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Comment by runesoerensen | Hacker News Reader

> The absence of significant adverse consequences is especially striking given the sometimes dire predictions made by legalization opponents.

No kidding - let me just quote Kofi Annan's excellent essay on the subject (published a couple of months before the UN failed to course correct at UNGASS 2016):

"Nowhere is this divorce between rhetoric and reality more evident than in the formulation of global drug policies, where too often emotions and ideology rather than evidence have prevailed."

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/kofi-annan-on-why-...

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Your quote nails my sentiment on the matter of drug legalisation.

The conversation shown here within HN is fascinating, from an outliers perspective.

The benefits and effects of the legalisation of Marijuana I would assume, have been well documented by now though the quantity of these reports, I would assume to be small in number. Surely it's a benefit if the number of these reports and articles were increased.

Surely the reports from Canberra (Australia, where plant ownership is legalised) and Amsterdam are quite numerous? And they would back the sentiment shown in this article?

The argument about the 'divorce between rhetoric and reality' around drug policy has enough merit to renew the conversation on drug legalisation by it's self.

Once that conversation begins, the number of reports and articles such as this will increase and potential arguments about a single report being either biased or anecdotal will be minimised as the scientific method is leveraged.

The conversation should steered towards why drug policy is inaccurate and what we need to do to have laws and systems changed, socially and politically, to cater for more evidence based studies on drug use.

Edit:

A TED talk on the topic that I found interesting.

https://www.ted.com/talks/ethan_nadelmann_why_we_need_to_end...

Disclaimer: occasionally I like to smoke weed. So by the sentiment of everyone here, I'm probably biased and my arguments should be subjected to criticism and be entirely disregarded as lacking merit.

(see what I did there? ;-D)

you failed to read the one paragraph conclusion.

both pro and cons arguments were wrong. absolutely nothing relevant has changed.

crime didnt go up nor down. neither did taxes. etc. nada.

also, ted is only relevant to rich pot heads ;)

Actually, though the article's summary claimed to find no noticeable change, the section on taxes says:

One area where legal marijuana has reaped unexpectedly large benefits is state tax revenue.

Which means more money to invest in the country fixing issues, hopefully, instead of being wasted on mansions for corrupt politicians or spent recklessly.

For example, issues that cause crime. Wouldn't that be nice? Or at least advancement of science and engineering. Someone gets to fund the space program.

Get high so someone else can go high?

OTOH once marijuana is legal it is just another crop and I would expect to price to drop to near zero. Combined with the fact that you hardly need kilograms of it, I wouldn't get too excited about future tax revenue.

I would argue otherwise.

Alcohol (especially wine) is very easy and cheap to make at home but the Liquor Control Board of Ontario still managed to pull in $1.8 billion last year taxing it.

I don't think it's the home brewing equivalent that is the risk. It's more about the relative profits of corn vs marijuana in the midwest. If we were to fully legalize, I would expect that marijuana would have to get at least as cheap as alternative crops.

Don't ignore the cost of all the regulations marijuana has in addition to regular crops - for growers, transporters, and sellers.

I wouldn't. MJ in a lot of places has gotten like "craft beer": there's an endless number of varieties and strains, growers put a lot of effort into creating new strains and growing them as optimally as possible (like using hydroponics), different varieties are claimed to have different effects, etc. You don't need kilograms of it, but there is every indication that a lot of it will be very valuable, just like many fine wines are very, very expensive per bottle and many fine imported cheeses are extremely expensive.

"No change" alone is worth legalizing though: because it means you can scale down the militarization of police lead by the war on drugs. It won't happen overnight, it might not bring savings and it will be resisted, but it can result in a significant cultural change that will help in other areas ("black lives matter" and so on).

Except that in the meantime the state collects revenue.

I think that the fact that nothing changed is literally proof that it is bad law.

If prohibiting something doesn't help anything, even if it doesn't hurt anything, then we shouldn't prohibit it.

