Canada legalises recreational cannabis use
bbc.co.uk
bbc.co.uk
Now that weed is legalized this will only become more and more apparent. They will attract more individuals from both sides of the border and I bet see much more money coming in leading to more development, etc.
New York had missed out on this opportunity for years and by the looks of it will continue to miss out.
While for sure we don't want people going to prison for smoking a joint - this also isn't necessarily good for society for corporations to promote recreational legal drugs. Was it a good thing for the tobacco and alcohol industries to basically run amuck in their advertising campaigns all over the world? Are we better as we world for it?
Better thoughts than my own are in this TED Talk on the subject: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klafHRlhNg4
On the macro-scale, cannabis and others drugs are a big factor that fuels France suburb separatism and in some case finance terror attacks. Sorhere is a need for a real prohibition or for a legalization to stop this underground economy.
But I see similar patterns with alcohol, food, video games or TV. Even books. People look for something to cope with life, and as long as we, as a society, don't provide a sufficient support for each others, anything that can be abused will be.
> On the macro-scale, cannabis and others drugs are a big factor that fuels France suburb separatism
Do you have a citation for that?
I'd guess the age never stopped most of those kids
With such national legalization, an entire developed nation (with relatively diverse genetic backgrounds, even) will be open to clinical trials.
Besides finally providing ammunition to topple the "no possible medical uses" classification in the US (and presumably other countries), it may lead to discoveries of properties of the lesser known chemicals in cannabis.
It may not, but the possibility is still likely to bring something of an additional boost to Canada's biotech sector.
I think we'll find out in a few years that most of the hype around cannabis is just, well, hype.
I'm aware of the special access, and I'm even aware that it has resulted in actual pharmaceuticals.
The problem with special access is that it has a huge chilling effect. I suspect only the very most motivated (and funded? or just politically protected?) would attempt it.
What about semi-synthetics? I have to imagine it's easier to experiment with synthesis if there's a robust, commercial market for the raw materials, instead of just the special government hothouse (or however it works in the particular jurisdiction).
> not better than the standard of care
I don't think I'd characterize that as a failure, if it's approximatey as good. Even if it's worse but significantly better than placebo, that doesn't seem like anything approaching a research dead-end.
Besides semi-synthetics, which would be a long and hard road, there's also adjunct therapy, or did those studies actually include using cannabis chemicals in addition to the standard ones?
> very variable and low quality clinical data from multiple trials
Any possibility that this was affected by actual or perceived stigma surrounding the source of the chemical being studied? Participants worrying about failing a drug test? (Does this law address that at all?)
> I think we'll find out in a few years that most of the hype around cannabis is just, well, hype.
That's an easy prediction to make about any hype, and I certainly agree. I just think there's more to learn, even if it confirms the null hypothesis, and this will take the foot off the brake in Canada.
>Besides semi-synthetics, which would be a long and hard road, there's also adjunct therapy, or did those studies actually include using cannabis chemicals in addition to the standard ones?
Interestingly, you can find examples of both adjunct and comparator studies, which are usually blinded in some way to reduce stigma or bias. (If anything, the bias tends to favor cannabis-consuming patients, since it's hard to hide the fact that the pill you just took in a "blinded" clinical trial is making you high.)
A decent summary of some of the clinical data is here: https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/treatment/cam/hp/cannabi... .
Thanks! That looks extremely informative, and I only had a chance to skim through it so far.
I couldn't help but notice how many (at least half) of the referenced studies were in the past 10 years. That does suggest to me that changing attitudes have more to do with it than legalization.
> Interestingly, you can find examples of both adjunct and comparator studies, which are usually blinded in some way to reduce stigma or bias. (If anything, the bias tends to favor cannabis-consuming patients, since it's hard to hide the fact that the pill you just took in a "blinded" clinical trial is making you high.)
I'm a bit confused by what you mean by "favors" here. Do you mean that an otherwise/previously cannabis-using patient would report more favorable results (and/or fewer negative side effects)? Or that such a patient would more likely receive actually better benefits? Or that they would be more likely to be in the trial in the first place?
Are there clinical trials where the participants don't know what (potential) active therapy they could get is? The ones I've looked at in the US have always said, but I've only looked at a couple very specific conditions.
In cases in which the active agent is THC or a similarly psychoactive agent, patients are indeed more likely to report positive overall effects simply because they know they're receiving the active agent; i.e. the placebo effect. This would apply whether they've used cannabis before or not. You don't have this problem with trials of the non-psychoactive cannabis chemicals, which fortunately is most trials.
I'm merely saying that it's under-studied, considering how common it is, due to its legal status and that can now start to change.
He was quickly shut down by Theresa May, who categorically ruled out legalisation or even decriminalisation [1].
I don't understand how politicians can stand up and claim that legalisation would have substantial negatives, when every experiment with legalisation has been a success. It's the same blinkered thinking as the anti-gay marriage politicians claiming that it will cause the breakdown of families, or politicians claiming that universal healthcare in the USA clearly wouldn't work.
Drug prohibition has been a categorical failure in every outcome it was intended to achieve. It has cost governments trillions of dollars and incarcerated millions, funded terrorism and civil wars, and caused the deaths of millions of people from both violence and drug related harm. Plus the harm caused by the demonisation of drugs that have potentially powerful positive effects as part of psychiatric treatment such as LSD and MDMA. All due to some concept that taking "recreational drugs" is a moral failing and hence should be illegal.
At least society in genera has finally come around to realise that drug addiction and drug use are not moral failings (although my parents aren't quite convinced).
Obviously we want to restrict access as much as possible to particular drugs, such as heroin or methamphetamine, which are so harmful and addictive that nobody should be using them, or GHB, where the potential for fatal overdose is so high. But penalising the end user is not the solution. People who want to take drugs will take drugs. I have never met somebody who has decided to not take a drug because it's illegal. Whether it was alcohol when underaged, smoking a joint, injecting heroin, or snorting cocaine. I know plenty of people who don't take drugs as a personal choice or because they get drug tested at work, but never was the law a reason why the abstained. It doesn't restrict supply either. Drugs are easy to find and readily available practically everywhere in the world, all that prohibition does is push up the price, fund criminals, and increase harm due to poor quality control and cut drugs.
The following flavor of comment has been made many times on HN, but since I’m halfway through Michelle Alexander’s book The New Jim Crow I’m in the mood for making it again here:
The drug war has been “successful”, because its goal was to incarcerate, disenfranchise, extort, terrorize, and break apart the families of minorities so that America could retain a racial hierarchy after the civil rights movement. This hierarchy is advantageous to the ruling class because they can continue to exploit poor whites economically, keep them off the bottom of the hierarchy, and retain their political support.
