[Politics] How would you vote in a referendum to legalise cannabis in the UK?

[WATFORD zero]

Granville Street in Vancouver stank of it when I visited several years ago. But the south side is rather louche. It had no effect on any dining experience I had, though.

That would be because you were on holiday, so your sense of smell would be different to a resident's

 

[Lyndhurst 14]

I was in Colorado shortly after marijuana was legalized there. A group of us went into a store called the Green Dragon, which was a chain I believe. They checked everyone's ID and there was CCTV everywhere. There was a huge choice with notes about the type of weed, CBD and THC content, and what it could help with, insomnia, anxiety etc. What was obvious is some people were making a lot of money judging by the prices they were charging - this stuff aint cheap. As well as the raw stuff they had edibles, gummie bears etc. The store owner said that they are trying to educate users about strength and possible side effects and make it a safer, more enjoyable and less haphazard experience which on the face of it seemed the right way to go. He said that the edibles contained a warning about only using one at a time because the hit you get is slower than by smoking marijuana so sometimes people think it's not working and will take several and then may end up having unpleasant side effects. One couple in our group were aging potheads and bought some to take back to New York where it was still illegal. They said they stick a few sheets of that scented paper you use in laundry into their suitcases and that would normally throw off any sniffer dogs that might be at the airport.

 

[sparkie]

I wouldn't vote.

Because my ill thought through opinion is meaningless.

 

[Horses Arse]

How many years longer would you want the countries research to be before the UK commits? It does bloody stink & I do wonder if strains are grown for the smell, ie. a marketing view. 'Skunk' is a very blanket term, in my generation the cannabis available was squidgy black, slate, red seal & others that i can't remember the names of. It was all solid & quite often had random bits of plastic through it. There is more than likely to be random crap added to weed today as well to make the 'weight' up. The growers today are quite specific with the names & what kind of 'buzz' it will give. If you go to the Ajax away game, look at their cafe 'menus'.
I know a couple of people that say they get paranoid with cannabis but weirdly they say they are fine with coke, it doesn't make any sense to me. I have wondered if it's a 'vulnerability' thing. Coke can make you think you can take on the world.

Heroin has been basically legalised & decriminalised in the US, posts #123 & 125 mention it and the US has a massive opioid crisis. I don't think it should be legalised. I don't think coke should be legalised. Things like ecstasy & lsd I haven't given much thought to tbh, Their harm seems pretty low. I just think at the end of the day if one of my Jnr's were to come home & say 'I have a choice of 2 illegal drugs that i can take (and I have to take 1) would you say cannabis or coke'. I'd say take the cannabis as it's not likely to cause as much harm as coke. Unfortunately he'd be more likely to be sacked at work if he was stoned than he would be if he was being 'productive' on coke.

ahh the good old days, 'soap bar' was one, afgan black, red seal, slate was the really sandy stuff wasn't it? Slate was very weak but nice. It's all too strong now, zombie stuff and the edibles have such shit in them and are really dangerous - not to be messed with.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

I’m glad your visit wasn’t affected. I wasn’t talking about holidays.

If our correspondence becomes any dryer it will positively rustle.

 

[Psychobilly freakout]

One couple in our group were aging potheads and bought some to take back to New York where it was still illegal. They said they stick a few sheets of that scented paper you use in laundry into their suitcases and that would normally throw off any sniffer dogs that might be at the airport.

Hmmmm, imagine that, I wonder if drug smugglers have thought of that...

I would not believe anything aging potheads told me.

 

[JamesAndTheGiantHead]

It’s not for me Jeff, had an experience in my early twenties where I was trying to walk home and just kept going round and round in circles thinking I was a polar bear (not entirely sure it was weed now that I think about it).

But 100% support legalisation.

 

[Colonel Mustard]

I would vote to legalise it. I'm wary about the strength of modern strains and feel that proper classification and marketing will help educate people.

