There was almost no police/security at the gates or inside the festival, although selling drugs was not tolerated (eg. people selling on the festival grounds were kindly asked to leave). There were 42.000 people from 152 countries and most of them used some kind of substance or plant there (marijuana being the most abundantly and openly used). As a consequence (or despite this?), this was one of the safest and warmest places I have ever seen.
Instead of police watching everyone, there were a number of premises: there was a drug info stand, were one could go and test their drugs. The queue was quite long there, people stood 2+ hours in the queue to test their substances.
Then there was the Kosmic Care, a place were 20+ psychologists, doctors and shamans would bring people having 'bad' trips back to earth. They had 70 'bad' trippers in the first night alone and they were expecting a lot more on the full moon night. I've spoken to the psychologists there (out of curiosity, not because of a bad trip :) ) and they told me that that the majority of bad trips were caused by people taking 'fake' LSD. In fact, she said, 50% of the LSD people tested was not actually LSD but some designer substance with unknown consequences and effects. Other reasons for bad trips - was people mixing substances or taknig too much (usually young, unexperienced people) and people having prior mental illness.
I asked a guy there, how can one prevent people from having a bad trip again and the answer was 'well, after such an experience, most people grow up pretty quickly and it's unlikely they would take these substances lightly the next time'.
In most countries, these young people would end up in a hospital and then get arrested and possibly spend time in jail.
The war on drugs has caused a lot of suffering and has done very little to reduce drug use or addiction, yet it costs billions every year.
Protugal's approach to drugs is a great example of how the negative effects of drug use can be handled with minimal costs and lead to positive outcomes in drug users. All it takes is a bit of acceptance and common sense.
That is a step in the right direction? What was it like before beaten by the cops and robbed 10 times a day?
We have a legalised and fairly sane alcohol policy in most countries, we can hardly hope to have a better policy and set up for any other drug, and yet alcohol is still a devastating blight on many lives.
Yes, stop this crazy war on drugs, but don't expect some nirvana to appear - people with a variety of mental and personality problems are not going to "grow up". They still need to be dealt with - and we are unforgiving of mental illness and have barely moved past the "cut it off and cauterise the wound" phase of treatment.
The war on drugs is mostly masking a war on mental health.
You don't just need to have a "sane policy".
You need to have a sane culture.
For one, a culture that doesn't treat alcohol as something necessary for having fun (e.g binge drinking on weekends, etc), but as something social you can have while eating with friends, etc.
Second, a culture (society) that doesn't cripple people, produce mass stress and depression, etc so that they take it to alcohol and drugs.
As long as you don't have those, there will always be people taking it to alcoholism. Heck, even with those you'll still have some people (but much less). But then again people can destroy themselves in 200 other ways too, if they are so inclined (from over- and under-eating to straight suicide).
Some of the substances which are generically called 'illegal drugs', however, are much safer and self-limiting and many have virtually no harmful physical effects on the body (based on decades of clandestine use and research).
I'm refering to psychedelics and marijuana, drugs which I'm familiar with and have studied extensively through literature and some self experimentation. Apart from being much safer, some of these drugs have major upsides, when used therapeutically and can cure illnesses that modern medicine is unable to cure.
And if used by brilliant people to start with, they have the power to transform society in unbelievable ways: the tech revolution was started by young, brilliant people who've been inspired by psychedelic trips or psychedelic music/art/culture, produced by the counterculture of the '60s.
Some drugs, like heroin or cocaine have both a big abuse potential and can be harmful to the body, although none are as destructive as alcohol. Rational and sensible recovery and detox programs, combined with unrestricted access to safer drugs (like marijuana) can reduce the risks associated with these 'hard drugs'.
Portugal decriminalized drug use due to the alarming rates of addiction to opiates among youth in 2001. As a consequence, the opiate addiction problem is pretty much under control there.
Nicotine is another extremely addictive substance, yet sensible policy and access to valid information has led a lot of people to quit using it due to health concerns in developed countries, although developing countries have seen a rise in nicotine use.
On the other extreme - countries which ban all kinds of drugs (including alcohol) are seeing strong religious domination, which leads to extremism and terrorism, so total prohibition of altered states of consciousness is also bad.
There is a great book, called 'Animals and Psychedelics' in which it is reported that most animals, including insects are using various plants to intoxicate themselves, even though those plants are not suitable as food. They just like to get stoned or high or drunk and go to great lengths to find their intoxicants.
We should accept once and for all that human beings seek and require altered states of consciousness and not treat drug use as a 'societal cancer', but rather try to understand - why do we do it ? Why do animals do it ? Is there a evolutionary benefit in it ? Are there good parts in getting high, besides having fun ?
It's a war on people's right to enjoy and/or destroy themselves. All under the vague pretense of a social-good.