When Reagan declared a War on Drugs in 1982, less than 2% of Americans viewed drug use as the most important issue facing the nation. In 1989 that number was at 64%, all without a significant increase in drug usage. (Rates for drug crimes did increase, because criminality was the effect of the War on Drugs, not its cause.)
An explanation that fits the data better is that drugs were a scapegoat for a distingegrating society and an explosion in crime.
It's not difficult to find stats showing the vast majority of victims of violent crime happen in the same neighborhoods where drugs and drug sales coexist. Whether or not it's directly related it's at least a significant driving factor financing violent criminals and intertwined into related cultures as 'respected' professions.
Only if you ignore the overwhelming racial bias in enforcement.
We narrate our stories using abstractions & personifications, mixing symbolic and regular language. What we end up is more poetry than anything. It sounds good when it expresses our feelings. This is (to quote Monty python) no basis for a system of government (or thought).
What/who's intention was it, that you mention above? Are we talking about actual individuals collaborating knowingly to achieve these goals or is this a "nation weeps" sort of abstraction. What, in less poetic terms does "the real goal" really mean?
How does this explain drug policies in Japan or Azerbaijan?
I mean, I definitely agree that Machiavellian dynamics were involved. Electoral feedback loops. Racism. All these played a role.
But.. when someone insists about the "real reason" without demystifying the abstractions... I think we've left the realm or rational discussion. We're in religion territory.
The first is historical. When we look back at Jim Crow, do we say that grandfather clauses and literacy tests were about improving the quality of citizen engagement at the polls? Of course not. Jim Crow was designed to reaffirm a racial hierarchy within the constraints of the new constitutional amendments. Is it inconceivable that we would get policies designed to reaffirm racial hierarchy in the colorblind constraints of the civil rights movement?
The second is rhetorical. What specific appeals did politicians make to support the War on Drugs? What images did they use?
And the third, as a comment below points out, are the results of the drug war. Was it carried out in a racially evenhanded manner?
The War on Drugs is large enough that there can be no smoking gun tape of politicians conspiring to pull one over on society and do the racism again.
> The paper argues that Japan's 'war on drugs' in the 1980s was a direct result of pressure from the United States to adopt harsher sanctions and from a punitive Japanese public that associates drug use with poor self-control.
I think you'll find a similar story elsewhere
What is that centre, in nonsymbolic language? Actual people who consciously designed a plan to terrorise and marginalize minorities? I don't think that's what the op (or the writers he cites) are claiming. I suspect what they mean is more abstract. Something like:
The biases, concious or otherwise permeating society influenced the decision making in such a way as to... IE a personification.
Were there people who had racist views about drug use? Sure. Is that the main reason why we have drug prohibition? No.
This is good old moral superiority at work.
US basically dictates global policies in the block of countries not part of the soviet sphere of influence during the cold war. US defends it's position in the global community using every trick and leverage available. If something is illegal in the US you can be quite assured they will try to apply leverage to make it illegal everywhere else, especially if it's an issue that requires international co-operation - like the war on drugs, for example.
For example, the international banking system is basically controlled by US policies. Parties, that do not co-operate and obey US authorities can and will be shut out of the large pool of global financial services that is critical to running businesses effectively.
Another effect is the pure cultural force US practices have on the "western block" of countries. Lots of ideas (good or bad) are taken into use in other countries after they become fashionable in the US.
You are quite right prudish moral superiority is of course a facet, but that is not the key here, I think.
Drug laws in Europe vary wildly between countries, with places like Portgual decriminalising even hard drugs and places like the Netherlands having an open culture when it comes to buying and consuming cannabis and other 'less hard' drugs. Then of course there's the big difference in laws when it comes to drinking; a 16-year old drinking on the street is perfectly legal in quite a few European countries whereas in the US it would get you arrested on multiple charges.
Banking laws are very different as well: I think the recent introduction of MiFID II shows quite clearly that Europe has very different views on regulation. Hell, the new rules on investment research are pretty much opposite to the US ones.
GDPR is forcing numerous US companies into complying with European views on privacy.
OP is quite right in saying that it's a very US-centric view to think drug policy around the world is mainly caused by race relations in the US.
Well, as a direct consequence of it, sites like Backpage got shut down and reddit banned loads and loads of communities that were used by sex workers in countries across Europe where sex work is as legal as it can get. Sex workers were simply cut off of their usual ways of communicating between each other and attracting customers because of a law in the US.
And the reason that the Netherlands always gets mentioned when talking about soft drugs is because it decriminalized marihuana decades ago. In reality, the way they did that was very impractical and open to loopholes that were commonly abused by the coffee shops. Dutch laws on drugs, at their current state, are way worse then the laws in places where marihuana was decriminalized recently. The reason for that is the pressure from the neighbors, because the ability to buy and grow larger quantities + open borders = more work for Belgium and Germany.
Let's compare Canada and the Netherlands. Canada: you can grow 4 plants and have up to 30 grams with you for recreational use. The Netherlands: you can grow 2 plants and have up to 5 grams with you at all times. In the Netherlands, these restrictions also apply to the supply side, so coffee shops operate mostly in a shady gray area. In Canada, they're introducing licensed supply chain.
Not really, name a European country where I won't be jailed for having even an ounce of cocaine? Portugal is as close as it gets to sensible drug policy, and they've only decriminalized (as opposed to legalized) small personal-use amounts.
The only drugs that should be regulated are antibiotics :)
If a bank has even a vague hint that you might be a US person, they have to send all your personal financial information to the USA, so that the USA can collect tax from you wherever you are in the world.
Not only is this terrible from a privacy perspective. It has cost foreign banks hundreds of millions of dollars to implement. It has cost Australian banks almost half a billion dollars over the past decade.
Yet any time the rest of the world tries to make the USA play by their rules, the US government claims some moral outrage about sovereignty.
You are basing yourself on vague feelings of superiority, rather than actual knowledge. Influential, yes. Dictating policy, not at all.
I'm in Portugal, we follow the US lead very often on foreign policy, but only when we agree.
We've taken our own way in drug policy, extradition (we've refused to extradite criminals to the US because of the death penalty), immigration, and in a host of other areas.
It’s not even a controversial position, as it’s been stated publically by the people who crafted and implemented the legislation that this was the stated aim.
And the US demanded that other countries adopt our drug policy laws and they followed our lead.
This cognitive censorship is something to be outraged about - flies directly in the face of the Establishment Clause of the first Amemdment and is deeply detrimental to our democracy.
Even William F. Buckley was against the War On Drugs.