In my younger days I smoked weed quite a lot but hadn't done so for a long time until about 3 years ago when I suddenly thought it would be a laugh to try again. Interesting experience. It made me quite creative and produced funny insights that I wouldn't have otherwise had BUT the stuff was incredibly strong. The first time I smoked some I blacked out and woke up lying on the floor with a gash in my head without any recollection of what had happened. After that I smoked just tiny amounts to get a nice high but was always a bit wary. Anyway, it taught me just how much this stuff has changed over the years and needs handling with care. But each to their own, and all that. There will always be people who can't/won't handle it properly but it would be a shame to deprive the masses of the chance to have a bit of a chortle. On top of that there's also the pain-relief qualities and for that reason alone it should be more widely available, albeit in controlled form.

 

[clapham_gull]

Like all these things if it was brought under Government control and manufacturers started making a packet of spliffs, someone will undercut them.

Same with all drugs legal or not. The black market in fags and booze is huge.

So what does legalisation mean in reality. You can grow your own or buy it in Tescos ?

 

[Colonel Mustard]

Like all these things if it was brought under Government control and manufacturers started making a packet of spliffs, someone will undercut them.

Same with all drugs legal or not. The black market in fags and booze is huge.

So what does legalisation mean in reality. You can grow your own or buy it in Tescos ?

Yes, someone will try to undercut the 'official' products but would you buy cut-price booze from someone who makes their own -- or prefer to pay more for something that's had to conform to certain quality standards? I guess there would be people who imported from other countries but they would be doing so illegally and would have to decide if it was worth the risk.

We don't know what legalisation means as it's not in the pipeline. But I imagine it would be like some other countries where you can buy a range of products from shops, and be allowed to grow a strictly limited number of plants. But who knows. It's unlikely to happen anytime soon.

 

[Zeberdi]

Alcohol is the most damaging drug to society & individuals. The government don't actually listen or take any notice of the AMCD, they sack anyone that doesn't 'toe the line'.

Agree

There is not enough information on vaping yet & in a few years time I will probably be happy that I have contributed to research that says it's bad for you (spoiler, I already know).

Also agree

Which is worse though, vapes or cigarettes? I started smoking when I was 13 & I don't wake up in the morning coughing like hell since I started vaping probably about 10 years ago now.

it’s actually the opposite with me - my lungs were ‘just’ smokers lungs lungs but when I replaced cigarettes with nicotine vaping (3%) about 4.5 years ago, I’ve developed severe asthmas, glass opacities and small lung disease as well as breathless all the time - there’s no proof it’s the vaping but it feels to me it is.

Im under no illusions that inhaling oil is good for you but is probably marginally better than cigarettes. I didn't start vaping to give up my nicotine addiction, it just sort of 'happened'. Cigarettes to me now taste & smell disgusting (I'm not a 'reformed' smoker, that moans about the smell though'). [\QUOTE]

Agree with you there too -

In your opinion 'why' is the cost to prescribe 'whole plant' medical cannabis to kids like Alfie prohibitive? It's freely available & simple to grow, people have been doing it for 100's if not 1000's of years. Your BIL must have been brave to bring that back from the states! Would you take a 'whole plant' cookie that could easily be made by someone that knew what they were doing over here, even though it would mean getting it illegally if it would reduce your pain? The 'cooking' part would be prohibitive to me as I struggle to make a victoria sponge! [\QUOTE]

I don’t understand the processing and why it’s so expensive but in an article recently ( that TB linked to incident ly above) I think it costs £250 for a months supply - times that by the quarter of the population who live with chronic pain - with the significant majority not paying for prescriptions that’s a large chunk of the health budget - CBD vapes are already legal in the UK - FYI - as long as they have under 0.2 THC ( the part that makes you stoned) - which is the sort he bought back This makes for heady reading https://www.england.nhs.uk/long-read/cannabis-based-products-for-medicinal-use-cbpms/#:~:text='Pure'%20cannabidiol%20(CBD),9%2Dtetrahydrocannabinol%20(THC).

 

[Questions]

I certainly prefer weed to the solids of years ago if only for the fact my shirts and jumpers don’t have little burn marks in them,
I only smoke blunts, I would be sick if it had tobacco in it.

