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Cannabis is legal in Canada: What you need to know

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Re: Cannabis is legal in Canada: What you need to know

#31

Post by Theodores »

grecy wrote: post #4

Wow, some really interesting edge cases in there that require serious thought. US border guards might deny you entry if you admit to previous cannabis use - for them "A confession is as good as a conviction". So you can do something that is perfectly legal in Canada, then a month later be denied entry to the US for doing it. If you work at a 100% legal Government-run Cannabis store and want to go to the US for a holi…

I have been sent to the back of the queue to tick boxes on forms correctly by U.S. customs/border jobsworths and wondered why the experience has to be so patronisingly humiliating.

Once on a connecting flight so I wasn't even wanting to leave the airport. At the time I was working for a highly regarded company and going on to do some work for CBC in Toronto. I had flown in on business class and my smile, polite British English, white skin, smart clothes, clean passport and squeaky clean criminal record should have given me a free pass. I wasn't even carrying any highly unusual electronic hardware. And no I had not been a member of the 'communist party'.

As I saw it there was just a problem of 'customer service'. The mentality of border guards should be to welcome guests to the country and not treat everyone as a criminal.

As a non-U.S. person I am like a lot of people that just see the U.S. as not the place to want to go to. I know that most Americans lay on fantastic hospitality for visitors, welcoming you into their homes and looking out for you. But the hostile border guards obfuscate that.

Canada is the far more preferable destination, whether you want to be stoned all day or not matters little really, the legalisation of weed sends a signal that Canada is the much more welcoming place to go.

Tourism matters, I do wonder how much tourist trade the U.S. misses out on due to the negative perception the world has of the place.

Re: Cannabis is legal in Canada: What you need to know

#32

Post by ivanhoe »

jgrahamc wrote: post #22
denerio-a wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Less harmful than alcohol, without a shadow of a doubt. Zero recorded deaths, in thousands of years of medical use - can :any: other substance say the same? And yes for many, many people it absolutely improves their quality of life dramatically. So, I have no idea why you’re taking issue with this statement (unless you work for a pharma co / drug gang, in which case I totally get why you would).

I'm taking issue with that statement because I think the rhetoric around marijuana is misguided. I think it's swung too far to the "there's nothing wrong with marijuana at all" side and that's dangerous. Like alcohol it's important to recognize that it is not harmless. That doesn't mean it should be illegal, just that it should be regulated and reported on accurately.

Do you need your coffee in the morning to be able to function properly? is that harmless? What about 3,4,5,10 coffees a day? At some point pretty much anything can grow in an addiction and will hurt you health: pot, vine, coffee, coke, sweets, bagels with cream cheese... nothing is harmless if you overdo it...

Re: Cannabis is legal in Canada: What you need to know

#33

Post by lucozade »

agumonkey wrote: post #8

Slight digression, yesterday someone told me the existence of the Kratom plant. Which seems another potent and not harmful leaf that can improve your quality of life. (the few research on it is muddy so grain of salt required, but the amount of people shouting publicly for it in the US gets one thinking).

The FDA doesn't seem to agree completely with the shouty people [0].

[0] https://www.fda.gov/newsevents/publichealthfocus/ucm584952.h...

Re: Cannabis is legal in Canada: What you need to know

#34

Post by wavefunction »

walrus01 wrote: post #15

Anti weed people made a lot of noise when CO and WA legalized retail sales 4 years ago, as if it would cause mass chaos, but really nothing much has changed in those states. Law enforcement have much bigger problems to deal with like a fentanyl epidemic, and Seattle's rapidly growing homeless population and property crime problem.

I wouldn't say that nothing has changed but nothing has occurred like what anti-cannabis activists claimed would happen.

One outcome that gets mentioned is that vehicular accidents increased in Colorado following legalization but the population growth outpaced the relative growth in accidents, meaning per-capita vehicular accidents actually fell.

Some data on cannabis and accident rates: https://reason.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/evaluating-res...

Re: Cannabis is legal in Canada: What you need to know

#35

Post by bengale »

Theodores wrote: post #31
grecy wrote: post #4

Wow, some really interesting edge cases in there that require serious thought. US border guards might deny you entry if you admit to previous cannabis use - for them "A confession is as good as a conviction". So you can do something that is perfectly legal in Canada, then a month later be denied entry to the US for doing it. If you work at a 100% legal Government-run Cannabis store and want to go to the US for a holi…

I have been sent to the back of the queue to tick boxes on forms correctly by U.S. customs/border jobsworths and wondered why the experience has to be so patronisingly humiliating. Once on a connecting flight so I wasn't even wanting to leave the airport. At the time I was working for a highly regarded company and going on to do some work for CBC in Toronto. I had flown in on business class and my smile, polite Briti…

I travelled to the US once and it was incomparable to anywhere else I'd been in the world with regards to border control. I won't go back. I was even questioned by some shady American dude at the gate in London, was a weird experience.