What we ought to pour those resources into is a “War on Trauma” (if we still require branding things as a ‘war’ to garner political support.)
Trauma is what underpins the majority of mental health issues including depression, suicide, and addiction.
Drugs without trauma isn’t a problem, it’s when the drugs become a proxy for self regulation that we run into issues.
I know it's a common meme on HN but I find it hard to believe that the whole world decided to ban cannabis just because the US wanted to. It may have been a contributing/deciding factor in some places but there must be more to it.
>> A top Nixon aide, John Ehrlichman, later admitted: “You want to know what this was really all about. The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying. We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did. <<
... When the old stupid racists (who voted for Brexit)
finally die (not so long hopefully) ...
Other people also voted for brexit, including young stupid racists, middle aged opportunistic millionaires, people who wanted to vote against Cameron, and other groups.
Overall only 26% voted for brexit, and many of those "old stupid racists" have since died, so no, it's nowhere near 50% of the United Kingdom and Gibraltar that are "old stupid racists".
For what it's worth, I don't think it's as a result of any innate quality of the English psyche, indeed as the birthplace of liberalism and one of the most ethnically diverse populations in Europe such could hardly be the case.
My hot take is that it's emerging from most ordinary people's frustration at how the UK economy has been steered in such a way as to ensure that the benefits of globalisation go to a few while most everybody else has to deal with any negative consequences. Very telling that the core economic hubs were anti-brexit and the "forgotten" parts of the UK were pro-brexit. Scotland notwithstanding of course who would've left the UK a few years before only for the issues of staying in the EU ...
The left has not learned the lessons of brexit and Trump and continue to drive away the working class that they have utter contempt for.
Cannabis is illegal in many countries, including one where a past minister of justice told a story about how he'd been offered cannabis by another parent at his children's school. The parent who offered was a senior policeman.
That isn't war.
The higher ups cannot say "we don't care" because that would immediately politically de-legitimize the drugwar effort.
Hence, all policies, despite their true intent, have all sorts of unnecessary appendices unrelated to the original goal.
I love the work of David Nutt, who was fired from the role of Government drug advisor in the UK for trying to change the government's policies. He cited papers about how some drugs are less harmful then alcohol, tobacco and horse riding (equacy). He spoke truth and backed it up with scientific research and the Labour government fired him because it was inconvient.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2009/oct/30/drugs-advis...
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/453787...
http://www.british-history.ac.uk/no-series/acts-ordinances-i...
I dont understand this part. The potential for overdose on alcohol is high as well. I can go buy a plastic handle for $10 and if i drink the whole thing tonight i'll probably die. I think the right path is full legalization similar to OTC medicine in the US. You have FDA verification you are actually taking what you think you're taking, no weird fentanyl substitutes or cuttings. You put warning labels on describing dosages and limits. You let people use them and get treatment if they abuse it. It's the same way we treat alcohol, just we are conditioned to think alcohol is somehow way more safe than something like heroin.
There are responsible drinkers and responsible heroin users out there. I know it may sound scary but I don't think there's a major inherent harm to having methamphetamine available over the counter. Some people will abuse it. Some people are already abusing it.
with alcohol, its a slow progress. you keep drinkng and most people pass out / lose their will to drink after they've had enough.
hard drugs are generally a single portion and once its in your blood, its too late. you cant say 'hey, i've got enough for today' once you feel it hitting you. You're already doomed if you've chosen the wrong dosage from the start.
> There are responsible drinkers and responsible heroin users out there
I cant say i've ever heard of anyone ever using heroine responsibly. I'd have to take your word for it, but thats hard, considering how brutal the effects of heroine are on their users.
Somehow the vast majority of people who take legal hard drugs such as vicodin or dilaudid, don't overdose on them. There's a culture built around taking these drugs responsibly according to their directions. We have that very strongly ingrained in our culture about alcohol. I think that same culture would develop if your cocaine came in a box from CVS with proper instructions on when you can take it and what side effects to look for.
Of course people are going to make mistakes. They are going to abuse drugs. But that is happening today. Trying to solve that by keeping the drugs away sounds like the same policies in the war on drugs that we are saying aren't working and leading to legalization
I never bothered getting addicted to Heroin. You have to stick to the rules: never use more than two days in a row and don’t use it consistently, if in doubt half your dose, and never use alone but always with at least one other who knows how to administer breathing assistance until paramedics arrive. Don’t take your dose at the same time as your buddy, wait to see if the first user has trouble staying conscious, 15 to 20 minutes should do it.
Edit: fixed a word
And yet there are tons of addicts on those:
Typically, it starts with someone being prescribed opiates. Maybe they use them as prescribed, maybe they don't. If they don't, or they have the kind of genes or psychological issues that make it more likely for them to get hooked, they get hooked. Once they're addicted to the opiate, and discover how much cheaper heroin or fentanyl is on the street, compared to their oxy prescription, they start using them instead, upping their risk a ton.
From there it's all downhill unless the right kind of intervention happens, and the psychological issues underlying that addiction are resolved.
Isn't vicodin designed in such a way that the secondary ingredient would kill you before you'd get high on the primary one?
Overdose is most common from adulterants and from not knowing the dosage one is taking due to lack of purity information.
If your goal is to stop ODs, allowing cheap access to taxed pharma grade Drugs is your first step.
The next step is using the taxes to make access to trauma healing / education free. Trauma is the root cause of addiction, so healing frees one of the need for the addictive behavior.
Somatic based therapies, psychedelic therapy, and an environment that supports healthy living.
I work with people regularly who are able to gently walk away from addictions because they’ve healed the underlying trauma.
The benefit of this is that we will also rid ourselves of the problems we face from other addictive behaviors like sex addiction, status / money addiction, religious righteousness, etc. (See the book The Perfect Pandemic for a detailed breakdown of the various dopamine triggers we humans use).
I don't think its the sort of thing people will advertise. Apparently only around 10% of users become addicts
I think that the point about GHB that most people miss is the concept of therapeutic index, a term borrowed from the medical world (I've also seen it called "safety ratio" in the context of recreational drugs, especially since they're not being used therapeutically).
That is, the amount of GHB required to get the desired effect is very close to the amount necessary for an overdose.
> I can go buy a plastic handle for $10 and if i drink the whole thing tonight i'll probably die
Merely being easy to obtain doesn't make it easy to overdose, though. That "if I drink the whole thing" is an important part.
You do not, for example, need to drink 90% of that bottle just to get "buzzed". I suspect that the average person would feel sufficiently drugged well before making it halfway through (as even a fifth, even spread over an evening, is a lot of booze).
