Should Weed Be Legal?

[TxRover]

7 hours ago, Binos said:

How you managed to find that amongst the deluge of medical professionals stating the opposite

Link to your deluge, please. The Journal of the American Medical Association, regarding a length study, is pretty solid.

7 hours ago, Binos said:

Also it didn't state that 

Yea, it did.

6 hours ago, coprolite said:

I don't have anything to hand and can't be arsed searching but im sure that some research found that it was newer, stronger breeds of skunk that were particularly linked to psychosis. 

In the same way that bootleggers and illicit consumers in 1920s chigaco went for whisky rather than a few pints of bitter, the economics of illegality encourages more potent, concentrated products. 

I used to be quite a heavy smoker back in the day. When i started out soapbar/ resin was much more common. I could easily have a smoke then go to the pub a couple of hours later and function normally. It also wasn't too much of a barrier to studying or work. 

Skunk is a completely different beast. It can make me extremely paranoid and i find normal functioning much more of a problem. 

As a society, we currently don't allow unrestricted sale of unregulated high strength moonshine, because it's dangerous. We tax the shit out of high strength spirits  because they're potentially very harmful. We still heavily tax beer and cider, because of health concerns. 

It shouldn't be beyond the wit of man to arrange something similar for the range of different products that are unhelpfully grouped as a single thing, cannabis, in the minds of many. 

This is the biggest issue, the pushing of the THC levels to, frankly, insane strengths. The good news is a decent dispensary has a wide variety of strengths and formulations.

 

4 hours ago, RawB93 said:

Can anyone who lives in a country where it’s legalised tell me what prices are like? - per g, hq and so on. I’ve never been to Amsterdam either, though would imagine they have separate tourist prices. 
I guess what I’m getting at is, is there a chance that legalising and taxing it could actually make it unaffordable for some people?

Whilst simultaneously making a select few companies very rich… I’d really rather it was just decriminalised and legal to smoke, cultivate (small amounts) and distribute. And those that need it can get it. 

It varies wildly due to taxes and such. Here’s a mildly useful site for comparisons:

https://www.priceofweed.com

[welshbairn]

49 minutes ago, carpetmonster said:

Illinois it's about $80 for an eighth of flower because they went ham on taxing it. Street prices actually went up a little as a result; dealers just work out the cost without the tax and then charged that. The state still made $445m on it last year, and it's about double the population of Scotland for working out maths. A lot of regular/heavy users will just skip over to Michigan where the prices are slightly less than half of Illinois. Most states also let you grow a few plants for your own use if you have a medical card. Illinois doesn't - they just don't charge the tax if you present a medical card at a dispensary - but the chances of the cops giving any sort of a shit about someone with a couple of plants are zero in Chicago and minimal anywhere else. 

The tragic thing is that if cannabis had legalised about 50 years ago, farmers in countries like Colombia, Mexico and Afghanistan could have made a healthy profit from exporting it without switching to cocaine and heroin. In the seventies nearly all the dope was imported, had Colombian once and it was magic, you never hear about it now. If you have to smuggle you want the value to be concentrated in as low a volume as possible, thus the switch to coca and poppies, and THE WAR ON DRUGS made shifting dope not worth the risk, and the huge profits on class A ended up corrupting and screwing up especially those three countries.

Edited April 7, 2023 by welshbairn

[Binos]

1 hour ago, TxRover said:

Link to your deluge, please. The Journal of the American Medical Association, regarding a length study, is pretty solid.

 

https://www.priorygroup.com/media-centre/cannabis-use-fuelling-rise-in-psychosis-among-young-adults-says-top-priory-expert

https://nida.nih.gov/publications/research-reports/marijuana/there-link-between-marijuana-use-psychiatric-disorders

https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/news/2021/cannabis-users-at-much-higher-risk-of-developing-poor-mental-health

https://www.cdc.gov/marijuana/health-effects/mental-health.html

https://www.bmj.com/content/380/bmj.p407

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3927252/

https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/cannabis-induced-psychosis-review

 

[Satoshi]

Right, so your argument is you should put people who voluntarily consume a product into prison?