I would like to hear an counter example, I can't think of one.

I agree, the law just makes things worse by increasing the number of people we call criminals.

However as a counter example, even if the murder rate didn't change by de-criminalizing murder, I'd still argue that there should be a law against it.

You just demonstrated the bias that the guy against legalisation is affected.

If the murder rate didn't change by de-criminalizing murder at all, then it would be more rational to spend the resources on other ways that could help lower the rate or help deal with the facts that they are happening.

You make it sound as though passing a law against has huge resources involved. Since we all agree murder is bad, there isn't any argument or lobbying and a ban on murder and the law is simply passed. Even the investigation techniques can largely come from other similar crimes, fingerprints, DNA, asking questions are all reusable from other crimes. Some are unique, but not a huge cost compared to drugs.

Then there is the huge investment in thing that only catch people with drugs. Drug sniffing dogs, housing for literally millions of non-violent offenders, training on finding drugs.

In addition to the victim which others have commented on this is an extremely poor analogy.

This is a false equivalence. Pot smoking is victimless (at most, your landlord will need to get rid of the smell for the next non-smoking tenant). Murder has, by definition, serious consequences for someone else.

In a legal system whose premise is that one should be free to do anything so long as it does not infringe upon the rights of others, it it consistent to legalise pot and keep murder illegal.

"at most, your landlord will need to get rid of the smell for the next non-smoking tenant"

And while you're there, will need to find a way to get rid of the smell for everyone in a 500 feet radius (im exaggerating, of course).

While I'm absolutely ok with it being legal, and it certainly should not be a criminal offense...it at least should follow rules similar to tobacco with a twist. That shit can seriously ruin the day of everyone living around. Entire city parks are becoming impossible to go through unless you're looking for a contact high.

So it definitely does not deserve to be a crazy SWAT team involved criminal offense, but victimless, not quite.

It is my opinion that it should definitely be illegal to smoke (anything) on public property. Landlords should be able to choose (via terms in a lease) whether or not it is okay to smoke on their property.

Just to nitpick, I shouldn't be allowed to smoke a cigar around a campfire on BLM land?

I was thinking more in public places where there are other members of the public within a reasonable proximity, but I will grant you a valid point. My general proposal does not need to apply to every situation. Though defining the exact circumstances wherein someone may and may not smoke on public land may not be worth the hassle, and a blanket ban might be preferable to some endlessly complex regulation... something to think about, though. For your own health, please consider putting the cigar down, though :)

Actually, in that scenario, the campfire is more likely to be a health threat to asthmatic members of the public (about 7% in the U.S.) than the cigar!

yes, that was the twist :)

I wasn't trying to equate murder with drug use.

The parent question asked for a counter example of where the law makes no difference in the offence.

The parent question appeared to me to be making that statement irrespective of what the law was. So I just picked the most extreme form of law I could think of.

Yes, but this counter-argument assumes the two things (pot and murder) are equally bad, or at least, assumes both are bad.

Which is the whole point of the inquiry, we can't start taking it for granted -- whereas for murder, it's a pretty safe bet by now, 3 millennia plus into written human history.

We spend lots of money investigating and prosecuting murders. We have a non-perfect system that sometimes throws innocent people in jail.

And if banning murder did not lower the murder rate than banning murder would be a piece of legislation with no benefits and only costs. Not sure why we want to pass legislation that puts innocent people in jail and sets money on fire for no benefit.

"nothing changed" is wrong. They expect to have crime rate lower in few years?? How many jobs was added with this?plenty... How many money they made? plenty...

They don't mention the number of arrests or lives of casual marijuana smokers destroyed for no reason before and after the law was passed -- if it saved a single person from having a criminal record, being locked in a cage, or having their life destroyed then I'd say it's a pretty huge win.

The Cato report just shows that we don't have to give anything up in order to get that big win -- it's free with no downside.

