Canada legalises recreational cannabis use • Hacker News Board

Re: Canada legalises recreational cannabis use

#331

Post by dmix » Wed, Jun 20, 2018, 2:40 PM UTC

moistoreos wrote: post #318

Canada now has a huge head start in the West for business to develop legitimate markets that will have a strong hold for decades. I wonder how many U.S. businesses will move because of this. We all know where the money will be.

This is a great and underrated point. We were handed a huge economic advantage over the US and other western countries in terms of developing the talent and infrastructure to support weed sales.

I know someone involved in the industry in Canada and they flew to Uruguay, the first country to legalise it, to learn from them and create connections. This role will be pioneered by Canada in many ways and it's much different than decriminalization.

There's tons of money to be made long term, not just within Canada but exporting knowledge and systems. I have a feeling this will be influencing many parliaments and congresses around the world to look into doing the same and other partner countries won't be far away.

Re: Canada legalises recreational cannabis use

#332

Post by chillingeffect » Wed, Jun 20, 2018, 2:42 PM UTC

Nasrudith wrote: post #306

foolfoolz wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Obviously we want to restrict access as much as possible to particular drugs, such as heroin or methamphetamine, which are so harmful and addictive that nobody should be using them, or GHB, where the potential for fatal overdose is so high. I dont understand this part. The potential for overdose on alcohol is high as well. I can go buy a plastic handle for $10 and if i drink the whole thing tonight i'll probably di…

Related I think some of the risk factor is vector related along with bodily reactions. Drinking too much leads to vomitting - while in the wrong circumstance potentially lethal it is expelled. One can't sneeze out cocaine or shoot heroin out of your veins autonomously if the body had too much. Dose standardization does clearly help judging by the nasty side effects of overdosd deaths spiking after pill mills were shu…

> sneeze out cocaine or shoot heroin out of your veins autonomously

It's an extremely complex system, but notice that prohibition has actually altered the way we consume drugs. For example, coca leaves can be consumed rather harmlessly. But for smuggling purposes, it's concentrated into powder. Then, its black market status makes it a sign of the wealthy and well-connected. This doesn't hold for all substances, but it's worth remembering. You do see a portion of e.g. pot smokers who have to push it really far and do dabs of highly concentrated THC. But then again, many users of pot just vape a little concentrate to minimize lung damange.

> legalizing weaned rehab

absolutely. If people want help getting off drugs, we ought to facilitate it essentially like healing a broken leg. We kind of do this with methadone, but laws make it risky and far from perfect.

> genetics

it is known that certain genes increase likelihood of alcohol addiction. It's probably the same for many other substances, too.

> high potential for abuse drugs that for me have me wondering how anyone could consider it fun. ugh same here. Had to take hydrocodone after surgery for a week. That was one messed-up high for me.

Re: Canada legalises recreational cannabis use

#333

Post by andrepd » Wed, Jun 20, 2018, 2:42 PM UTC

titanix2 wrote: post #208

stabbles wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not legal, it's tolerated in law ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gedogen )

I which it isn’t. I’ve seen a high school friend falling into that gradually: he started speaking about cannabis to the point it became its only topic of conversation. Then of course he hanged only with people with similar interest. He became weird during the breaks and needed to smoke something, anything. After that when I went to the university he became a small dealer. He got enough money from that activity to ren…

I understand the sentiment, but in practical, not ideological terms, is prohibition going to help? Multiple examples, from US alcohol Prohibition era, to the War on Drugs raging for over 30 years now, to inner city hellholes like Baltimore or Chicago, and on the reverse, to success examples of decriminalization like Portugal, do we not have enough empirical evidence that prohibition simply doesn't work?

Re: Canada legalises recreational cannabis use

#334

Post by andrepd » Wed, Jun 20, 2018, 2:45 PM UTC

zachrose wrote: post #145

toomanybeersies wrote: post #73

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…

> Drug prohibition has been a categorical failure in every outcome it was intended to achieve. The following flavor of comment has been made many times on HN, but since I’m halfway through Michelle Alexander’s book The New Jim Crow I’m in the mood for making it again here: The drug war has been “successful”, because its goal was to incarcerate, disenfranchise, extort, terrorize, and break apart the families of minori…

This documentary opened my eyes to a lot of issues I didn't know existed. A good starting point that led me to read more about this. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5895028/

Re: Canada legalises recreational cannabis use

#335

Post by trixie_ » Wed, Jun 20, 2018, 2:48 PM UTC

brandonsometig wrote: post #203

trixie_ wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you read any weed forum you’ll find endless posts of people who can’t smoke anymore because it causes paranoia and panic attacks. Same with me, used to be fun and now it causes anxiety. There are definitely some long term effects and changes to the brain that have not been sufficiently studied. Luckily it will be much easier now to do those studies.