Next thing you will be telling us that legal products like fatty food, alcohol, coffee and cigarettes also have negative health consequences.

Maybe the consumers of these products would all be better off it it was made illegal, they had to purchase shoddy unregulated products from criminals, and if caught they would be imprisoned.

Saying "drugs and bad m'kay" is not an argument, who is your policy (or continuation of the status quo) actually going to benefit?

[TxRover]

9 hours ago, Binos said:

https://www.priorygroup.com/media-centre/cannabis-use-fuelling-rise-in-psychosis-among-young-adults-says-top-priory-expert

https://nida.nih.gov/publications/research-reports/marijuana/there-link-between-marijuana-use-psychiatric-disorders

https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/news/2021/cannabis-users-at-much-higher-risk-of-developing-poor-mental-health

https://www.cdc.gov/marijuana/health-effects/mental-health.html

https://www.bmj.com/content/380/bmj.p407

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3927252/

https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/cannabis-induced-psychosis-review

 

Priory Group…one guys opinion with no link shown, just inferred and assumed.

NIH…specifically singled out high-potency marijuana and users with AKT1 markers (roughly 7% of the population)…too small a percentage to make such a sweeping statement. By this standard, there are a number of things that should be banned first.

Birmingham News…users identified in GP records is a worthless sample group with no control.

CDC…finally, a real study, but it doesn’t “prove” your argument. Again, high strength and daily use is the key focus here for some possibility of a slightly increased risk of many things, psychosis’s being the least common.

The BMJ…a statement by an incoming President, referring to risks of using strong marijuana from early-teens…and legalizing it certainly wouldn’t allow for this, so irrelevant.

NCBI…investigates the mechanism by which cannabis may cause psychosis…doesn’t address any increase above baseline.

Psychiatrictic Times…Deals with an increase in Emergency Room visits proportional to increased overall cannabis use…duh.

So, a deluge of irrelevant or unrelated items, one being a study that disproves your concern about legalization, the rest being unhelpful to your chicken little philosophy.

 

 

[Molotov]

What’s more appropriate?

This?

Or this?

[The Moonster]

12 hours ago, Binos said:

https://www.priorygroup.com/media-centre/cannabis-use-fuelling-rise-in-psychosis-among-young-adults-says-top-priory-expert

https://nida.nih.gov/publications/research-reports/marijuana/there-link-between-marijuana-use-psychiatric-disorders

https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/news/2021/cannabis-users-at-much-higher-risk-of-developing-poor-mental-health

https://www.cdc.gov/marijuana/health-effects/mental-health.html

https://www.bmj.com/content/380/bmj.p407

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3927252/

https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/cannabis-induced-psychosis-review

 

Literally copy and pasted links with headlines he liked but didn't read the content. Anyway, you've made a great case for regulating cannabis, unless of course you'd rather to continue prosecuting these users with mental health problems rather than helping them.

[Binos]

8 hours ago, TxRover said:

Priory Group…one guys opinion with no link shown, just inferred and assumed.

NIH…specifically singled out high-potency marijuana and users with AKT1 markers (roughly 7% of the population)…too small a percentage to make such a sweeping statement. By this standard, there are a number of things that should be banned first.

Birmingham News…users identified in GP records is a worthless sample group with no control.

CDC…finally, a real study, but it doesn’t “prove” your argument. Again, high strength and daily use is the key focus here for some possibility of a slightly increased risk of many things, psychosis’s being the least common.

The BMJ…a statement by an incoming President, referring to risks of using strong marijuana from early-teens…and legalizing it certainly wouldn’t allow for this, so irrelevant.

NCBI…investigates the mechanism by which cannabis may cause psychosis…doesn’t address any increase above baseline.