That's partially because it has not been legalized in a non-nearly-exclusively-caucasian state yet. Meaning it hasn't been legalized in a state where there are many marijuana arrests.

I'm not exageratting... I've never met a caucasian person who's been arrested for marijuana posession. Never. And yet here in NYC alone, on the order of 50,000 people (almost exclusively of color) are arrested every year for marijuana possession. This gives them a record. This means they can't get jobs or take financial aid.

This Cato report, quite frankly, is a painfully long bore that ignores the dynamics at play that make Colorado, Washington, Oregon and Alaska uniquely atypical test-beds.

>That's partially because it has not been legalized in a non-nearly-exclusively-caucasian state yet.

Wish that was also true for TED.

The Cato report unfortunately did not go into arrests. It may seem like stating the obvious, but from what I see, that's one area where there legalization has been significant impact. Even in states like Colorado which are less racially diverse than some, arrests have decreased a lot and court filings have plummeted. (See: http://cdpsdocs.state.co.us/ors/docs/reports/2016-SB13-283-R...)

A policy which has no significant impact, except to stop law enforcement from wasting time on trivialities, is fine by me.

> I've never met a caucasian person who's been arrested for marijuana posession.

I happen to know someone (Caucasian) who was just arrested and let me say that skin color isn't always an issue. I think your point would stand more firmly on a basis of states that are more or less likely to criminalize the drug.

Edit: To early to speak correctly

In my twenties my friends and I were into it, and without exception all of us who were white, or just light-skinned, were never so much as asked a question about anything related to pot, by a police officer. I was pulled over once and my friend had just smoked in the car, and it stank... cop didn't even blink.

Now at the time two of my friends were black, and one was Sikh, and they stopped smoking first out of all of us, because if they so much as smelled vaguely of pot, they'd get hassled. When we all get together now over dinner or drinks, we still go back to the old joke my Sikh friend came up with, "Being white is like a superpower in this country."

It's not that simple of course, and the factors which determine whether the police will bother you are also based on socioeconomic status, and if you have a criminal record or not. In terms of actually catching the eye of the police though, my white friends and I just never did, while any of my friends who couldn't have passed the infamous "paper bag test" always seemed to have to explain themselves a lot more.

Note: NorthEast US, I cannot speak for the rest of it.

Sidenote: My Sikh friend normally has a decent time of it, but after 9/11? He and his family who had moved to Georgia, ended up moving back East.

> I'm not exageratting... I've never met a caucasian person who's been arrested for marijuana posession. Never.

You can meet one now, on HN! I was arrested in 2011 for having ~3 grams of marijuana in rural Maryland. I am Caucasian. Got cavity searched and sat in jail for about 18 hours. Without going into too much detail, the charges were still dropped - apparently the police officer who arrested me had a bad track record of illegally detaining people. (It is questionable if my race had anything to do with their willingness to drop charges of course, but that is a totally different discussion.)

In any case, I wonder if this would have happened to me if MD had passed their decriminalization laws earlier? I've since moved to Washington State.

Canberran here - not to detract from your point, but possession of cannabis plants here isn't legal, it's merely "decriminalised", which in this case means for small quantities that are for personal use, police have the power to issue a "Simple Cannabis Offence Notice" which can be discharged by payment of a fine similar to a traffic ticket. The plants will still be confiscated.

Thank you for the correction :)

Same goes with Amsterdam (or Netherlands overall). Cannabis isn't "legal", the policy is just non-enforcement. Possession with 5 grams is not prosecuted. Possession of 5 plants is usually not prosecuted if renounced by cultivator.

With "hard" drugs, things are different.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_policy_of_the_Netherlands

Aye I havE heard the confiscation is at the discretion of the officers involved. Have known some old hats that grew in their backyard in Canberra. If the cops came knocking they usually got a fine and asked to keep things discrete for the neighbors sake. Weird as hell, have even on the rarest of occasions heard of this happening in nsw, I guess some cops don't fully back the laws they are supposed to enforce for the better occasionally.

