Ask Lemmy

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

@[email protected]

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

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 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.

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

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.

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

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.

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?

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

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