Question for those of you living in a country where marijuana is legal. What are the positive sides, what are the negatives?

If you could go back in time, would you vote for legalising again? Does it affect the country’s illegal drug business , more/less?

  • @[email protected]
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    3 months ago

    Pro: Everywhere it’s legal has seen a drastic reduction in the amount of violent drug-related crime, lower incarceration rates for non-violent offenders, and less abuse of prescription painkillers. Plus an incredible rise in quality when pot is regulated.

    Con: Your straight edge friends who’ve never touched a joint in their lives start smoking regularly, since it’s legal. Your 30+ year old friends will start talking like junior highschoolers who just smoked oregano for the first time and think they’re high.

    • @[email protected]
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      3 months ago

      I tried it first when I was 30+, and tried it a few times at parties. Got a good laugh once and then a weird trip once… All other times were just meh, and since I never smoked anything, my throat hurt. The result was, that I stopped and then convinced my friends to stop it as well

      I think it’s much easier to handle when you are an adult.

      So, additional plus - when it’s legal, it’s easier to restrict access for a certain age group (let’s make it at least 21+. I heard it’s particularly dangerous for teens)

  • @[email protected]
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    123 months ago

    Having lived in both, absolutely legalize.

    I don’t personally care for it and I get annoyed by the public smells, the tacky and run-down stores that make neighborhoods feel trashy. But that’s all personal preference.

    The one legitimate issue is that it is very difficult to regulate and enforce impairment. Someone driving or operating machinery high is just as dangerous as someone driving drunk. With alcohol, there are a number of different tests and impairment is well correlated with BAC. For marijuana, there is no quick and accurate way to assess how high someone is at a given time.

    • snooggums
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      23 months ago

      Impairment is impairment and being tired or distracted by phones/technology is often even worse than being intoxicated or high but we tend to love using BAC because it is easy to measure. Locations that legalized weed didn’t have an increase in impaired driving last time I checked, because most people don’t go out driving when they are high while people often drive intoxicated after drinking at bars.

      • @[email protected]
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        33 months ago

        BAC is also well correlated with impairment. Obviously it varies from one individual to another, but it is related strongly related enough to have fair and consistent enforcement.

        AFAIK, blood tests that measure the presence of marijuana are relatively cheap, but measuring the concentration is slightly more difficult and is not well correlated with impairment. That means enforcement is problematic and subjective.

  • @[email protected]
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    102 months ago

    I am happy with the legalization. I’ve never smoked weed or even drunk alcohol despite being legally able to do so. And I still think weed legalization was a huge benefit for many reasons.

    1. Reduction of organized crime around weed.
    2. Cops are less able to do illegal searches on you because they “””””smell marijuana”””””
    3. Weed is shown to be vastly less harmful than alcohol, so I always found it hypocritical that we allow one but not the other. Especially since alcoholism is so much worse and far more prevalent than weed addiction.
    4. Less people rotting in jail for non-violent crimes.
    5. Better access to weed for medical reasons across the board, leading to an overall improvement in many people’s quality of life.

    Like. Why was this bs ever illegal in the first place?

  • @[email protected]
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    93 months ago

    It’s been legal in Canada since 2015ish. Haven’t noticed a difference, but now I can get better regulated gummies which is nice for my asthma.

  • @[email protected]
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    93 months ago

    Scientifically speaking, the pros outweigh the cons everytime.

    Public Safety should not be done with the assumption that the public is made up of stupid children that would kill themselves at every possible opportunity (though some people are like that) rather it should come with the assumption that adults are smart enough and have the right to make decisions about them selves.

    The government should work towards education so that the public can be better informed and only restrict extreme situations where a reasonable mistake can lead to unreasonable consequences or harm to others. And “Gateway drugs” is as stupid as saying that teaching people how to use a knife would lead them to seek out sharper and bigger knives until they stab themselves and die.

    • @[email protected]
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      23 months ago

      I love that rhetoric but it reminds me of reddit discussion about mother suing the zoo after she dopped her children into…I think it was hyena pen?

      People got pissed that it was ZOO that was at fault, not her. There was a barrier if I recall correctly, waist-level one, and the pen was lower than the walk to separate animals from humans, but parents liked to held their small children over the barrier for…reasons. Well, she lost hers.