Pot is different then Cocaine and Heroine in terms of impact on society and the economy. Can't search for support for the reality, but several cities that had drug free zones had closed them due to harm that is done to the individual and those around them.

A counter-example is Portugal, that had a severe heroin problem in the 80s and solved it by decriminalizing all drugs.

It is true that cocaine and heroin are very serious drugs that can do a lot of harm. It is also true that prohibition and the prosecution of users only seems to make matters worse. For some scientific evidence in cartoon format :) :

http://www.stuartmcmillen.com/comics_en/rat-park/

Drugs are still illegal and dealers and traffickers are still put in prison. People as user are brought to specific court called "Discussion Panels." Repeated users are given various forms of treatment. Recreation users can also have community service and fines.

Never work in USA though since the Police work with the Healthcare system and so if a offender stops going to treatment at their doctor's office the office calls the Police and the Police give notice to the user. They also give clean needles (could happen in certain states) and crack pipes (never).

There is definitly something there that could help in US but I can't imagine in my lifetime anything even close to this happening across the country. Personally I think we do focus on users more then dealers for police action and I wish we could get to a point where we can stop the neighborhood dealers working in almost every neighborhood in my city.

> Drugs are still illegal and dealers and traffickers are still put in prison.

You are correct, but there are a few nuances. An important one is that methadone started being provided to treat heroin addiction. Providing a pharmacological-grade opiate to make the addict's life bearable was an important shift in mentality. It also worked really well in solving the actual social problems caused by hard street drugs.

I tell you this from first-person observation. I grew up in Portugal and have several friends from the generation before mine, which was the one strongly affected by rampant heroin addiction.

> Never work in USA though since the Police work with the Healthcare system [...]

To my European ears this sounds extra-creepy. Are people in the US ok with this sort of thing overall?

On a side note: Portugal is the most religious country in the EU. More than 80% of the population identify as catholic. Drug decriminalization was achieved by subtle political action, not as a result of overwhelming public opinion. Portugal is in no way more liberal than the US. So maybe there's some hope for rational policy.

Another side note: this "subtle action" holds to this day. My guess is that most Portuguese citizens are not aware of the extent of decriminalization. I have had several Portuguese people look at me in disbelief when I tell them that it is no longer a crime to consume any drug in Portugal, including heroin and cocaine. The New York Times talks about drug decriminalization in Portugal more than the Portuguese press does. I suspect this is somewhat intentional.

Methadone is available in the US. It's controversial here, not least because recipients have to take their dose at a clinic, in front of staff, to ensure the methadone isn't being sold or used in incorrect doses. There are lots of NIMBY fears related to the clinics, as many people don't want recovering addicts in their neighborhood everyday. So clinics are not well distributed, and treatment isn't free.

> They also give clean needles (could happen in certain states) and crack pipes (never).

Both crack pipes AND needles are given out in Canada. Not sure why you think crack would be treated differently? Harm reduction is harm reduction, I doubt they are selective about which drugs are used.

Although Canada is progressive and even has safe heroin injection sites in Vancouver staffed with nurses. I just read an article saying that it's now coming to other provinces because it was successful in reducing the spread of diseases and overdoses. Plus we are legalizing marijuana.

Not sure about the US harm reduction policies though, they are known for some silly drug policies.

I often watch "Cops" and shows like that. What always gets me is when they pull over cars coming from a "known drug house", then arrest the passengers.

If they know it's a drug house, then why not shut it down instead of arresting an endless stream of customers?

It just feeds my inner (morbidly obese) cynic. I have a sneaking suspicion that these drug laws are about more than preventing harm.

That's mostly because those "free drug" zones where zones where people could do the existing, crappy, and still illegal to sell drugs.

For heroin at least, when it's pure and in controlled doses (such that one would get if it was legally prescribed from the state) there are few adverse effects, and nothing of the kind of dire side-effects we see in people using the crappy, mixed, stuff sold in the streets.

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