ARE SHROOMS NEXT

Is Colorado setting itself up for another Rocky Mountain High?

Well what to talk about today?  Abortion? Global Warming? Inflation?  Naw...let’s talk about drugs.  Colorado, where I live, is the leader in having been one of the first states to allow medical and recreational marijuana. We have developed a multi-billion dollar marijuana industry generating fantastic tax revenues.  Meth, heroin, and now fentynyl use are exploding throughout the state.  People are overdosing on an unprecented and regular basis. We teach our librarians how to administer NARCAN, to keep the folks alive, I guess to get them through the children’s story hour.

This spring, our fellow Coloradoans briefly noticed that their citizens were dropping like flies from fentynyl, but the legislature refused to reverse it’s decriminalization of the possession of fentynyl for fear of stigmatizing drug users with a felony conviction.  I thought that being dead would be more stigmitzing, but then again, I am not in the legislature. 

Fun fact:  In 2019, our legislature reduced possession 4 grams of fentynyl to a misdeamnor from a felony not wanting too much punishment for “personal use”. Four grams is enough fentynyl to kill 8000 people.  That’s a lot of “personal” use.  In the 2022 “reform”, our leaders cut it back to 1 gram for personal use or enough to kill “only” 2000 people.

We currently have a substantial homeless population many of whom are addicted to drugs, shoplift, smash and grab out of cars, fence the goods, and then buy more drugs.  Our police tell me that (other than traffic stops), there is virtually no one that they encounter these days who is not involved in some type of drug related activities. The drugged homeless have taken over downtown Denver and particulary our Union station, the main hub for our public transportation system such that no one (including the bus drivers) want to go there anymore.  Things couldn’t get any worse.

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And then things got worse.   Last week, signatures for a citizen-initiative were submitted by Co-chief proponent, Veronica Lightning Horse Perez, for Initiative 58 for the November 2022 election, which, if passed, would create a “Ministry of Drugs” to regulate the distribution of shrooms. (psychedelic mushrooms for you drug illiterates who never went to health class in our modern-day high schools).  Then in the years to come, they would legalize dimethyltryptamine (DMT) with street names such as the Spirit Molecule, Date Rape Drug, Grievous Bodily Harm, and Super Acid; mescaline (Chief, Cactus Head and Mescal) and Ibogaine which I don’t even know what that is except that it was developed by the Pygmy Tribes of Central Africa from the root bark of the iboga tree.

Now you won’t be able to get all these at your local 7/11…yet.  In the 18-page proposed statute, the proponents create a regulatory structure where the state would establish a drug supply chain through “health centers”.  If you want to grow you own, have at it!  You can grow as much as you want and trip as much as you want.  In an anti-capitalist swipe, you can give unlimited quantities to your buddies as long as you don’t make any money off of it.  A “Natural Medicine Advisory Board” would be created to advise the Department of Regulatory Agencies (this is the official name for the “Ministry of Drugs” that I mentioned above) on the best way to get the shrooms out to the public.

You would hope that Colorado would catch a break in the advancement of the mind-numbing industry.  As a leader in the medical marijuana movement, it became apparent after a while that 95% of the prescriptions written for weed by dispensary “doctors” were for “non-specify joint pain” for males ages 21-29.  What are the chances of that?  So we figured, “what the heck” and approved MJ for recreational use to rake in all those tax dollars and not require stoners to lie.  It has enhanced our tourism industry with the arrival of the marijuana homeless who currently reside on our streets smoking marijuana and livin’ the dream.  Many have advanced on to other more dream-like substances such a heroin, meth, and fentanyl sustaining their existence through shoplifting, drug sales and the kindness of strangers.

You would think we would know better.  With our history, we are embarking on yet another embarrassing “Rocky Mountain High” venture to “tune in and drop out” assisting yet another group of citizens who will provide no meaningful value to themselves or our society.  Now to be fair, the advocates claim that mushrooms have provided mind expanding experiences sometimes of a spiritual nature.  Well of course they do. The users are hallucinating! Another stated reason to adopt this proposal it that is “natural” and for our health.  That these products are “natural” implying we should soon find them in the organic section at Whole Foods is misplaced. Rattlesnakes are natural too, but that doesn’t mean we should let them have the run of the house. 

Hey, I’m no chemist.  I graduated with a degree in international affairs, but my degree and study of history, even recent history, has shown that pumping mind altering drugs into societies has not turned out well. Opium from the “natural” poppy plant has resulted in two opium wars between the British and the Chinese and the destruction of the Middle Kingdom in the 19th century.  Cocaine, from the “natural” coca plant snorted up noses and crack pushed into our communities have resulted in untold deaths, poverty, drug wars with the cartels in South and Central America, and drug dependency and destruction of some of the poorest communities. We still haven’t figured out how to fix the opioid crisis that we just created as a result of the legal prescription of oxycontin and other pain killing drugs.

While arguing for the potential positive health effects and the unproven (so far) dangers of psychedelic mushrooms, the proponents soothe us with incessant admonitions which would prohibit the sale, transfer, access or anything having to do with “children” under 21 (as if those same assurances mattered for weed).  However, if you look at the fine print (and we should always look at the fine print), the penalty for under age 21 use of shrooms is “4 hours drug education” which must be provided for free by the state.  That’s less detention than you would get for being a wise ass to your teacher. 

However, there is an emerging correlation that has arisen out of the mass shootings in our country between young males, mind altering drugs, anti-depressants, violence, and suicide.  For all of us old farts who watch the drug ads on TV for anti-depressants, we are warned before the happy music comes back on that “you may encounter paranoia or suicidal thoughts and if so, should see your doctor” Really? Or maybe they just bypass the physician and go get a gun. I don’t know, but before we dump new drugs into our society, do you think that it might be worthwhile figuring this our first?

Look, I am for having as much fun as the next guy, but maybe before we establish a new regime to pump new mind-altering drugs into our brains and community, maybe we should tap the breaks on this one for a while until we can figure out exactly what is going on with these psychedelic drugs and our brains.