With drugs like GHB or ketamine, one needs to do the equivalent of drinking the vast majority of that overdose-quantity-bottle just to get high enough, so it's very easy to go too far accidentally. What's worse, what that amount is, and what that overdose amount is, are weight-dependent, and they can vary at different rates.
That's not to say there's no way of alleviating that risk, or at least reducing the possible harm (like maybe only allowing them in clubs adjacent to hospitals), but simply ignoring the legitimate increased accidental OD risk is unlikely to help.
The therapeutic index for GHB is more than adequate, and ketamine is legitimately difficult to kill yourself with, to the point where the deaths I'm aware of were from drowning.
An issue with GHB is that it's distributed in a liquid form that can vary greatly in the amount of water present. When it was available over the counter in the 80s, issues were practically unheard of.
GHB therapeutic index (8) is just slightly lower than alcohol (10). However, being an illegal substance, you don't really know how potent your stuff is. Ketamine is rather high (38).
And BTW, THC (cannabis) as a therapeutic index over 9000. LSD and psylocibin (magic mushrooms) are at 1000, which also makes them virtually impossible to overdose.
That's a good point. I had forgotten that base assumption in the club scene, though it was generally much less of an issue in the rave scene, at least during the 90s.
> GHB therapeutic index (8)
Thanks. Do you have a reference for that? How does that number change with two standard drinks on board?
> is just slightly lower than alcohol (10).
One of the other properties of alcohol that could make it more difficult to reach a lethal OD, which I already mentioned, is that a symptom of a toxic does is vomiting, which can help prevent it turning into a lethal dose.
This is somewhat enabled by the tendency to consume it over time (although "binge" drinking does happen, of course). Can the same be said for GHB? Presumably not, given your next comment.
> However, being an illegal substance, you don't really know how potent your stuff is.
I think that's an issue for any illegal drug, but it's, arguably, even an issue for alcohol. How many people look at a label to determine proof/%ABV? They're not likely offered the chance with a mixed drink at a bar.
> Ketamine is rather high (38).
Is that medical or recreational? My understanding (possibly incorrect) is that the recreational dose is generally much higher, or at least less spread out over time, which can significantly affect the ratio. Is there any synergy with alcohol here that affects it?
Reading more about "safety ratio", it seems that even just the use of the 50th percentile may not be appropriate to have informed decisions on the relative danger of recreational drugs that are likely to be mixed. ED99/LD1 seems extreme, but maybe not ED80/LD20.
GHB combined with alcohol or another suppressant is very very dangerous though.
So, let's assume, for the sake of argument, that we're considering OD risk of recreational drugs, not on their own in a controlled, clinical environment, but, rather, at a club or party, where a sufficient number of people have at least 1 drink already in them and 1 more on the way plus a few cigarettes' worth of nicotine, that we can generalize that to "everyone".
I'm intrigued by what a "plastic handle" is, and google isn't helping for obvious reasons. I assume its a slang term but I've never heard or read it before. (I'm in the UK.) Care to elaborate?
https://siestaspirits.com/products/jim-beam-kentucky-straigh...
Dose standardization does clearly help judging by the nasty side effects of overdosd deaths spiking after pill mills were shut down. It is not a panacea however - tolerance varies as well. It is why trying to get clean can be ironically dangerous. Things start going south and they try their old "standard dose" again after losing tolerance when it is enough to kill a 300lb man with no tolerance built up.
I wonder if legalizing weaned rehab would help. Like say cutting their dose by 25% repeatedly.
On a related note I wonder what role genetics play with it. It would be nice if susceptibility could be read from a genetic test so they could say "Don't worry about restricting opiates for him - he'll get weakened and would always want to get off them asap anyway but he shouldn't drink alcohol when stressed or take cough syrup but should avoid stimulants for their personal addictive potential."
I know personally from legitimate medical usage there are high potential for abuse drugs that for me have me wondering how anyone could consider it fun.
It's an extremely complex system, but notice that prohibition has actually altered the way we consume drugs. For example, coca leaves can be consumed rather harmlessly. But for smuggling purposes, it's concentrated into powder. Then, its black market status makes it a sign of the wealthy and well-connected. This doesn't hold for all substances, but it's worth remembering. You do see a portion of e.g. pot smokers who have to push it really far and do dabs of highly concentrated THC. But then again, many users of pot just vape a little concentrate to minimize lung damange.
> legalizing weaned rehab
absolutely. If people want help getting off drugs, we ought to facilitate it essentially like healing a broken leg. We kind of do this with methadone, but laws make it risky and far from perfect.
> genetics
it is known that certain genes increase likelihood of alcohol addiction. It's probably the same for many other substances, too.
> high potential for abuse drugs that for me have me wondering how anyone could consider it fun. ugh same here. Had to take hydrocodone after surgery for a week. That was one messed-up high for me.
It's very hard to dose.
Possibly you don't understand the intended outcomes.
1. Provide for the ongoing growth of the FBI's empire once it became apparent that prohibition was going to end.
2. Provide an easy pretext for locking up blacks and hippies/ anti-war protestors. This according Erlichman, one of Richard Nixon's closest aides. https://edition.cnn.com/2016/03/23/politics/john-ehrlichman-...
Protip: Often the stated reason for a policy is not the real reason.
See also "for the children".
Britain is the biggest exporter of Cannabis in the world. The 90-acre farm in the UK is owned by British Sugar, which is owned by the husband of the UK's Drugs Minister (facepalm). Second to that, Theresa May's husband works at a firm that is the largest investor in... you guessed it, British Sugar.
Why would Theresa May and the Tory co want to legalise it? That'd mean competition, admitting you've been lying for years, and a big dent in your profits.
I have no doubt that as soon as the Tory government is out, we'll see actual progress (in many other areas too).
hopefully someone smarter than me can think of a way.
If you however like post-justice post-truth world, then anything goes. Why not accept all hard drugs, all sexual deviations, all violent or manipulative behaviors then? It's natural anyway, observed in animals daily, isn't it? The hard line must be placed somewhere, or not?
300,000 people die every year in the USA due to obesity related issues, compared to 70,000 deaths due to drug overdose. Obesity is the biggest public health crisis in the USA, but is largely ignored as it's seen as a personal choice to die of diabetes.
My purpose in life is not to slave away creating wealth for society until I die. Why does it matter if someone escapes from the world whether by taking drugs, playing in video games, or engaging in kinky sex? Are we supposed to go to work to advance society, then come home, eat dinner, make some more children (missionary position only!), and then sleep?
