Ask Lemmy

OP, please change the title to make it less vague what the question is about without having to open it.

@oyzmo@lemmy.world

Legalize all drugs. Addiction is a severe mental health disorder, not a crime. Literally end of discussion.

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.

Thank you for all the answers! :) It seems like most replies are positive to legalisation. The (amount of) stores is mention by a few to be one of the negatives. Perhaps government-owned stores (Like those some Nordic countries have for alcohol) could be a better solution? They have trainer employees and very strict rules both for opening times and age controls.

I'm going to go against the grain here a little. First of all, it should absolutely be decriminalized. No one should spend time behind bars for using or selling it, obviously.

But it got legalized here back in 2022 and while it was great at first, weed sort of sucks now. Because of legal limits to how many plants you can grow, CBD disappeared. Every strain is somewhere between 20-30 percent THC and just makes your brain numb, doesn't get you high the same way. Everything is way more expensive because every few years they vote to increase taxes on it, so strains that were 5 bucks a g when it was illegal are 10-11 now. Edibles have concentration limits so you're paying out the ass now for 100 mg, which someone would before make in their kitchen and give away for cheap.

Not to mention that there is one. On. Every. Street. Corner.

It's insane. Every business that closes down turns into a dispo and the added competition does not lower prices. Out town is losing cafes, art stores, all sorts of businesses because the cancer that is a dispensary keeps spreading. On a personal note, I've been trying to cut back for years and honestly I think if I still had to call "my buddy" to pickup i would have stopped a long time ago, but now it's in my face everywhere and tbh, it just sucks. It just gets you high. That's it. I can't explain it, it lost so much heart.

Now it's probably cleaner, safer, more ethical. But from a consumers perspective, it kind of sucks now.

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?

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.

Logically, if tobacco and alcohol are legal, there's no health-related reason for marijuana to be illegal. Both alcohol and weed impair your judgement, and both smoking tobacco and smoking weed are harmful to your lungs. Everything else about alcohol or tobacco vs weed is worse. And giving criminals easy ways to make money is a bad idea.

So, as another response said, legalize it, regulate it, tax it.

Pretty sure weed causes far less harm than organised criminal groups.

It's sad to see a lot of the misinformation here that says there are no downsides to weed. In fact, weed has a ton of downsides that need to be considered in how marijuana is handled in a society.

If you are a visual/ audio learner, here's a well researched video on the downsides of weed, from a source that acknowledges their staffs personal biases lean towards legalization.

Kurzgesagt, "We Have to Talk About Weed

Basically, we need to recognize that due to having criminalized weed for so long, we are only now getting the research into the negative effects of weed, but as it's coming out we are seeing how weed is not all sunshine and rainbows.

THC potency has increased dramatically since the 60s, and that has led to increased risks of paranoia, psychosis, and panic attacks. It also increases the risk of Cannabinoid Hypermesis Syndrome, where ingesting weed will make you vomit, nauseous, and have horrible abdominal pain.

My roommate just got this and she is not having fun. Her doctor told her this may be a 6 month T-break, but it's also possible this is permanent, and best to avoid weed altogether.

I also am sad to see "weed is not addictive" being thrown around. Cannabis Use Disorder (weed addiction) is very real and a quick look up says 10% of users become addicted. Personally I consider myself stuck on a habit since I can control my use to keeping it after 8pm, but I still have trouble not getting high daily. I have a friend who is now 100 days sober, but when he had a relapse last year, it ruined his life.

That's not to say it's bad, I have another friend who needs weed to help him get through the day with his PTSD. We just need to recognize one person's medicine is another person's poison.

Most all of the major issues with weed tend to show up with people who began smoking in adolescence. I think a reason I'm somewhat I'm control and my other friend is not is that I started smoking at 22 in college, and he started at 16. I imagine if I waited until I was 25 I'd have no problem making it a weekend thing.

That said

My experience and the pain many have dealing with the health issues associated to weed are no where near comparable to the damage that criminalized weed has had on marginalized communities as weed has historically been used to target and oppress minorities by our US government. I also agree to the points that having a black market is FAR worse than having legal weed that needs regulation.

Personally I'm pro-legalization, but I think we need to be careful at how we are messaging weed to the youths and handling the negative consequences, as the myths of weed just being an innocent plant are super harmful.

Legalize it, but it's still addictive. I don't think my nation has a weed problem, but how would I know? I don't know where to get weed or crack or heroin

It's two years old, but here is what Statistics Canada has to say about it: https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/231016/dq231016c-eng.htm

Legalise it, regulate the growing and selling of it and kill the green market.

giant megacorps can definitely beat out some random shady dealer (indirectly from mental outlaw)

It costs more to police it. It is profitable otherwise. No one genuinely cares. I haven't smoked since college. It eventually gets boring. It's a business. That's it. Sorry there isn't a mystical description for it. It's money.

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.

Legalize it

Tax it

Regulate it