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Plan to legalise cannabis in Australia gains traction
What have Vancouver's virtue-signalling liberals been smoking? On Tuesday, the Canadian city will decriminalise HEROIN and CRACK - even though it already has 2,000 homeless addicts and streets too dangerous to walk down
The province of British Columbia- which includes Vancouver - is about to start a three-year experiment to decriminalise all hard drugs. For block after block in this downtown neighbourhood in Vancouver has been surrendered to hundreds of desperate drug addicts. Their tents line the doorways of every building that hasn't bribed them to move on or pleaded for the police to intervene. The goods they have stolen to feed their drug cravings litter the pavement, waiting for someone who might buy them. The addicts hunch in doorways, openly injecting, cooking and smoking hard drugs such as heroin, crack cocaine, crystal meth and fentanyl - the lethal synthetic opioid that is 50 times stronger than heroin and has killed hundreds of thousands across North America.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11685535/On-Tuesday-Canadian-city-decriminalise-HEROIN-CRACK.html
The province of British Columbia- which includes Vancouver - is about to start a three-year experiment to decriminalise all hard drugs. For block after block in this downtown neighbourhood in Vancouver has been surrendered to hundreds of desperate drug addicts. Their tents line the doorways of every building that hasn't bribed them to move on or pleaded for the police to intervene. The goods they have stolen to feed their drug cravings litter the pavement, waiting for someone who might buy them. The addicts hunch in doorways, openly injecting, cooking and smoking hard drugs such as heroin, crack cocaine, crystal meth and fentanyl - the lethal synthetic opioid that is 50 times stronger than heroin and has killed hundreds of thousands across North America.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11685535/On-Tuesday-Canadian-city-decriminalise-HEROIN-CRACK.html
Comments
The way that has been used previously is clearly not working. It is the current way of doing things that has given rise to the no-go areas the Fail reports on. Not any new system.
The next point to make is that the Fail is not comparing like with like. If alcohol or cigarettes were new drugs today, they would undoubtedly be Class A drugs. And have killed far more people than the current outlawed drugs ever will. Yet there are only guidelines about safe usage of alcohol, and warnings on packs of cigarettes. It is never illegal to drink or smoke.
If you provide safe drugs to addicts, there are undoubted benefits. For example, fentanyl would be removed. Drugs would not be cut with massively harmful ingredients. If people can access safer free drugs for purely personal use, surely this would massively impact on drug dealers. Even people as stupid ad Daily Fail reporters must realise that normal people fear the consequences of drug dealers just as much as being criminals?
I don't believe a blanket decriminalisation of all drugs is the right answer. But surely the first step should be to trial it on the softer, so-called "gateway" drugs.
Cannabis is the obvious starting point. For 2 reasons. Firstly, regular cannabis is so much safer than skunk-which is more powerful and more addictive. Secondly, to promote cannabis which is not mixed with tobacco-it is now 1 of the main causes of the young starting smoking. Also, the increased temperatures of smoking cannabis (as opposed to tobacco) are massively harmful to the young.
There are genuine risks in relation to making personal use drugs legal. There is a genuine debate to be had.
Why can our awful newspapers never provide both sides of debates?
Essexphil said,
It is never illegal to drink or smoke.
Think Driving for Drink , Shops for Smoking. ?
could be wrong....... hic!
In exactly the same way as some Canadian stealing to fund his habit will still be a Criminal
A new study commissioned by the Greens has found that legalising cannabis in cannabis in Australia could raise up to $28billion in taxes.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11690153/Greens-push-legalise-cannabis-boost-Centrelink-payments.html
They call it a gateway drug but i'd say caffeine, nicotine and alcohol are ahead of it in the line and by legalising it you help a percentage of young users from going to a local dealers house where they will be exposed to all sorts of other harder more damaging drugs
I should also add by Britain dragging there feet and delaying the inevitable, they are letting other countries get a hold and domination of the world market and we wont be able to compete and would end up having foreign companies make the lions share of the global market. Im no expert but I have watched a few documentaries that say long before we started cutting down our trees there was a booming hemp industry and most the paper in they days were made of it, the massive problem in the textile industries of millions of tons of clothes going to landfill every year could be greatly helped by naturally decomposing textiles. There's not a bit of the plant that can't be used so there is massive potential for the cultivation of cannabis plants on farms helping our farming industry and the crops are amazing for storing carbon dioxide and lets face it we need all the help we can on that front. And lastly they have started creating and building blocks and bricks from hemp which has amazing natural insulation properties saving on energy the environmental impact again would be massive and when the building is done most of it would return to the earth where as concrete is a massive player in global warming. There are many many more postive impacts that stretch from economical, medicinal/health, environmental to recreational. If we have any chance of saving this planet and economy the world should act fast and start utilising this amazing commodity mother nature has given us yet we are too blinded by stigma
Can anyone point out negatives that are more important than the positves?