We're currently in the middle of the long process of realising that a lot of things that were thought to be harmful or ""degenerate"" actually aren't, and that more harm is done in suppressing them; conversely a whole range of ""normal"" behaviour is non-consensual and actually harmful.
BTW, when you look at the beginning of communism in Russia, they tried these kinds of experiments and it fell like house of cards in ~20 years, leading them to be even more repressive than what their conservatives would be. Our estimates of what is harmful are too often incorrect. I am not saying that the algorithm in law we have now is perfect, but it's definitely organic and a result of many optimization procedures. It could be local optima, there could be much better optimas, but it's hard to predict if a given step leads to another optima or wrecks the whole civilization like the Chinese population addiction during Opium wars.
Ask yourself, why is it that almost every society on the planet had access to opium during this time period, but it was only the Chinese who suffered government destabilizing consequences as a result of opium availability?
The answer is that opium was weaponized in China by the British. The British government (along with some rather wealthy US citizens) essentially forced opium onto the Chinese population in an attempt to equalize trade deficits. This was effective at not only re-balancing trade in favor of the British, but also weakened the Chinese population considerably, allowing for Britain to more easily control the population.
You know what happened whenever the Chinese government was finally like, "hey this stuff is harming our population, we're going to attempt to curtail the widespread consumption of opium"? The British intervened with full military might, crushing the Chinese resistance and forcing the continued exploitation of the Chinese people. Twice.
The reason opium was so destructive to the social fabric of 19th century China is that opium was weaponized, and as a result it fulfilled the role of any other weapon.
You mention cigarettes, and cigarette usage has actually been dropping pretty dramatically over the last few decades. This is because instead of prohibition (like was tried and failed with alcohol) the government took the approach of educating people and creating social pressures to get people to stop.
The same could absolutely be done with heroin et al. Create places where people can legally buy and consume heroin (under the supervision of nurses) and all the while advertise how terrible it is and offer addiction counselling etc.
The problem is that such a system would have to be run with the explicit goal of getting people to stop and the US's fondness for running everything privately would be disastrous in this case.
The idea that smokers cost money to take care of is pure myth, and in most places they end up paying more in sin taxes to the state than they receive for life medical care costs.
>Why not accept all hard drugs, all sexual deviations, all violent or manipulative behaviors then?Why not accept all hard drugs, all sexual deviations, all violent or manipulative behaviors then?
Because those things cause falsifiable and measurable harm to society. Cannabis use is by all measures benign while its prohibition actually causing real harm.
There are unfortunately people that could be damaged by smoking weed, irreversibly, if their schizophrenia proclivity gets activated. Also the easy escape from problems is not in society's best interest - see the ongoing shaming for gaming, where boys are pushed into the "real world" to get some society-benefiting work done instead of them having more fun.
We usually have 1-2 generations that act as guinea pigs on effects of new inventions or discoveries. The wild time with LSD, heroin etc. is thankfully over. Not sure why would we want to backtrack on cannabis, even if it is objectively less harmful. Alcohol & cigarettes are objectively less harmful than heroin etc. but we would be better off without them.
Perhaps peanuts should be made illegal. There are people that can be irreversibly damaged by consuming peanuts.
If we’re goi to be consistent and ban or regulate substances because there might be harm to an incredibly small minority then sadly there would be very very few legal foods, medications, etc. hell we should probably ban strobe lights as well.
On another note you’d probably be disappointed to hear research and use of hallucinogenic substances has been on a sharp rise. So it seems those wild times you’re fearful of are returning.
I am not really fearing them for the sake of myself (well, except for the rise of violence/poverty they might cause). I can actually benefit from it myself by estimating what junkies would be willing to pay for and moving my e-commerce business into that direction, like what many are cynically doing now with older women and pet food. But I pity them, would rather see people achieving their full potential instead of getting their quick fix and wasting rest of the day on silly things. I just think by enabling (even if lighter) drugs, it would have profound effect on progress of our civilization, meaning no advanced space travel ("flying saucers"), no more improved physics, no faster computers, because if everybody is happy from smoking the weed, content with their life, why would they want to push frontiers of civilization? And frankly, I don't want to see USA/Europe end up as India, that has strong historic traditions of hallucinogens intervowen with their culture, together with tantric Buddhism suspected as the main reason of their millennium-long decline and abhorrent societal divisions.
I don't think we need to enforce laws on everyone just to protect a very small minority of people. That would be like making grapefruit illegal because it interferes with some peoples' medications in a potentially dangerous manner.
I know a guy who was fairly smart and decided to take LSD at university in his "teaching assistant" room, and make notes about his experience. Something went wrong during his trip and he ended up confronting some kind of demons. Previously purely rational person within a year switched to become a seventh-day adventist. Since then I simply couldn't trust his judgement anymore; not because he became religious, but because something really damaged his brain on his first trip.
Another person I knew was a brilliant winner of math and informatics Olympiad. Decided to try heroin once. Dropped out of university the following year, spent a year working in construction, went to a lesser university, dropped out after two years. A talent gone.
Some drugs ("krokodil", meth), seem to give pretty brutal feedback about their use, e.g. literal zombification of humans. There are so many horrible stories...
It's really complicated as a human has to go against their own nature to override brain's pleasure complex, often also against their friends, tribe, customs etc. while the whole world keeps saying: "Just take it, it's normal, everything will be fine", and 10 years later finding themselves one step from abyss. I would rather convey a strong message: "It's not OK, don't ever do it!"
I would propose an experiment - let's look into history and see which civilizations propagated and which went extinct or ended up zombified in a non-progressive isolated state. I'd bet there will be quite a few where "substance abuse" went through the roof, and those that restricted it either completely or moved it to a dedicated "crazy week" (Bacchanalia?) prospered and progressed. Seems like hardships are necessary for progress/motivation(?), short-circuiting pleasure centers with drugs doesn't move society towards higher complexity and beauty.
I'm concerned about things like this too, but ultimately the only way forward is to let some societies experiment with it and face the consequences. I hope it doesn't become a global UN thing.
"In regard to the physical effects, the Commission have come to the conclusion that the moderate use of hemp drugs is practically attended by no evil results at all. There may be exceptional cases in which, owing to idiosyncrasies of constitution, the drugs in even moderate use may be injurious. There is probably nothing the use of which may not possibly be injurious in cases of exceptional intolerance.
In respect to the alleged mental effects of the drugs, the Commission have come to the conclusion that the moderate use of hemp drugs produces no injurious effects on the mind. It may indeed be accepted that in the case of specially marked neurotic diathesis, even the moderate use may produce mental injury. For the slightest mental stimulation or excitement may have that effect in such cases. But putting aside these quite exceptional cases, the moderate use of these drugs produces no mental injury.
