Marijuana should be legal but discouraged, not permitted to be advertised, put in plain packaging, kept behind counters and not turned into novelty products that appeal to teenagers like foods.
Hard to see how it's much different to tobacco really.
All of these requirements are implemented in the Washington state roll out. Re: discouraged, there are radio ads warning parents to talk to their kids about the dangers of marijuana. There is zero advertising and everything is behind counters at special stores that don't sell anything else.
> Hard to see how it's much different to tobacco really.
Hey, why leave out the other big sin drug? Alcohol gets a lot more free roam in advertising and sale/visibility in stores minors can visit.
http://www.kplu.org/post/seattle-sees-first-marijuana-billbo...
For one, you don't have to smoke it (where the majority of negative health effects come from). You can eat it, steep it, drink it.
Comparing it to tobacco is ridiculous.
you don't have to smoke cannabis to get thc. you can eat it, and many people do.
if you just don't like the idea of it, that's one thing and completely understandable, but claiming (even rhetorically) it's the same as tobacco is one of the stupidest things i've ever read on hn.
The heaviest pot smokers I know (and I know a lot, though I don't generally use, myself), will consume it as much as four or five times a day. As you note, one "usage" looks like a few hits off of a pipe, bong, or vape. It seems to be self-limiting, even in people with a history of addiction.
I'm not gonna suggest pot doesn't have negative consequences; the heaviest users I know also have motivation problems (but so do I, sometimes, and I don't do any drugs) which maybe contributes to them often having shitty jobs and a difficult hand-to-mouth existence. (But, that is correlation and not causation. Maybe the economy is shit, and young folks today have a hard time finding good work. Maybe smoking pot just makes it bearable.)
What's interesting to me is what happens when a pot smoker can't get pot. Among my friends, cigarette smoking goes way up, drinking goes up measurably, and use of other drugs goes up. I'd be willing to believe pot is a good tool for helping people quit more dangerous habits. People who need something help them get through stress/anxiety/pain (emotional or physical) will find something.
Fools read and hear what they want to hear and then make something up and say that's what was said.
Tobacco - breathe non-air stuff into your lungs enough, it kills you.
Pot - breathe non-air stuff into your lungs enough, it kills you.
i also don't think you understand that you don't have to smoke pot. you can eat it. in medicine this is called 'oral administration'. you can't just ignore facts you don't like, that's not how medicine and science work.
most drugs are eaten. pot is a drug. you can eat it. you can use drugs to treats disease and symptoms. therefore, you can use pot to treat diseases and symptoms... by eating it.
i don't understand what your mental disconnect is, other than you just don't like the idea of pot, which is fine, but you should just say that, because then it becomes a moral argument, which is what you're trying to have, rather than a medical one, which is pretty black and white - pot is a drug, and you can use drugs to treat diseases and symptoms. that's pretty much a fact. again, i'm not really sure where the disconnect here is for you. this is a pretty simple logical chain. maybe you don't consider pot to be a drug?
i've never met anyone who doesn't think pot is a drug, but i suppose it's possible.
but really i think you just don't like the idea of it, which is a perfectly respectable opinion to have.
No matter how it is ingested, marijuana is like all drugs and pose a health risk if not taken in moderation.
Health risks from smoking it (and most people do smoke it), and no matter how you ingest it, mental health risks.
This is not a harmless drug and there will come a time in future where there are court cases brought by marijuana sellers for selling a toxic product - in the same way that tobacco has been brought to trial. My key argument is that marijuana should be sold under the counter to meet a need that is kept hidden from society and young people, but is freely available to adults who know it is there. Selling it, advertising it, displaying it in a shopfront, making it fun and cool are all really bad ways to go.
They are different, but they have many similarities. They're used under similar circumstances. The business model around them is very similar. I would expect the industry that forms around it to ultimately behave very much like the tobacco/alcohol/etc. industries, and so it is weird to treat one differently from the other. Or do you think there are important differences?
And what do you mean they're used under similar circumstances?
Why would they be any different from tobacco consumers?
>I expect marijuana businesses to behave about as badly as the average business, but I doubt they'll manage to be as hideously evil as the tobacco companies.
Don't most of the factors that make tobacco different from the average business apply equally to cannabis?
>And what do you mean they're used under similar circumstances?
They seem to serve a similar social function. Indeed don't people frequently smoke a mix of the two?
Marijuana attracts an earthy, naturalistic sort of crowd. I have no proof of this, but it's been my experience.
> Don't most of the factors that make tobacco different from the average business apply equally to cannabis?
The health risks of marijuana are much better understood now than the health risks of tobacco (more particularly cigarettes) were in the 1950s. There's simply less room to lie, for one thing, which was far and away the most atrocious thing that Big Tobacco did. And the mere fact that marijuana has been illegal for so long and developed its own culture underground makes it hard to compare.
> They seem to serve a similar social function. Indeed don't people frequently smoke a mix of the two?
In Europe it's common to mix the two, but for most Americans no. I usually smoked alone anyway, it's not a social thing at all for many. You're really comparing apples to oranges here. Marijuana and tobacco as different as LSD and beer in terms of their effects.