Totally agree
It's the pharma companies that want to block this natural medicinal plant they would lose billions but it's good that the world is waking up to this wonderful plant
It never did me any harm smoking it for 30 years and i miss it enormously after packing in two years ago
I never missed a day of work , i was never ill not even a cold , i have a strong marriage , both my kids have got through uni with BA honours , when i was young i could fall out in an empty room weed stopped all that it calmed me down , all my aches and pains have doubled since i stopped , i never had any teenage tantrums with my kids whilst they were growing up
I put all this down to the enviroment that my family grew up in with me smoking weed
The wife doesn't smoke it and neither do my kids and the only reason i stopped was it was becoming too expensive and it was getting increasingly a pita to get hold of otherwise i'd be carrying on now
People react differently , it all depends on that persons mental fortitude to how they react to weed i smoked skunk i had high tolerance to the plant it never made me into a physcho maniac it was quite the opposite
Yeah research needs to be done if it hasn't already been done but to legalize it in a controlled manner would be a positive step imho and as @Angela124 says there are many many ways you can use cannabis and it would put millions into the treasurery every year
I'm smoking twice as much baccy now than before i packed in cannabis but hey that's ok because that's legal
@Angela124
Post more please, that was a very well-reasoned post.
1. Smoking cannabis is more dangerous than tobacco for under-18s. This is because the increased temperature of smoking cannabis can scar lungs, particularly those still growing
2. Smoking cannabis is very much a gateway to smoking. Which is a lot more dangerous than many Class A drugs
3. Ingesting cannabis via food tends to be rather stronger than smoking-needs a level; of experience in preparation
4. All sorts of problems in relation to second-hand smoke. The last time in Vegas took me back to the UK of the 90s. The smell pervades a lot of open spaces
5. Who wants to own the shop next door or live next door to the shops?
The easy start would be proper, licensed, medicinal use.
Like all Medicine it should be through your GP or Chemist pharmacy where warnings are given regard long term effects from abuse.
1. It will ALWAYS be available to kids legal or not, and if made legal for licenced premises I think you might find more kids that wanted to try it if they really desired to would try the vape oils, edibles and other non toxic ways of ingesting it therefor still being better than smoking which is what 95% of people trying it for the first time will do as these products aren't easily found. The younger and older generations are more health conscious nowadays so i think legalising it would actually drive smoking it down.
2. Saying cannabis is a gateway to smoking is a bit like saying vodka is a gateway to redbull
3. I agree and legalising it would help us know exactly what dose was right for the individual as a smoker I don't actually like the initial heavy stone and its hard to regulate how much is enough with no labels as they are all different strengths
4. We already have smoking regulations and laws in place, if all we have to do is smell a bit of weed to help our economy and NHS then I think we are on to a winner
5. The premises like say a cafe for instance would have proper extractors fitted with filters that neutralises the smell. You could have it so you could only smoke in designated areas. I would much rather stay beside a cannabis premise than a pub or god forbid a night club. Millions of people stay beside things we would rather not like speed bumps, wind farms, refuge yards, fields after they have been sprayed with manure and don't get me started on the awful smell that comes from the local chicken factory near me. But we do as it is for the greater good and they have to go somewhere. we always have the option to move to another location
Totally agree with the easy start and first stop is medicinal use
The points you make whilest valid are teeny weeny compared to the benefits
P.s I know its not a point you raised but thought I would ad this thought.....
