Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Canada to introduce legislation to legalize recreational cannabis

theguardian.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

211–218 of 218 posts

Re: Canada to introduce legislation to legalize recreational cannabis

#211

Post by thaumasiotes »

auntienomen wrote: post #210
thaumasiotes wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're confused. For one thing, the law of the excluded middle holds here just as it holds everywhere else. You've got two options: - Smoking pot makes you cool. - Smoking pot does not make you cool. Those cover all cases. But, the point I'm making is that you are incorrect to label "being cool helps you access pot" as "the contrapositive" of "smoking pot makes you cool". The concept of a contrapositive does not appl…

The symbols above? They're English sentences, and they're perfectly clear in context. You're making a category error by trying to treat them as logical propositions, and it's leading you to waste your time on pedantry.

All right. Why do you choose to call "being cool gets you access to pot" the "contrapositive" of "smoking pot makes you cool"? What is the benefit of using a term from an unrelated area which means something different than what you mean? Why is it a category error for me to treat you as talking about logic when you use a term which is restricted to formal logic?

Re: Canada to introduce legislation to legalize recreational cannabis

#212

Post by senorprogrammer »

hasenj wrote: post #204
jimpick wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gotta reply to this, since I live/work downtown. The Downtown Eastside (DTES) is the oldest part of Vancouver. It's located next to the port, so it's where the rooming houses have historically been located. It's much the same as Pioneer Square in Seattle, the Tenderloin in SF, or Skid Row in L.A. It's also where Chinatown is located, a historically persecuted community. It's actually a great neighbourhood. You'd be s…

Thanks for the thorough response. > But generally speaking, the social ills of the DTES are associated with addictive IV drug use (heroin) and crack cocaine and not with social drugs like marijuana. So it's still related to drugs one way or another. Would you say "safe" drugs like Marijuana would improve the situation?

That's an interesting question indeed, specifically: would easy access to legal weed reduce property crime in the area (for most of the crime seems to be smash-n-grab property crime).

My suspicion: no, no change. For all intents and purposes weed is legal in Vancouver. You have to be pretty out of touch not to be able to get it. But weed is cheap, and non-addictive (physiologically anyhow, I suspect the jury may still be out on psychologically; IANAP). I would be surprised to find that anyone is committing re-occurring petty crime to buy weed only.

Re: Canada to introduce legislation to legalize recreational cannabis

#213

Post by u_me_him »

coldtea wrote: post #181
bayesian_horse wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Short answer: They didn't. Back then lives were being ruined as well. And the availability and affordability of dangerous drugs has only increased since then. People just didn't make such a "fuss" of addiction, and especially in the case of poorer people, nobody really cared.

> People just didn't make such a "fuss" of addiction So why should we make a fuss out of it today? > and especially in the case of poorer people, nobody really cared. Whereas now they do?

Is a case of "the road to hell is paved with good intentions"

Re: Canada to introduce legislation to legalize recreational cannabis

#214

Post by wycx »

robbiep wrote: post #147
TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like Bill Hicks said: "Why is marijuana against the law? It grows naturally on our planet, serves a thousand different functions, all of them positive. To make marijuana against the law is like saying that God made a mistake."[1] I'm not huge in to this 'God' person, so replace 'God' with whatever is in fashion this week, the point stands. It's wrong. Wrong wrong wrong. Harm reduction, we do it with alcohol. That's t…

As much as I am in favour of legalising and controlling drugs (as opposed to the current system) that is a horrible argument that Bill Hicks uses - opiates are legal however I firmly remain of the opinion that allowing recreational opiate use would be a terrible thing

Why would recreational opiate use be a terrible thing?

Would the world not be a better place if recreational crystal methamphetamine users had the option of legal recreational opiates (of known strength) instead?

Re: Canada to introduce legislation to legalize recreational cannabis

#215

Post by robbiep »

wycx wrote: post #214
robbiep wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As much as I am in favour of legalising and controlling drugs (as opposed to the current system) that is a horrible argument that Bill Hicks uses - opiates are legal however I firmly remain of the opinion that allowing recreational opiate use would be a terrible thing

Why would recreational opiate use be a terrible thing? Would the world not be a better place if recreational crystal methamphetamine users had the option of legal recreational opiates (of known strength) instead?

