Canada legalises recreational cannabis use • Hacker News Board

Re: Canada legalises recreational cannabis use

#381

Post by digianarchist » Wed, Jun 20, 2018, 4:22 PM UTC

foolfoolz wrote: post #135

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…

> 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…

GHB is a tricky drug. Not enough and you feel 100% normal. Too much and you pass out and become unresponsive for several hours.

It's very hard to dose.

Re: Canada legalises recreational cannabis use

#382

Post by ynniv » Wed, Jun 20, 2018, 4:24 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #357

ynniv wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Ah, it was ambiguous (to me) what "The last point is unsupportable" referred to.

Re: Canada legalises recreational cannabis use

#383

Post by Kluny » Wed, Jun 20, 2018, 4:27 PM UTC

tachyonbeam wrote: post #284

fredley wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would making it illegal have prevented this?

I'm Canadian and I think legalization is the right choice, but I think there is some dishonesty on both sides, which is doing everyone a disservice. The anti-cannabis people will say it's a "gateway drug" and that it will destroy your life, while some elements on the the pro-cannabis side would have you believe it's some sort of panacea. The reality is that it can cause intense anxiety and paranoia in some people, an…

Are mushrooms illegal? I had no idea.

Re: Canada legalises recreational cannabis use

#384

Post by digianarchist » Wed, Jun 20, 2018, 4:29 PM UTC

mmt wrote: post #149

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…

> I dont understand this part. The potential for overdose on alcohol is high as well. I think that the point about GHB that most people miss is the concept of therapeutic index, a term borrowed from the medical world (I've also seen it called "safety ratio" in the context of recreational drugs, especially since they're not being used therapeutically). That is, the amount of GHB required to get the desired effect is v…

It's hard to kill yourself on GHB.

GHB combined with alcohol or another suppressant is very very dangerous though.

Re: Canada legalises recreational cannabis use

#385

Post by rusk » Wed, Jun 20, 2018, 4:32 PM UTC

Nasrudith wrote: post #349

rusk wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine if nasty old bits like not allowing Jews to inherit property got embedded Seems like a strawman, but I guess if that were the case it would have been amended out years ago ...

Semantics about strawmen applied to history aside it still would have added significant friction to it. Antisemitism was downright fashionable until WW2 and it could have impeded more gradual progress like the first Jewish member of parliament. It can be changed but it is significantly harder and easily can wind up judged "not worth the effort". Just look at how long it has been since the US ratified an amendment to…

This also smacks of whattabouttery and is more an argument for not codifying antisemitism in your constitution than having a constitution at all ...

Re: Canada legalises recreational cannabis use

#386

Post by teachrdan » Wed, Jun 20, 2018, 4:38 PM UTC

schrectacular wrote: post #324

chx wrote: post #294

I have a very simple world view which, I guess, could be considered a radically liberal one: everyone can do as they please as long as it doesn't tread on the same rights of another person. You want to inject, snort or sniff something? Go ahead! It's your body, after all. Neither I, nor any government should have anything to say about this. Obviously, you should not operate a vehicle while intoxicated and we need to…

Isn't there some friction here with regards to nationalized health care? Society at large will pay for the poor health decisions of individual citizens.

Fair point, but you could say the same thing about skiing or any other potentially risky human activity. The point of society isn't to minimize health care costs but to maximize happiness.

Re: Canada legalises recreational cannabis use

#387

Post by foobarrio » Wed, Jun 20, 2018, 4:47 PM UTC

schrectacular wrote: post #324

chx wrote: post #294

I have a very simple world view which, I guess, could be considered a radically liberal one: everyone can do as they please as long as it doesn't tread on the same rights of another person. You want to inject, snort or sniff something? Go ahead! It's your body, after all. Neither I, nor any government should have anything to say about this. Obviously, you should not operate a vehicle while intoxicated and we need to…

Isn't there some friction here with regards to nationalized health care? Society at large will pay for the poor health decisions of individual citizens.

If you're going to reason about the effects of this the collective society you must also consider the cost/benefits of continued prohibition to the society as well. We are already paying for the decisions of the state to imprison people under prohibition. Is this cost more or less than the cost incurred to national healthcare of individuals poor health decisions?

Re: Canada legalises recreational cannabis use

#388

Post by coding123 » Wed, Jun 20, 2018, 5:07 PM UTC

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.

Except that it is illegal still depending on who you ask.

Re: Canada legalises recreational cannabis use

#389

Post by sandworm101 » Wed, Jun 20, 2018, 5:07 PM UTC

dh-g wrote: post #365

sandworm101 wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>...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…

Ontario winters are too cold for any wild / feral plants to survive.

"Despite industrial hemp factories shutting down the plants previously cultivated for fiber, the hemp plants have naturally re-seeded and now grow wild in states like Oklahoma, Missouri, Nebraska, Indiana, and Minnesota."

https://greenrushdaily.com/wild-weed-wild-cannabis-exist/

If anything will convince people that global warming is real, it will be wild pot plants surviving Minnesota winters.

Re: Canada legalises recreational cannabis use

#390

Post by joveian » Wed, Jun 20, 2018, 5:11 PM UTC

newest_user_ wrote: post #340

sandworm101 wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>...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.

One thing Oregon has spent a ton of time dealing with is how to test pesticide levels, THC, and CBD. There are apparently technical issues that make testing difficult and it sounds like it is still needs improvement. Apparently heavy pesticide use is almost universal in growing marijuana and quite a bit remains in the final product. Developing better pesticides would be one thing a national legalization might help with.