391–400 of 431 posts
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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.
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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…
It's immensely frustrating when people deny any possible harm that cannabis can cause. We _know_ that cannabis can cause psychotic illness; that cannabis can surface an underlying illness that wouldn't have been a problem with cannabis use; that cannabis can make existing illness worse; that it can be addictive; that it can make violent people perpetrate acts of violence. Importantly, this denial is counter-productiv…
The parent comment I was replying to seemed to be basing his position on one piece of anecdata and little else, thus my comment. I don't see what in my comment elicited your response but I do agree with your general thesis, with the caveat that I see it as a potentially-necessary response to counteract extensive demonization/fear-mongering by the state and temperance league style organizations. That said, the time for that tactic I feel is over, as the public is now beyond the "reefer madness"-style knee-jerk anti-cannabis bias.
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I’m honestly curious how many people don’t do drugs solely because it’s illegal? How many people are thinking “I’d love to try meth; if only it were legal!”
Related: I'd take steroids if I could do it legally under the supervision of an endocrinologist, with products that have all the audit-trails of modern pharmacology (rather than "Bob's basement grow juice"). But the alternative seems too risky to me, especially since it's illegal and the consequences of being caught in my case are quite severe.
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…
Seems like with weed it's just a matter of time but in the case of the conservative government why change it if their older voter base isn't asking for it and a portion of them would have a negative reaction if they did. I guess they think the risk of loosing some of their base is too high. I love the work of David Nutt, who was fired from the role of Government drug advisor in the UK for trying to change the governm…
http://www.british-history.ac.uk/no-series/acts-ordinances-i...
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Conversely, a subset of the population may experience weed-induced psychosis. I experience it while high, so I only take a toke or two irregularly. I might feel as if I'm experiencing the pain of a broken leg, or that my foot is bleeding, as well as more abstract things. It also grants some introspection and lateral thinking so its not a bad time. I've heard higher amounts of CBD can counteract this, but I just mooch…
Is "weed-induced psychosis" an actual bad thing? Of course it sounds terrible, but do people jump out of windows, or rake their throat out scratching an itch that isn't there? Is it dangerous or just one of those things? A Nut allergy for example?
My first experience with weed was a couple of years ago, and there was paranoia from the get-go. My dad also got paranoia when he tried it so he stopped.
When I started smoking weed for the first time semi-regularly (~1.5 years ago, 0-4 times per week) I had become "pretty crazy", which consisted of lots of notes, voice memos, and screenshots of the notes and voice memos.
The outright-crazy stuff mostly ended about a couple months after I stopped living in my car, which I had to do because of the and it getting down to -19C at night. Within the past year I haven't been near the deep-end, but my weed use has been off and on between regularly (3-7 times per week), semi-regularly (0-4), and zero. I consistently experience paranoia/psychosis whenever I get high, but it generally isn't harmful, and is sometimes silly. My friends put up with it.
However very recently for 6 days, I lived in a cruel reality that existed in my head. It was caused by a long-term (2 yr) long-distance (6 mnth) codependent girlfriend who can be a capable and stubborn liar. Thankfully the extent of the terrible things I believed happened didn't actually happen–she didn't even make it to cheating on me, let alone the malicious delusions I experienced–and she happened to have suitable proof. If she hadn't I might still be in that reality.
I think the episode was more to do with how she shattered trust, and some coincidental events during the 6 days, but I believe my weed usage helped my brain to create the complex unimaginable scenarios, then experience the pain fully. For a handful of hours in those 6 days I was close to tell-no-one suicide, after a history of suicidal behaviour.
I'm happy to be in this reality as of a little less than 2 weeks ago, I'm also glad that I endured and survived that pain. I've become a lot stronger, more peaceful, and I feel that I have turned many corners with mental illness which I hadn't faced in the past–though perhaps I can credit that to a deeper dive into Buddhism and to the end of the codependency. We were about to restart our warm embrace the day she anchored me to this timeline, but per some timely advice from her friend we took a step back and ended it.
Whether or not the psychosis is temporary, or whether it causes early-onset schizophrenia is an area I'm excited to see more research on. It's definitely not as black-and-white as many people paint it out to be, and talking about any potential downsides of the drug is sometimes met with stigmatism because you're "falling for the propaganda".
One aspect of weed legalization is going to be psychosis in a subset of people who use it, and it's not exactly a safe phenomenon. There were definitely paths during my bouts with weed that don't lead to being here like this today. At the same time I'm grateful for the experiences it has given me, and the lateral thinking it has granted me.
Here's a good article I found, "Pot Can Trigger Psychotic Symptoms For Some, But Do The Effects Last?" [2015] https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2015/03/06/3901436...
For Buddhism I've been slowly reading Siddhartha over the past few weeks, and Tales Of Times Now Past off and on over the past year.
I wouldn't generally write such a long, personal comment, but we're neatly away on the second page.
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> Because those things cause falsifiable and measurable harm to society. Cannabis use is by all measures benign while its prohibition actually causing real harm. There are unfortunately people that could be damaged by smoking weed, irreversibly, if their schizophrenia proclivity gets activated. Also the easy escape from problems is not in society's best interest - see the ongoing shaming for gaming, where boys are pu…
Your view is justified and valid, but have you considered what happens to those same people you care so much about now? They just get some from street, and it's not only impossible to reliably notify them of any danger, they risk incarceration afterwards as well. That's not mentioning questionable quality of street drugs and substance lottery. You might be tempted to say that without legislation population exposure t…
I know a guy who was fairly smart and decided to take LSD at university in his "teaching assistant" room, and make notes about his experience. Something went wrong during his trip and he ended up confronting some kind of demons. Previously purely rational person within a year switched to become a seventh-day adventist. Since then I simply couldn't trust his judgement anymore; not because he became religious, but because something really damaged his brain on his first trip.
Another person I knew was a brilliant winner of math and informatics Olympiad. Decided to try heroin once. Dropped out of university the following year, spent a year working in construction, went to a lesser university, dropped out after two years. A talent gone.
Some drugs ("krokodil", meth), seem to give pretty brutal feedback about their use, e.g. literal zombification of humans. There are so many horrible stories...
It's really complicated as a human has to go against their own nature to override brain's pleasure complex, often also against their friends, tribe, customs etc. while the whole world keeps saying: "Just take it, it's normal, everything will be fine", and 10 years later finding themselves one step from abyss. I would rather convey a strong message: "It's not OK, don't ever do it!"
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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 cannabis use results in higher health costs. However, the preponderance of research suggests a null hypothesis at worst and a reduction in cancer rates and opiate dependency at best.
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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 cannabis use results in higher health costs. However, the preponderance of research suggests a null hypothesis at worst and a reduction in cancer rates and opiate dependency at best.
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…
The idea that smokers cost money to take care of is pure myth, and in most places they end up paying more in sin taxes to the state than they receive for life medical care costs.
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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.