General News UK cannabis petition surpasses 100,000 signatures - Government to respond

Interesting, I heard somewhere that you can grow cannabis for personal use but I don't know if that is the law or the police turning a blind eye.
I wonder why tobacco is still legal and alcohol for that matter, both are worse for you than some drugs.
The other question being where do we draw the line?

 

I don't buy the whole legalise pot for one minute. I am sick and tired of hearing "weed has never killed anyone", assuming that death is the worst thing that can happen, seeing what weed (and everything that has lead from it) did to my cousin was truly heartbreaking; seeing how he behaved with his 'friends' and hearing about just everything else is like watching him die on slow motion.

Drugs just fuck you up in the head, you can get a liver transplant but you can't get a brain transplant.

 

I've met many people who are assholes when it comes to marijuana. Like alcohol, they like to hide behind it. That's more a sign of maturity or peer pressure than it is the drugs themselves.

You have me curious, though. What happened to your cousin?

I do know smoking at a young age, before puberty has had time to settle down, can cause some issues. The method of smoking, too, may also cause problems. I tell folks all the time, smoke is smoke, and if it goes in your lungs it isn't good for you. Besides, the vast majority of people who do smoke marijuana, inhale deeper and longer, which negates that.

Smoking marijuana also has been linked to mental disorders, though typically if the individual already has them. And finally, marijuana use can make one lazy and unmotivated, if done in excess, but so can playing video games and sleeping a lot.

The "gateway drug" argument, I hear, is silly. Most pot-smokers I know also smoke cigarettes and drink alcohol -- why are these not gateway drugs too? I personally dislike alcohol, because I have rarely had a positive experience when being around it, but I know responsible drinkers exist. It's just easier to find the negatives.

Also, people are mixing up "spice" and marijuana. Spice is a legal alternative that will fry your brain, shut down your body, and cause you to act out and even die. It has a few names, but the most common, at least around here, is K2. I've smoked it twice, hated it, and felt like my heart was going to burst out of my chest. I do not recommend spice, at all.

I'm pro-marijuana, but I'm not one of those POT IS PERFECT proponents. Having sold drugs for many years, and seeing all types of people and situations, and as pot smoker myself, I say this. I tend to be that individual that pisses off the anti-marijuana crowd, because I break practically every stereotype and accusation they bring up:

I'm decently active physically.
I have steady employment.
I manage as well as anybody, in terms of mental health.
I don't lounge around and feel content with it.
In fact, I do many of my meditations and work outs after smoking.
I am capable of being social.
I don't smoke with immature or idiotic people.

Then again, maybe I'm just weird...

 

It's not a gateway on it's own, however it is a gateway to a society where drug use is much more normalised and you become exposed indirectly to other drugs. Although most people who smoke weed won't progress onto harder substances as they will only smoke it at parties or the like. The people who smoke it habitually are much, much more likely to move onto harder drugs for two reasons, they move in social groups where is it normalised and the more you smoke the sensitivity of the brain's dopamine reward centres is decreased and the high you get decreases which then leads onto having to use harder drugs to get the same effect.

While yes, alcohol has the same effect, studies so far have pointed in the direction that weed is much more reactive. However we still don't understand the brain in it's entirety so giving a scientific explanation isn't possible and it's hard to quantify the results as that possibility is based purely on observation.

What annoys me most from much of the pro-weed lobby is they say it's safe, then start comparing it to alcohol - which we already know isn't safe. My main reason for being against it is I've seen that it's not harmless and the medical field just don't know enough about brain chemistry that we can accurately say how safe it is or isn't.

 

Kind of long...

Spoiler

Fair point. But there's a key component you're overlooking.

I used to be a part of what you'd call a trap house. You know, a place where folks hang out and consume drugs, and where they would be sold. I've smoked marijuana and have no interest in taking something harder; my mother's own endeavor with heavy drugs may have played a role in this.

Anyway, if somebody is willing to hang out at a trap house, they have other issues. They're long gone at that point. Most individuals that we sold to would come in, exchange their money for a product, maybe chit-chat for a few minutes, and they left. They didn't want to be there, for a variety of reasons. One of those reasons being, they didn't like the idea of snorting cocaine or injecting heroin.

I'd say those folks went to a friend's house, maybe somewhere to a party, but it wasn't folks sitting around doing every drug in the world. Maybe they did sit around and get high off smoking. It's interesting that many folks aren't turned off by smoking something, but the moment you have to snort it or use a needle, they become turned off.

Now, all that said. You do have a fair point. If somebody is around others who are constantly around drugs, and those others seem to be fine, then peer pressure may kick in. But you should be smart enough to know whether or not you want to do something, especially when it comes to putting something in your body. I can buy the peer pressure argument when you're, like, 12, but after that it's kind of weak. Real friends won't force you to use drugs.

There is truth in here, but there's a misconception.

I've covered the social groups aspect, so we'll touch the dopamine one. Unless you are smoking 24/7 or several grams a day, your ability to get high will stay about the same. But if you are smoking constantly, then there are other problems there. Namely, you have an addiction -- and that means you can potentially become addicted to anything. Marijuana is just easy to do. You inhale it, and it takes over from there. It isn't like training for a marathon, running the marathon, winning the marathon, and then celebrating. Sadly, some people want the quick and easy way to get to feeling good.

Anybody that says they need more to get high, is already smoking too much. You can compare this to alcohol.