Re: Cannabis is legal in Canada: What you need to know

#36

Post by the-dude »

jgrahamc wrote: post #22
denerio-a wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Less harmful than alcohol, without a shadow of a doubt. Zero recorded deaths, in thousands of years of medical use - can :any: other substance say the same? And yes for many, many people it absolutely improves their quality of life dramatically. So, I have no idea why you’re taking issue with this statement (unless you work for a pharma co / drug gang, in which case I totally get why you would).

I'm taking issue with that statement because I think the rhetoric around marijuana is misguided. I think it's swung too far to the "there's nothing wrong with marijuana at all" side and that's dangerous. Like alcohol it's important to recognize that it is not harmless. That doesn't mean it should be illegal, just that it should be regulated and reported on accurately.

So if you are taking issue, what harm are you taking issue with?

Re: Cannabis is legal in Canada: What you need to know

#37

Post by agumonkey »

lucozade wrote: post #33
agumonkey wrote: post #8

Slight digression, yesterday someone told me the existence of the Kratom plant. Which seems another potent and not harmful leaf that can improve your quality of life. (the few research on it is muddy so grain of salt required, but the amount of people shouting publicly for it in the US gets one thinking).

The FDA doesn't seem to agree completely with the shouty people [0]. [0] https://www.fda.gov/newsevents/publichealthfocus/ucm584952.h...

Yes, this only say no proper check has been done and enforced. There's a documentary called Leaf of Faith that shows that a little. People ~manufacture too many things without any testing and sell it. Don't buy that you could get anything from salmonella to weird chemicals.. noone knows. Some do testing but it's rare. About the safety of the compounds in the leaf, some researchers say it taps in the same receptors but with less activation factor in cells (maybe the reason behind the lack of addiction).

Re: Cannabis is legal in Canada: What you need to know

#38

Post by Mediterraneo10 »

Theodores wrote: post #31
grecy wrote: post #4

Wow, some really interesting edge cases in there that require serious thought. US border guards might deny you entry if you admit to previous cannabis use - for them "A confession is as good as a conviction". So you can do something that is perfectly legal in Canada, then a month later be denied entry to the US for doing it. If you work at a 100% legal Government-run Cannabis store and want to go to the US for a holi…

I have been sent to the back of the queue to tick boxes on forms correctly by U.S. customs/border jobsworths and wondered why the experience has to be so patronisingly humiliating. Once on a connecting flight so I wasn't even wanting to leave the airport. At the time I was working for a highly regarded company and going on to do some work for CBC in Toronto. I had flown in on business class and my smile, polite Briti…

> The mentality of border guards should be to welcome guests to the country...

Perhaps they assume that if border guards establish a friendly relationship like that, it will only help bad actors distract the border guard from strictly enforcing the rules through jokes, small talk, etc.

Still, if the USA wants that approach, it could still learn a lot from Israeli passport control. Whenever I have entered Israel I have been asked a lot of questions and the official had some reasonable suspicion about my plans and travel history, but this questioning was still done in a fairly respectful and professional way. The guard wasn’t glum and surly like American border agents.

Re: Cannabis is legal in Canada: What you need to know

#39

Post by doombolt »

maxerickson wrote: post #16
Tharkun wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> US border guards might deny you entry if you admit to previous cannabis use What? How? Why? That makes no sense.

They can deny entry for pretty much any reason. You are correct that the US border policy with Canada doesn't make any sense.

I don't see a single reason why you can be forced to incriminate yourself. If confession equals conviction, laws about right to remain silent should also apply.

I would happily say "no" and smile if I was you when asked about what you did in a different country that they have no business knowing.

Re: Cannabis is legal in Canada: What you need to know

#40

Post by maxerickson »

doombolt wrote: post #39
maxerickson wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They can deny entry for pretty much any reason. You are correct that the US border policy with Canada doesn't make any sense.

I don't see a single reason why you can be forced to incriminate yourself. If confession equals conviction, laws about right to remain silent should also apply. I would happily say "no" and smile if I was you when asked about what you did in a different country that they have no business knowing.

That's sort of orthogonal to the consequence of honestly answering the question.

And of course the policy also says that if they think you lied, they might use that as a reason to deny entry in the future.

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