerted effort beyond the constitution to create a separation. A long line of additional laws, and more importantly court precedent established the exact bounds of that separation. Effectively the government can have no involvement with religion. There can be no religious content in publicly funded schools, state money can not go to explicitly religious organizations, laws can not be predicated on religious arguments (this is why bans on both Gay marriage and abortion were determined to be unconstitutional by our courts, the only justification for them is explicitly religious), religious concepts/dictates/materials can not be presented as evidence/legal arguments in court, etc, etc. It’d be really nice if we could get the political right to realize all this, instead of constantly violating the constitution for reasons. But as it stands the separation is strong.
Article 44 is a lot longer, and more specific. But even after ammendement it still contains this: “The State acknowledges that the homage of public worship is due to Almighty God. It shall hold His Name in reverence, and shall respect and honour religion” and this: “Legislation providing State aid for schools shall not discriminate between schools under the management of different religious denominations, nor be such as to affect prejudicially the right of any child to attend a school receiving public money without attending religious instruction at that school.” Both of which rather obviously tie the government to religion (and as for the first part a pretty specific set of religions) at the constitutional level. The rest of it is effectively repeated assertions of freedom of religion. And then the closest thing to the establishment clause that gives us our separation: “The State guarantees not to endow any religion”. Now I’m pretty sure that’s just meant to me the state won’t directly fund religion (which is sort of at odds with the school bit, conceptually). But you could take that concept, or even the wording more broadly to argue there is (or even create) a full separation.
Which is all more to my point. Because it isn’t clear cut, you get people arguing that there is actually already a full separation. And people arguing that there is isn’t (practically from what I’ve whatever separation exists is fairly weak). And people arguing that there shouldn’t be, and people arguing that there should be, and people arguing about how to bring one about or get rid of one. And because certain issues like abortion are directly tied into the concept it becomes a lot more complex to address those issues than just changing those laws or constitutional bits that explicitly mention them.
See that’s not separation of church and state. The government is paying for and setting standards and policy for schools that are operated by religious bodies. A religious body is executing a critical state function on behalf of the government.
It’s only not a separation of church and state if you believe that the government should be in total control of the running of schools. The owning and operating of a school in Ireland is something which can be done by private organisations, businesses or even individuals (as long as they follow the relevant laws).
But even after ammendement it still contains this: “The State acknowledges that the homage of public worship is due to Almighty God. It shall hold His Name in reverence, and shall respect and honour religion”
I acknowledged there was still theistic wording in our constitution, there’s more in the preamble as well. The legal implications of this wording is pretty limited though (the first sentence in that is a trusim for instance, and there’s nothing un-secular about respecting religion).
…and this: “Legislation providing State aid for schools shall not discriminate between schools under the management of different religious denominations, nor be such as to affect prejudicially the right of any child to attend a school receiving public money without attending religious instruction at that school.” Both of which rather obviously tie the government to religion (and as for the first part a pretty specific set of religions) at the constitutional level.
Neither of these tie the government to religion at all, the first part simply states that discrimination on religious grounds is out (in fact, the modern reading of this clause includes non-denominational schools as part of ‘different religious denominations’), and the second part ensures the rights of children to be schooled without having to receive religious instruction. Both of these clauses allowed me to complete my entire schooling (in first a non-denominational primary school, and then in a protestant secondary school) entirely free from religious indoctrination of any kind (though I did attend a religious education class for a year in secondary school just so I could argue with the teachers - my father didn’t want me to but I convinced him it would be fun, I think I may even have converted a few theists to atheists in the process).
“The State guarantees not to endow any religion”. Now I’m pretty sure that’s just meant to me the state won’t directly fund religion (which is sort of at odds with the school bit, conceptually). But you could take that concept, or even the wording more broadly to argue there is (or even create) a full separation.
Exactly, endow can mean give money to, but can also relate to more ephemeral qualities. Giving money to a religious school isn’t the funding of religion though (unless you can show the school is siphoning money off to build churches or something, which would clearly be unconstitutional).
Because it isn’t clear cut, you get people arguing that there is actually already a full separation.
I would argue that the US constitution isn’t clear cut either, though the current legal interpretation may be more strict that in Ireland in a broad sense, it still hasn’t stopped US schools changing the curriculum on purely religious grounds either (re evolution, something where Ireland is currently ahead of certain US states).
I wouldn’t disagree that our constitution could be tidied up and modernised to make the separation a bit clearer and more obvious, but there are no current constitutional impediments due to any form of institutional religious influence to reforming the law where it needs to be reformed.
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@pixieshifter
I know someone who tried psychedelics many times (under carefully controlled circumstances); after about the 10th or 15th they got a schizophrenic effect. It wore off completely after the trip, and was apparently pleasant during.
Eh. I imagine my “inner self” to be an 8 year old boy with ADHD, completely off-meds, and really pissed off because I don’t ever play with him. He never gets to grab onto my imagination anymore, and I don’t let him give me ideas.
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