It's to keep control over a populace that could very quickly come to the realization that it is free to do as it pleases. Unfortunately, the more we suppress people like this, the worse off it will be when the milk and lies finally run out and they're stuck with nothing but their anger and dependance.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/evaluating-drug-d...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_policy_of_Portugal
While it is apparently hard to say how effective these efforts were, it is quite easy to see that the neo-prohibitionists worst nightsmares have yet to happene in Portugal.
Right. I mean, a hippy-esque musical festival is going to draw in all sorts of non-violent potheads. How about the south side of Chicago? Do you think Kosmic Care is going to handle gangbangers on meth?
Heck, here in Chicago during Lollapalooza, a man bit two people and injured them. It is reported that he was on drugs:
http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2014/08/05/attacker-bites-man-on...
“In describing it to the police later, they said ‘We never see cases like that where the attacker isn’t on PCP, or bath salts, or something like that,” Lenet said. “There’s no way a normal person could have sustained that much punishment, and just walked away.”
The problem with the pro-legalization crowd is that we don't have any consistency. Some of us just want pot legalized but most of the movement seems to have this pie-in-the-sky view of legalizing just about everything. I'm afraid that we have two extremists groups: "no drugs" vs "all drugs" and per usual sane moderate voices are drowned out.
I just don't believe a "one size fits all" mentality will work here. I just don't think we should legalize drugs that are physically addictive like heroin, PCP, meth, etc.
The real insult is that alcohol is legal. Heavy alcohol use results in severe addiction and physical harm comparable to chronic heroin and amphetamine abuse. Yet we treat alcoholism as a psychological and a medical problem (which it is), and do not further ruin the addict's life and worsen their problems with incarceration and persecution.
Not sure what Spain's outlook on drug use is, but it was rather refreshing to see that level of education and emphasis on safety compared to what I've seen in festivals in Toronto and NYC.
The real problem was solved based on the lazy approach of "laissez-faire" (with consumption decriminalization) like a lot of stuff here (for the good and ill), "letting the market solve it": During the 90's the drug problem was huge! As an example, in my home town, that generation doesn't exist (people born during 70's). Almost all men (and some women) from that generation were involved on hard drugs (heroine). A large percentage of them went to prison and didn't come back, another large percentage of them died drugs related. Kids from that time (including myself) saw the dark side of being on drugs seated in first row: it was their neighbors and older brothers, not a stupid tale on TV.
Being on drugs since that moment was not cool anymore. Slowly, young people mentalities improved to "being on hard drugs is not cool". Nowadays, the sentiment is more mixed, hard drugs are not anymore seen as a boogeyman: some forgot what happened, others didn't see it with their eyes. Anyway, I don't think we will come back to 90's again. We were coming from a dictatorship, young generations wanted freedom and there were no visible bad examples of drug addiction. Times are different now, drugs are also cheaper, lesser need to be a petty criminal and involve all society like before.
Another country Nederland is well know in Europe for being very freedom with drugs. In Nederland in the latest few years they had several calls to put drugs on ban.
I visited Switzerland hundreds of times (it's like 15 miles where was my house) I have been in Amsterdam 4 times.
What I can say is that "citizens" were kinda sick and seems is not a thing anymore. Although is still a big big business economy for "tourists".
I think this thing of legalizing light drugs in america is like tobacco in 60-80', it was cool, trendy out of the scheme, but suddenly... things changed so much that I bet there are less tobacco smokers in California than the smallest town of Portugal.
Governments should also support people that want drugs to come off those drugs and while we're at it, release all prisoners who are specifically in for possession/dealing/trafficking.
We really need to give up on this idea of a drug free world.
I think we need to look to Portugal for an example of what can be done and also as a starting point for possibly developing a better model http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/evaluating-drug-d...
Most people that I've met (who may not be considered alcoholics) certainly have some level of alcohol dependency. And, I'm being loose here with the word 'dependency', but in the last year, I've never seen one of my friends or acquaintances refuse alcohol at a bar or restaurant, while others were drinking.
However, that does bring up the issue of money and alcohol. Restaurants seem to push the stuff pretty heavily, at least in the US. There should at least be some restrictions on the amount of profit that bars / restaurants can make off of it.
There is outrage and 'civil unrest' in some sort surrounding other drugs; the difference is the communities in which it manifests.
The war on drugs very disproportionately affects people along lines of race and socioeconomic status[0]. These communities certainly are outraged at how their families and communities are being destroyed (literally) by the prohibition of these drugs and the societal ramifications that go along with the prohibition. The difference is that they're not in a position to voice that outrage as loudly.
Remember why prohibition of alcohol was repealed - wealthy taxpayers were mad that their tax bills went up after the passage of the 18th amendment (the government could no longer make revenue off of alcohol taxes). This is exactly why initiatives to legalize marijuana in Colorado (Amendment 64), Washington, and California (Prop 19) have used the language 'tax and regulate'. It's not some crazy new idea - it's literally the same tactic that succeeded in passing the 21st amendment!
[0] http://www.amazon.com/New-Jim-Crow-Incarceration-Colorblindn...
