7 ms·

> This isn't complicated: marijuana is addictive to some people, but making it illegal doesn't solve that problem--it should be legal. But it's apparent that's

• tehjoker 3y ago
  There's something to that, but I think that there have also been studies that show that regardless of policy, about the same percentage of the population uses drugs and can switch to different drugs when one gets too difficult to acquire. Not an expert on this by any means tho.
• croes 3y ago
  Prohibition didn't really work out for alcohol.
  • edgyquant 3y ago
    We aren’t talking about alcohol though.
    • dragonwriter 3y ago
      It didn’t work out well for marijuana, either, which isn’t surprising because alcohol has much more of the features the pro-prohibition argument relies on and yet alcohol prohibition was a disaster.
  • steve_adams_86 3y ago
    You’re being voted down at the moment, but I’m not sure why. I think we should view alcohol and cannabis very similarly. Both are potentially addictive and both can seriously harm a person’s life and family. Both require us to address the same question: how do we handle addictive substances in society? If made legal, then how do we navigate the normalization of a substance which can quite literally ruin a life? It prohibited, how do you manage the safety concerns and crime we know will stem from the ceaseless demand for drugs which are unregulated? How do we manage education in either case? In this sense, alcohol and cannabis are the same thing with the same problems attached.
    • dancingvoid 3y ago
      > If made legal, then how do we navigate the normalization of a substance which can quite literally ruin a life? It prohibited, how do you manage the safety concerns and crime we know will stem from the ceaseless demand for drugs which are unregulated? How do we manage education in either case? I believe you underestimate peoples ability to ruin their own lives, regardless of what laws and regulations are put into place to try to help them. Many people kill themselves with food, legal drugs to name a few. We’ll be in a much better place if more people become knowledgeable in the workings of their own minds, bodies and emotions so that seeking self-destruction is less common.
      • steve_adams_86 3y ago
        I agree. I didn’t want to suggest specifics in my comment, but I think our mistake all along has been top down solutions. People drink and eat and smoke because they’re hurting and seeking distraction and numbness. There are some anomalies where people fall into addiction more easily, but stronger family and community safety nets seem like a far better insurance against the potential outcomes of this than virtually anything else. Pretty much every heavy cannabis user, alcoholic, or other addict I’ve met has had deep family issues. It starts early. Regulations and education might make a dent in outcomes, but the only way we’ll have happy people who don’t want to ruin themselves is to make it so they aren’t crushed under the misery and fear of taking on the world in the first place.
  • The_Colonel 3y ago
    The two are not the same. Before the prohibition, alcohol had been legal for hundreds of years, socially accepted and permeated the culture. Can't say the same about weed.
    • jrflowers 3y ago
      When did humans start using cannabis?
      • The_Colonel 3y ago
        In my (European) country around the 1990s and got common only 15 years ago or so. I guess you could find it here and there earlier than that, but it was quite rare.
        • deleted 3y ago
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        • dragonwriter 3y ago
          > > When did humans start using cannabis? > In my (European) country [...] Your country, and even Europe as a whole, is not the same thing as humanity. Documented pharmacological uses seems to be at least since 2,800 BC [0], cultivation seems to be at least another 5,000 years or so before that. [0] https://www.sydney.edu.au/lambert/medicinal-cannabis/history-of-cannabis.html https://www.sydney.edu.au/lambert/medicinal-cannabis/history...
          • robertlagrant 3y ago
            > Your country, and even Europe as a whole, is not the same thing as humanity. What a strange thing to say, when the previous commenter wasn't saying the opposite. They were citing when weed became legal, socially accepted, and permeating of their culture, which is the topic.
            • jrflowers 3y ago
  • deleted 3y ago
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• s1artibartfast 3y ago
  Actions in the real world have multiple consequences. Illegal marijuana might help some number of people avoid addiction, while harming other people. The question is where preventing marijuana addiction ranks in comparison to other goals a Or rights
• standardUser 3y ago
  We tried that for 50 years and ruined a lot of people's lives in the process. It was a colossal failure in every way.