Why is the legalisation of cannabis being held up to such high standards and scrutiny when other products (excluding the obvious 2 tobacco and alcohol) like coca cola which is available for any age to buy from thousands of outlets will rot your insides, increase your chances of diabetes, rot the teeth of our children and everyone else for that matter costing the NHS millions not to mention the environmental impact as a 500ml bottle takes 1.9 litres of fresh water to make. Energy drink companies are basically selling drugs in the form of fizzy juice marketed to the youth on a national platform and has been the cause of lots of mental disorders and deaths. Console games that are played by the young like xbox, playstation etc.... that make you pay for the initial game but then make you buy extras to progress, effectively indoctrinating the youth into gambling just like panini stickers and seaside penny arcades done in our time it just evolved.
There are literally thousands of products being legally and openly sold that are by far worse and not held up to the high standards that cannabis is being held up to. WHY?
To people that use the argument if we legalise it it will become more accessible to kids, what about the aforementioned products such as alcohol, tobacco, KNIVES, lighter gas, ****, gambling, glue, energy drinks these are all age retricted LEGAL products that are still easy for the youth to get hold of but we dont talk about banning these because kids might try and use them. So again why is cannabis being held up to way more scrutiny its insane hypocrisy!!
Excuse my logic lol
**** is Parnagraphy apparently the correct spelling gets censored
1. I think the short answer is that cannabis should remain illegal for under-18s (at least for now), except where prescribed by a doctor
2. There remains an enormous problem in relation to combining tobacco with cannabis. There are large numbers of people (including me) who had an addiction to smoking for many years due to cannabis use
3. Completely agree
4. Think you are missing my point. The smell of smoke has almost disappeared in public places in the UK. And it is likely that there will be a total ban on smoking in public places in the near future. 2 obvious advantages-removing the health risks of passive smoking, and removing temptation from former addicts like me. It's not cannabis that needs removing from public spaces-it is smoking cannabis with tobacco
5. I take your point. I think either way that is less important than other matters
The points I make are most certainly not "teeny weeny". Where I expect we ultimately agree is that, provided any relaxation is done sensibly, the advantages you mention should outweigh the disadvantages I mention.
By that, I do not just mean medicinal use. That is the obvious start, but I believe more should be allowed. What is desperately needed is more cannabis product without the tobacco part. And a ban for most Minors-although in time that could possibly be reduced from 18 to 16.
In relation to your last point, I agree with a lot of what you say. A lot of it is no more than timing-alcohol and tobacco were accepted in Western countries before cannabis was appreciated. 1 point I would add is this-it's not just cannabis but medicinal products generally that have been over- or under-prescribed. The previous overprescription of drugs like Diazepam have caused massive problems.
The lack of research into safe use of cannabis has undoubtedly been caused by an over-rigid approach. It is important to recognise that cannabis is non-addictive (or at the least way less addictive than pretty much everything else). It is, to my mind, a great shame that little has been done to remove the harmful additives to what is a natural substance.
If I'm honest I was using this post to practice posting on the forum as I am not that confident of putting my point across and thought this topic would be a good one for me to start. And as someone with no education (My biggest regret in life) it takes me a long time to write these which with practice I hope gets quicker, you can probably tell with the way I structure and punctuate my posts lol.
I admire how well you make your points and how well written you, Haysie and a few others posts on the forum are keep it up
Thanks for replies
@Tikay10 thanks for the comment
You make your points well. And this forum needs more people exactly like you.
PS. I suspect that I was educated beyond my intelligence
I take two amitriptyline every night for ma neck plus other tablets for ma heart, I pulled a muscle in ma back and it was agony I was prescribed Tramadol and started eatin them like sweeties, decide I better come off them but big mistake, came off them too quick, panic attacks started went to the doctors he was wanting to give me more and come off them gradually I said no so he gives me some jellies took them for a couple of days flung them in the bin I was startin to rattle when ever I went for a walk, for me something must be better than tablets.
So what am gettin to is I think cannabis for medical reasons must be better than tablets, my problem is I stopped smokin in 1987 and I now hate the smell of smoke so I would never smoke it again.
The state the country is in financially at the moment I would not put it by them to legalize it to raise luppins for the coffers.