I've never seen somebody refuse the optional free pickle spear at the sandwich line at work.
Only because of the wide spread of use.
In some places, this has turned out to result in significant high school heroin overdoses among well-off white folks, and significant heroin addiction among their parents.
If it's your kid or your neighbor, the "harm reduction" path starts to look a lot better than criminalization, and you start to see political viability for something that was radioactive before.
It hurts to admit it, but when you see political demagoguery in the U.S. (i.e., War on Drugs), looking for the racial angle is a good first strategy.
I'm against complete legalization of most drugs, though. I say make personal use legal and continue prosecuting dealers and pushers.
And for anyone who disagrees, that's fine. This is just my personal opinion.
Vermont is very independent, and doesn't have much of a "big city" influence, or cultural divide seen in even other New England states.
Demographics aren't the reason for Vermont's soft touch policy... demographics are the reason for the hardline policies in all of the other states.
Good stuff. I really wish those in power would more often try a scientific/engineering approach to see what works rather than politicians shouting about war on whatever.
Let the states be compared against one another and measure the results: if heroin abuse skyrockets in Vermont, then other states could avoid their policy mistakes. If something works incredibly well in a couple states, then it would be appropriate to implement broad, federal rules codifying the success in those states for the whole union.
As it stands, the federal government piles an increasing amount of legislation and regulation down on the states, leaving less room for this type of innovation and experimentation.
This problem is also starting to show up in the EU, since there is pressure to adopt monolithic policies across member states.
But the concept is not complicated - you should give people mobility, so that they can go wherever there are policies they most agree with. That is it.
The problem is that international mobility is crippled by bureaucratic immigration policies in addition to the classic cultural and language barriers. Thus, postulating that states should be more independent in their policies is right, but it needs to acknowledge that fundamentally it does not matter if it is states in a country or individual countries or something like city states or homesteading, all that is required is the ability for individuals to migrate where their ideologies and the states match.
And the modern world is often simultaneously the best and worst time for such mobility. In terms of real physical barriers, there are pretty much none - flight has advanced sufficiently it is not prohibitive in cost for many people in the world to realistically save up enough to fly anywhere else. Simultaneously, in the past it was much easier to just "cross boarders", where the bureaucracy and monitoring of citizenship was much reduced.
Hopefully we progress to minimize or remove the latter, because it is the best outcome for everyone except those who want to prevent mobility to hold power over groups of people who would not stay if they had a choice.
Anyway, I'm glad I got help. Life's too good to throw it away :)
I'd like to argue as a Brit that we did treat these people as sick until Nixon's "war on drugs" made UN policies that the rest of the world had to treat them as criminals.
Except I don't consider it a side-effect, nor do I think it's limited to Republicans. For example, prison was one way to control the newly freed slave population. (http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/199804--.htm) Being the world's biggest jailer isn't exactly an "oops" thing.
What they need to do is manufacture and sell the drugs at cost to registered addicts. This way you destroy the business of the drug cartels and you insure your citizens are at least using pure drugs.
Regardless of the legality of the use of the drug it is a health issue that the drugs your citizens consume are pure. The safety of your people should come first and a government that has taken this long to realize something that basic is simply incompetent.
Prioritizing law enforcement before public safety is a revealing and meaningful sign of incompetence or even corruption.
Population control. For blacks, it's the modern day equivalent of Jim Crow laws, but for keeping a huge majority in prison.
Government is fundamentally better at policing and enforcing than it is at nurturing. It is not a sign of corruption, but merely a trait inherent to all government.
I recently left the state, but only a year ago I was living in Saint Albans when a warrant sweep rounded up dozens of my neighbors, including one who had been moving thousands of grams of heroin monthly.
Throughout 2013 there were ongoing sweeps in 3 major counties, all focused on narcotics only. Dozens were arrested each time. We're a small state with a terrible economy. As glad as I am that Shumlin is taking this step (and he's made it clear for a while now that he's happy to ignore the political consequences of this action) this has been a very long time coming. I remember first hearing about the heroin problem in my state 20 years ago, when I was in middle school and there was a report of someone overdosing in a park adjacent to a summit on combating opiate addiction.
Vice did a good story on all of this last year: http://www.vice.com/read/the-brown-mountain-state
Of course, that was 50 years ago- as the phrase has gotten recycled for initiatives like the War on Drugs, it has lost that nuance and context, and sounds more like some zero-tolerance, overly militant government program (which parts of it were). Many or most Americans would agree with you that "War on X" needs to go, including me.
According to Wikipedia[1], the "war on crime" was used by Hoover in the '30s.
here it is on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luMdJAia-bw
Mostly any kid smoking small amount of marijuana. Being free of drugs wont necessary help you, because law enforcement so much power, that they can take away your property even if you have done nothing wrong. And you can still get stopped and searched for drugs for no reason.
There is a sane Republican! Hurrah!
