Married-To-Johanna

[Clydeside_Sheep]

Following Uruguay deciding to legalise cannabis, the City of Seattle has just passed its 1st anniversary of having legal cannabis.

 

It would appear that the sky has failed to fall-in, in both locations. Who would have thought it?

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-25396530

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-25340324

 

The UN (boo! hiss!) says the Uruguay move violates international law (typical jamfs).

 

What do readers think? Should we follow suit in Scotland / UK? It would be refreshing for the government to do something daring / innovative for once (as opposed to doing things nobody wants and fibbing that its a popular move)

 

The illegality of Cannabis has nothing to do with its mild effects on the person, and everything to do with despicable racism and industrial lobbying (particularly from pharma companies and purveyors alcohol and tobacco).

 

Sure, its not for everyone - but then neither its alcohol. In the vast majority of cases it is a mild experience. It is not physically addictive - it is massively less harmful than alcohol, especially when you consider all of the violence and accidents booze contributes to, in addition to liver damage.

[Ke1t]

The 'War on Drugs' has failed in its entirety, All it managed to do is make criminals of people who smoke a joint in the privacy of their own home.

 

Weed is no more a 'Gateway Drug' than Irn Bru makes you an alcoholic, and the claim that marijuana leads to overdosing on bath salts and eating some fucker's face off is as ludicrous a claim as has been made by the anti-drug lobby.

 

In a truly free society there should be access to recreational drugs, not just those the government can tax you on like alcohol and tobacco. If I want to grow a couple of plants in my basement and harvest them periodically for a 'Caddyshack & Ghostbusters' night then what the fuck harm does that do?

 

I've mentioned before that I know a lad from Bhutan, he has weed growing in abundance out the back of his house... he can walk around the streets with a can of beer in his hand without being hassled by the pigs, he can carry his gun if he feels like it, and if he wants to go harvest some of the weed out back then he'll wander outside with his machette, something else that would get you lifted in the 'Free West', chop down some ganj, throw it on his roof to dry, and when it's good and ready he'll have a marijuana cigarette, a beer, fire his gun in the air, swing his machette, and... if he feels like it... maybe get a goat back to his place for a bit of stoned goat-shagging.

 

All perfectly legal, all perfectly normal... and this is in some poor, third world, mountain shithole on the arse edge of civilisation.

 

Here in the 'civilised' west, you do anything that actually speaks of GENUINE freedom and you end up sitting in a cell.

 

There's fuck all free about a country that bans recreational drugs and points helicopter-mounted FLIR cameras at your house in case you're committing the heinous crime of growing a fucking plant in your house with the intention of smoking a bit of it.

 

Said it before, I'm picking the most backwater shithole on the planet to retire to, because I want to live out my last few years somewhere that is genuinely free...

[The Cockney Don]

http://youtu.be/bNNfAuMq-M0

[spamspamspam]

hmmmm, decisions, decisions, decisions....

 

We could either

 

Legalise/Decriminalise all drugs, take them under government control, use any proceeds to fund drug rehab, drug education, take billions of pounds a year away from organised criminals and gangs that encourage people to become addicted to hard drugs and then main them when they can no longer pay and doing so would also fill any hole in government spending

 

or

 

Keep them illegal, spend millions of public money chasing the dealers and importers and dealing with the several different types of issues and the mess that it leaves behind.

 

Drugs would also be cleaner and with that a lot less dangerous.

 

And with Uruguay managing to sell a gram for a dollar (I'm sure the sunshine and growing conditions help keep the cost down) it just shows how much money a government could make if they did this properly.

 

Its a pointless thought though, the UK government would rather listen to those that dont have a clue about drugs and their dangers than those they pay to advise them. The downgrading then upgrading of weed shows how much the government will do against all advice with no real public outcry at all so you can imagine trying to have this sort of debate with people that are more interested in securing votes than doing whats best for the general public.

[Redstar]

There is a massive shortfall in taxes just around the corner...folk stubbing out cigarettes and moving to e-cigs coupled with punters shelling out on cars with tuppence halfpenny road tax...I attended a conference on Shale Gas Drilling in the UK , which I thought was just around the corner...not so according to the academics with good justification...unlike the States in particular Texas...we in the UK have no mineral rights to what is beneath our properties or land...it is all owned by the crown which gives little incentive for any investor to sink decent cash into this venture...which I turn will shut the door on any tax the Goverment may have been counting on from the produced gas...I'd say the legalization and taxing of grass is probably very close.

[Bobby Connor]

Misleading thread title.

[Pudgie]

I hope it's legalised. It just makes sense. Not something I'd really plan to use but I can see the advantages of legalising it.

[caledonia]

Make a bit of cash selling it on ebay

[fatjim]

I'd stop smoking it if it was legal. It just wouldn't be cool anymore.

Not that I am smoking at the moment anyway with the wife being pregnant.

[Ke1t]

I'd stop smoking it if it was legal. It just wouldn't be cool anymore.

Not that I am smoking at the moment anyway with the wife being pregnant.

 

A few months of a new bairn and you'll be back on it just to retain your sanity

[Clydeside_Sheep]

Glad to see the board air some sensible opinions on this.

 

One the news lately, there has been much about the "slavery" resulting from people (usually vietnamese) being trafficked into the UK and then locked into a house to look-after the massive cannabis farm within.

 

This human suffering is a direct result of the idiotic prohibition of a benign, natural substance - as indeed is the fact that it has any financial value in the first place. If the idiotic laws against cannabis were scrapped, all of this human suffering would immediately evaporate and the financial arse would fall out of several criminal empires.

 

Ultimately, we are talking about a non-harmful and non-physically addictive natural substance.

 

(it can be psychologically addictive, but then so can chocolate, or indeed any substance).

 

"THC" is the active ingredient ("the good bit") in the substance - 9-delta-tetra-hydro-cannabidiol.

 

I think the fact that Pharma companies manufacture synthetic THC ("Marinol") and then sell it to us, is a great indicator as to why cannabis really remains illegal.

 

The existence of the synthetic Marinol shows that the substance has positive uses wrt healthcare (painkiller; its also a bronchial dilator).

 

I would argue that decriminalisation would also boost local economies, notably take-aways and 24 hour garages.

 

I have seen all manner of frankly horrible occurrences and states, as a result of alcohol (including many states I have been in personally).

 

The worst I have seen as a result of cannabis was someone (not me) actually pass out whilst attempting to walk across a room. This was half-terrifying, half-hilarious. They obviously fell and f*cked their head right off the floor - you should have heard the bang (like a bomb going off) - but they were right as rain.

 

This was a result of reckless over-indulgence and the person letting their blood-sugar fall to too low a level. They wont do that again. Normally smokers "auto-titrate" that is, their body tells them "don't want" and so they stop naturally, to avoid over-indulgence - but this chap had obviously shot right past this level, with the chaotic results.