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Germany Will Move Forward with Marijuana Legalization

marijuanamoment.net

61–70 of 83 posts

Re: Germany Will Move Forward with Marijuana Legalization

#61
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think marijuana legalization will substantially change anything in your park then?

My impression is that weed is their main source of revenue. So legalizing it would make dealing A LOT less profitable. Also, the group of potential weed buyers is pretty large and diverse, meaning they need to approach pretty much everyone. The group of potential buyers for harder party drugs is more easy to identify, hence you can stop asking everyone.

Non-legal Cannabis in Germany is a surprisingly low margin product; profit is made through volume, which increases risk exposure. So it's not amazing for dealers, despite the large demand.

It's abundance leads to a very competitive market (in Ballungsgebieten), like in other markets substitution though home production is always looming.

For dealers in Berliner parks, there's also always competition with more reputable informal suppliers as well as medical trickle downs or substitutes.

This leads to the incentive for dealers to steer consumption towards products with higher margin (or an increase of margin through lesser quality product).

Re: Germany Will Move Forward with Marijuana Legalization

#62
post #53
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll take MJ smoke smell over piss or car exhaust any time, thank you. By the same logic we'd criminalize pissing in public places or ICE vehicle use. I think such a place already exists. It's called Singapore, though they don't criminalize ICE vehicle use either. They just make it very expensive.

Singapore is great. They still have a civilization building culture, like Americans used to have. If they had acted like modern Americans it would still be a poor country. Though, I agree prison is too much. We should publicly cane people who smoke MJ in public.

I saw an interesting tweet to this effect: https://twitter.com/waspmexicano/status/1633934987664957442

I would be very curious to see if there's data on whether replacing prison with caning (for certain crimes) reduces recidivism.

Re: Germany Will Move Forward with Marijuana Legalization

#63
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weed doesn't cause cancer, perhaps you are thinking of cigarettes

Inhaling fumes from burning plant matter can't be good for your lungs though? How can it not increase the chance of cancer (even if to a lesser degree) if you smoked as many joints as some people smoke cigarettes per day (of course you'd have other problems if you tried that)?

But people won't smoke a pack of joints a day. Only, like, one per week or so.

Re: Germany Will Move Forward with Marijuana Legalization

#64
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is interesting. I live in Baltimore where people have been smoking it in the streets illegally for decades. And I have never once smelled it in my house or my office. I smell more piss in DC than marijuana smoke. I'm pretty glad that Germany has decided to stop locking people in cages for a flower. It's due time we focus on other crimes against humanity.

I'll take MJ smoke smell over piss or car exhaust any time, thank you. By the same logic we'd criminalize pissing in public places or ICE vehicle use. I think such a place already exists. It's called Singapore, though they don't criminalize ICE vehicle use either. They just make it very expensive.

>By the same logic we'd criminalize pissing in public places

Is public urination not a crime? One that gets you on a sex offender registry?

Re: Germany Will Move Forward with Marijuana Legalization

#65
post #8

Good. Time to finally put those dealers in Görli (largely) out of business. For non-locals: that's Görlitzer Park, Berlin, which has largely been owned (and rendered nearly useless) by the dealers for several years now (along with the neighboring streets, and a good chunk of the recreational land on the canal zone nearby).

How did they render it useless? I don't know anything about this but I'm picking up "no one goes there anymore it's too crowded" vibes.

They haven't, the park is still very popular, with kids, cyclists, runners, &c.

You just have a bunch of people saying "hey do you want something?" when you get in/out. There even is a petting zoo inside the park, it's far from a no man's land. In summer it's full of people sunbathing &c.

It's kind of an open secret that police allows them here so that they don't proliferate everywhere else. This open secret contract means they're also mostly harmless and police are patrolling around the park very often.

I live 500m away and ride by on a daily basis

Re: Germany Will Move Forward with Marijuana Legalization

#66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strange impressions you have and totally disagree. The park is vibrant and full of kids and families over the day.. dealers don't even annoy you usually if you signal strong non-interest or don't fall into typical buyer group.. you can even walk safely through the park at darker times when you stick to the big ways (though I mean to feel safe, I'd say you are almost safe everywhere as safe as you can be in a big germ…

"The park is vibrant and full of kids and families over the day.. dealers don't even annoy you usually if you signal strong non-interest or don't fall into typical buyer group." Yeah, that's where I want to take my kids, where the "drug dealers don't annoy us if we're not interested"... you must have very high annoyance thresholds.

They're literally no different than hot dog sellers tbh, kids probably don't even notice them.

This isn't skidrow with dozens of people injecting drugs 24/7 in the middle of the streets lol

Re: Germany Will Move Forward with Marijuana Legalization

#67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strange impressions you have and totally disagree. The park is vibrant and full of kids and families over the day.. dealers don't even annoy you usually if you signal strong non-interest or don't fall into typical buyer group.. you can even walk safely through the park at darker times when you stick to the big ways (though I mean to feel safe, I'd say you are almost safe everywhere as safe as you can be in a big germ…

> dealers don't even annoy you usually if you signal strong non-interest or don't fall into typical buyer group > you can even walk safely through the park at darker times when you stick to the big ways You have no idea how crazy that sounds for someone that isn't acclimatized to Berlin culture.

Many things in Berlin don't make sense if you come from somewhere else.

You can get hard drugs delivered to your door faster than a uber eats.

I've lived in many places in which drug dealers where sketchy as fuck, Berlin isn't one of these.

This thread is full of people with no first hand experience and projecting way too much

Re: Germany Will Move Forward with Marijuana Legalization

#68

Sad. We need to move away from smoking, not encourage this cancer-causing good-for-nothing behavior. Not to mention it causes streets to smell like a skunk.

I used to smoke weed, I think it's not necessarily bad, but like alcohol, or even psychedelics, some people are really not meant to touch these things. Especially teenagers/young adults, people with predisposed to get addicted, &c.

That being said Europe smokes a lot of weed already, making it legal will help with a lot of side effects of drug traffics. I just hope they use proper pedagogy and support: for well balanced, educated and healthy individuals it's a really good tool, for other people it can be a social/professional death sentence (like alcohol)

> Not to mention it causes streets to smell like a skunk

I'm not sure they'll make it legal to smoke outdoors. In many countries alcohol is legal but drinking in the streets isn't for example.

Re: Germany Will Move Forward with Marijuana Legalization

#69
post #21
post #19

Marijuana decriminalization amd legalization was billed in part based on the notion that it wasn’t going to change people’s behavior, just decriminalize existing activity. At least in DC, it’s led to a noticeable uptick in marijuana use. You can smell it in the streets in many parts of the city, including in office buildings. It’s sad to see Germany go down the same road.

Yeah, we should keep locking people up and ruining their lives because you notice a smell sometimes.

That's a US thing, in Germany and most of western Europe you need a lot more than "smelling" like weed to get anything close to jail time

It's already more or less tolerated in Berlin for example

Re: Germany Will Move Forward with Marijuana Legalization

#70
post #49

Finally! I have a guide on how to buy weed in Berlin. A big chunk of it warns readers about how sketchy and dangerous it is if you don’t have a trusted contact. Weed is frequently contaminated with really nasty chemicals. A Canadian or American reader might not appreciate how different the environment is from their pre-legalisation days. The weed you buy is genuinely dangerous.

You have dozen of telegram channels with thousands of sales, rating systems, home delivery, &c.

Buying from the streets is a tourist thing

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