Could be because of the insane THC levels in street cannabis. At least if it was legalised it could be regulated to be under a certain level.

In certain states the THC/CBD level must be posted on the packaging, but what is a safe level? It will take years to figure that out.

Re: Canada legalises recreational cannabis use

#336

Post by ojbyrne » Wed, Jun 20, 2018, 2:48 PM UTC

moistoreos wrote: post #318

Canada now has a huge head start in the West for business to develop legitimate markets that will have a strong hold for decades. I wonder how many U.S. businesses will move because of this. We all know where the money will be.

There’s a pretty long standing industry in California for medical, and with the recent state legalization, recreational sales. More people and more affluence.

Re: Canada legalises recreational cannabis use

#337

Post by thanatropism » Wed, Jun 20, 2018, 2:49 PM UTC

bitL wrote: post #160

toomanybeersies wrote: post #73

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…

We already have many problems caused by alcohol and cigarettes, costing taxpayers billions in unnecessary expenses. I get it, people need to escape reality they live in. We know that some weed smokers end up schizophrenic and that in general smoking weed weakens one's will, so in many cases we end up with grown up children going only after the things attainable by easiest efforts. There are also some legit medical us…

> We know that some weed smokers end up schizophrenic and that in general smoking weed weakens one's will, so in many cases we end up with grown up children going only after the things attainable by easiest efforts.

I'm concerned about things like this too, but ultimately the only way forward is to let some societies experiment with it and face the consequences. I hope it doesn't become a global UN thing.

Re: Canada legalises recreational cannabis use

#338

Post by sandworm101 » Wed, Jun 20, 2018, 2:50 PM UTC

dmix wrote: post #331

moistoreos wrote: post #318

Canada now has a huge head start in the West for business to develop legitimate markets that will have a strong hold for decades. I wonder how many U.S. businesses will move because of this. We all know where the money will be.

This is a great and underrated point. We were handed a huge economic advantage over the US and other western countries in terms of developing the talent and infrastructure to support weed sales. I know someone involved in the industry in Canada and they flew to Uruguay, the first country to legalise it, to learn from them and create connections. This role will be pioneered by Canada in many ways and it's much differe…

>>...talent and infrastructure to support weed sales.

It is a plant, a crop like any other. As a practical matter it is no more difficult than farming apples or corn. (It actually grows wild over much of Ontario.) The only specialized infrastructure is that dictated by regulation. Sure, Canada does have a jump on building out the regulatory infrastructure, but that isn't something we can sell. We aren't going to be exporting that infrastructure to other countries because they will have their own regulations demanding a different infrastructure.

As for supporting weed sales, there are "experts" on selling pot in every country in the world. That skillset is well understood. UBC will not see a wave of foreign students looking to lean the mysteries of how to sell weed. We aren't going to see Canadians flying around the world establishing new markets and trade links. This stuff is already being grown in closets from Dubai to Alaska.

Re: Canada legalises recreational cannabis use

#339

Post by ynniv » Wed, Jun 20, 2018, 2:53 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #314

ynniv wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An explanation that fits the data better Only if you ignore the overwhelming racial bias in enforcement.

How did racial bias in enforcement cause violent crime rates to skyrocket starting in the 1960s when the drug war was initiated in the 1980s?

GP said that the motivation was racial, you said that the motivation was law and order. You can determine motivation better from future actions than from past context, and the actions showed a bias towards incarcerating minorities. If the intent was to prevent crime by reducing drug use, we should have seen similarly tough enforcement among white drug use, which we did not. You are falling into the common post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy.

Re: Canada legalises recreational cannabis use

#340

Post by newest_user_ » Wed, Jun 20, 2018, 2:54 PM UTC

sandworm101 wrote: post #338

dmix wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a great and underrated point. We were handed a huge economic advantage over the US and other western countries in terms of developing the talent and infrastructure to support weed sales. I know someone involved in the industry in Canada and they flew to Uruguay, the first country to legalise it, to learn from them and create connections. This role will be pioneered by Canada in many ways and it's much differe…

>>...talent and infrastructure to support weed sales. It is a plant, a crop like any other. As a practical matter it is no more difficult than farming apples or corn. (It actually grows wild over much of Ontario.) The only specialized infrastructure is that dictated by regulation. Sure, Canada does have a jump on building out the regulatory infrastructure, but that isn't something we can sell. We aren't going to be e…

It's no more difficult, but farming apples is not the same skill set as farming corn. Yes, many skills will transfer but the details need to be worked out. There are many questions that need answers before being successful -- especially on an industrial scale.