 

[Questions]

Your last paragraph highlights my worry about legalisation. There are very fixed and specific limits for drinking and driving or flying as a pilot or driving a train. So, everyone knows what the law is and the penalties regarding alcohol.

But, weed , dope or whatever has widely differing strengths and it would be almost impossible to know how much is in your system. You would not know how dangerous you would be driving a vehicle...

You can buy single use alcohol tests( mandatory in vehicles in France ) but nothing for Dope so I'm a No.

Drink can make you reckless but weed rarely does. It has a totally different effect. I’ve rarely got over 9 mph when I’ve occasionally smoked and driven.

 

[Mustafa II]

It is so mindnumbingly obvious that it should be legal.

We're spending so much on policing it, and losing so much on potential tax.

We're an allowing an unregulated market to create stronger, unknown, impure strains. No warnings or details on packaging required informing of the user of any details of the product... and the people overwhelmingly affected are young people.

Sick of that potent smell in the street? Well perhaps let's dedicate 'cafes' to allow people to consume this natural product in designated safe spaces, to reduce the consumption in the streets.

 

[Bakero]

I wouldn't vote because my ill thought through opinion is meaningless.

I wish more people were that self aware

 

[Peteinblack]

Opponents of legalisation have often claimed that cannabis is a gateway drug to the really hard and dangerous stuff, and so it should remain illegal.

Yet I've always believed that if some pot-heads end up on hard drugs, it is probably because they have been forced to buy their dope 'underground' from a scumbag drug-dealer who offers them a 'bonus' bit of smack or Charlie with their bag of dope, to get them hooked. In other words, prohibition might itself be exacerbating the problem it purports to be tackling.

If we apply a similar logic, we might as well say that the average alcoholic drinking a bottle of scotch or vodka every day probably started out simply enjoying a pint or two on a Saturday night, so we should ban beer because it is a gateway drug.

My wife's nephew is an ex-copper (albeit he was unusually liberal for the police!), and he has always said that whereas he often had to deal with aggressive/violent drunks, he was never assaulted or spat at by someone who was stoned on 'waccy baccy'.

As long as the quality and strength are regulated - the emergence and availability of really strong Skunk does concern me - and 'driving under the influence' is punished just as drink-driving is (or should be), I'm inclined to support legalisation.

Then we - or rather, the police - can focus on the low-life serious drug-dealers.

 

[deletebeepbeepbeep]

I'd make micro dosing LSD once a fortnight mandatory, the country would be a much nicer places.

 

[Questions]

I no

I was in Colorado shortly after marijuana was legalized there. A group of us went into a store called the Green Dragon, which was a chain I believe. They checked everyone's ID and there was CCTV everywhere. There was a huge choice with notes about the type of weed, CBD and THC content, and what it could help with, insomnia, anxiety etc. What was obvious is some people were making a lot of money judging by the prices they were charging - this stuff aint cheap. As well as the raw stuff they had edibles, gummie bears etc. The store owner said that they are trying to educate users about strength and possible side effects and make it a safer, more enjoyable and less haphazard experience which on the face of it seemed the right way to go. He said that the edibles contained a warning about only using one at a time because the hit you get is slower than by smoking marijuana so sometimes people think it's not working and will take several and then may end up having unpleasant side effects. One couple in our group were aging potheads and bought some to take back to New York where it was still illegal. They said they stick a few sheets of that scented paper you use in laundry into their suitcases and that would normally throw off any sniffer dogs that might be at the airport.

none of this has been discussed seriously enough with the people who can change the laws. Weed is weed and it’s not cocaine or smack. Totally different argument here to class A.
Proffesir P Nutt as I call him was the tsar until he started talking truisms. It’s all about what the electorate want that dictates a governments policy on drugs.
Anyway f*** it I’m a bit stoned now…. UTA

 

[SeagullinExile]

I'd make micro dosing LSD once a fortnight mandatory, the country would be a much nicer places.

Or the country could look like the Trailer Park Boys trip to New Orleans!

 

[kojak]

Cannabis & the guardian

Says alot about nsc