Two in Three Americans Now Support Legalizing Marijuana
news.gallup.com
news.gallup.com
On a broader level, this is exactly what federalism is about - states being able to try things to experiment, without committing the entire country irrevocably.
This does not parse.
What that analysis doesn't take into account is whether the next state to legalize marijuana will also have to deal with increased accident rates and insurance costs. This is IMO the more important question.
Also - in the states that went legal, there is an active population boom, but just as likely is being caused by tech startups. Population increases are more likely to cause an accident rate to increase.
We just won't know (for sure) if pot or jobs are the cause for the population increases. Maybe it's pot jobs?
Causation requires correlation. It's certainly not enough to prove causation, but it's actually a necessary starting point.
Speaking of driving and marijuana, I've noticed a large increase in pot smoke coming from cars in traffic since marijuana was legalized in CA. I expect some of that to come from passengers, but people driving while high is no joke.
The biggest complaint I ever hear that isn't based on a non-truth is "it smells bad".
Smells bad can itself be a big deal. Some people also have migraines that result from inhaling second hand marijuana smoke. Moreover, many people don’t want to smell the stuff in their daily commute- and the smell definitely lingers longer, than say, tobacco, in an open space.
I’m not opposed to legalization, but saying that there’s no societal harm is pretty misinformed too. Seemingly minor things like ‘smells bad’ can easily make one hate cannabis.
I think an individual hating something doesn't necessarily elevate that thing to the level of "societal harm".
For example, durian smells bad. Many people hate it because of its smell. However, I've never heard somebody go on about the harm durian is causing to society.
Calling for keeping marijuana strictly illegal based on its smell is silly. Still, the smell is just as noxious as cigarette smoke to many people. I found walking around downtown Montevideo annoying. Legalization should come with some measures against smoking in public, just like those being applied to tobacco in many places around the world.
If you 'smell it' you subconsciously feel like you are forced 'smoking it' akin to involuntary second hand tobacco usage. Whether that is true or not I do not know.
As a former tobacco and former casual marihuana smoker I dislike either of these smells. I consciously quit both, both for very good personal reasons.
There are obvious health related risks to abstain smoking tobacco but for me I have autism and marihuana can make me over-sensitised and get me into a psychosis. This occurred numerous times.
Yes, there are benefits to marihuana and specifically CBD. My uncle had terminal cancer and hash oil helped him against this pain (he was AFAIK never pro-drugs or pro-marihuana before he got cancer). And there are disadvantages as well. I'm a proponent of education and regulation, just like with alcohol.
The difference however is that although such might over-sensitise someone with e.g. (undiagnosed) autism your example is not proven to be harmful for the lungs, nor does it make you stoned.
Both of these apply to a not insignificant amount of the population when it comes to perfumes and flowers too.
We should make Abercrombie cologne illegal; I sneeze at least twice when walking through the mall and sometimes get headaches.
https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29487531
There are so many substances that people can take that would impair their ability to drive. Many of them are available over the counter. Alcohol is the only one that's tested directly; it's the exception, not the norm.
It's not a non-truth, its highly personal what smells good, or bad.
Why should you send someone to jail based on their smell?
You can legally cook pungent meals, burn smelly incense, slow cook meat over a stinking smoker, smoke fetid home rolled cigarettes, take one shower every month, have terribly foot fungus or a really bad case of farts.
All smelly but legal things.
Here in the Canadian town I live, you are not allowed to smoke or vape it on any public land. If you rent, your landlord has to agree to it. You can legalize it and still control it.
To be honest, the smells decreased since it was made legal. Police would tolerate it so nobody called for "pot smell". That was a bad waste of resources. Now that it's up to the landlord to enforce it, people are more willing to call.
I would never call the police on my neighbors for a smell. If I knew that someone went to jail over personal use because of me, I would feel really bad.
However, I would ring the landlord in a heartbeat if their action was not allowed in the lease.
There are tradeoffs in everything, of course, and everyone is entitled to their own choices and ambitions, and these risks don't harm everyone who tries them, but put yourself in the shoes of the friends and family that see their loved one become a burnout. There can be real and justified hate of the drug when it has measurably damaged your family.
There was an episode of South Park that addressed pot in a similar way- it is dangerous because it is so much fun you don't want to do anything else.
Brain damage in young adults.
