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Comment by odood | Hacker News Reader

I believe that overall the decision is a good one, there are no real good reasons why cannabis should be prohibited.

At the same time, I strongly hope that the cannabis smokers will be considerate of the people around them. It is quite a foul smell if you are not partaking yourself.

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It’s been legal since 2018, up here in Canada, and other than extreme amount of cannabis shops in every other block, it’s basically been the same as pre-legalization. People who were into it, still into it. People who didn’t still don’t. Maybe just the people who were curious but didn’t want to try it because it was illegal tried it out and joined either of the camps.

I’m not the biggest fan, but as a person who enjoys drinking from time to time, who am I to rob people from their good times when I get to do it freely?

Thanks for the report, so basically it removed the legal burden on people and police, no need to hide or buy at secret deals, and no need to arrest them all the time for smoking, is it right ?

Are there regulation on the production of cannabis on sale ? concentration and limits in amount of impurities etc ?

> Are there regulation on the production of cannabis on sale ? concentration and limits in amount of impurities etc ?

Yes, it is regulated. However, growers get to choose which labs they send their samples to. With those incentives, you can guess what happens next.

Other than that, I agree with the GP: nothing has really changed; those who smoked continue to do so, often relying on the cheaper black market; those who didn't like it continue to not partake.

I vape once every few months and it is nice to have access to legal weed with transparent pricing.

Yeah regulated in terms of amount you can grow, sell, how much you can sell at a time, how much you can have in edibles, inside one package and etc. It was very weird in the beginning since the production didn't catch up with the demand, so was very expensive and sounded like quality was sub-par, making the regulars to rely on black market. Now, well, I guess you can still go with black market, but everyone I know that has been dabbling with it for the past 20+ years have switched to legal cannabis.

Keep in mind, nobody would have ever arrested you for smoking cannabis for ages especially in the west coast Canada. Sure it was illegal, but everyone has a friend who has been smoking for years.

What is meant with "legal cannabis"? That the last step somehow is a licensed dealer selling? Or is is guaranteed the whole chain from farmer to point of sales is legal?

Basically the whole chain.

What about "new" people? If it's legal I would assume more people of new generations of people will try it

What about "new" people? I, personally, don't care if new people try it. It doesn't seem to have extreme societal impact like very hard drugs (fentanyl and etc.) we see in Vancouver. I'm still against those, but for lighter things like cannabis, I'll treat it as alcohol - let others freely enjoy it as long as they're not causing problems for their surroundings. As long as people understand their limits and deal with their addictions, it's not my place to limit people on their consumption behaviours.

And well, I was a kid once as well, and trying alcohol for the first time, drinking with friends, getting into shenanigans. Wouldn't trade those memories for anything. That'll happen whether you want it or not.

Still against smoking in small public places though, as my jacket gets to smell like weed.

It remains illegal for youth consumption.

This is all I ask. I've never had an interest in weed, but I also don't think it should be illegal. After it was legalized in my state, I started second guessing my stance out of spite. I quickly got tired of not being able to do a chore like grocery shopping without having the store stink of weed because someone couldn't open a window while they baked in their car, or whatever. The commercial culture that sprung up is also annoying, with the amount of dispensary billboards rivaled only by billboards for personal injury lawyers. It's be one thing if it died down after the first year, but that the in-your-faceness of it persists is starting to feel more like an indoctrination. At least in my state, the cannabis community has revealed itself to be the annoying children they were stereotyped as, and that is just disappointing since I voted to legalize it.

What can we expect we billions are poured as investments? And worse and more dangerous than the commercial culture for me is the resulting aggressive push against any health questions, again I imagine due to huge financial interests. Unfortunately as always recently the debate has been binarized in pro or against camps. Plenty of things are legal and bad for you, that should be another debate.

You mean they revealed themselves as bankrolled by big tobacco and use the same playbooks.

Why is this comment downvoted? It is a fact that big tobacco bankrolls the cannabis industry and that is where the aforementioned money comes from. The genetics are all bought up, the land is all bought up, the industry is consolidating and it's impossible for mom and pop to sell cannabis. Every recreational market, including Canada, is a disaster.

Wow, you should re-read what you wrote and then replace "weed" with something else people partake in, like alcohol or gambling and then see if anyone agrees with you. If we catered to minorities like you there wouldn't be any food around that didn't have the "correct" smell an people would only eat "approved" food. In any case I'm glad we have some sort of democracy that doesn't cater to people like you.

Depends on if they smoke pot and hashish, to me. If you ever pour out a Carlsberg, their hops smell extremely like fresh, nice pot. Most non-smokers (canna or otherwise) seem to like it, or at least tolerate it. Hashish does have a much more pungent smell, and can be uncomfortable at times -- even to me, a smoker for 25 years now.

Berlin has a lot of smoking bars, and people frequently smoke on train platforms. Cannabis won't significantly worsen things.

Personal preference does come into it. I rather like the smell of certain kinds of smoke, but cannabis has this very strange sweetness which I find unpleasant. Smells certainly don't correlate with safety though; I like the scent of white spirit!

When outdoors, wind comes into it. They really ought to have two smoking areas on each railway platform, one on either end, and make it compulsory for smokers to use whichever one would carry the smoke away from other users on a given day. Or, have a smoking shelter with a tall chimney to take it away more effectively vertically.

Worse than tobacco?

Tobacco is actually more addictive than weed. I have a friend in Berlin who substituted tobacco for some herbal mix some years ago. He was a heavy smoker until then. Basically he just kept on smoking but swapped out the tobacco. A few weeks in he realized he didn't need to any more. It, smells a bit unpleasant but it got him completely off the tobacco with essentially zero effort. He rolls like one or two a day max. Usually with some weed and a beer on the side.

I don't smoke myself (tobacco or weed) but I know plenty of people who do, or who used to (multiple packs a day, like my friend above). Quitting is hard apparently. So, from that to one or two per day sounds like it should be an improvement.

The nastiest thing with weed is having to deal with drug dealers to get it. Bringing it out of the criminal corner is a good thing. There are a lot of drug dealers who also sell far nastier stuff than weed. Crack cocaine apparently is a growing problem in Berlin.

> there are no real good reasons why cannabis should be prohibited.

Is there any good reason why alcohol should be prohibited?

Regulating the quality of the cannabis on the market is a large win for public health among users of cannabis. In a black market, you can't be really sure what you're buying and people are incentivized to buy a stronger product even if they don't actually need the stronger variant.

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