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

Canada legalises recreational cannabis use

bbc.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

351–360 of 431 posts

Re: Canada legalises recreational cannabis use

#351

Post by 0xcafecafe »

philipov wrote: post #346
eumenides1 wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Canadian side is relatively developed (vs american side) and an economic engine (tourism, jobs, wines). Your parent commenter's point I believe is that the federal/state/local government has failed the local people in investing and developing a local economy in the area. Both sides have essentially the same resources (the falls), but one side is doing better (economically) than the other.

And the point made by (now) parent is that a preference for less resource exploitation and economic development can be a lifestyle decision, not a failure of governance. Not everyone wants to turn their town into a tourist hub.

Thank you. That was what I was trying to say.

Re: Canada legalises recreational cannabis use

#352

Post by digianarchist »

itchyjunk wrote: post #2

I wonder how many state has to legalize it before the federal government in USA is forced to change their classification. It seems like more and more state will legalize it over time anyways.

Couldn't the states introduce a constitutional amendment if 2/3 agree on legalisation?

Re: Canada legalises recreational cannabis use

#353

Post by fredley »

senorjazz wrote: post #343
fredley wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely - this is an example case where the legal status of the drug I don't think would have made a difference, the drug clearly had a profound effect on this individual. Cannabis is by no means a safe drug (no drugs are 100% safe), but it does tend to get painted as either black or white by either side. The politicisation of the issue makes it hard to have a rational discussion around drug risks, and harms, espe…

> but were made illegal a few years ago - amid moral panic). Everyone started to take the piss which didn't help. Big signs up in shops "MAGIC MUSHROOMS FOR SALE". For years they had been available, under the counter with no problems, but when it became blatant, the end was sure to come.

Which just underlines the way that drug classification decisions are made in the UK: not because there was an uptick in harm, but because it became noticeable.

Re: Canada legalises recreational cannabis use

#355

Post by dgzl »

DenisM wrote: post #101
rtkwe wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good luck convincing the Supreme Court to upend the basis of a huge portion of federal law and decades of judicial precedence in favor of very broad readings of the enumerated powers.

Supreme Court is getting better, more liberal decisions over years. Gay sex and gay marriage cases were great and justified expansions on the 5th amendment (substantiative due process of the law).

I believe that gay marriage should have been a first amendment issue, and that terms like 'liberal' and 'conservative' are often times misused.

Re: Canada legalises recreational cannabis use

#356

Post by mikec3010 »

refurb wrote: post #348
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.

California, where marijuana is now legal since last year, has a greater population than all of Canada. Related to that, each Canadian province has the ability to further regulate marijuana (within guidelines). Thus, there isn't one Canadian market, but a bunch of smaller markets.

I wonder about climate too. CA has way better weather to grow almost anything as evidenced by it's agriculture industry. I would expect Canada's grow season to be much shorter. And obv weed grows well under grow lights, but that costs money so I would expect California to have major economic advantage.

Re: Canada legalises recreational cannabis use

#357

Post by rayiner »

ynniv wrote: post #339
rayiner wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 er…

OP said that "criminality was the effect of the War on Drugs, not its cause." Maybe I am not understanding his point, but I took that to mean that crime was caused by the drug war, which cannot be reconciled with the data.

Re: Canada legalises recreational cannabis use

#358

Post by RankingMember »

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…

Correlation != causation. Your anecdote could just as well be about surfing (or anything really). I've known people who started surfing and got so into it that they started traveling in a van and talking about surfing all the time, not working or saving money. Should we ban surfboards to prevent this terrible fate?

> On the macro-scale, cannabis and others drugs are a big factor that fuels France suburb separatism

Do you have a citation for that?

Re: Canada legalises recreational cannabis use

#359

Post by adsfasdfsad111 »

refurb wrote: post #348
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.

California, where marijuana is now legal since last year, has a greater population than all of Canada. Related to that, each Canadian province has the ability to further regulate marijuana (within guidelines). Thus, there isn't one Canadian market, but a bunch of smaller markets.

that's not really the most important factor though. It's about infrastructure, supply chains, and regulations.

Re: Canada legalises recreational cannabis use

#360

Post by pbhjpbhj »

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…

Most plants lie in a group that are harvested differently to other plants. Is it like tea, where different leaves provide different grades, or do flowers and leaves and stalks get separated? Presumably the more woody parts will go to hemp-like products (clothing, paper, beer, whatever!). The industry around that exists already but will presumably be developed ahead of other countries if demand makes for a lot of 'waste'.

Presumably, modern farmer techniques like indoor vertical farming might produce better yields.

Post reply on HN