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US Department of Justice has officially reclassified cannabis as less dangerous

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Re: US Department of Justice has officially reclassified cannabis as less dangerous

#181

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I am hippy among hippies and the only people who ever talk about it as a 'cure all' are the people really far gone. People who think crystals can cure sicknesses. Those type of people. It's literally a god send to people with stomach problems, it can help you go to sleep but I would bet everything I own it's not as deep and good a sleep as sleeping sober. I've heard people say the ointments can help with certain pain…

You say it's just people who are "really far gone", but when I look at the type of marketing at CBD stores, it's marketed for nearly everything, so I suspect a lot more people are falling for this than you might suspect. Plus, any individual doesn't have to believe it's a "cure-all" - they just have to believe it cures their specific random ailment. I've seen it marketed to help with sleep, anxiety (despite it causin…

Again, I don't know a single person advocating to make it available for children for recreational use. I also don't know a single person who would argue that there no health negatives from smoking pot. The reason we haven't had a rational conversation about it is because the governments position has been to classify it as literally the same as heroin. That is what has prevented real research and real conversation.

Re: US Department of Justice has officially reclassified cannabis as less dangerous

#182
post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prohibition has its problems is a big understatement. After almost 40 years of war on drugs the problem with hard drugs is bigger than ever in the US (and other places). Meanwhile countries that have a more relaxed approach are doing much better. I'm not saying legalize everything always but prohibition also ain't it.

Correlation doesn’t imply causation. The US has one of the most relaxed opiate policies imaginable until about 10 years ago. You could walk into many doctors and walk out with an opiate script. It didn’t end well.

But also has some of the harshest penalties for illegal opiate usage. We didn't get 25% of the worlds prison by not aggressively arresting and jailing drug users

Re: US Department of Justice has officially reclassified cannabis as less dangerous

#184
post #159

Stoners probably don't vote (it's too much work), but dispensary owners do. And now they can start the process for allowing dispensaries into the banking system. How that will work will be unclear, because technically marijuana is still a controlled substance. That said, pharmacies can bank, so at some level dispensaries can bank. Maybe only medical dispensaries can bank, and the recreational ones will piggyback off…

As a stoner, I vote :) My local growers club has a newsletter and we discuss pro-cannabis politicians, and the importance of voting for them. What inspires me - to a degree - is how diverse our group is politically/socially, but this is one issue we agree on.

Re: US Department of Justice has officially reclassified cannabis as less dangerous

#185
post #138

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> The right cannabis strains can do wonders for my mood, but it also makes me feel... less autistic […] Is it the same strain(s) for everyone, or does each person need to figure out which ones work for them?

I am suspicious that strains are much beyond marketing terms. Both in the literal sense that people will sell the exact same crop under different brand names. Or sell different crops under the same brand. I'm also generally dubious that you can maintain consistency in a crop across seasons and growing cycles. It's theoretically possible that there are growers using clones and exacting greenhouse conditions to replica…

Same as with everything else in life, the people doing that are going to run the gamut, from the lazy basically con artists to the OCD mfer that's a pain in the ass to work with because they're so meticulous about everything. One trip at the store isn't going to tell you if which of the two extremes (or somewhere in between) the grower of a particular strain is, but repeated use of a particular strain will either be consistent, or not.

Re: US Department of Justice has officially reclassified cannabis as less dangerous

#186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You say it's just people who are "really far gone", but when I look at the type of marketing at CBD stores, it's marketed for nearly everything, so I suspect a lot more people are falling for this than you might suspect. Plus, any individual doesn't have to believe it's a "cure-all" - they just have to believe it cures their specific random ailment. I've seen it marketed to help with sleep, anxiety (despite it causin…

Again, I don't know a single person advocating to make it available for children for recreational use. I also don't know a single person who would argue that there no health negatives from smoking pot. The reason we haven't had a rational conversation about it is because the governments position has been to classify it as literally the same as heroin. That is what has prevented real research and real conversation.

I agree with the idea that we haven't had a rational conversation about cannabis due to the government's "reefer madness" madness. But I also think saying "I don't know a single person advocating to make it available for children for recreational use" is a strawman. You don't need to advocate for children to use it, but I think a lot of people felt (I feel like this sense "peaked" in the early stages of legalization) that pot is essentially harmless. That is, that it may not be great to binge on it, but a lot of people thought there were little, if any, long term negative effects. That general belief certainly filters down to young people.

My understanding of the most recent research is that weed is especially harmful when it comes to long term brain development for adolescents (and, ironically, that it can, though research is definitely not conclusive, have protective cognitive benefits for people who don't start weed until their brain is fully developed).

Re: US Department of Justice has officially reclassified cannabis as less dangerous

#187
post #161

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Could have had so many easy W's and just didn't.

Politically, it has to be a calculated move. Some people oppose it, others support it. I think most people here are pro-cannabis and liberal, and I think most will see legalization as a "win", but politically, is it really? Will your vote change depending on the result? If you don't your voice don't matter as much. Those who matter are at the fringe: pro-cannabis leaning conservative, anti-cannabis leaning liberals,…

I can’t imagine a scenario where the Democrats legalize cannabis and it hurts their elections. You think there are more anti-cannabis liberals than pro-cannabis conservatives?

I think that actually, if Democrats just did what seems clearly good for most of the country, they’d have much better electoral outcomes than their current Kafka-esque strategy.

Re: US Department of Justice has officially reclassified cannabis as less dangerous

#188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not claiming I know how to fix it, but I am quite confident that the solution to fixing issues with depression, focus, or any other number of psychological issues is not reading a Reddit post about weed and/or mushrooms and pretending you understand enough about pharmacology to fix these problems. Therapists and psychologists and psychiatrists require training and as such will still be considerably more likely to…

You seem to be assuming that everyone can afford a therapist.

No, I would say making therapy affordable would be part of fixing it.

Re: US Department of Justice has officially reclassified cannabis as less dangerous

#189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It didn't used to be regulated. How do you explain the fact that not everyone used to be an opiate addict?

Because we regulated it when it got bad. Other countries have had opioid epidemics and they’ve had to intervene. China is a very famous example because the British didn’t like the crackdown as it affected other trade

But how do you explain the fact that, before it got bad, it wasn't /already/ bad. You've gotta have some model for why there was a change if the rate wasn't previously at 100% and the claim is that the number "should be 100% unless it was regulated"

Re: US Department of Justice has officially reclassified cannabis as less dangerous

#190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>So it should be OK to sell hemlock or nightshade and other all-natural plant-based poisons? Rofl. Yeah sure but who's buying? Approximately nobody. So there's no harm and not even a problem for regulation to solve. >Maybe even give them to others? Already illegal depending upon the details of "give". >Why is it any more or less acceptable to regulate the use of chemistry equipment than of agricultural products? Beca…

> Because speculative "someone might" or "at scale we've noted that " claims are not sufficient ground for restricting the freedom of individuals. That's not what I asked. I asked what it is, specifically, about agricultural practices that is supposed to make them more worthy of protection than chemical processes. Specifically, why does the GP think it's more ok to ban people from making crystal meth at home than it…

> it's more ok to ban people from making crystal meth at home

I don't see too many homes exploding because they had a few hemlock plants growing in a planter on the porch.

Regulating industrial chemical manufacturing to places other than residential areas makes a lot of sense. I don't really want my neighbor fabricating toxic sludge next to my backyard garden and where my kids are playing.

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