Anybody that says weed is safe is being foolish. It won't kill you by itself, but it can cause problems, which I addressed in my previous post. Smoke is smoke, and you shouldn't be operating much when high, especially a vehicle. But I've still seen more people, drunk, want to drive. Interestingly, you tell a pot smoker (in my experience, this may not be true for everyone) to not drive, they'll laugh and comply. But if a drunk wants to drive, get ready for a fight.

I'd be real curious what would happen if marijuana were legalized. I know for a few years, things may get a bit hectic, because it's something new. But in time, I believe it would settle down and we'd really get to know the impact it has. At the same time, I don't want a bunch of high school knuckleheads getting high and becoming the face of legalization.

The reason folks do drugs comes down to their self-perception. If they have low self-esteem, shitty friends, or have no compassion, then drugs are an easy way to forget or escape that reality. I used to take advantage of that, and while I haven't sold drugs in years, the observations and lessons I've had, are quite interesting.

I do agree with you about the pro-weed crowd minimizing the effects of marijuana. That needs to stop.

 

Alcohol was named as the most harmful drug. Not because of the effect it had on the individual - but because of the effect it had on other people. A lot of people are prone to violence while intoxicated. Anyone who frequents a British city centre after 12am can probably claim to have seen a bloodied face or broken nose as a result of alcohol-induced violence. Alcohol is quite frankly a bane for many places and A&E departments seriously struggle to cope with the number of people needing emergency treatment because their face was glassed by a drunk or they jumped off some scaffolding because they thought they could fly.

It makes more sense to either criminalise all potentially harmful substances or to make certain drugs legal or at least decriminalise them - especially when reliable studies have proven that said illegal substances are not only less addictive but also less physically harmful.

There was a study in Portugal that showed cannabis consumption decreased steadily after it was decriminalised. The idea that everyone will start using it because it's decriminalised or legal just isn't true. Most people who want to smoke it already do - it's not hard to find at all.

 

I don't care for pot as such... In fact, if it could've been really banned, I'd support the ban. But banning it for real would require the level of police state that would make "1984" look like free-speech utopia. And the way War on Drugs works now it seems more and more like pure class warfare, with drugs as an excuse.

How come that past a certain income and fame level you can basically confess to any drug offence short of wholesale dealing on national TV, in a book and in any way you choose and nothing happens, except maybe a tabloid writing a nasty article? It wasn't always like that, but the stricter drug laws become, the less they're enforced on anyone who can afford to pay for their own lawyer and the more on those who are perceived as potrential dangers to those wealthy people.

I like this quote from G.K. Chesterton, it was actually about eugenics, but its reasoning actually works well on a surprising number of issues...

 

I live in a small town, and in any given school class I attend, 40% of students are stoned out their brains. If legalised, it it would be controlled, and taxed and just generally safer. When you buy it off the streets, you don't really know what you're getting.

I was talking to a cannabis advocate at a flea market last weekend, and he brought up a lot of interesting points about the hemp market and agricultural opportunities, as well as the therapeutic purposes, and all that good stuff. Pot is a pretty tame drug compared to most others, and I don't think it would be the end of the world if it was legalised.

That said, I don't smoke

 

I have the benefit of being able to look back at people I knew decades ago who used pot regularly when it was a lot less powerful than it is now. It has affected their brains, reflexes, energy levels, moods and work habits. Not for the better either. As one former classmate told me, "It fried my brain." If you have to use it for medical purposes, fine. If not, stay away from it.

 

I personally don't see the problem with having alcohol and tobacco legal while having marijuana illegal. Alcohol and tobacco are ingrained in our culture and they aren't going anywhere... We know that. People don't want marijunana to become a normalized part of our culture too.

 

Spoiler

All ye hail her ladyship Kaiser and her unfathomable knowledge on drugs!

Seriously...
*applauds*

My people view is take into account that it hasn't actually been legalised yet. Some people put there names on some paper and sent it to the government. Big. Deal. I bet that, seeming that it's England we're talking about, most people on the list has never actually smoked Marijuana, or if they have they've probably also done Cocaine,LSD, or whatever other illegal drugs they can get there hands on, because if they've done one thing that's illegal, they'll probably do something else illegal. I reckon that only about 2-5% of people have actually smoked pot legally in America or sommin'.

My legal view is... Well to be honest I don't care whether it's legal or not, but it'd probably be better if people were selling less cannabis to 16 year olds than they are now, and if it was legallised, it'd make it easier to get hold of, so more people would do it, so more teenagers do it, so more teenagers are less motivated, less engaged, learn less, etc., lowering the economey in the long run, not only fucking over themselves, but the country. It's fine if senible people over whatever the legal age is do it for either religious purposes or relaxation purposes, or hell, if the NHS take it up a a medicine, but just getting high for the sake of getting high is stupid and costly.

 

Based on what, exactly? If cannabis was legalised in the UK, it'd be the first country to see anything of the sort happen.

An estimated 30% of all adults in the UK and 51% in the US have tried cannabis at least once. This is higher than any country where cannabis is decriminalised or legalised. In Portugal, lifetime use of cannabis is about 8% - and cannabis usage actually decreased there after it was decriminalised.

So, what exactly are you basing your thoughts on?

 

Oh... Okay then. I'm gonna assume your right and I'm wrong. No point in defending what's been proven wrong.

 

British tax everything else to death, might as well tax pot.

 

I don't live in the UK, but if you guys get weed legalized, you get to shake n' bake legally before the U.S.!

 

Ermm... Loads of states have legalised it...

 

Only a couple have, and in a few of them you have to use is medically lol