Ask Lemmy

Never smoked anything in my life, having one side of the family wiped out prematurely by nicotine, all of them.

Lived in Colorado. The pros outweigh the cons a million to one. The biggest positive was the massive reduction in DUIs, since people drink in bars but smoke weed at home. There may be a reduction in harder drugs, too, given how much easier and cheaper it is to get weed. The tax revenue from weed sales is huge (was bigger, though) and because the laws were changed after Colorado turned liberal-ish, the money was mostly allocated to great causes.

Government loves having a law that can be selectively enforced and is broken by a lot of people. Taking it away is a huge plus, especially in times where the government is looking for easy ways to control the population. Even before now, White people caught in possession or smoking marijuana rarely got more than probation, while some Black people were three-striked for the same.

The only downside is that it still smells bad, and I am still not sure that hacking up your lungs is all that sane or safe.

Yes, it appears that young humans can have very negative reactions to weed, and that it can affect their brains negatively. That would absolutely be a problem if legalization increased week use among teenagers, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

Here in the Netherlands we have the "Gedoogbeleid", which translates to Tolerance policy. It's somewhere in between Decriminalized and legal. U are allowed to purchase and have up to 5 grams with you. And using it is okay in your own home and in places that don't disturb the public. But it's still partly illegal, as in no indoor growing and carrying more than 5g... It's a weird setup.

It's also a weird construction because technically the coffeeshops themselves are not allowed to buy the bulk amounts of weed to sell in their shops. So everything has to come in sneakily through the backdoor....

Lately legalization has been getting a good push, and now shops are buying their flowers from legit, government approved "Wiet boeren" weed farmers.

True Legalization Pros:

• Good alcohol alternative. It's one of the better substances to abuse.
• Better byproducts of flower. So more room for edibles, hash, concetrates and all the good stuff.
• Quality control, now you have some traceability where your flower is coming from. They put de Wiet Boeren on the bags with a qr code to see your flowers origin.

Cons:

• The wallet doesn't like the flowers.
• Weed is very habbit forming. Addiction might be too strong a word for weed. But oh boy is it habbit forming. Ppl who deny this, are in denial.

As for how it affects the overall drug trade. Our number 1 export in the Netherlands is XTC. But that's a whole different beast. As for weed drug trade, it does decrease it. In smaller townds without shops u will always have you local dealers. But weed really isn't drug to be afraid of as in violence and crime surrounding it.

I voted to legalize it because it's stupid to arrest people for it. That said, I hate the constant smell in public, and people seem to get addicted to it quite easily. It's a pox on society, imo. At the end of the day, we have much larger problems on our hands.

As an ex addict to (too many) substances (not marijuana) I can easily see a few cons regarding drug usage but the real pro, if I had to pick one, would be to remove all that money from drug dealers.

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.

Pros: I don't have to sneak around like a criminal just to get a plant.

Legalize all drugs to defund the cartels.

Have proper regulations in place to actually prevent minors from accessing them and guarantee there are no harmful additives. Make rehab free so that people don’t get stuck in there.

If morphine was legally obtainable, no one would be using fentanyl. Stop the arms race now.

Decriminalisation is the way IMO.

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

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

There are very few cons, all the negative effects of cannabis can be better handled when it’s legal.

Pros:

• funny green plant
• I like it
• I'm high and forgot the 3rd

Cons:

• N/A

Legalize it

Context first:

Canadian and I'm high more often than not, so this will be biased. I didn't really vote to legalize exactly, it was just part of a campaign that promised voting reform. Only one of the two happened :( I didn't use weed previous to Justin's legalization campaign.

That said, I'm pro decriminalization of everything for the end user, and almost all manufacturing for most drugs except the notorious ones wreaking havoc in society. Opioids and meth mainly.

I do think we need to consider unwillful sobriety centers for these specific types of extremely damaging addicts, but that's a tough conversation society needs to have that it won't. Ideals over reals. They suffer in the street causing havoc and ruining public transportation all the same meantime. Then you have the Cons basically wishing them to die ignored in an alley without any aid at all and getting in the way of any action. Getting off topic here.

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

Positives:

Not sending functional or good enough people to prison for dumb cruel reasons.

The big fear was the youth smoking more over time didn't materialize.

Freedumb!1! I like vaping THC quite a lot, selfish positive :)

Cons:

Mainly it's a few glaring flaws in the Liberal Party rollout. There's still government enabled social stigma.

Given not a word was said about it in our recent election that I heard about, I'm pretty sure weed being legal is a complete non-issue for pretty much everyone voting except the nutters like MADD. Yet politicians are still afraid to finish the job properly.

Apt name calling themselves MADD, but I don't mean what it stands for. Treating weed like alcohol for a DUI isn't scientifically backed and it's puritan/prohibition minded moral panic theatrics. Then there's the fact you can still get fired for smoking on a weekend off work if your boss drug tests you week(s) later. That's fucking bullshit.

Basically I just follow the data. Minimum age is too low. Getting high is bad for developing brains, I think it shouldn't be legal to consume until the brain is done development. Age 25. That's unpopular, I don't care. I say the same for alcohol. That'd also kill most of the alcoholic binge drinking party culture, because 25+ hangovers and being out of grade school/college.

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

Sure I would. It's been fine.

Big dent, not totally dead. I mean we can grow our own too. Black market is still cheaper, but they're not selling me 510 carts. I don't smoke weed anymore it's disgusting. Smell, smoke, tar, cleaning, bleh. Vape. Dry toaster vape instead if scared of glycol. That works well and I used to, but it's pretty wasteful/inefficient for a chronic user I find compared to 510 carts. Plus I can control dosage way easier. I hate being too stoned by accident. I couldn't do this when it was illegal, so my bad habit is made a little less harmful made legal. I got options now.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannabis_(drug)

It's not completely safe. Regulation makes sense. Especially for protecting developing brains from long-term negative damage.

If you look at it as an illegal drug, it's obvious that it doesn't work to criminalize. It seems much more appropriate and effective to legalize, regulate, and have information and support programmes in place.

In Germany, it was legalized, but only in a very limited form, to get it through the coalition government. I think the current form is too bureaucratic, too restrictive. The most important thing is that it legalized holding personal consumption belongings.

Pro

But Bill Maher is a walking testament to why it matters a great deal how often you come back to the surface.

I think that the pros are obvious. It should simply be legal, and other comments have given good reasons.

However, there are some cons that I haven't seen mentioned yet.

It impairs you, so any activity where that is a problem, like driving, may need extra attention or public education.

For smokers, inhaling smoke is dangerous.

I just wanna note that we're ~~basically blind~~ when it comes to the health impacts, positive or negative, of cannabis right now. This will change in the coming years, but for now it's impossible to tell what the cons are.

Edit: Turns we're not blind, just mildly visually impaired.

Legalize it

Tax it

Regulate it

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.

Pro: way more variety of edibles I can't make myself (like fruit gummies), and I know the strength before I consume.

Not really a con, but a letdown: legal retailers can't really compete with drug dealers prices, so it didn't hurt the illegal drug industry or generate as much taxes as hoped.

Pros if properly managed, takes away profits for criminals and helps prevent grow ops causing a lot of problems in communities.

Con Managed poorly fucks over consumers and propogates the criminals by creating a bigger market for them

Pro new tax revenue to pay for services