Germany and cannabis laws...

nlel1975 said:
Yeah but paracetamol won’t cause someone to have a psychotic episode.
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No, but paracetamol can cause severe irreversible liver damage if you take 7.5-10 times the therapeutic dose of it and it will kill at 10-20 times the therapeutic dose, but virtually everyone has it in their home. In contrast, cannabis is far safer, its lethal dose is so large that it can only be estimated as no one has ever managed to reach it. According to the Centers for Disease Control and the Drug Enforcement Administration, there is no recorded case of anyone ever dying from an overdose of cannabis. Professor David Nutt (former President of the European College of Neuropsychopharmacology) wanted it downgraded to class C due to that:

...Of course, cannabis wouldn’t have killed anyone because it doesn’t kill. And that’s one of the reasons why we thought cannabis should be class C because you cannot die of cannabis overdose... (Page 6, column 2)
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Furthermore, the risk of suffering a psychotic episode as a result of cannabis consumption is just 1 in 20,000 and smokers of cannabis are only about 2.6 times more likely to have psychotic symptoms than non-smokers of it. To prevent just one episode of schizophrenia, we would need to stop about 5,000 regular users from using it. About a million people use it in the UK (and they are using the most unsafe version of it thanks to prohibition), but the number of people with cannabis psychosis is relatively tiny. The safety profile of cannabis is a lot better than many legal medical/recreational drugs and it would be even better if it was available legally, as toxic adulterants (for example: datura) and high-THC/low-CBD strains could be removed from the supply chain.
 
D.P. said:
a big issue here is correlation does not equal causation. It should be noted many people with MH issues end up with drug or alcohol problems due to their MH issues, the inverse is much rarer and often disputed
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Psychiatrists in the UK are also quick to blame cannabis usage for psychosis. I used to do volunteer work for the charity Mind and as part of that work I often sat in on Mental Health Act assessments (for Sectioning patients) to safeguard the interests of the patients.

In one case the patient had been previously diagnosed with psychotic depression (as a result of a run of bad luck following the death of a close family member, resulting in them losing their job/home and then spending a month on the streets homeless), but he had admitted to using cannabis in the past (just a few times socially at university and more than 15 years earlier).

Shockingly, the elderly consultant psychiatrist who was chairing the assessment pounced on this as a reason for his psychotic symptoms! I suspect that a lot of people with unrelated mental illnesses are diagnosed with "cannabis psychosis" simply because they admitted having used it in the past.
 
Maple Leaf said:
To prevent just one episode of schizophrenia, we would need to stop about 5,000 regular users from using it.
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And this is the worst case scenario where every excess case of schizophrenia is attributable to Cannabis and there is no reverse causality where people with mental health issues are more likely to seek out drugs to sooth their issues.
 
Colonel_Klinck said:
Weed can be great for treating many medical problems, it is great for pain relief, insomnia, to help with the adverse effects of some cancer treatments, the list goes on and on.
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Sadly, the ongoing intransigence of the UK's medical establishment means that many patients who could benefit from medical cannabis still cannot get it:

Four and half years since medical cannabis was made legal in the UK, a group of leading scientists is asking why patients with chronic pain, PTSD and anxiety — which could include upwards of 15 million people — still cannot access these legal medicines without expensive private prescriptions.

They also question whether a wealth of evidence on the drugs’ effectiveness is being ignored, due to prejudiced views of cannabis and a fear of being ‘being soft on drugs’...

Yet the government’s own data shows that only a handful of people in the UK (around 4) are receiving an NHS prescription. In addition, a Freedom of Information Request [3] revealed that no data had been collected by the NHS into the drugs’ value since legalisation — even though this was requested by the government’s own Advisory Council.[4]

“It begs the question, are they stalling a decision because of long standing prejudice and misunderstanding about these medicines? Are they simply ‘scared’ of cannabis?” says Prof David Nutt — the chair of Drug Science and an internationally respected neuropsychopharmacologist, who has spent decades researching drugs that affect the brain... Article
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...But patients suffered, as the story of Alfie Dingley – and that of many others just like him – so movingly recounts. Most of the US and Canadian public were granted access to medical cannabis from the first decade of this century. However, the UK medical establishment upheld the ban, exaggerating fears of psychosis and dependence to justify their opposition. Parents of children with severe treatment-resistant epilepsy were forced to live abroad to save their children’s lives.

...the number of NHS prescriptions for full spectrum medical cannabis, three years after legalisation is three.

Given the potential cost savings to the NHS from better control of severe childhood epilepsy, which often requires urgent in-patient care, as well as other indications for medical cannabis, this resistance to evidence is perverse and reflects very badly on the medical profession... Article
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This is ironic, given that when it was first announced that cannabis was to be banned (in 1928) the British Medical Association publicly objected and stated that it was a 'valuable therapeutic'.
 
Legalising weed would cut criminal justice costs immediately.

It could be regulated, meaning people wouldn't use the latest high-strength strain, but could instead choose something a bit more mellow.

It could be taxed.

It could also remove production from idiots who home grow and to a more professional set up that's not in a semi-derelict terraced house next door.

It would also- and this is the big one- mean that you wouldn't have to go to dodgy dave who might be quite keen to upsell you to other, more harmful and profitable, drugs.
 
potatolord said:
Legalising weed would cut criminal justice costs immediately.

It could be regulated, meaning people wouldn't use the latest high-strength strain, but could instead choose something a bit more mellow.

It could be taxed.

It could also remove production from idiots who home grow and to a more professional set up that's not in a semi-derelict terraced house next door.

It would also- and this is the big one- mean that you wouldn't have to go to dodgy dave who might be quite keen to upsell you to other, more harmful and profitable, drugs.
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Legalising murder would cut criminal justice costs immediately.

Legalising anything that is illegal would. It's a completely redundant statement!
 
mattyfez said:
Murder is illegal because of the severe harm and distress it causes though, completley different thing.
99% of any harm and distress caused by cannabis is a direct result of its illegality. Violent drug gangs, people trafficking, etc.
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Again, completely irrelevant as to why it's illegal. Making it legal would cut criminal justice costs. Its a completely pointless statement as its obvious!

Did you know that if you paint a fence green, it'll be green?
 
Dis86 said:
Again, completely irrelevant as to why it's illegal. Making it legal would cut criminal justice costs. Its a completely pointless statement as its obvious!

Did you know that if you paint a fence green, it'll be green?
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I think his point was the tax would pay for other justice costs related to breaching the law which I imagine you'll still be able to do if legalised.
Comparing murder is not exactly fair or comparable, I cant see how any gov would be able to privatise the sale of murder and therefore make money through taxation.
 
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