Psychiatrictic Times…Deals with an increase in Emergency Room visits proportional to increased overall cannabis use…duh.

So, a deluge of irrelevant or unrelated items, one being a study that disproves your concern about legalization, the rest being unhelpful to your chicken little philosophy.

 

 

Wtf

[TxRover]

2 hours ago, Binos said:

Wtf

7 hours ago, The Moonster said:

Literally copy and pasted links with headlines he liked but didn't read the content. Anyway, you've made a great case for regulating cannabis, unless of course you'd rather to continue prosecuting these users with mental health problems rather than helping them.

I suspect The Moonster summarized it quite well. Read the links you provided and get out to support legalization and regulation.

[Binos]

On 08/04/2023 at 07:14, The Moonster said:

Literally copy and pasted links with headlines he liked but didn't read the content. Anyway, you've made a great case for regulating cannabis, unless of course you'd rather to continue prosecuting these users with mental health problems rather than helping them.

There will be more people with mental health problems exacerbated 

Basically if you have any history of mental health problems in your family,  don't smoke hash

 

 

[coprolite]

18 minutes ago, Binos said:

There will be more people with mental health problems exacerbated 

Basically if you have any history of mental health problems in your family,  don't smoke hash

 

 

This is only true if legalisation leads to people who aren't otherwise exacerbating conditions, and wouldn't have started, starting to smoke hash.  

Illegality isn't an effective bar to availability. 

Illegality is an effective bar to any quality control or regulation. 

That's probably sensible advice in your final line, although i'd add don't drink alcohol, do coke or take opioids. But people self medicate and are going to do that however they can. I'd rather the options for those people included lower doses and safer environments. 

Edited April 9, 2023 by coprolite
Spleeling

[++Ammo - Airdrie++]

https://www.forbes.com/sites/dariosabaghi/2023/03/16/germany-to-introduce-bill-to-legalize-cannabis-in-the-coming-weeks/

Damn Germans enabling mental illness.

[Binos]

10 minutes ago, coprolite said:

This is only true if legalisation leads to people who aren't otherwise exacerbating conditions, and wouldn't have started, starting to smoke hash.  

 

Which would be more likely if it was legal 

And was an issue long before super skunks existed

[Molotov]

20 minutes ago, Binos said:

There will be more people with mental health problems exacerbated 

Basically if you have any history of mental health problems in your family,  don't smoke hash

 

 

I appreciate it’s a different topic but there are significant concerns relating to pharmaceutical drugs and the shortened lifespan of individuals prescribed them.

https://www.rethink.org/media/2627/rethink-mental-illness-lethal-discrimination.pdf

Not enough imho is being done to resolve mental health issues which may actually be impacted by very poor diets in our society.

The link between the gut and the brain is vital.

There is lots of information and evidence to support this. 

https://www.health.harvard.edu/diseases-and-conditions/the-gut-brain-connection

It really annoys me that our GPs and psychiatrists are pushing big pharma drugs when the causes may be related to the modern highly processed unhealthy diets that directly impact brain health. 

[The Moonster]

12 minutes ago, Binos said:

Which would be more likely if it was legal 

And was an issue long before super skunks existed

Are you going to start smoking weed if it becomes legal?

[coprolite]

20 minutes ago, Binos said:

Which would be more likely if it was legal 

 

*Citation needed

[Derry Alli]

1 hour ago, coprolite said:

*Citation needed

I've long said - it's cocaine now - would be much lessly used if it was legal. We'd most likely see a dramatic spike in use in the early days but overall through time I genuinely believe it would die down. Part of the fun is the drop off, the ride to it, the anticipation. Passing it about if you e none, sneaking off to take it and trying to keep it quiet. The boys that flaunt it are just boys who are gasping to be caught, chasing another thrill.

Most folk would move on to whichever next illegal substance become available.