In regard to the moral effects of the drugs, the Commission are of opinion that their moderate use produces no moral injury whatever. There is no adequate ground for believing that it injuriously affects the character of the consumer.
Viewing the subject generally, it may be added that the moderate use of these drugs is the rule, and that the excessive use is comparatively exceptional. The moderate use practically produces no ill effects. In all but the most exceptional cases, the injury from habitual moderate use is not appreciable. The excessive use may certainly be accepted as very injurious, though it must be admitted that in many excessive consumers the injury is not clearly marked. The injury done by the excessive use is, however, confined almost exclusively to the consumer himself; the effect on society is rarely appreciable. It has been the most striking feature in this inquiry to find how little the effects of hemp drugs have obtruded themselves on observation. The large number of witnesses of all classes who professed never to have seen these effects, the vague statements made by many who professed to have observed them, the very few witnesses who could so recall a case as to give any definite account of it, and the manner in which a large proportion of these cases broke down on the first attempt to examine them, are facts which combine to show most clearly how little injury society has hitherto sustained from hemp drugs."
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Hemp_Drugs_Commission)
You can go to a liquor store today and purchase a lethal amount of alcohol for about $20. And it’s lawful to advertise the stuff. GHB is less harmful, but it’s illegal.
At one of the nightclubs I go to, they have fairly prominent signs warning about GHB, and telling you that you will get a lifetime ban if you're caught with it. Most other drugs will just get confiscated (and often consumed by the bouncers), or at worst kicked out for the night.
And you can’t advertise drinking. You can promote brands, but not drinking directly. Which is weird and I don’t know how the line is defined, but it exists in at least some countries I’ve been to.
As far as i know you can drink whatever you want, when you want after you are 18. Notable exception is Germany where from 16 you can drink undistilled drinks like beer and wine. Oh we had lot of fun when i was 16 on our school trip to Germany. Good times.
About advertising i think it applies again to Scandinavia.
Overall i think people have pretty positive drinking habits in europe. Most people try it early and drink quite regulary meaning they can manage it without much problems.
My experience (not scientific one) is that most of the people i know who have serious problems with alcohol nowdays are almost exclusively those who had very strict parents. Alcohol and drugs were heavily stigmatized in their families and once they are 18 (or out of parents homes) they just go nuts and can't handle it. People who gradually try alcohol tend to have much healthier approach to it.
I don't think prohibition works. Education does.
Poland, too, with the exception of beer (and this is still subject to many restrictions).
But the UK has seen that penalising smoking, by banning it in public indoor spaces and imposing massive taxes has lead to the massive reduction in people smoking and an increase in peoples health. It's not banned, but such a penalisation is a solution.
(and the UK want to follow this strategy for sugar)
Here's just one article on the link between disgust and political leanings: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/caveman-politics/201...
As a personal anecdote about this, I support decriminalization/legalization for all drugs in all cases, not just pot. I not going to debate that here, but only share that to provide context for the following. Last year I visited Los Angeles. The entire time I was there I couldn't get over how bad everything reeked of marijuana. The AirBnB I stayed at was fine, but as soon as I walked outside and as I toured around the city I simply could not escape the smell of weed. It reminded me of the 80s when there was cigarette smoke everywhere, and it was highly unpleasant. I still support legalization, but I would be lying if I didn't admit that experience had me wavering.
I could, honestly, completely get behind that.
The evidence for neurological origins of political orientation is definitely something that deserves to be more widely known about. In my experience it is rare to see it discussed, and I wonder if the idea makes people uncomfortable.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biology_and_political_orientat...
Hague is no other than a former Conservative Party leader.
The Norwegian government is led by a Conservative Party, too - and they're in the process of decriminalizing illicit drug use.
When facing that kind of behavior, I always remind my self that at some point, people advocated against trains because the speed of it would cause eyes damage by watching through the windows and moving that fast from one place to another would have terrible psychological impacts.
It's not obvious to me. The fundamental question is, does an individual own their own body? If the answer is yes, then don't try to restrict what I can do with it so long as I don't harm anyone else. If the answer is no, well, then we need to firm up exactly what the arrangement is supposed to be.
If you live in a social democracy with universal healthcare, drugs policy should probably be based around harm reduction. This is why helmets are required on bicycles (in some countries, for better or worse) and you need to wear a seatbelt in the car.
It's your body, but the public has to pick up the tab when you break it.
I don't think that you should be able to go to the pharmacy and buy heroin or methamphetamine off the shelf. The potential for abuse is too high.
However, as I said, people will find drugs if they want them. If I wanted to buy some heroin, I could find some within 30 minutes just walking down the street. I really don't know what the solution is.
It's not the most addictive drug around. It's not at all the most dangerous. It's not all that much more damaging than a lot of other drugs we're happy to let people take.
Almost all of the worst damage caused by heroin today is caused by treating it as a criminal justice problem rather than as a public health issue. If people could seek medical advice safely, could get clean drugs, could get alternative forms (e.g. a lot of people end up injecting heroin because oral oxycodone is too expensive on the black market once they get cut off from their prescriptions), it would not solve all of it, but it would solve most of the problems.
So start there if the problem you want to solve is the cost to society. Heroin is mostly a politician-created problem, and at this point there is sufficient knowledge that frankly I consider any politician still supporting the continued prohibition of it morally equivalent to mass murderers. They are knowingly making decisions that kill people in large numbers.
To the extent there still is a problem after legalising these drugs, look at actual health-focused interventions, rather than turning people with a health issue into criminals.
Drug legalization is about using public funds on other issues besides individual drug users, reducing prison populations for non-violent drug offenders, offering those in need treatment instead of incarceration, removing an income stream for gangs
Why do you need prisons when people will voluntarily imprison themselves?
The only part of this "slippery slope" argument I can believe works in favour of legalisation. That there's got to be some amount of "well I've tried weed, it is illegal and my experience proves that what I was taught about it in school was a lie - why not try coke/mdma/ghb/etc..". I don't know how common this line of thinking is but it's certainly something that was on my mind a LOT after I was smoking weed in uni.
In some interpretations, moderate use is not a moral failing, but heavy or compulsive use is.
All that applies to alcohol as well, so I agree if we're going say that alcohol is legal, then other drugs used in similar ways should be legal as well.
Related to that, each Canadian province has the ability to further regulate marijuana (within guidelines). Thus, there isn't one Canadian market, but a bunch of smaller markets.
I know someone involved in the industry in Canada and they flew to Uruguay, the first country to legalise it, to learn from them and create connections. This role will be pioneered by Canada in many ways and it's much different than decriminalization.
