Man of Honour
fair point - but aren't the levels of criminality lower?
Germany and cannabis laws...
- Thread starter Uther
- Start date
fair point - but aren't the levels of criminality lower?
If Gambling and alcohol are legal then there's no reason weed should be illegal. I occasionally smoke it socially (a couple of times a year basically) and I know quite a few people who do, for it to be illegal is stupid.
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Permabanned
People here are mooting the advantages of taxing drugs as a means of (presumably) bringing money into whatever country is weak enough or fearful enough to legalise the stuff...
I wonder what tax level these people envisage?
I personally can't wait to pick up a carton of Durban Supreme at the airport duty free.
Suspended
you're comparing apples and oranges really, as nearly all activity associated with one of those things is currently illegal however counterfeit alcohol alone is a billion pound industry and cigarettes a multi-billion pound industry. So the criminality aspect is very significant!
Permabanned
You smoke weed? I bet you support Elon Musk too
I think I've only paid for it a couple of times, I just don't say no when offered.
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Man of Honour
Good point. I guess where criminals see an opportunity they'll exploit it. I wonder though whether controlling drugs like cannabis more will generate enough income to help mitigate some of the criminal activity?
Presumably homegrown would be untaxable. Shops could just charge vat and think of all the money saved by not policing.
Is this what the dreams of man are made of these days... ?
Dreams of man these days generally consist of Rachel Riley, Sofia Vergara and Margot Robbie.
All of these would be immigrants though, quite the conundrum isn't it?
Soldato
Whatever faults or flaws you may have, poor taste taste in women is most certainly not one of them! What a delectable trio of beauties to pick.
Soldato
You smoke weed? I bet you support Elon Musk too
Anyone who has been to university and/or to a drum'n'bass night should know by now that everyone smokes weed
Soldato
So not only have they taken all the sun loungers they have also bogarted the joints.
You need to have been around a bit for that one.
You need to have been around a bit for that one.
Associate
The more potent strains (now the commonest on the street), like Skunk, were only developed in the first place because it was illegal. The black market wanted a strain that produced a high concentration of THC as quickly as possible, since that maximised profits and minimised the risk that grows would be found by the Police and confiscated. Skunk plants have a high THC/low CBD ratio, which increases the risk that genetically susceptible heavy users will experience psychotic episodes. There is a DNA test now which can identify people at high-risk of developing cannabis psychosis. Cannabis strains commonly available in the 1960s and 70s had roughly equal ratios of THC/CBD and so they were far less likely to cause psychosis. Medical cannabis strains (used for centuries in Indian traditional medicine) have high CBD/low THC ratios and were actually successfully used to treat mental illnesses. (CBD is known to be a potent antipsychotic and so it counteracts the psychiatric side-effects of THC.)
Drug dealers do not follow ethical standards of behaviour, they only seek to maximise their profits. If the government truly wants to limit the damage done by cannabis then it should legalise, regulate and tax it. That way, its availability can be controlled and those that use it can be protected from dangerous product, in the same way that any other legal industry has to provide a safe good quality product or be prosecuted. The tax revenue raised from its legal sale would be in the hundreds of millions every year and a similar amount would simultaneously be saved on law enforcement and prisons.
Cannabis was made illegal for recreational use here on 28th September 1928 as an amendment to the Dangerous Drugs Act 1920, which itself was an update of the first UK drug prohibitions in the Defence of the Realm Act 1914. (There was a panic at the beginning of World War I about British soldiers using cocaine and it was feared that the Germans were trying to damage the British Army's effectiveness with it so the government rushed to ban it.)
The Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 created the current Class A, B and C drug classification system. It was passed by Edward Heath's government and was inspired by Richard Nixon's "War on Drugs" policies in the USA. However, it had the paradoxical result of doubling the number of heroin addicts in the UK in just a few years and so it maximised the harm done by that drug.
just like alcohol where workers can be tested and fired, funny that
Caporegime
Kreuzberg is about to get very smokey
I believe it should be legal here too. Not because I'm a user to any degree, but where it is legalised and taxed we can have mandatory strength indicators (how much CBD vs THC is in each strain), and we know it's grown to some degree of controlled quality, rather than getting it from the local dealer and hoping it's not too weak/strong. That'd make things a lot more controlled if it became legal, IMO.
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Permabanned
How many and which jobs do people think would have to have mandated drug tests if drug use was then legal and probably a lot more commonplace and frequent?
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