      And people absolutely blamed ZOO for not idiot proofing more. As if it was us that should be kept in pens xD

      • @[email protected]
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        22 months ago

        Oh yeah, my second foremost wtf with modern society: let’s build everything around what idiots are gonna do, with even fucking courts seing no problem with forcing companies to pay money to dumbasses (who do things like using electric stoves as cutting boards). Guess I will long be dead by the time this shit gets reversed

  • @[email protected]
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    3 months ago

    Legalize all drugs. Move 100% of the enforcement funds into drug treatment programs. And then tax them and put that towards treatment programs.

  • @[email protected]
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    62 months ago

    If you think weed should not be legalized, then you should be consistent and apply the same to alcohol and tobacco. Both of these substances do far more harm than weed with far fewer medical properties.

  • Dr. Moose
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    52 months ago

    Thailand legalized it not too long ago and I’d say it’s 90% positive.

    • loads of direct and indirect business opportunities
    • reduction in alcohol related issues. Stones are generally much more chill than drunks and impairement for vehicle operation etc is much lesser.

    There were a few populist issues like catching kids with weed etc but imo that’s actually a positive as people starting to actually talk about kid safety when previously they had all these drugs and worse.

    Personally I’d say the only danger is high concentrates which are illegal here and not very desired by the market either way. Mostly tourists and locals just want to smoke normal mid tier weed and enjoy the nature and thai food which is a win-win for everyone. I’ve seen some gravity bongs and a bit of oils (never seen anyone dab) but I’d say 90% of users just smoke mid tier 5$/g weed of 28% thc or so mostly mixed with tobacco too.

    My favorite change is just the culture shift. Stoned tourists are just so much nicer and the party scene has changed a lot around this.

    Legal weed as been huge for business here. Thai people are incredible entrepreneurs and were really quick to develop the industry to the point where the government tried to reverse legalization a year later but it was too late already.

  • @[email protected]
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    43 months ago

    weed smokers are not cool anymore, like wow bro you’re going to go home and follow the law. Lame

  • @[email protected]
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    43 months ago

    Decriminalisation is the way IMO.

    I don’t want lots of people taking up smoking even. But being punished for smoking weed? Ridiculous.

  • @[email protected]
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    2 months ago

    I don’t care about health benefits/dangers of any vice as much as I hate how ingrained vices are in our daily lives. I’m sick of beer ads, I hate online sports betting sponsoring every event (and rapidly turning a lot of friends into gamblers), my recently weed-legal state is already flooded with local ads and shitty shops.

    I dream of a utopia where no vices are sold in a store or advertised. If you want to indulge you go to the equivalent of a Native American casino on steroids. It’s a massive temple to hedonism, zoning for it is very restricted. You can do any drug you want there, everything carefully dosed and tested. There’s complimentary trip-sitters and emergency services on call.

    Things that aren’t an immediate threat to yourself/others (mushrooms, lsd, mj, low abv drinks, etc…) can be sold for private personal consumption off-prem with a reasonable limit per person. You can’t partake in public and can be asked for proof of purchase during transit.

    There’s no perverse vice tax that leeches money from addicts who can’t afford it, the government’s best financial interest is to keep people clean and spending money elsewhere. If you need something to routinely “take the edge off” you get easy access to medical services (mental/physical/otherwise) and a prescription from a real doctor.

    Any time I hear arguments for full legalization of anything in the USA I just have nightmares of inane Budweiser-style weed/cocaine/heroin commercials.

  • @[email protected]
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    23 months ago

    My state has 10 million people and made over $300 million in tax last year distributed around $100 million each divided between roads, schools, and local municipalities/community organizations.

  • @[email protected]
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    22 months ago

    I’m happy with legalization and would do it again.

    • the health impact is similar enough to alcohol and cigarettes so we should treat them similarly
    • even before I agreed with legalization, the legal consequences seemed cruel and unusual, way out of proportion
    • law enforcement needs to focus on things with more impact on our safety
    • for-profit prisons? wtf
    • I don’t know about medical benefits but how was pit so illegal that we could never even investigate such claims?
    • smoking is a serious health hazard but now it’s easier to get marijuana products that do t involve smoking

    The one thing I’d do differently is stricter regulations against secondhand smoke. Now that cigarettes have seriously declined, it’s easier to appreciate just how much they stink. But we’ve backslid: smoking pot stinks worse, and has a lot of the same second hand smoke hazard.

    • @[email protected]
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      52 months ago

      Disagree on first and last point. MJ is NOT comparable to cigarettes. At all. This is coming from someone who has partaked in both. Both produce smoke but are not equal.

      Cigarettes are WAY worse for your chest, and far more addictive, and easier to access/cheaper.