  • lul_open 3y ago
    [dead]
• ugh123 3y ago
  > only that making something illegal reduces its use I'm not sure how that flies with this: "An article published in The Journal of the American Medical Association found there was no increase in cannabis use among the general population or among previous users after their states legalized marijuana." https://abcnews.go.com/US/marijuana-climb-legalization-states-study/story?id=80265523 https://abcnews.go.com/US/marijuana-climb-legalization-state... And also adding that making something illegal will only increase illegal usage, which puts people in jail and ruins lives (for a plant?). You sound like my uncle.
  • vlunkr 3y ago
    I'm not sure uncle-smearing is necessary.
  • jacooper 3y ago
    Well yeah, because enforcement was a joke.
    • serf 3y ago
      given that addictions still exist even for the most illicit drugs, I don't see that correlation. enforcement is significantly less 'a joke' for heroin and cocaine, yet addicts still exist for the products. also : is incarceration/penal-justice really the desired outcome here? Is the punchline here : "Would you rather be surrounded by ex-convicts or addicts?"
      • ufmace 3y ago
        Anecdotally, enforcement is a joke for cocaine too. I know several people who use it recreationally, sometimes to slightly disturbing excess, and none have ever been in any legal trouble for it.
    • ethanbond 3y ago
      Not if you were poor or black or Hispanic it wasn't (and obviously there's huge variation locale-to-locale)
• dragonwriter 3y ago
  > If weed is illegal and the law is enforced then fewer people will use it and fewer will become addicted. That might not "solve" the problem but it helps. Enforcing the law is not without costs, financial and social. We’ve tested this theory, and it does not help in net.
• micromacrofoot 3y ago
  making it illegal also makes it less likely someone will seek treatment if they're having problems, we've made this mistake time and time again
• kerkeslager 3y ago
  > I'm not arguing that weed should be illegal, only that making something illegal reduces its use. That sounds logical, but empirical evidence > logic.
• gtvwill 3y ago
  Lol 40 years of the war on drugs proved that wrong. Can still buy bud illegally just as easy as mum could 40 years ago. If anything there are more users today given its more socially acceptable to be a stoner than an alcoholic.
  • ojhughes 3y ago
    Being alcoholic is far more socially acceptable in the most of the world outside California. In the UK, most people consider anyone who uses weed a druggy loser
    • TillE 3y ago
      The recent unscientific moral panic about "skunk" has been bizarre to watch. Even conservative Germany is on track to legalize cannabis in the very near future (usage and cultivation, though perhaps not sales quite yet), and in the UK it's just not even a conversation.
• zapataband1 3y ago
  Making something illegal also weaponizes the state against an entirely new group of people. It's not something to take lightly. The FBI was just found to have framed four muslim men for a terrorism plot to bomb a synagogue. This is what happens when you make new crimes and incentivize our broken forces.
  • dragonwriter 3y ago
    > The FBI was just found to have framed four muslim men for a terrorism plot to bomb a synagogue. This is what happens when you make new crimes and incentivize our broken forces. Er, are you arguing that “bombing people” is a new crime invented to weaponize law enforcement against Muslims, or does your example have nothing to do with your argument?
  • mcpackieh 3y ago
    This is what happens when you hire a ton of investigators to fight a sort of crime that only happens once in a blue moon. They start fabricating crimes to justify themselves. They might even do this unintentionally, since the line between prodding somebody into revealing their true intentions can become blurred with encouragement to do the thing. > "Come on, I know you want to do the thing, you can admit it to me. I want to do the thing too! Here are all the reasons to believe the thing is a good idea... Don't you agree?"
• Mordisquitos 3y ago
  Even if, for the sake of the argument, we accept that illegality reduces consumption and that it would thus reduce the number of actively consuming addicts, that is still not a strong enough argument by itself. It depends on the assumption that the reason addiction is harmful to the individual and society is only the drug's effects per se, and not the myriad of other factors that come into play when an addict needs his or her fix, such as trying to get enough money to pay for it, marginality, exposure to criminality, risk of using an adulterated substance—all of which are greatly exacerbated by the drug being illegal. Does the drop in the number of addicts achieved by illegalising the drug make up for the increased suffering and societal damage caused by the remaining addicts now turning to more desperate measures?
• progmetaldev 3y ago
  Society as a whole would do better to take the money fighting against drug use, abuse, and sales, and instead put it towards programs that help people fight the issues that cause addiction in the first place. Mental health programs, along with support for those that have an addiction and wish to be free from it. Addiction is fueled by something lacking in people's lives. There may be an odd case here and there where someone tried a substance and got hooked, but usually addiction is a sign of a deeper mental health issue that needs to be dealt with, rather than the drug use itself.