> "Persistent cannabis users show neuropsychological decline from childhood to midlife"
Addressing this study, it was a N=1038, cohort study that seems to only have adjusted for education. Further, there's a link on your cited article to [1], which is a response that suggests that the determining factor may have been personality, rather than cannabis use.
There are other studies that indicate a similar conclusion, but I'm not clear how it's any different than any of a dozen socially accepted factors. The developing brain is very fragile. Playing football, or not getting enough exercise, can do similar damage.
[0] http://www.pnas.org/content/109/40/E2657.full [1] http://www.pnas.org/content/110/11/E979
https://www.drugabuse.gov/news-events/nida-notes/2016/09/reg...
They also dislike alcohol use, especially due to drunk driving causing accidents. In the same way, they think allowing another substance to be legally consumed will increase impaired driving rates (even tho DUI is illegal).
They think alcohol being legal has made it easier for high school students to obtain it. They think the same will happen with cannabis. They don't want substances (alcohol or otherwise) near their grandkids' brains.
Alcohol has a breathalyzer test. There is no such spot test for cannabis intoxication. Which makes regulating drivers hard.
Trust me, it couldn’t get any easier for high school students to get marijuana than it currently is.
Case-in-point: me.
I'm still in favour of its legalisation but I'm not naive enough to believe there are no downsides to the substance.
I've experienced many of them myself by abusing it for years.
As someone who supports legalization, it's still way too early to definitively say that. Marijuana is not a harmless substance. There will very definitely be some negative effects, and acting like it's a magical panacea will not be helpful. Marijuana addiction is very real, although it only affects a small subset of users (~9% is often quoted). There have been zero long term studies with regard to a population's lifetime health outcomes having regular access to highly potent, legal marijuana. Only time will tell, although on the net I have no doubt these negatives will balance to an overall positive.
Having said that, I'd really prefer if everyone that wanted marijuana would use the ediables rather than smoking it in various ways. Living in a state where it's legal, I absolutely detest the smell, it's smoke is even more potent and disgusting than tobacco. On the same note, I hate tobacco smoke and want use of such products to be limited to negative-draw scrubbed exhaust environments.
That mostly eliminates being forced to endure other peoples smoke more than in passing - unless your neighbors smoke heavily in their yard.
I supported various decriminalization and legalization pushes on the principle that the criminal justice system is a poor avenue for addressing things that are public health problem, which is a principle I still believe in. But I've got some considerable buyer's regret; I don't want to smoke myself, and as far as I can tell, it's shockingly common that smokers of either tobacco or cannabis are (a) pretty bad at realizing how others experience it (and how far the experience travels) and/or (b) not particularly considerate about the fact that others haven't signed up for it. It's particularly galling in living situations where people will smoke on balconies or just outside an entryway apparently heedless of the fact that smoke will travel in other people's windows; and even smoking indoors travels through both windows and ventilation systems.
For a while I thought this might be something that could be solved via education and etiquette, but there are too many entitled smokers. I don't think this is a problem that's going to be fixable without at least minor citations/fines to back up the right behavior. And we might need to see if there's a relationship with production that's neither full-on industrialized nor necessarily driven underground.
However yes, it does extend to balconies, and from a surprising distance away. I'm not kidding when I say it should be legally confined to areas which must have both negative draw (a high inward air pressure difference so that leaks go inside instead of out) and scrubbed exhaust (so that everything gets filtered out, often by water percolation to soak up the vaporized tar and other particles).
But even assuming health issues weren't in play, there might well be a case that being an acceptable neighbor involves keeping many forms of sensory exports to a minimum. Loud music can be rude. Loud music or construction projects after 9pm are rude. Storing your asafoetida on the balcony would be pretty rude too, even if it can be used to make some super tasty food. Fish in the microwave will make you unpopular at some offices. So... yeah, we can go "by this logic" if you like, it's just not where the case stops.
Edibles often take a couple hours or more to take noticeable effect which leads to overconsumption among some consumers. I'd argue that it's actually the most dangerous type of cannabis consumption because it's so easy to overconsume.
(Can't comment on the smell of smoke due to anosmia since birth!)
I live in Colorado (the first state to legalize recreational use) and I never smell weed on the streets. When I was traveling to the bay area for work (while it still wasn't legalized), everywhere I walked I would smell dank ganja. And I don't mean that as a compliment.
