Agreed. Although there are many pros, I like the tax revenue. Washington brings in ~$500m, much of which funds health programs here.

Eh, I don’t know anyone who managed to get themselves to Cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome without legalization. Easier access to high quality highly concentrated doses has been increasing prevalence.

That’s a new take for me, I’ve heard it was an aspect of Reagan’s war on drugs, it was an obstacle in the Vietnam war, it was amn attack against the black and Jamaican community, was big pharma wanting to clear the way for over the counter pain killers, and that the tobacco companies weren’t allowed to grow it so they made sure no one else would.

Thanks for adding to the list lol

I wouldn’t say it’s a mental disorder (not all at least), but 100% not a crime. We didn’t ask to come into this world, let us do to our bodies and minds what we want.

I get you, but we also have to start somewhere.

Alcohol is way more addictive than cannabis

The important factor isn’t whether someone can be addicted (otherwise you’re banning nearly everything), it’s the harm that addiction causes. As a general rule of thumb physical dependencies like alcohol are more harmful than habitual addictions, but that obviously isn’t the whole story.

Caffeine addiction is the same category as alcohol and tobacco but causes so little harm that I don’t think anyone is seriously opposed it. On the other end of that scale is something like meth or other hard drugs, generally understood as destructive and has few serious supporters encouraging use. Breaking these addictions is almost always hard and physically taxing, in some cases can even be lethal.

Marijuana addiction is in the same category as most things that make you feel good or form habits so it’s harder to nail down a proper scale, but the lower end is probably something like video games; a debilitating addiction is possible but uncommon and most people would oppose a blanket ban on the basis of “can be addictive”. Gambling is on the other end can definitely ruin lives. I’d say that’s a little worse than coffee. Breaking these addictions is more like breaking a bad habit, it can feel hard for the addict but generally isn’t going to kill them.

In my experience, most people definitely don’t consume tobacco with marijuana. Some people smoke on the side, but mixing is quite uncommon in western Canada.

That being said, I am definitely highly addicted. I think anyone with chronic pain, trauma, or mental health disorders or probably at a higher risk. Not to mention the risk of psychosis for a very small portion of people.

Making it expensive only bankrupts addicts and makes more things privileges for the rich.

Ah yes let’s bankrupt my alcoholic mum. What a great idea

Agree with the pros, not really with the cons to the extreme that you describe.

Alcohol just isn’t hard to make. It’s also really easy to sneak into places. You could never make it insanely expensive. It would just all go black market.

I’m in this comment!

Deal 🤝

I think that this is a very balanced and thoughtful take that I agree with. As someone who has been smoking daily for the better part of 4 years now, weed has helped a lot but it has also hurt me a lot. At my peak i could easily kill a quad a day, although now I’m down to a gram a day if that. I would’ve been in a much better position financially if I never started smoking, and I’m sure my health would’ve been a lot better. That being said, smoking has helped me through some very difficult times and has given me community. I started smoking in highschool but stopped until I graduated and started again right before college. I’ve stopped having my own supply at points (not stopped smoking altogether but gone mostly sober), but especially in this day and age it’s very helpful to have it. It doesn’t help that where I am, a lottttttt of people are cali sober (me included).

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Weed is no “addictive”, but it can be habit forming. Addiction is very specific and we don’t typically use it correctly in day day speech. You won’t have physical withdrawal symptoms like opioid, alcohol, or caffeine.

I would love see a study on lo g term effects. We won’t due to ethics. So far every study is either users have no long term side effects but it can make existing problems worse, or weed makes you try hard drugs and we should all know that is not real.

I honestly agree 100%. While I don’t do weed, I have a lot off friends that do and the amount of rhetoric I’ve heard about it’s lack of downsides and addictiveness is baffling. I can’t exactly say anything either, because they’re clearly looking for a “yes” answer and anything else won’t be accepted (I don’t want to say some of them are addicted, but smoking it near-daily for years isn’t a good sign)

I’m a medical student, so I’ve looked at quite a few studies, and they seem to align with what you’re saying: that you’re at a much higher risk of developing psychiatric disorders, as well as abdominal or lung diseases depending on your form of intake if marijuana is taken chronically

That’s a bit of a false dilemma though. The two options aren’t “it’s a magical elixir with absolutely no downsides” and “people deserve to be locked in a cage and have their life ruined for possessing it”. Plenty of legal things can cause harm. 35% of people are lactose intolerant, do we ban dairy?

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.

They’re also in denial about it making you dumber if you smoke frequently. When I still smoked, it became obvious to me that my thoughts were slower and I’d have trouble finding the right words when I started smoking nearly every night. Took a T break and cut back to weekends only and the problem went away.

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

Well one good thing is that you don’t need to smoke anything.

Impairment is impairment and being tired or distracted by phones/technology is often even worse than being intoxicated or high but we tend to love using BAC because it is easy to measure. Locations that legalized weed didn’t have an increase in impaired driving last time I checked, because most people don’t go out driving when they are high while people often drive intoxicated after drinking at bars.

run-down stores that make neighborhoods feel trashy. But that’s all personal preference.

The dispensaries around me are really nice looking and always spotless

I certainly don’t advocate people driving under the influence of any mind altering substances, and I believe if someone is found impaired at the time of an accident, the law should account for that.

However, and this is anecdotal, I grew up in a house where I knew from a very young age that my parents were smokers. There were far fewer days that my parents were not high. They performed all necessary driving without issues. They maintained focus and followed all (other) driving law and never got into accidents. I don’t partake at all now, but when I did, I drove regularly and never felt unsafe. There were instances where quick reaction time was necessary (swerving to miss an unexpected obstacle on a dark windy road in the rain, accidents involving other vehicles in front of me, etc.) and my conscious effort to focus on the task was way more important than whether or not I was high.

Now I ride a motorcycle and am much more aware of what is going on with drivers around me. The amount of people I see in their cars on their cell phones or busy talking to their friends or just generally not paying attention, I want to say that is the bigger issue. Alcohol disables your ability to choose that focus, and at least for me or the people I’ve been in a car with, cannabis does not. I’ve ridden in cars with friends that touch their phones while behind the wheel and it has always made me feel much less safe.

But this is just my experience, and I wanted to share. You aren’t wrong and I know it makes more sense advocating driving without influence, but to say it is just as dangerous as alcohol seems a stretch in my eyes.

Someone driving or operating machinery high is just as dangerous as someone driving drunk

You have a source or anything to back this idea up?

I delivered pizzas in downtown Seattle for a couple years, and most of my coworkers were constantly stoned. Many weren’t just hitting pens or joints, they would hit a fat dab with a torch lighter and then hop in their vehicle and make a delivery.

Both years I worked there, our delivery team got an annual award for having 0 vehicle accidents.

Obviously this is anecdotal, but if you run this same situation back with alcohol instead of weed, I am confident there would have been many accidents.

That’s a bad reason to make (or keep) something illegal. Having legal weed does nothing to stop enthusiasts breeding their own strains or propagating ‘heirloom’ varieties - because they were already doing that illegally since forever before it was legalized.

Put another way, swap weed for alcohol. Should alcohol be banned because Anheuser-Beusch ans InBev exist and lobbies the government for favourable legislation? No… Fighting against the crap legislation is a better idea, and who would be better positioned to do that than an industry growers union or an independent growers union or similar.

Making something legal or illegal doesn’t magically make it immune to capitalism, it just goes back to a black market where you have no protections as a buyer nor as a seller.

Drug addiction will become a much larger health issue if all drugs are legalized.