Cheers Frew! I don’t think that thelose passages are explicitly needed in our policy to change it’s meaning, but I would certainly support it as an amendment!
i think definately legalisation of some of these drugs would be attractive to some greens and small l liberal voters.
Ayahuasca and DMT are in the YouTube zeitgeist
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DMT/Aya also has the benefit of potentially creating an industry of people who can make the stuff and also shamans who can protect people while they take it. this is a low skilled job and Australia has DMT in some of our native plants. it could sit well in the job program with guidelines for efficacy and perhaps inspection like the health department does with restaurants and medical provider to ensure hygiene standards. It also has the benefit of opening minds to different political thought like the Pirate Party might benefit from. I think the lack of a consensus before shouldn’t prevent progress in this space.
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Hahaha but politically perhaps that is a step too far to advocate for. Without mentioning drugs together with Job Guarantee, it would still be possible though as one of many potential jobs.
haha yeh itd sure trigger the conservatives.
it could also be considered a job to be the psychonautic scientist explorer, exploring the inner spiritual/psyche worlds and obtaining information from the machine elves, so long as you reported on it afterwards.
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A possible way to make legalisation more acceptable to the general public is if we adopt a similar system to pharmacy store scripts (The doctor to the pharmacist).
Which means to be able to get recreational drugs, you need to get a appointment with a recreational drug advisor. (As for how frequent, that’s a question best asked to a doctor.)
The advisor is a registered expert that does not need to be trained to a doctor level, but is there to simply keep track of the changes to your body and mind due to these drugs. They can then authorise you to take a certain safe amount. Or direct you to a doctor upon bad effects.
With the scrip, you can head to your local recreational drug store for any drugs categories that your advisor allows for.
Pro: More jobs. Some oversight. Less strain on medical system
Cons: Doctors have better expertise on health effects of drugs.
You can then say this will create new job categories 
Implementation Variations:
- Full: You cannot access drugs at all unless you get advisor authorisation.
- Partial: You can buy very small amount, but for more you need authorisation.
- Psudo: You can buy any amount, but without authorisation the government will excessively tax the drug.
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That brings up the very salient point of “there needs to be someone who knows how this could interact with any medical drugs” — and to my knowledge, that means regular pharmacists.
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There is a hurdle with medical ethics and I don’t know if this applies to Pharmacists too along the lines of recommending or allowing the use of a substance which has no medical benefit. To overcome this problem you need a parallel system which has all the necessary training as you’d expect from a Pharmacist or Doctor but with the ‘medical’ portion taken out of the equation.
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Hmm. You wouldn’t happen to be describing a organic chemist perhaps? I’ll bet the Petrochemical industry is full of them…Pirates in bed with [rest of the line sort of writes itself?]
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I don’t know what that is
Good grief. I am probably older than you but still remember learning the alkane sequence in high school: methane, ethane, propane, butane &c. &c.
Esters, Ethers, Alcohols, and so on. Surely some of this stuff sticks?
It rings a bell, but I wasn’t a top student either
Sticks for me. But then, I sat in on first year chem lectures at university too (still quite a few years ago) despite not being my field of study because they were so damn interesting and entertaining.
How does that work with most cosmetic surgery? Generally no medical benefit there.
hmmm good question. “Self-esteem?” [insert token appointment with a Shrink]. Perhaps some other ‘medical’ excuse could fit in like “the freedom makes me feel complete as a person and prevents me from getting depressed by not having access to it”
As a long retired Alcohol and Drug “Counsellor” I would ask; what difference is there between any other recreational drug and beer?
Legalise the lot. Just like alcohol and tobacco.
I agree in principle, but logistically there are more safeguards needed to avoid negative interactions with a substance lacking academic research and less education around it (because it’s illegal) and alcohol/tobacco which can be safely sold with just a little bit of training.
Pro-tip. Everything before a “but” is a lie. Try replacing “but” with “and” or a “full-stop”.
There is less known about illegal drugs because they are, illegal? I reject your claim.
Checkout training is all the training needed. Should that be changed?
How about all recreational non-addictive substances (party drugs) be sold and regulated at the same levels. Keep it simple. Imagine, a tab of LSD next to the paracetamol, or the coffee. Anything addictive (like Codeine, atm) needs a chemists oversight. That’ll fix any booze and tobacco problem real quick. Still available and (but) regulated and sold appropriately.
What about home brewers? My Apple Cider kicks arse and blows bottles! I’m not giving that up.
Prohibition does not work. I think the next logical step would be to give party drugs the same regulations as beer or a pack of smokes. And, grow your own? Have at it.
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Alcohol and Tobacco can be addictive, particularly Tobacco.
Training is needed to check IDs and Responsible Serving of Alcohol certificates.
Ideally I would like to see it side by side with other drugs.
Transitional measures also need to be considered until public education about being responsible matches that of A+T.
Didn’t we have an actual paramedic come to the podium in that policy meeting? I don’t think they were even a party member - just someone who happened to be in the vicinity who overheard our drug policy discussion.
The drug policy as it stands is a bit soft. It calls for restudying things that have been studied to death already and it doesn’t provide a clear marker for how Pirates would vote on drug legalisation in a parliament. I wouldn’t mind revisiting it.
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A good friend of mine just went to a psychedelics symposium in Melbourne. It covered a lot of the issues around their use as medicines and traditional use of psychedelics in Indigenous communities. I discussed this thread with him and he pointed me to this article about Greg Kasarik who has campaigned to legalise LSD in Victoria under their human rights legislation by claiming it is part of his spiritual practice.
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