  • robertlagrant 3y ago
    > There may be an odd case here and there where someone tried a substance and got hooked, but usually addiction is a sign of a deeper mental health issue that needs to be dealt with Why do you think the balance is that way round?
    • progmetaldev 3y ago
      I believe it's something to do with a way to self-soothe your pain. A lot of these substances give you a little vacation away from your true self. Marijuana and psychedelics seem to amplify these issues, but people still use them to escape. I think people that use a substance just because they are interested in how it feels, they tend to not fall into the addiction, because they are merely following a curiosity rather than trying to cover up some kind of mental pain.
  • rightbyte 3y ago
    I am quite sure that e.g. heroin/opium gives mental health problems. But ye more effort should be put into making peoples' lifes better rather than going after the symptoms.
    • progmetaldev 3y ago
      I think that any drug/substance that changes your mode of thinking has the potential to create mental health problems. I also think those mental problems were latent or even fully present when the user chooses to try a new chemical/drug. Trying to fill a void or fix a mental issue using chemicals doesn't usually work out too well, and I think it exacerbates the problems. You might get a little "mental vacation" from your problems, but when you sober up, those issues are often worse because you decided to ignore them. This is what leads to addiction, chasing the ability to cover up your issues by making yourself dead inside, or changing your mode of thinking to ignore what is really going on deep down. I'm a believer that psychedelics, including Marijuana, can be helpful. It really depends on the circumstances of why you are using the chemical, and what your intentions are going into the experience.
• hinkley 3y ago
  It doesn't matter. None of this matters. What matters is that marijuana had a demographic that allowed the government and law enforcement to be both classist and racist at the same time. The severity of marijuana possession was jacked up so that it could disenfranchise people, some of whom just got the vote less than 2 decades earlier. When you put a law in place under such circumstances, you forfeit the right to talk about what's right and proper. What you did was monstrous, and the only correct response is to give back what you took, let the dust settle for some time proportional to how long you took it away, and only then let some new generation of lawmakers start discussing whether it's right or appropriate to take it away again. Whether it's worse than alcohol or not hardly matters. It's a dog whistle, and will remain so for decades.
  • gorjusborg 3y ago
    i don't agree that the behavior you describe is a 'dog whistle'. A dog whistle is a hidden signal. I'd say what you are describing is a hidden agenda.
    • hinkley 3y ago
      When people are discussing equality and you bring up tangential topics, you're labeled as an enemy. You understand that, right? If not, then it's time you learned about Deflection. One, welcome to semantic dilution. Two, a hidden agenda that people share without discussing it. And three, not helping.
      • gorjusborg 3y ago
        > When people are discussing equality and you bring up tangential topics, you're labeled as an enemy Sorry, I enjoy a culture of growth in understanding, so when I do something sloppy, I want to know. I don't assume I know everything. I now get that isn't your thing, sorry. I don't spend much time on social media, so I forget sometimes.
• Etheryte 3y ago
  This is a nice pet theory, but all real world statistics have shown this to be false. Illegal drugs have become more widely spread year after year, up to the point where some of them are now common enough to either be or soon to be legalized.
• jacobwilliamroy 3y ago
  I dont think making a substance illegal reduces its use. In the town where I live it was illegal to sell liquor until recently and this just created demand for unsafe unregulated products that normally can't compete with legal alcohol. Alcoholics dont really care about things like laws. They dont really care about anything. When a person is far gone enough that he or she will drink hand sanitizer, getting in his or her way will just cause more problems.
• idopmstuff 3y ago
  > If weed is illegal and the law is enforced then fewer people will use it and fewer will become addicted. This isn't really a useful place to start thinking about law and policy from, because the one thing that we have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt is we're bad at enforcing the law as it relates to drug usage.
• shkkmo 3y ago
  There is a pretty good evidence that making a drug illegal may reduce usage rates, but it does this at the costs of increasing the amount that is used in a sitting. This increase in binging leads to a higher rate of addiction and ODs. So while you might argue that the number of people using can decrease, this is often paired with an increase in the overall harm that drug abuse has on society (even before you account for the harm caused by treating drug abuse with jail time.)