4 ms·

People have spend decades in prison for selling weed. Now it's legalized in more and more countries. Making things people like illegal rarely works, and it's fa

People have spend decades in prison for selling weed. Now it's legalized in more and more countries. Making things people like illegal rarely works, and it's far from a "solvable problem". Don't get me wrong, gambling is very bad, but if we were to analyze it statistically I think alcohol is way worse for society at large. And we all know how making alcohol illegal went.

boelboel 4mo ago
Legal weed has been a disaster in the US, 20 million addicted (almost daily use/daily use) versus a few million before it was banned.
- streetfighter64 4mo ago
  Note that I'm not in favor of either weed or alcohol being as readily accessible as they are now, but there are a few things making that claim a bit dubious. The first is that obviously people are less reluctant to self-report using weed if it's legal. Secondly, the causation could be reversed, i.e. there are other factors in society contributing to both higher usage and larger general support for legalization. In any case, my point was that simply making something illegal with the threat of "decades in prison" isn't a very good solution. Gambling, drugs, social media, etc. are all "big business", there's money to be made because there's a demand for it. How to solve that I don't know, but just prohibiting it doesn't seem like a good fix.
- watwut 4mo ago
  You made that claim up. There was a study of Some 22 million people around the world being dependent on marijuana. You are severely overestimating US addicted people. What about this: that policy was huge success, because unlike gambling, weed is fairly harmless.
  - boelboel 4mo ago
    https://apnews.com/article/marijuana-cannabis-alcohol-use-disorder-daily-9cec33f3ac513123c8ffc8b8b3141877 https://apnews.com/article/marijuana-cannabis-alcohol-use-di... Close to 18 million in 2022, not exactly 20 million.
    - watwut 4mo ago
      And the disaster part is where exactly? Their or their close ones lives being negatively impacted are where exactly? The original claim was "addicted" and "disaster". The world has 22 million of people who are addicted and their lives are negatively impacted. The logical implication here is that these people are not negatively impacted.
DANmode 4mo ago
These comparisons misunderstand, or perhaps underestimate, how markets work. Demand for cannabis and alcohol is ubiquitous, strong. Demand for each individual betting market, diminishingly rare. Good luck finding the bookie at work or in your college class taking $10k in action on whether the Shah of Iran is still the Shah next week… Banning the clearnet-based convenience, scale and breadth of market participants these services offer would immediately put a huge dent in most markets - non-sport especially. Whether the black market and cryptocurrency-based sites outside of the clearnet would start to fill in, remains to be seen. There has never been anything near the scale of Poly or Kalshi on “darkweb”.

boelboel 4mo ago

Legal weed has been a disaster in the US, 20 million addicted (almost daily use/daily use) versus a few million before it was banned.

streetfighter64 4mo ago
Note that I'm not in favor of either weed or alcohol being as readily accessible as they are now, but there are a few things making that claim a bit dubious. The first is that obviously people are less reluctant to self-report using weed if it's legal. Secondly, the causation could be reversed, i.e. there are other factors in society contributing to both higher usage and larger general support for legalization. In any case, my point was that simply making something illegal with the threat of "decades in prison" isn't a very good solution. Gambling, drugs, social media, etc. are all "big business", there's money to be made because there's a demand for it. How to solve that I don't know, but just prohibiting it doesn't seem like a good fix.
watwut 4mo ago
You made that claim up. There was a study of Some 22 million people around the world being dependent on marijuana. You are severely overestimating US addicted people. What about this: that policy was huge success, because unlike gambling, weed is fairly harmless.
- boelboel 4mo ago
  https://apnews.com/article/marijuana-cannabis-alcohol-use-disorder-daily-9cec33f3ac513123c8ffc8b8b3141877 https://apnews.com/article/marijuana-cannabis-alcohol-use-di... Close to 18 million in 2022, not exactly 20 million.
  - watwut 4mo ago
    And the disaster part is where exactly? Their or their close ones lives being negatively impacted are where exactly? The original claim was "addicted" and "disaster". The world has 22 million of people who are addicted and their lives are negatively impacted. The logical implication here is that these people are not negatively impacted.

DANmode 4mo ago

These comparisons misunderstand, or perhaps underestimate, how markets work. Demand for cannabis and alcohol is ubiquitous, strong. Demand for each individual betting market, diminishingly rare. Good luck finding the bookie at work or in your college class taking $10k in action on whether the Shah of Iran is still the Shah next week… Banning the clearnet-based convenience, scale and breadth of market participants these services offer would immediately put a huge dent in most markets - non-sport especially. Whether the black market and cryptocurrency-based sites outside of the clearnet would start to fill in, remains to be seen. There has never been anything near the scale of Poly or Kalshi on “darkweb”.