Why is Marijuana still illegal?

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Gormur
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Why is Marijuana still illegal?

Postby Gormur » 2020-12-28, 5:19

When I joined UniLang this post would've been deleted for drug reference; hopefully it won't be now. But I think it's time we recognize that marijuana should be tolerated by every state even if it isn't completely legalized yet. Look at Canada, they legalized marijuana across the board just over a year ago and have been doing well with their decision. I don't see why the US can't legalize marijuana in the next year or so

What do you guys think? Is there a chance for this happening or is this just wishful thinking? I want to learn more about the dynamics behind this rather than hearing the reactionary news behind drug laws

For the record, I rarely use anymore but I'm concerned when I read about complicated cases people end up in because of the law and it makes me wish there was no law prohibiting this drug; other drugs too, but that's for another discussion

Gormur :hmm:
Eigi gegnir þat at segja at bók nøkkur er hreinferðug eðr ønnur spelluð því at vandliga ok dáliga eru bœkr ritnar ok annat kunnum vér eigi um þœr at dœma

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Re: Why is Marijuana still illegal?

Postby TheStrayCat » 2020-12-28, 14:24

Gormur wrote:Is there a chance for this happening or is this just wishful thinking? I want to learn more about the dynamics behind this rather than hearing the reactionary news behind drug laws

If of all places people in South Dakota have voted for it then I don't see why it would be impossible for that to happen in more states or on a federal level.

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Re: Why is Marijuana still illegal?

Postby france-eesti » 2020-12-28, 15:32

Well maybe this is just to prevent stupid people from getting completely brainless and stupid from the abuse of it...
Believe me, this is to be taken seriously - my ex-boyfriend started on shit and weed and a few months later he was unable to get up before 3 PM and to attend any lecture at the University. And whose money did he waste? Mine and his parents. We couldn't pay the heating (it was 16 in the flat) as he spent all his money on weed. We couldn't plan anything before 3 PM because he would be sleeping. We couldn't join a party where there weren't smokers because it wouldn't be interesting for him.

So? Why keeping it illegal? Seriously? :hmm:
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Re: Why is Marijuana still illegal?

Postby Hoogstwaarschijnlijk » 2020-12-28, 21:08

france-eesti wrote:Well maybe this is just to prevent stupid people from getting completely brainless and stupid from the abuse of it...
Believe me, this is to be taken seriously - my ex-boyfriend started on shit and weed and a few months later he was unable to get up before 3 PM and to attend any lecture at the University. And whose money did he waste? Mine and his parents. We couldn't pay the heating (it was 16 in the flat) as he spent all his money on weed. We couldn't plan anything before 3 PM because he would be sleeping. We couldn't join a party where there weren't smokers because it wouldn't be interesting for him.

So? Why keeping it illegal? Seriously? :hmm:


Then maybe it's a good idea to make alcohol as well illegal.
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Re: Why is Marijuana still illegal?

Postby md0 » 2020-12-29, 9:27

There's more nuance than usually acknowledged. What I often see in public debates is a simplistic representation of cannabis as a cure-all and therefore its criminalisation is not just wrong, but a crime against humanity - often with little scientific support :roll:

Hoogstwaarschijnlijk wrote:Then maybe it's a good idea to make alcohol as well illegal.

No, of course, but just because those drugs belong to the same general class, it doesn't mean they have the same properties.

Coffee, nicotine, alcohol, Ritalin, and cocaine are all psychoactive drugs like cannabis. Just because I can buy coffee grounds and alcohol from the supermarket (Nordics ignore this, doesn't concern you), it doesn't mean that I should also be able to buy Ritalin or cocaine from it. It also doesn't necessarily mean that cannabis should be treated like cocaine. Both arguments are fallacies.

However we treat cannabis, it should be tailored to the properties specific to cannabis. It's definitely not as bad as cocaine, but also not as harmless as coffee.

In any case, handling it should be removed from the hands of the criminal system (so, Defund The Police/decriminalisation), and into the hands of public health strategy (to the extend necessary).

PS. It should be noted that cannabis is usually consumed with tobacco which is a public health problem on its own right.
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Re: Why is Marijuana still illegal?