[coprolite]

26 minutes ago, Derry Alli said:

I've long said - it's cocaine now - would be much lessly used if it was legal. We'd most likely see a dramatic spike in use in the early days but overall through time I genuinely believe it would die down. Part of the fun is the drop off, the ride to it, the anticipation. Passing it about if you e none, sneaking off to take it and trying to keep it quiet. The boys that flaunt it are just boys who are gasping to be caught, chasing another thrill.

Most folk would move on to whichever next illegal substance become available.

I suspect that's a big part of it for a lot of people. Rebellion, counter culture etc. 

I guess there’s probably a small minority of people who've never smoked only because it's illegal who might be tempted in a coffee shop setting with their mates etc. I'd guess that's a much smaller number than there are doing it to be rock n roll. 

But it's only a guess. 

 

[TxRover]

13 hours ago, Binos said:

There will be more people with mental health problems exacerbated 

Basically if you have any history of mental health problems in your family,  don't smoke hash

You understand the basic difference between smoking hash and smoking marijuana, right? Hash is the dried resin, and is very potent in THC. Hash is generally at least twice the potency of the strongest marijuana, and THC compounds on the market also widely vary in potency, but can be regulated if legalized. The issue with a black market for drugs and such is the inherent drive to strengthen the potency to ease the transportation and distribution issues.

In a legal dispensary, the strains for sale are offered with clear labeling as to potency, just as THC products are. In dispensaries I’ve visited, there is always a wide variety of potencies available, but generally they seem to out top in the 12-15% level, with a couple of “high potency” versions in the 18-20% range generally only recommended or sold to those with medical cards. Now, that is a decision by the local dispensary, but is pretty common.

Colorado was an early adopter of the sale of edibles, and their “uneven” experience was digested by the market, and has changed the production of edibles from a home industry into a scientific business. The reality is a certain level of use/abuse of products such a alcohol, tobacco and other drugs is inherent in society, so a carefully regulated marketplace is a superior answer to the “War on Drugs”. As many States in the U.S. are finding out, artificially high taxes on the legalized marijuana simply enhance the underground marketplace, and the answer there is more modest taxes that reduce any incentive to get “cheaper weed” on the streets.

As for your second statement, it is overbroad. You would have to consider the mental illness in question, and possibly do a test for genetic markers before making any recommendation. But, even then, it would mainly apply to chronic consumption of high potency product.

[The Moonster]

12 hours ago, TxRover said:

You understand the basic difference between smoking hash and smoking marijuana, right? Hash is the dried resin, and is very potent in THC. Hash is generally at least twice the potency of the strongest marijuana, and THC compounds on the market also widely vary in potency, but can be regulated if legalized. The issue with a black market for drugs and such is the inherent drive to strengthen the potency to ease the transportation and distribution issues.

In a legal dispensary, the strains for sale are offered with clear labeling as to potency, just as THC products are. In dispensaries I’ve visited, there is always a wide variety of potencies available, but generally they seem to out top in the 12-15% level, with a couple of “high potency” versions in the 18-20% range generally only recommended or sold to those with medical cards. Now, that is a decision by the local dispensary, but is pretty common.

Colorado was an early adopter of the sale of edibles, and their “uneven” experience was digested by the market, and has changed the production of edibles from a home industry into a scientific business. The reality is a certain level of use/abuse of products such a alcohol, tobacco and other drugs is inherent in society, so a carefully regulated marketplace is a superior answer to the “War on Drugs”. As many States in the U.S. are finding out, artificially high taxes on the legalized marijuana simply enhance the underground marketplace, and the answer there is more modest taxes that reduce any incentive to get “cheaper weed” on the streets.

As for your second statement, it is overbroad. You would have to consider the mental illness in question, and possibly do a test for genetic markers before making any recommendation. But, even then, it would mainly apply to chronic consumption of high potency product.

The war on drugs has worked to some extent, you're calling it marijuana