It's not a benzo, but it is a GABAergic drug. The ironclad law to avoid brutal dependency and addiction is to never take it more than once every 7 days, preferably less frequently than that. No redosing on the same day either. This means it will take a couple weeks to slowly find an effective dose.
It really is a social anxiety off switch for me (once it fully kicks in after 5+ hours, lasting for about 24 hours before things slowly return to baseline). Alcohol in troubling quantities has that effect to a lesser extent, but of course it's sloppy as hell too and I hate the hangover. Not so with phenibut.
That makes it tempting to use before 7 days have passed just for this one social occasion. Although committing to not do that has flipped the dynamic: Even after enough time has passed I'm reconsidering, is today actually worth using it and being "blocked" for another week during which something more interesting might come up? Trying to make my occasional visit to normie vibe space count, it's kind of nice there.
It sounds too good to be true... article mentioned none of the side effects that other commenters had rightly pointed out. Otherwise I would actually be tempted, but there are no free lunches (especially when messing with your biology).
I think it may cause cognitive decline. I mean longterm.
It was rightly banned in Australia. Fuckwits had a tendency of buying it online and then taking huge doses without a break (sensitisation) and then posting essays on the sheer horror they go through when the drug leaves their system and they rebound.
A nice reminder to libertarians that, yes you may be smart and careful with risk taking but there are many fuckwits who aren’t and shouldn’t have to suffer because of it unnecessarily.
Some peoole beat their wives when they drink, so the state has decided that it is in everyone's best interest for alcohol to become illegal.
Some people become unproductive and hurt themselves when on drugs, so the state has decided to enact a war on drugs.
Some people injure themselves trying to procure abortions, so the state has decided no more abortions.
Some protesters cause war recruiting efforts to struggle during Vietnam, which hurts soldiers already deployed, so the state has decided no more anti-war protests.
Some people misuse privacy to commit crimes, so the state has decided that every citizen must be fingerprinted and put into a police database preemptively to prevent crime.
Some people aren't productive enough and others are forced to pick up the slack, so the state has decided to humanely euthanize the disabled to protect workers.
Trust the state, relinquish your freedoms, the state knows best and the state never makes mistakes!
This is just half a dozen examples of the slippery slope fallacy. You could make identically generic arguments for every good law that we all agree on. The specifics of the law in question are a required component of the conversation.
> the state knows best and the state never makes mistakes!
Nobody believes this. Everyone is comfortable with the risks of the state when it comes to rights and laws they believe should be enforced.
No, it's half a dozen examples that already happened in real life (5 quite literally, 1 with digital fingerprinting of network traffic instead of physical fingerprints).
This isn't parody or satire, it's history.
I am not comfortable with the risks of the state when it comes to my rights. It's fine to have an opinion, but don't think you speak for everyone.
The state is the only entity that infringes on my rights.
Private parties have never tried to strip me of my right to freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, right to bear arms, my right to privacy, my right to private property / the fruits of my labor, etc.
No, those are natural rights that governments wisely choose to recognize. I hold those rights, along with the right to life, liberty, and the peaceful pursuit of happiness. Whether or not one or more governments recognizes those rights has no bearing on whether I hold them.
Are you saying you would if there were no federal government?
Nobody needs to respect your rights with government existing either, government just offers the possibility of consequences for people who violate the non-aggression principle.
> Are you saying you would if there were no federal government?
Maybe? The hypothetical represents a world so alien to the one we live in that it's hard to predict how I would act. What is absolutely assured however is that the biggest assholes in the region are definitely going to do a lot of killing, robbing and raping.
Government or no government, people who go around raping are gonna get killed, people who go around murdering are going to get killed, and people who go around robbing are going to get killed. Crime is a self-solving problem in an armed society.
Their body, their choice. Why should people who can use it responsibly be denied? And worse, why should they be punished if they choose to use it regardless of legality?
> Their body, their choice. Why should people who can use it responsibly be denied? And worse, why should they be punished if they choose to use it regardless of legality?
Because we don't live in isolated universes of individuality. When they cause massive damage to their bodies and minds, that cost is not only borne by themselves but by their close circle and society at large. You can argue that prohibition is not the right approach to preventing these problems, but doing the non-optimal thing is better than doing nothing at all.
There are many 'everyday' activities, foods, and substances that can be shown to be harmful to the individual in the long term, and thus have a negative effect on their close circle, the healthcare system, and potentially society, but which are socially acceptable and so remain.
e.g.
Alcohol is worse than no alcohol, for many reasons.
Smoking cigarettes, obvs.
Eating meat is worse that not eating meat.
Doing woodwork without breathing protection may damage your lungs.
Cleaning with spray cleaning products regularly may damage your lungs.
Sun exposure increases your skin cancer risk.
Running is more likely to cause arthritis than cycling or swimming.
Loud environments may damage your hearing.
Insufficiently frequent ejaculation may increase your risk of prostate cancer.
Yes, I'm being deliberately absurd to make the point, but still: where, and how, to draw the line?
It's legal in many US states to ride motorcycles without a helmet. Skydiving is legal. All kinds of legal, risky activity. I can go out and have unprotected sex with anyone willing, as long as no money is involved, and catch and spread numerous diseases. I don't see substance use as any different than other risky behaviors that people lawfully engage in daily.
This is precisely why my enthusiasm for libertarianism has waned over the years--a lot of things just don't scale and I think benevolent anarchy is one of those things. It just becomes pure anarchy with all the Mad Max horrors.
I don't think you have to be libertarian to think that there are responsible and better models for drug regulation in between the two extremes of being able to order it in huge quantities online and outright prohibiting it. As a recreational and responsible drug user, I think the current model is a violation of my right to call the shots on my own body and mind.
I was outraged when it was banned as well to be honest but I found out about it from the imminst--which was a place with a lot of educated people who were very cautious with it.
It was like an insult. Like I couldn't rationally decide on the risk of using it.
Then I saw the reddit posts and I got it. I couldn't previously conceptualise that there were actually people like that out there. And these aren't people who intentionally want to hurt themselves either. They just saw the drug online, bought it and thought: "What the heck? It's available so it must be ok." Those people are morons but they still need to be protected from themselves. And nannied.
>and then posting essays on the sheer horror they go through when the drug leaves their system and they rebound.
There are very few things, concepts, or sensations more annoying than a junkie telling everyone about what it's like to be a junkie.
Listening to a fork-tongued megachurch preacher telling you you're going to hell while begging for money is less of a chore than some pothead wondering aloud if people see colors differently.