Postby Gormur » 2020-12-29, 18:38

md0, I completely agree with you. The way I view it is that the police shouldn't have to be bothered with it. I know there's this trend or idea of thinking that says the police want marijuana to be illegal so they can control everybody but I think at this point it isn't like that and they shouldn't have to deal with people who say are convicts and are getting in trouble for other reasons. It actually seems like it costs the country/state more in the end

And I know marijuana is a drug but it's probably safer than caffeine. It's definitely safer than aspirin
Eigi gegnir þat at segja at bók nøkkur er hreinferðug eðr ønnur spelluð því at vandliga ok dáliga eru bœkr ritnar ok annat kunnum vér eigi um þœr at dœma

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Re: Why is Marijuana still illegal?

Postby Saim » 2020-12-30, 15:15

I can understand the argument that it's safer than alcohol but safer than caffeine? In what sense?

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Re: Why is Marijuana still illegal?

Postby Gormur » 2020-12-31, 3:07

Saim wrote:I can understand the argument that it's safer than alcohol but safer than caffeine? In what sense?
Caffeine can kill you, at least technically if not typically :)
Eigi gegnir þat at segja at bók nøkkur er hreinferðug eðr ønnur spelluð því at vandliga ok dáliga eru bœkr ritnar ok annat kunnum vér eigi um þœr at dœma

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Re: Why is Marijuana still illegal?

Postby md0 » 2020-12-31, 12:59

That's a misdirection. The legal dose of caffeine for an adult man is so high (something like 70 coffee cups), that there's no way to consume it in beverage form faster than you pee it out. WHO similarly says that a lethal dose of THC is "approximately 4 g and that such a dose could not be realistically achieved in a human following oral consumption, smoking or vaporising the substance".

Lethal dose is not the point therefore. The point is other short- and long-term health effects*. Caffeine can cause dehydration and anxiety when misused. Cannabis brings an increased risk of psychotic episodes and depression, partially-reversible memory impairments, plus all health effects associated with smoking, and that's when it's used in typical circumstances.

It can be compared to alcohol for sure, but making the claim that weed is comparable or even safer than coffee is what I meant with "simplistic misrepresentation" in my first comment.

Decriminalisation without unscientific bullshit please.

* I would also add social costs here (which are relevant to france-eesti's comment), but lets keep it simple.
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Re: Why is Marijuana still illegal?

Postby Gormur » 2020-12-31, 18:38

Well all research is deemed unscientific when you live in an illegal country, haha :)

As to smoking, now that it's legal in Canada there's great access to edibles, drops things of that nature. I'd rather not smoke it as well so what you're saying is kind of pointless too :hmm:

I argue that when people have better options then they're less likely to engage in smoking. The thing you said about spliffs probably has to do with availability of marijuana in Europe (and Australia and New Zealand), where hashish is/was easier to obtain and is easier to use this way when one is in a hurry; although it isn't a sufficient way to use it
Eigi gegnir þat at segja at bók nøkkur er hreinferðug eðr ønnur spelluð því at vandliga ok dáliga eru bœkr ritnar ok annat kunnum vér eigi um þœr at dœma

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Re: Why is Marijuana still illegal?

Postby md0 » 2020-12-31, 19:42

Gormur wrote:Well all research is deemed unscientific when you live in an illegal country, haha :)


Oh come on :roll:
Just admit that you were wrong about
And I know marijuana is a drug but it's probably safer than caffeine.
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Re: Why is Marijuana still illegal?

Postby Gormur » 2021-01-01, 2:48

The problem is the studies that have been done are about smoking only. That's why I said probably. That'd be like if I did a study on caffeine and gave test subjects caffeine tablets to study the effects. Doses of marijuana given to humans aren't even measured so the results are skewed. Oh wait, they don't use humans because it's illegal :hmm:
Eigi gegnir þat at segja at bók nøkkur er hreinferðug eðr ønnur spelluð því at vandliga ok dáliga eru bœkr ritnar ok annat kunnum vér eigi um þœr at dœma

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Re: Why is Marijuana still illegal?