There's tons of money to be made long term, not just within Canada but exporting knowledge and systems. I have a feeling this will be influencing many parliaments and congresses around the world to look into doing the same and other partner countries won't be far away.
B) Because cannabis is a controlled substance, Canadian companies will have no way to participate in local markets in other countries.
Along these lines I only have one question: why only cannabis? (I am Canadian.)
But I think popularity is probably the biggest factor. Its when you see your own family/friends' family being destroyed by criminal convictions resulting from marijuana use does it create a strong push to legalize the stuff.
You've got to start somewhere. Bear in mind legalization didn't pass with sweeping support, the Conservative right is still largely opposed.
However, the preponderance of research suggests a null hypothesis at worst and a reduction in cancer rates and opiate dependency at best.
I do agree that drugs should be decriminalized and that the money we spend on enforcement should be instead spent on public education and rehabilitation to prevent people using them and help people stop using them.
This has nothing to do with libertarianism, most likely the opposite.
But (what if) there's a correlation...
It's already arguably legal under federal law under the equal protection clause because congress legalized it in DC. As far as I know the feds aren't locking anyone up for possession of small amounts.
E.g.: https://novacriminalattorney.com/marijuana/marijuana-legaliz...
The author is right that strictly speaking the equal protection clause only applies to state laws, but the supreme court has also retroactively applied it to federal laws as well:
"Just take the plea, I can get them down to 2 years. Otherwise youre facing 9 to 20 years."
It's the first time in modern US history that a sitting President has come anywhere close to declaring support for or proclaiming he'd be ok with the Federal Government legalizing recreational marijuana consumption.
The reason for that, is because Trump is an aggressive populist that doesn't particularly care about entrenched, ancient political live wires. He'll feel entirely free to respond to the Trump voting base as its opinion gradually changes in favor of legalization (as it largely has).
Here in Ohio, for example, we didn't have a vote on recreational, instead we had a vote on a government sanctioned monopoly possibly leading the way to recreational.
If there was some sort of state issue that could be voted on which was "regulate it like we do garden tomatoes", it would pass.
Leadership has prevented this, not your cartoon idea of the oh so ignorant voter base.
Too often we blame the salt of the earth people for things the media has done. Rule by multi millionaire propagandists.
Cannabis legalisation will eventually be more and more adopted in other countries, being the first allows you to own the market.
There is research on THC-infused drinks that match the alcoholic beverage experience in time-to-inebriation and the duration of inebriation. Current methods of cannabis consumption stretch the experience out over a long period, which naturally is unfeasible for restaurant venues and the like.
And seriously, there is obviously a massive commercial interest in legalized marijuana, hence we'll see more and more moves in that direction. The correlation with de-demonization (and de-criminalization!) of 'organic' drugs and widening of personal liberties is a side-effect, albeit a welcome one.
However, it was followed by a 12 year Conservative government, sometimes a minority government, so nothing happened federally, but there were many provincial court cases that helped change how the laws were being applied.
As far as I can tell, Canada has not privatized their penal system.
(In fact, differential enforcement by regional police departments was one of the more compelling arguments in favour of decriminalization.)
Everything we’ve seen for estimates is that even then, we’re only going to meet 50% of the demand.
Canopy Growth Corp, CBW, Aphira, Abcann... there are actually dozens of them and they’re going to be in for a good year for now and (hopefully) tremendous growth as well.
Some people care very much.
Can you link to anything that says Canada is going to allow uninhibited access to the market from these companies? Currently they are licensed for medicinal use only.
I'm skeptical. The government is not going to mint pot billionaires. It will be tightly controlled.
This is a problem with weed as there is a pretty solid underground distribution network. If the price for legal weed stay lower than "legal" weed (because of the tax and all the administrative bs), then criminal orgs will keep making plenty of profit, rendering the bill essentially pointless. I don't want a fancy multi-million dollar weed tasting store, or ponder for hours if a 1985 indica is better with red meet than a 1992 sativa. I just want my ounce and be left in peace.
The liberals have grossly misunderstood the consumer population...
I experience it while high, so I only take a toke or two irregularly. I might feel as if I'm experiencing the pain of a broken leg, or that my foot is bleeding, as well as more abstract things. It also grants some introspection and lateral thinking so its not a bad time.
I've heard higher amounts of CBD can counteract this, but I just mooch from friends who regularly smoke, and all their weed is high in THC / low in CBD. When its fully legal in my province I'll try a high CBD strain.
Either way I'm excited for the neurological research to come out of Canada from legalization :)
My first experience with weed was a couple of years ago, and there was paranoia from the get-go. My dad also got paranoia when he tried it so he stopped.
When I started smoking weed for the first time semi-regularly (~1.5 years ago, 0-4 times per week) I had become "pretty crazy", which consisted of lots of notes, voice memos, and screenshots of the notes and voice memos.
The outright-crazy stuff mostly ended about a couple months after I stopped living in my car, which I had to do because of the and it getting down to -19C at night. Within the past year I haven't been near the deep-end, but my weed use has been off and on between regularly (3-7 times per week), semi-regularly (0-4), and zero. I consistently experience paranoia/psychosis whenever I get high, but it generally isn't harmful, and is sometimes silly. My friends put up with it.
However very recently for 6 days, I lived in a cruel reality that existed in my head. It was caused by a long-term (2 yr) long-distance (6 mnth) codependent girlfriend who can be a capable and stubborn liar. Thankfully the extent of the terrible things I believed happened didn't actually happen–she didn't even make it to cheating on me, let alone the malicious delusions I experienced–and she happened to have suitable proof. If she hadn't I might still be in that reality.
I think the episode was more to do with how she shattered trust, and some coincidental events during the 6 days, but I believe my weed usage helped my brain to create the complex unimaginable scenarios, then experience the pain fully. For a handful of hours in those 6 days I was close to tell-no-one suicide, after a history of suicidal behaviour.
I'm happy to be in this reality as of a little less than 2 weeks ago, I'm also glad that I endured and survived that pain. I've become a lot stronger, more peaceful, and I feel that I have turned many corners with mental illness which I hadn't faced in the past–though perhaps I can credit that to a deeper dive into Buddhism and to the end of the codependency. We were about to restart our warm embrace the day she anchored me to this timeline, but per some timely advice from her friend we took a step back and ended it.
Whether or not the psychosis is temporary, or whether it causes early-onset schizophrenia is an area I'm excited to see more research on. It's definitely not as black-and-white as many people paint it out to be, and talking about any potential downsides of the drug is sometimes met with stigmatism because you're "falling for the propaganda".
