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That's basically where cigarettes are in the US. Their use is discouraged, there's an age restriction on sales, they are heavily taxed, people are educated about the dangers of smoking them and there are nuisance restrictions on public use in many cities.

Beyond that, people are free to do as they please with a reasonable expectation that it's an informed decision.

I think a lot of what we're seeing in the US is simple "new market" factor more than anything else. The assumption is that it will settle down at some point once there's a reasonably established marketplace.

(I live in Colorado)

>I don't like the attitudes of pro-legalization people in the US. They wont accept that there are negative sides to drug use and seem to think there should be no restrictions.

Who's saying that? For example, I don't think anyone is advocating selling to minors.

>It is as if there is never any middle ground in the US. Either you got the moralists who spell doom or you got people who think you should be free to do however dam you please. Where are the pragmatic people who accept it is a bad thing to do drugs but that a strict regulation is a better solution than a war on drugs.

Why do pragmatic people accept "it is a bad thing to do drugs"? Do they drink coffee? Avoid OTC painkillers?

I love the strawman stance that aspirin, coffee, and weed are all equal, and that the single constraint of simply not selling to children is plenty of restrictions.

He said "no restrictions" and "it is a bad thing to do drugs" feel free to put forth another argument.

That was hyperbolic. Obviously even potheads in the US want some restrictions. But the guiding principle seems to be that grown adults should be free to smoke pot as they please and in whatever way they please. That is not my perspective on legalization at all. I view it as a necessary evil. Something to do because the alternative is much worse. So I want the legalization to be as strict as possible while still being more attractive than the criminal alternative. Perhaps though in a transition period it can make sense to be more liberal to drive out the dealers completely and tighten it more later.

Here are are more of my specifics. I favor an absolute ban on any form of advertisement. Limits on the size and number of shops and their placement. I would also like the dispensaries to be non profit, or alternatively a government monopoly. One does not want anybody to have a profit motive to sell drugs.

I think a dispensary should be place that you can both buy drugs but also get information about health hazards and informations about available treatment. Edibles should be banned and government should set max rates for potency of the drugs.

But apart from that I of course wish that there is an end to the federal rules against this. People operating dispenseries should not have to fear being imprisoned by FBI and banks should be allowed to have them as customers.

> But the guiding principle seems to be that grown adults should be free to smoke pot as they please and in whatever way they please. That is not my perspective on legalization at all.

I don't think "in whatever way they please" is the goal. Nobody is advocating legalizing driving while high, for example.

> One does not want anybody to have a profit motive to sell drugs.

Why? What is so bad about selling recreational drugs?

> Edibles should be banned

Why?

Pot has more restrictions than alcohol and it'd be hard to argue that marijuana has the more negative effects.

I live in Vancouver. We have a number of pot chains that are starting to grow bigger and bigger. The city is trying to implement a number of regulations that include not allowing pot shops to be within 300m of schools, community centers, or other pot shops. As well, edibles were banned almost a year ago now.

At first I was completely against the edible ban. Now, with shops only being able to sell things like infused oil pills and simple cooking oils, I'm fully in support of it. Weed gummy bears are a fun idea to think about, but it seems like these are novelties at best and extremely likely to be used in a distasteful prank or over-consumed by novice users.

I'm still kind of against the "300m from other pot shops" rule, but c'est la vie.

>I don't like the attitudes of pro-legalization people in the US. They wont accept that there are negative sides to drug use and seem to think there should be no restrictions.

This sums up my experience both in this thread, and living in Colorado.

Are these fears born out of experience or are you just voicing concerns for what you think is going to happen? To be honest, what you've written reads like you are the victim of a lot of scare-mongering and hysterical claims about the effects of legalization. For one thing, I see no evidence of "the US totally overdoing this", least of all because there is no US wide approach to cannabis legalization, even among the states where it is legal. Most of the states where cannabis is legal seem to be handling the matter with great caution, with the laws and regulations in place specifically precluding the commercialization fears and behaviors that you are citing. Just google "Alaska cannabis laws" or "Oregon cannabis laws". Some cities forbid the sale of recreational cannabis altogether, limiting users to what they can grow themselves. You shouldn't judge decriminalization in the US based on sensationalist reporting from the worst excesses of it; you have to remember that the US isn't one place and one set of laws when it comes to cannabis legalization.

That was a fairly naive perspective you had. Capitalism, money, and strong puritan morals are at the very heart of America's culture (that is changing, slowly).

Of course it was going to get picked up by companies and exploited for every penny its worth. Of course there are going to be sensational moral debates that spiral out of control and detract from the issue.

This isn't the Netherlands. And since when did one country's policies blindly apply to another?

Alcohol is a controlled substance that also has huge industry behind it, both in the USA and abroad.

Why would one expect the same desires that drive alcohol's mass marketing and consumption to not be present for marijuana?

The side effects are certainly different, but they both affect your mental state, so comparing these seems pretty reasonable.