Postby vijayjohn » 2021-01-01, 7:04

All you need to do to find the answer to the question that's the title of the thread is to just read the thread. People who literally say science is witchcraft should not be the ones to decide policy.

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Re: Why is Marijuana still illegal?

Postby md0 » 2021-01-01, 10:20

Gormur wrote:The problem is the studies that have been done are about smoking only. That's why I said probably. That'd be like if I did a study on caffeine and gave test subjects caffeine tablets to study the effects. Doses of marijuana given to humans aren't even measured so the results are skewed. Oh wait, they don't use humans because it's illegal :hmm:


You insist on answering a different question than the one at hand. It would be illegal to use humans in lethal dose studies about anything, it's not a conspiracy*. They also haven't overdosed a sample population on Turkish coffee to find out what's the lethal dose of caffeine. They modelled those numbers. And in both cases, the calculated lethal doses are insanely high, neither substance can kill you.

* You can actually get permission to use cannabis in research with human participants even in countries where it's recreational use is banned. But not for a study where you want to see how fast humans will die.
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Re: Why is Marijuana still illegal?

Postby Gormur » 2021-01-02, 0:42

md0 wrote:* You can actually get permission to use cannabis in research with human participants even in countries where it's recreational use is banned. But not for a study where you want to see how fast humans will die.
Source please :) Oh wait, you're probably talking about things like this https://maps.org/research/mmj/. Okay I'm just going to agree with you. You're right and I'm wrong :hmm:

@vijayjohn, clearly not. There are different fields of science anyway so I'm not sure what you're saying here unless you want a reaction from me. I never claimed to know anything about science :hmm:
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Re: Why is Marijuana still illegal?

Postby Gormur » 2021-01-02, 16:25

I was being sarcastic. It's not like the NIH is doing these studies. I think in Canada they actually did have the government doing studies on marijuana before legalization. I don't know why it has to be different in each country but I'm not that fluent in politics :hmm:
Eigi gegnir þat at segja at bók nøkkur er hreinferðug eðr ønnur spelluð því at vandliga ok dáliga eru bœkr ritnar ok annat kunnum vér eigi um þœr at dœma

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Re: Why is Marijuana still illegal?

Postby md0 » 2021-01-02, 18:18

You can't do a clinical study of any serious scale without a bioethics board approval (which is a body that received its authority from the government, even though it's not typically part of it), and in some of the linked cases, the research grants are public money. I think that counts as state-sactioned. It's even more straight-forward in the two large-scale studies in the UK and France.

Gormur wrote: It's not like the NIH is doing these studies.

:P
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Anyway, I don't have anything new to say on the issue, my first post is pretty much all I think about the topic :)
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Re: Why is Marijuana still illegal?

Postby Gormur » 2021-01-03, 19:02

Cheers, I didn't know that slight detail or I'd overlooked it somewhere. I just got some mj and it's some of the best I've had in a while. I do think the government should regulate it to make it that much safer and consistent potency-wise. As it stands I don't have a medical mj card so I rely on people who get it from dispensaries. Whereas in Canada one walks into a cannabis store in any major provincial city to pick up what they want. There are also medical marijuana patients/programs that guarantee people their medicine and growing for personal use is allowed up to a certain number of plants, numbers vary based on province. People grow here too, but the risk of getting raided (just like dispensaries do, occasionally) by the Feds makes it not worthwhile in some ways

In Canada, from what I recall the limit was an ounce/30g per month, which is about double the limit here. The prices have also consistently dropped since legalization over a year ago. I guess that's all I have to say for now :hmm:
Eigi gegnir þat at segja at bók nøkkur er hreinferðug eðr ønnur spelluð því at vandliga ok dáliga eru bœkr ritnar ok annat kunnum vér eigi um þœr at dœma

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Re: Why is Marijuana still illegal?

Postby vijayjohn » 2021-01-07, 15:34

Gormur wrote:@vijayjohn, clearly not. There are different fields of science anyway so I'm not sure what you're saying here unless you want a reaction from me. I never claimed to know anything about science :hmm:

You literally said relying on science is witchcraft.


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