Apparently Big Brother decided I was breaking the community rules

The way Facebook interpreted my personal story was that I was promoting the use of a substance that is prohibited to use.

So let's talk about scheduled substances. How do substances get onto and off schedules? And why should we care?

We should care because when a substance gets scheduled, WE run the risk of committing a crime (Darryl Bickler) by possessing the substance or even by trying to possess it.

And what controls substances getting on and off schedules? Here the plethora of answers is so diverse that it becomes a cognitive cocophony: There are different kinds of schedules and there are different kinds of substances and there are different ways for substances to get on and off the schedules and I would like to briefly glance at all combinations of these!

There are schedules for dangerous substances and schedules for prohibited substances, schedules for precursors and schedules for analogs (or derivatives as they are sometimes called). Some schedules have ‘umbrella clauses’. These clauses represent families of substances as opposed to simple clauses that list the name of a single substance. The use of such clauses is often heatedly reconsidered because they make the law difficult to read (and there is a principle in law that says that it should be CLEAR to the citizen when they are in violation of the law and when not).

Now, it is worthwhile considering for a moment that the schedules are part of law, and law is probably the most revered belief system out of all that we generally sanctify (love, family, health, egalitarianism - being examples of a few others). That is to say, people take the law very seriously and as a result, they take the schedules very seriously. But when we think about lists of substances and how important they are - we should remember that the lists change from one jurisdiction to another and from time to time. We should also remember that, at the end of the day laws are written by humans for humans and they are enforced by humans. And all this just so that we may remember how to stay safe and protect ourselves. So it's good to take the schedules seriously but it isn't good to take them too seriously to the degree that they are sanctified to godly status or laws of nature. The schedules are lists that people construct and they can deconstruct them as well, as would be appropriate if a game-changing technology came along that warranted a paradigm shift. For example, let’s look at the recent drama by which the FDA effected an unprecedented reversal of the results of MDMA-assissted-psychotherapy sending the hopes of relief for PTSD, Anxiety and related conditions into another 3 year wait that will likely feel like forever to those depressed and despondent.