I have worked in addiction services.

The fact of opiate abuse and addiction is that people almost never kick it.

The rate of methadone program increase in Australia is 5% a year at present. But heroin usage plateaued years ago.

Some small percentage of this increase is crossover from prescription opiates to methadone.

The increase comes entirely from new addicts who completely destroy their lives getting to the point where they decide to get in the program, and then never get off it.

You show me more than 5 examples of people who have successfully recovered from methadone and rebuilt successful lives in the whole of Sydney and I will eat my hat

Re: Canada to introduce legislation to legalize recreational cannabis

#216

Post by robbiep »

_0w8t wrote: post #173
robbiep wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As much as I am in favour of legalising and controlling drugs (as opposed to the current system) that is a horrible argument that Bill Hicks uses - opiates are legal however I firmly remain of the opinion that allowing recreational opiate use would be a terrible thing

Even heroine is not worse than alcohol if one accounts for the total cost for society. For example, under alcohol one is much more likely to harm or kill another person than under opiats. So continuing to profit from sales of alcohol while making opiat use criminal is hypocrisy.

You may be roughly in the ballpark with what you are saying but you are in my opinion misconstruing the biggest part of this, and where my opinion stems from:

The damage caused per life affected is so unbelievably massive. Alcohol affects millions of lives to some small degree. Heroin affects a small number of lives to an unimaginable degree.

The WHO has a statistic on DALYs lost to etoh vs opiates and no doubt etoh causes a lot of early death and disability. However it is also the only restricted substance on the list that has a positive contribution to DALYs as well (through the beneficial effects of alcohol).

Apologies for not bringing up the source as I am on mobile and I last saw this slide in Med school

Re: Canada to introduce legislation to legalize recreational cannabis

#217

Post by robbiep »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #200
robbiep wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As much as I am in favour of legalising and controlling drugs (as opposed to the current system) that is a horrible argument that Bill Hicks uses - opiates are legal however I firmly remain of the opinion that allowing recreational opiate use would be a terrible thing

We can control and regulate the use of these things. In Australia a licence is required to operate a still, and excise is payable on distilled beverages [1]. We could have similar legislation in place for marijuana and opium and ephedra and mushrooms where you are allowed to possess not more than some specific quantity or not allowed to posses certain extracts / concentrations. Speaking from personal experience it is…

I disagree about people being able to manage opiates responsibly.

Yes I have read the rolling stone or NYT articles describing people who hold down regular jobs and hit heroin once a day, and have done that for years. But what a fucked up life. You think they're doing that for fun?

Read my above comment regarding the methadone program. Look into the root of the problem. Opiates cannot be responsibly managed by the masses (OK, there's a reasonable argument to be made that either can alcohol).

I personally know 2 people who got sucked down the drain with opiates, and i am a white upper middle class Australian - these two guys were as well; one was a medical school buddy who has recently blown his license because of it despite being one of the most intelligent guys in my grade, the other was a guy I went to school with, the same thing, a pure genius, and he is dead.

Now every drug you take has a certain chance of causing addiction. Some people taste alcohol once and loose control. Some people get addicted to smoking. and some people will try heroin once and decide it's not for them, and get on with their lives. But do you know who are the ones who won't be able to stop? And when the consequences of getting addicted are literally flushing your entire life down the toilet, how can we as a society condone a section of ourselves to play this lottery?

Re: Canada to introduce legislation to legalize recreational cannabis

#218

Post by [deleted] »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #200
robbiep wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As much as I am in favour of legalising and controlling drugs (as opposed to the current system) that is a horrible argument that Bill Hicks uses - opiates are legal however I firmly remain of the opinion that allowing recreational opiate use would be a terrible thing

We can control and regulate the use of these things. In Australia a licence is required to operate a still, and excise is payable on distilled beverages [1]. We could have similar legislation in place for marijuana and opium and ephedra and mushrooms where you are allowed to possess not more than some specific quantity or not allowed to posses certain extracts / concentrations. Speaking from personal experience it is…

[deleted]
Post reply on HN