We need to stop throwing people in prison for using heroin and cocaine. But if the only alternative is to put someone in the business of getting people addicted to heroin...Well, why should we accept that dilemma?
We need to find a third way, in between drugs being illegal, and them being a marketable product like any other. And shit like this isn't helping.
It's just not an actual problem. By all means, forbid advertising like most places do with tobacco. But there's little harm in it becoming a legal commercial product.
If anything, presenting high-bar critiques has the potential to reduce abuse of cannabis by focusing on quality over quantity.
"The new law maintained the status of illegality for using or possessing any drug for personal use without authorization. However, the offense was changed from a criminal one, with prison a possible punishment, to an administrative one if the amount possessed was no more than ten days' supply of that substance."
Then we outlaw that like tobacco advertising is outlawed in most countries. But companies selling weed to us isn't actually a problem. In fact it's better than unregulated black-market sales.
>> We need to stop throwing people in prison for using heroin and cocaine. But if the only alternative is to put someone in the business of getting people addicted to heroin...Well, why should we accept that dilemma?
Why would that be the only alternative? Look at the Portuguese model.
>> We need to find a third way, in between drugs being illegal, and them being a marketable product like any other.
We already have this third way for alcohol and tobacco in most places.
>> And shit like this isn't helping.
Neither is the use of the term 'drugs', nor the idea that we necessarily have to treat them all the same.
edit: Are you questioning the possibility of heroin being regulated as pot is in Colorado. or are you questioning pot being regulated in Colorado like beer has been regulated for the past century? I'm confused by your intention.
Marijuana is as addictive as potatoes. The fact that you even mention heroin in your post shows you clearly have no idea what the fuck you're talking about.
Alcohol is way more addictive and dangerous than pot and we have a huge craft brewing and tasting culture in this country.
If you know absolutely nothing about a subject, for the love of god, please stop and think before you hit reply. You're not contributing at all by posting when you know nothing about the subject.
Maybe we disagree on how addictive potatoes are? Marijuana is fairly addictive, with about 9% of users becoming addicted.[1]
Alcohol's quite addictive too. I don't know whether it's more or less so than marijuana. But with alcohol, we have what we have. If I were designing policy and we didn't have the drinking culture that we do, I'd be hoping we wouldn't end up here.
All I'm saying is this: it's actually a bad thing if lots more people end up smoking lots more weed. It's bad in two ways. One, it's bad intrinsically, because I do think that smoking weed three or four times a week demotivates you and keeps you from getting your shit done. Two, we need to learn how to legalise drugs without use increasing massively, because we've got a lot more drugs to legalise.
[1] Number pulled from the summary here: http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/01/05/marijuana-much-more-tha... , citing research here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3371269/ . I haven't read the paper, but I do trust this blog a lot.
Nice straw man, but it falls down when you actually look at the rates of usage in places with legalization. For instance, The Netherlands, where the toking habits are somewhat safer than in San Francisco [0].
[0]: http://www1.ucsc.edu/currents/03-04/05-03/drug_study.html
Colorado's full legalization has barely existed long enough to consider it a valid sample, but the state's Department of Public Health and Environment has found that use among high school students has gone down since legalization [0]. That's certainly an encouraging trend.
All I really would ask is that you back up the claims you make with facts rather than just sharing your assumptions.
[0]: http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2014/08/07/pot-use-among...
What did you expect? I thought it was common knowledge that the weed market would be basically swept up by companies that operate like Marlboro (and as soon as it's legal nationwide, just watch all the cigarette companies turn to weed companies)