Terms like skunk when describing weed aren't thrown around without reason.
Here in CO most people I know that still smoke have moved from bud and use vaporizers much like e-cigarettes to "vape" concentrates.
The concentrates smell nothing like their burnt bud cousins... it smells lightly floral if at all.
I'm not so sure areas like the bay really set a proper example as you are probably smelling some shwag from the homeless dude walking down the street rather than what the legal market is providing.
Or maybe people in Colorado are just more conscientious of others.
As a side note, regarding weed smoke:
> it's smoke is even more potent and disgusting than tobacco
That's just not true. While the dankest bud might be more objectionable to the nose, most tobacco is grown in conventional soil where it is essentially a sponge for metals like arsenic and cadmium. Weed is much the same type of plant, but being grown in controlled environments in man-made soil (and often soilless growth mediums), it isn't exposed to anywhere near the same levels of toxins and therefore doesn't assimilate the same toxicity as stuff like tobacco.
If we intend to keep pot illegal, alcohol should follow.
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/articl...
The latter case is not a guarantee - the potential negative effect is (IMO and through my experience) likely closer to that of coffee addiction than alcohol. The difference is weed addicts can get help for it rather than be thrown in jail - the industry is/was already there, but having it above board can allow for much better outcomes.
Anything that takes a weapon out of the hand of the “Justice system” like making it legal is a net positive.
During my visit of Portland the cashier of one the dispensaries described to me all the additional security measures they had to take including building a bank vault in the store. During tax season they have to hire private security and armed guards with armored vehicles to transfer duffel bags full of cash to the department of revenue who then penalizes them an additional fee for paying in large sums of cash. This is ironic because the department of state then has to go on a hiring spree and needs to purchase equipment to count out this massive amount of cash (probably millions once add up all the dispensaries).
Its a big waste of money since all the hires and equipment are unnecessary once you realize that 99% of all other businesses just pay via wire or check. I also can't imagine how much money is spent by the business trying to keep track of all the loose cash.
2014 $683,523,739
2015 $995,591,255
2016 $1,307,203,473
2017 $1,507,702,219
2018* $1,022,245,511 (Through August 2018)
I think it's going to be increasingly difficult for states facing budget shortfalls to ignore this as a potential new source of tax revenue.
We just aren't wasting any more effort policing something no one cares about.
... But you are still correct.
I'm pro-legalization though. I don't think more people occasionally using cannabis is a big deal.
Seems like a wash, if not a net positive to me.
I like Larry Sharpe's viewpoint here - Marijuana should be regulated like onions.
I don't see why we should treat marijuana more leniently than we treat alcohol. Drinking in public is already illegal in most places.
> What's the point of legalization if a police officer can still stop you and search to make sure you have under 30 grams?
Police officer cannot stop and search you without a probable cause.
> I like Larry Sharpe's viewpoint here - Marijuana should be regulated like onions.
Maybe, but let's regulate marijuana like alcohol first, and then, when we regulate alcohol like onions, we can move on to do the same with marijuana.
2. Probable cause - "our drug dog is trained to detect over 30 grams of Marijuana.", "I smelled marijuana and suspected an open container, asked to see the open container to verify it was legal, open container held over 30 grams."
3.You're right about alcohol... fun fact - it's still federally illegal to distill spirits.
Without a distillery license. Which is not especially expensive, and is wholly reasonable considering the significantly higher technical and safety threshold of operating a distillery. Bathtub gin used to kill people.
2. That's what I was going to point out about probable cause, that it's kind of laughable. Thanks!
3. I did not know that, crazy.
But that leads to stupid laws around public consumption and possession, which make sense for alcohol but not for marijuana. It should be treated exactly like tobacco.
All mind altering substance is not for kids.
Heck, even tobacco should be 21+
That being said, with one of the major knocks (or at least scapegoats) against it being crime, if they'd look historically at prohibition how organized crime benefited from the prohibition of alcohol and ending the prohibition was a sizable blow to crime, I don't see why they'd be so against it.
Dunno. Taxing it would be good. Regulating it should be okay. I really don't see the cons of legalizing it when you have alcohol legalized (which I'm not advocating for it not to be).
For me Cannabis legalization is a symbol for science and reason based politics and legislation. And I am so sick of the fear mongering FUD-based reasoning of CDU and AfD.