One aspect of weed legalization is going to be psychosis in a subset of people who use it, and it's not exactly a safe phenomenon. There were definitely paths during my bouts with weed that don't lead to being here like this today. At the same time I'm grateful for the experiences it has given me, and the lateral thinking it has granted me.
Here's a good article I found, "Pot Can Trigger Psychotic Symptoms For Some, But Do The Effects Last?" [2015] https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2015/03/06/3901436...
For Buddhism I've been slowly reading Siddhartha over the past few weeks, and Tales Of Times Now Past off and on over the past year.
I wouldn't generally write such a long, personal comment, but we're neatly away on the second page.
What about the Netherlands?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gedogen
It's complicated, and there's a lot of nuance to the Dutch model, but it is distinctly different from what you have now in Canada and in numerous US states.
"To give an example in layman's terms: a mother may tell her child he can't have cookies from the cookie jar. The father, regardless of his beliefs, can't tell the child it's okay to have a cookie as that would result in a conflict with the mother. If the father sees the child taking a cookie anyway, he may choose not to say anything. He may not want to punish or stop the child but can't condone the behaviour either. The father may act as if nothing had happened to avoid a conflict with both his beliefs and the mother. He "gedoogs" the behaviour."
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_Act,_1982
Edit with more details: in the early 80s, Trudeau senior got the British government and Queen out of the way to changes in Canadian law. We choose our own Governor general who has the authority to give Royal assent to any laws we pass without involvement of anyone in England.
Our current G.G. is Julie Payette, a former astronaut.
Does that mean that, up until the 80s, the British government were still involved with Canadian lawmaking?
Did that mean Canada was a constitutional monarchy? Still is?
Me, personally, not a huge fan. I dabbled and experimented like a good chunk of Americans, decided it wasn't for me. Not necessarily because I didn't enjoy it - although I was involved in quite a bit of team sports at the time and was worried about the health impacts - but because I saw the impact it was having on friends of mine.
YMMV (of course), but I simply saw too many ambitious, energetic people suddenly become very boring, and very comfortable with doing nothing. I have absolutely no doubt that it's a drug with tons of applications medicinally to treat everything from glaucoma to social anxiety to PTSD, but for purely recreational purposes, it appeared to be quite damaging and "Oh, alcohol is too!" just isn't a strong enough argument for me to be celebrating recreational legalization.
That doesn't mean it should be illegal (lots of unhealthy stuff is legal!), but it does mean that it's a very good idea to avoid it.
People who say pot is harmless (or even beneficial!) on average to most people are kidding themselves. But a substance doesn’t need to be harmless to be good to legalize it - as long as legalization is a net boon for society’s health, wealth and safety, it’s a good idea. Pot legalization checks all of those boxes.
There is no control for your acquaintances, but there are many examples of ambitions and creative recreational cannabis users.
Most people get older and boring, that is the way of the world. The idea of protecting the ambition and energy of friends is noble but extremely paternalistic. "...it appeared to be quite damaging..." isn't a strong enough argument for me to be denied my autonomy to use cannabis responsibly.
You cant overdose and die from MJ use (or its highly unlikely).
This whole war on drugs thing feels like a game of smoke and mirrors...
Legalization would greatly reduce deaths caused by external factors and would free the government to actually take care of the addicts as they actually need.
On the other hand, antibiotics, which should be controlled tightly, gets overlooked.
1 http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1516...
Edit: formatting.
Edit II: typos.
Edit III: pointing out antibiotics getting overlooked.
Well the one thing we shouldn't do is give criminals a lucrative monopoly on the market, which is exactly what criminalization does and creates a whole host of negatives for society.
It is the deadliest drug overdose crisis in US history. In 2016 alone, drug overdoses killed more Americans than the entire Vietnam War and car crashes, gun violence, and HIV/AIDS ever did in a single year. In total, more than 170 people are estimated to die from overdoses every day in the US, and most of the deaths are linked to opioids."
I understand that the counter-argument is "What about tobacco/alcohol?" But those substances are already legal and there are no "equal opportunities" rights for drugs. Like if artificial sweeteners were invented today, they would either be banned or there would be harsh restrictions on how food producers could use them.
Yes, tobacco kills a lot of people. But as many health experts think letting the tobacco companies sell cigarettes was one of the greatest mistakes of the 20th century, I fail to see how that is an argument. We fucked up once, so we need to do it again?
[1]https://www.alzheimers.org.uk/about-dementia/types-dementia/... [2]https://www.fda.gov/forconsumers/consumerupdates/ucm168830.h...
But even if you don't subscribe to that belief, it's pretty obvious that the ills of prohibition of cannabis far outweigh its very mild negative side-effects (which are far more minor than those of alcohol). Ungodly amounts of violence and suffering have been caused by drug cartels ability to monitize prohibition.
If prohibition is our answer to anything increasing the risk of development of schizophrenia, we’re going to be banning a lot of things.
Yes, of course. Substances that enhance the risk of death are legalised, after all. :)
I think what you may mean is "does this specific substance present unacceptably high risks relative to the benefits?" And the answer from your link seems to be "no".
Any attempt to make policy while only looking at the costs (or benefits) in isolation is doomed to failure.
2. As each argument against legalization fails to make a dent in public opinion, yet another takes its place. At some point, it is no longer about weighing the risks to come to a decision. Instead, critics have already decided that "marijuana is bad", and are looking to point to _anything_ that supports their agenda.
That said... good job, Canada - we've done it!
If you're hoping to reduce use amongst the general population, legalization seems to be a better course of action than prohibition.
I don't think either of us are going to argue that no matter the legal status of marijuana there's always going to be a demand for it and a market. If you're primary objective is to mitigate harm to the public writ large, and not just scorning consumers, I can't think of anything more conducive than allowing for people to be open about their consumption habits without fear of legal reprisal so that healthy social norms and boundaries can be established.
Further, if that market is always going to exist I'd imagine you'd rather see the proceeds be cycled into legitimate enterprises that actually support society as a whole and contribute taxes rather than the black economy, which is where it's inevitably forced.
The pros far outweigh the cons here.
It doesn't make sense to compare psychoactive drugs to food additives because people don't use food additives recreationally.
It's not. It's a drug similar to alcohol and will be regulated as it should be.
Anything that takes a weapon out of the hands of law enforcement to unfairly lock up people, I’m all for.
Do we have sufficient evidence to say that cannabis can/cannot treat something like schizophrenia? Is it far-fetched to imagine the vaporizer becoming an ordinary medical device?
Sure, as long as the risks associated with legalising it are less destructive than keeping it illegal.