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Canada legalises recreational cannabis use

bbc.co.uk

191–200 of 431 posts

Re: Canada legalises recreational cannabis use

#191
post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on where. In a lot of Europe (and afaik also Canada) alcohol purchasing times are heavily regulated to combat binge, especially youth, drinking. For example no alcohol sales past 9pm, no sales before 10am etc. And you can’t advertise drinking. You can promote brands, but not drinking directly. Which is weird and I don’t know how the line is defined, but it exists in at least some countries I’ve been to.

Well "a lot of Europe" really means Scandinavia. To be precise it is only Norway, Finland and Sweden where alcohol is sold only by one brand of state owned shops. As far as i know you can drink whatever you want, when you want after you are 18. Notable exception is Germany where from 16 you can drink undistilled drinks like beer and wine. Oh we had lot of fun when i was 16 on our school trip to Germany. Good times. A…

17% of young people (16-20) classify as "heavy drinkers here (Netherlands). I thought our youth were some of the most problematic drinkers in the world, but when looking it up, we actually aren't. It actually improved recently. Still I think that kids should start drinking later and parents are a bit too lax about it.

Re: Canada legalises recreational cannabis use

#192
post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pandora's box was opened by the first sprouting seed of Cannabis on earth. The prohibition came after, so if anything we're talking about a pre-justice world, aren't we? >Why not accept all hard drugs, all sexual deviations, all violent or manipulative behaviors then?Why not accept all hard drugs, all sexual deviations, all violent or manipulative behaviors then? Because those things cause falsifiable and measurable…

> Because those things cause falsifiable and measurable harm to society. Cannabis use is by all measures benign while its prohibition actually causing real harm. There are unfortunately people that could be damaged by smoking weed, irreversibly, if their schizophrenia proclivity gets activated. Also the easy escape from problems is not in society's best interest - see the ongoing shaming for gaming, where boys are pu…

> There are unfortunately people that could be damaged by smoking weed, irreversibly, if their schizophrenia proclivity gets activated.

I don't think we need to enforce laws on everyone just to protect a very small minority of people. That would be like making grapefruit illegal because it interferes with some peoples' medications in a potentially dangerous manner.

Re: Canada legalises recreational cannabis use

#193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're being downvoted because it's Trump, which is bullshit. It's the first time in modern US history that a sitting President has come anywhere close to declaring support for or proclaiming he'd be ok with the Federal Government legalizing recreational marijuana consumption. The reason for that, is because Trump is an aggressive populist that doesn't particularly care about entrenched, ancient political live wires.…

The problem is that legalization of cannabis in US was never actually about cannabis per se. It was about this: "The primary reason to outlaw marijuana is its effect on the degenerate races.​" "Reefer makes darkies think they're as good as white men.​" "Marihuana leads to pacifism and communist brainwashing.​" "There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the US, and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos and enterta…

White people like weed now though

Re: Canada legalises recreational cannabis use

#195
This makes Canada the most advanced cannabis country! I remember reading in a Dutch news paper that Dutch weed growers were jealous of experiments in USA. The Dutch system does not allow growing and daily there is a rollup of a farm. Legalisation allows for cleaner products, new kind of products (drinkable), and other practises that professional businesses can perform.

Cannabis legalisation will eventually be more and more adopted in other countries, being the first allows you to own the market.

Re: Canada legalises recreational cannabis use

#196

Meanwhile in Britain, the former leader of the Conservative Party, William Hague, spoke out and claimed that the war on cannabis had been "irreversibly lost". He was quickly shut down by Theresa May, who categorically ruled out legalisation or even decriminalisation [1]. I don't understand how politicians can stand up and claim that legalisation would have substantial negatives, when every experiment with legalisatio…

[deleted]

Re: Canada legalises recreational cannabis use

#197

> The country is the second worldwide to legalise the drug's recreational use. What about the Netherlands?

It's not legalized in the Netherlands. It's not criminalized due to an official stance of tolerance.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gedogen

It's complicated, and there's a lot of nuance to the Dutch model, but it is distinctly different from what you have now in Canada and in numerous US states.

Re: Canada legalises recreational cannabis use

#198

Meanwhile in Britain, the former leader of the Conservative Party, William Hague, spoke out and claimed that the war on cannabis had been "irreversibly lost". He was quickly shut down by Theresa May, who categorically ruled out legalisation or even decriminalisation [1]. I don't understand how politicians can stand up and claim that legalisation would have substantial negatives, when every experiment with legalisatio…

>But penalising the end user is not the solution

But the UK has seen that penalising smoking, by banning it in public indoor spaces and imposing massive taxes has lead to the massive reduction in people smoking and an increase in peoples health. It's not banned, but such a penalisation is a solution.

(and the UK want to follow this strategy for sugar)

Re: Canada legalises recreational cannabis use

#199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a lot of this can be attributed to these drugs being used in a completely ad hoc manner. There's no usage guidelines on a bag of cocaine. There's no 'Active Ingredient' percentage listed. You dont know what it is. You can't compare it to another until you've had it. Any pill that's an upper is called 'molly' Somehow the vast majority of people who take legal hard drugs such as vicodin or dilaudid, don't overd…

As a (former? never say never) injecting drug user of Heroin, methamphetamine, and quite a few other water soluble substances, I fully agree with the parent comment. I never bothered getting addicted to Heroin. You have to stick to the rules: never use more than two days in a row and don’t use it consistently, if in doubt half your dose, and never use alone but always with at least one other who knows how to administ…

Sensible and honest advice like this saves lives

Re: Canada legalises recreational cannabis use

#200
post #187
post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a very US centric view but the war on drugs is very international. Cannabis is illegal in most of the world where Americas race relations simply aren't issues, so I really don't buy into this reasoning. This is good old moral superiority at work.

"This is a very US centric view but the war on drugs is very international." US basically dictates global policies in the block of countries not part of the soviet sphere of influence during the cold war. US defends it's position in the global community using every trick and leverage available. If something is illegal in the US you can be quite assured they will try to apply leverage to make it illegal everywhere els…

Although the US has a lot of influence on international culture and laws the above is simply not really true.

Drug laws in Europe vary wildly between countries, with places like Portgual decriminalising even hard drugs and places like the Netherlands having an open culture when it comes to buying and consuming cannabis and other 'less hard' drugs. Then of course there's the big difference in laws when it comes to drinking; a 16-year old drinking on the street is perfectly legal in quite a few European countries whereas in the US it would get you arrested on multiple charges.

Banking laws are very different as well: I think the recent introduction of MiFID II shows quite clearly that Europe has very different views on regulation. Hell, the new rules on investment research are pretty much opposite to the US ones.

GDPR is forcing numerous US companies into complying with European views on privacy.

OP is quite right in saying that it's a very US-centric view to think drug policy around the world is mainly caused by race relations in the US.

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