My personal theory for why right-wing politicians (except for those of the extreme libertarian fraction) are so passionately against legalization of Cannabis is because of group formation reaching back to their youth. You identify with a group also by rituals, habits and enemies. And I guess they just developed a bias against this other group of "hippies" who used to smoke joints. And they carry this resentment with them into their adulthood and agenda.
> Now, as a scientist, I’m unimpressed with many of the widely used arguments for the legalization of marijuana.
1) “It’s natural!” So is arsenic.
2)“It’s beneficial!” The best-documented medicinal effects of marijuana are achieved without the chemical compound that gets users high.
3) “It’s not addictive!” This is false, because the brain adapts to marijuana as it does to all abused drugs, and these neural adjustments lead to tolerance, dependence and craving — the hallmarks of addiction.
Conclusion: Still, I’m not against legalization. I simply object to the astounding lack of skepticism about pot in our current debate. Whether or not to legalize weed is the wrong question. The right one is: How will growing use of delta-9-THC affect individuals and communities?
Though the evidence is far from complete, wishful thinking and widespread enthusiasm are no substitutes for careful consideration. Instead of rushing to enact new laws that are as nonsensical as the ones they replace, let’s sort out the costs and benefits, using current scientific knowledge, while supporting the research needed to clarify the neural and social consequences of frequent use of THC. Perhaps then we’ll avoid practices that inure future generations to what’s really important.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2018/0...
strongly disagree. the only question we should be asking about cannabis (and other drugs) is "do they harm people who haven't freely decided to consume them?". if not, there is nothing left to talk about wrt the law.
edit: unless i misunderstand your post and you are making a point outside of legality?
I think we have an issue with the questions we ask as humans. I am just making the point that we need to look past our individual lenses but that's really never going to happen to our community as a whole.
PS I am a life long abstainer of all vices minus my addiction to sugar.
1) It seems to do less personal harm than alcohol. I've known potheads and alcoholics, and the latter was far more disruptive to their personal lives and health.
2) It seems to do less societal harm than alcohol. Alcohol consumption is strongly correlated with violent crime, but weed consumption seems correlated with annoyances (like "let's all sneak into this pool and go swimming when we're not supposed to").
3) Alcohol is legal. Given that it's at least as bad as pot in every way I can imagine, and often much worse, I can't think of a single continued justification for laws allowing me to go buy a fifth of whiskey but not possess a few joints. It just makes no sense to me.
You must not live in a conservative area. Where I live (Utah) is certainly an outlier, but skepticism is all I hear without any talk of the benefits of legalization.
I believe that marijuana was wrongfully criminalized. If marijuana were legal today, would you support an initiative for making it controlled?
I think the discussion about marijuana is tainted by its current status as a controlled substance. It's currently treated as if it had no medicinal benefits, and that's clearly not the case. In fact, it's pretty clear that it's less bad than alcohol and tobacco, yet it's banned. If we can't come up with a rational reason to ban it, it should be legalized and controlled to the extent that it causes harm.
Our legislatures are old enough to have written Reefer Madness.
I believe that prohibition just represents an emotional cognitive bias (drugs are bad! drug users are bad!) as any rational evidence based analysis comes to the conclusion that not only does prohibition not work for decreasing drug use, it actually increases both the negative person effects of that use and contributes to externalities like increasing the power/funds of violent drug cartels in various parts of the world.
Portugal was a great experiment. It worked. Let's push for full legalization or at least decriminalization across the board.
If you watch them from a bar or something you'll see people interact with them and suddenly there are four of them around and they demand more and more money after the person had already paid the agreed upon price.
I even saw someone get jumped by a group of these guys after he protested that they had agreed to 20 euros for some weed and then wanted however much more.
They should make that studf legal so drug users can go buy quality drugs from the pharmacist or whatever and cleanup the streets of all the semi-violent and aggressive drug gangs that roam their cities.
At least two more years.
Also, think up some things you'd like to try while under the influence... Do you have a favorite album or movie? Many things may be found to be invigorating and enjoyable in a way you couldn't have described before.
That said, I can tolerate low-dose edibles. And, I believe most people who are in my shoes could enjoy it that way. Unfortunately, it's nearly impossible for most of us on the Eastern part of the US. The edibles I tried were brought back from people who went to Colorado.