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Comment by wanderfowl | Hacker News Reader

I personally can't stand weed, mostly for the smell and allergic potential of public or shared-wall-dwelling smoking. At some level, it was a joy to move out of Colorado, to an "illegal" place where public and apartment smoking is much more rare.

Even to me, with this admitted bias, this article is another great argument for 50 state legalization. Chasing legal weed across state lines is a huge resource-sink which wins us exactly nothing as a society. Just get it over with and legalize it everywhere, and use the funding you saved to step up enforcement of DUI laws, substance abuse help programs, and hell, fixing bridges and laying fiber.

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You really think there's less weed smoking where it's illegal? How does that work? Drug laws work so it's next to impossible to obtain them? Fear of getting caught?

On this same thread, you wrote: "restrict gun sales and you reduce gun crime." So, why are the economics of banning guns vs. banning weed such opposites in your view?

So guns are a drug now are they?

I don't see the connection between guns and drugs.

Sure, there is less weed smoking where it's illegal. Aside from the factors you mention, there is an obvious one: people not doing something simply because it is against the law. People do make decisions on that basis.

> people not doing something simply because it is against the law. People do make decisions on that basis.

Conversely, people also make decisions on the opposite basis -- doing things because they are prohibited.

Not nearly the same amount do that, I assume.

Really? I can't imagine a single person ever saying "I've heard about people having profound, life altering experiences on drugs, but because they are illegal I won't take them". Such a person must have literally no respect for themselves at all.

Hi @dave2000, I am that man. Sure, I've done illegal things, and I still do, but generally I avoid breaking the law.

I note that my respect for the law has increased with age. Probably due to encountering more accomplished lawbreakers and not wanting to be the guy who says, "Yes, but it's OK if I break that law because it's a stupid law." Also knowing people who, perhaps, had a problem at an airport or with the state police. I find the law to be a useful reality check.

I note your argument above has made this into a 0/1 proposition ("because they are illegal I won't take them").

But I believe it is more true to reality to look at it probabilistically, i.e., on a given Friday night, is it more or less likely that I'd be offered MMJ by a friend if it's legal in CA versus not legal in CA.

I think this thought experiment clarifies the argument that consumption increases when MJ is legalized. Indeed, for medical MJ specifically, I think that is the point.

It's less public. There's actual fear of smoking in parks, pools, concerts, because it's still nominally illegal. After legalization in CO, public smoking went way up.

I suspect it'll drop down again after the novelty wears off and the public tires of it and wants smoking laws enforced.

But one nice perk of legalization is that it could be written into leases explicitly that smoking in the apartment is in violation of the lease and is grounds for eviction after repeated complaints. It's not a police matter or a "narcotics" issue, it's just somebody being an inconsiderate neighbor.

That's not a perk of legalization, since you can do that when the drug is illegal, as well. In fact, many leases do do that for all illegal drugs (which marijuana remains, due to federal prohibition, no matter what happens under state law.)

Yes, but there's a huge subjective difference between saying "You're an asshole, stop smoking up in a shared-wall-dwelling" and "You're a criminal, go to jail". Most managers are happy to address nuisance issues, but would rather reduce the number of police calls to the property.

Same thing with public smoking laws. People smoking up in a park upwind of people deserve a small ticket, an age check, and a harshed mellow. They do not deserve arrest and prosecution on drug laws.

Enforcement of disproportionate punishment is less attractive to sane humans.

The fact that something is a criminal offense does not mean that landlords cannot also handle it as a contract issue when it is addressed in a lease.

Again, legalization doesn't enable anything here.

Is it even technically allowed to smoke inside those apartments?

Yes, it's legal to smoke inside an apartment, so long as your lease doesn't disallow it for example.

Even for complexes where it's disallowed, good luck getting it enforced. I get weed smoke coming in through the ventilation system from who knows where in my completely non-smoking building on a regular basis.

Actually was the same before legalization too, and hasn't really increased, so this is sort of a non sequitur.

If your landlord fails to enforce the lease agreement, you can probably use that to get out of the lease. Our complex recently had people complaining about this very thing and they have started getting much stricter about it thank goodness.

You probably can't, unless your agreement expressly obliges the landlord to enforce the rule against other people rather merely than requiring you to follow the rule as a condition of being permitted to rent the apartment. This would be an unusual lease agreement.

In Colorado, many communities have started to actually enforce this, in the same way that repeated noise violations can lead to eviction or non-renewal. Now that it's no longer a police issue, and just an "inconsiderate prick" issue, property managers can address it in house.

I'd rather CO/WA/CA solve the public nuisance problem of smoking (we juuuust finished clearing most public airspace of cigarette smoke, and now MJ is bringing it back) before rolling out legalization nationwide. MJ smokers aren't advocating themselves persuasively.

This is a big issue, I think. Concerts are really, really bad in Colorado these days.

My hope is that widespread legality and availability of tinctures and edibiles and non-plant-containing vaporizing juice, there will be an increased number of ways for people to get high without being inconsiderate to the people around them.

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