That is not true. Perhaps I have been naive about the American result but as a Norwegian I am used to a very controlled sale of alcohol. Alcohol advertisement is banned and any alcohol above 5% is sold in government monopolies. This is quite different from e.g. the Canadian liquor monopoly which the government seems to treat as a cash cow. In Norway they are really not trying to push alcohol on your or increase sales. Instead they focus on customer satisfaction and teaching customers what wine goes with what food and things like that.

In the Netherlands there might not be a monopoly on drug sales, but the coffeeshops are generally small operations without a huge presence. There are no advertisement. So yes I have experience alternatives which don't treat these industries as big money operations. And perhaps I naively thought that was possible in the US, forgetting that Americans tend to think very big when it comes to business.

What precisely was not true from my post?

Alcohol has a huge industry behind it in the USA.

And who bought Budweiser-creator Anheiser-Busch, one of the USA's largest beer companies? InBev, based in Belgium.

Alcohol consumption per capita is higher in plenty of countries in Europe compared to the USA: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_alcohol...

Although I can't find numbers on international marketing expenditures for alcohol, personal experience informs me that most pubs in Germany, and plenty in Ireland and Austria, have a sign from a beer company hanging outside the front. That's actually something the USA doesn't have; neon signs are in some pubs' windows, but not every single one like I'd see in Germany. That sign outside the bar is most definitely marketing, even if it's less glitzy than American alcohol TV ads.

I then asked a question about why, and you answered - thank you! I didn't know alcohol ads (do you mean on tv, in print, on the radio, online...?) were banned in the Netherlands.

I also must ask for clarification: because I can't sense the tone with which yore typing these words, it seems like you're using the word naive in a way that suggests you are simply disappointed that the USA is not behaving like your country. Am I interpreting that correctly?

Americans do think big when it comes to business... as do many other countries. The Forbes international 500 [1] has companies from all over, and the USA does not dominate. In fact, the Netherlands shares the number 3 slot with the UK. I hope you don't naively think businesses want less success outside the USA; they may want less growth, though, but the Forbes top 10 global would seem to say otherwise.

Ambition for business is everywhere in the world, although the USA does indeed have its share of large companies.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortune_Global_500

Hehehe well yeah maybe I had naive hopes. I honestly had not thought a lot about how this would turn out in the US. The US is following such a different trajectory from what I am used to in politics in Norway where I am from. Pot isn't legal in Norway either but I found the laws extremely draconian in the US. The war on drugs really turned me off prohibiting drug sales. But what I find odd is that America seems to be moving from one extreme to another so quickly.

Here in Norway pot is not legal, but there is a gradual sort of decriminalization with respect to drugs. They are still keen to point out it is illegal but police reactions to abuse is quite mild. It is mainly the big sellers they are going after.

I guess naively I had expected the US to first change their laws to be milder long before any full legalization happens. But I think a major difference is that in Norway a lot of the liberalization is driven by the legal profession and actors rather than by some popular opinion in the population. Citizens aren't really favoring legalization the way Americans are, but nor are they really favoring a harsh response either. It is people working close to the issue that typically push for some form of legalization.

I think the unique aspect in the US is legalization happening in the context of a very polarized population. Where many are like, just let people do whatever they dam please and others are very moralistic and want to keep going with a sort of war on drugs. This seems like an explosive combination.

You might ask why do I care at all. Well American has tremendous influence on the rest of the world. I fear that a failed legalization experiment in the US would set back legalization everywhere else. People will point to the US as a horror example. The US is already used like that as a way to scare people away from any sort of privatized hospitals or clinics.

> All these edibles makes my head shake.

Can you explain this sentence? I'm having trouble parsing it and the preceding sentence isn't providing any helpful context.

"edibles" is referring to marijuana snacks, stuff you can eat, like brownies, but more typically little candies and gummies.

So the parent comment is saying that all of the variations/flavors of these pot candies can be disorienting.

I wasn't sure if I should interpret it as a variation of the idiom "making my head spin", or as a disapproving "shaking my head”.

Edibles tend to be popular with inexperienced users who don't want to smoke, it's impossible to know exactly what dose you're eating, and you won't feel the effect until it's too late. Ergo, it's very easy to overdose with them.

Not entirely true. Over-the-counter edibles available at most legal dispensaries have measured amounts of cannabinoid oil, as well as the potency of that oil, listed on the package.

One company called Spot (in Seattle) has a little chart on the back, as well as these informative numbers, that roughly equates the dose of a cookie to a certain number of glasses of wine for further expectation setting. Overall, the packaging is very clear[0] about dosage, the time of the onset, and other factors that may contribute to the type of buzz you'll get.

It's very much similar to ABV on an alcoholic beverage, though. You can know exactly what you're ingesting, and you can get the general idea of what to expect, but it's impossible to label a can of beer with something like "5 of these will make you drunk in about an hour and half".

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0. http://twotentwice.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/SPOT-Bites...

I don't think 'jernfrost' is commenting on the possibility for overdose at all. In the context of his comment, he seems to imply that there are just so many choices and flavors, that it can be confusing. Like going to the supermarket grocery store to pick out a new tube of toothpaste, how many variations does there really need to be? How likely will it be that I pick out the best one for my needs?

How did you think this story would unfold?