Question for those of you living in a country where marijuana is legal. What are the positive sides, what are the negatives?
If you could go back in time, would you vote for legalising again? Does it affect the country’s illegal drug business , more/less?
OP, please change the title to make it less vague what the question is about without having to open it.
Done, thanks 🙂
Is this still a discussion on 2025? I always thought this was a no brainer, just blocked by demonization and the lack of examples of places that legalized and nothing bad happened. We should be discussing how to deal with other drugs. Marijuana is pretty much solved
The widespread legalization, overwhelmingly positive reception, and complete lack of any of the dangerous consequences we were warned about makes you wonder what else “They” were wrong about.
Pro:
- people aren’t criminalised for kinda nothing.
- you detach it from other drugs (the regular dealer will also have other stuff for sale - not an issue if you buy officially or grow yourself).
Con:
- despite what people claim, there are people that get highly addicted to cannabis. Probably similar to alcohol, you’d say? Well, in my unpopular opinion, alcohol also shouldn’t be available the way it currently is (make it insanely expensive please).
- most people consume it with tobacco, so there’s that to deal with.
Agree with the pros, not really with the cons to the extreme that you describe.
I’ve seen people so addicted to it that they stopped going to work and completely ignored their family. I don’t have numbers to put it into perspective, but the sheer level of addiction was beyond what I thought was realistic.
People can get addicted to anything.
If the addiction isn’t a chemical dependence, and isn’t inherently extremely harmful, then I think it should be accessible and addiction support should be available.Cannabis is legal here, and the level of addiction you’re describing is both very uncommon, and typically just exacerbating issues caused by other drugs or mental illness.
Hey, I noticed it in another comment of yours so I thought I’d say something-
“Stopped to go to work” in English implies that they stopped smoking weed so that they could go to work. You’re looking for “stopped going to work”
Appreciated!
Alcohol addiction is way worse than that
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You said it might be similar to alcohol
You are right, sorry.
You are not a trained psychologist and are unable to detect underlying conditions like depression or anxiety
Kurz gesagt did a pretty good episode, balancing the pros & cons
Oh hey look the propaganda machine I used to watch.
In my experience, most people definitely don’t consume tobacco with marijuana. Some people smoke on the side, but mixing is quite uncommon in western Canada.
That being said, I am definitely highly addicted. I think anyone with chronic pain, trauma, or mental health disorders or probably at a higher risk. Not to mention the risk of psychosis for a very small portion of people.
Alcohol is way more addictive than cannabis
Alcohol just isn’t hard to make. It’s also really easy to sneak into places. You could never make it insanely expensive. It would just all go black market.
As if Finland and Norway wouldn’t exist. 😉
We already tried making it illegal. Plus we don’t have the health infrastructure for it. We have a shotload of people self-medicating a variety of disorders with alcohol. And lots of people brewing beer just for fun. I don’t know what they do in Finland and Norway but it wouldn’t work here.
Not saying the model works in every country, but we see more and more moving against tobacco and alcohol in the EU, which is a good development.
I guess you’re from the US? I think we can agree alcohol isn’t the biggest drug issue you have.
Ah yes let’s bankrupt my alcoholic mum. What a great idea
Making it expensive only bankrupts addicts and makes more things privileges for the rich.
Worked in Norway and Finland.
Places with much stronger social safety nets and much more accessible healthcare.
Compared to…?
Looking across Europe, I think they’re comparable. No reason to not go for a similar model here.
Poonited States
Nah, won’t work in Murica.
The important factor isn’t whether someone can be addicted (otherwise you’re banning nearly everything), it’s the harm that addiction causes. As a general rule of thumb physical dependencies like alcohol are more harmful than habitual addictions, but that obviously isn’t the whole story.
Caffeine addiction is the same category as alcohol and tobacco but causes so little harm that I don’t think anyone is seriously opposed it. On the other end of that scale is something like meth or other hard drugs, generally understood as destructive and has few serious supporters encouraging use. Breaking these addictions is almost always hard and physically taxing, in some cases can even be lethal.
Marijuana addiction is in the same category as most things that make you feel good or form habits so it’s harder to nail down a proper scale, but the lower end is probably something like video games; a debilitating addiction is possible but uncommon and most people would oppose a blanket ban on the basis of “can be addictive”. Gambling is on the other end can definitely ruin lives. I’d say that’s a little worse than coffee. Breaking these addictions is more like breaking a bad habit, it can feel hard for the addict but generally isn’t going to kill them.
True to an extent, but looking at it from an individual’s perspective, it can be devastating. I’ve seen people stop to function as human beings because of this.
What I am genuinely concerned about is the scale. So far, we don’t have too much insights into the long term effects of this, both on individual and on society level. Cannabis addiction can cause long term psychological issues, and it will be years before we will truly understand what this means for us.
It’s been legal in Canada since 2015ish. Haven’t noticed a difference, but now I can get better regulated gummies which is nice for my asthma.
There are some minor downsides, you can’t walk 5 minutes in downtown Toronto without smelling weed. I can tolerate it just fine, but some people hate it. Otherwise it has been great.
weed smokers are not cool anymore, like wow bro you’re going to go home and follow the law. Lame
Thailand legalized it not too long ago and I’d say it’s 90% positive.
- loads of direct and indirect business opportunities
- reduction in alcohol related issues. Stones are generally much more chill than drunks and impairement for vehicle operation etc is much lesser.
There were a few populist issues like catching kids with weed etc but imo that’s actually a positive as people starting to actually talk about kid safety when previously they had all these drugs and worse.
Personally I’d say the only danger is high concentrates which are illegal here and not very desired by the market either way. Mostly tourists and locals just want to smoke normal mid tier weed and enjoy the nature and thai food which is a win-win for everyone. I’ve seen some gravity bongs and a bit of oils (never seen anyone dab) but I’d say 90% of users just smoke mid tier 5$/g weed of 28% thc or so mostly mixed with tobacco too.
My favorite change is just the culture shift. Stoned tourists are just so much nicer and the party scene has changed a lot around this.
Legal weed as been huge for business here. Thai people are incredible entrepreneurs and were really quick to develop the industry to the point where the government tried to reverse legalization a year later but it was too late already.
Pro
But Bill Maher is a walking testament to why it matters a great deal how often you come back to the surface.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannabis_(drug)
It’s not completely safe. Regulation makes sense. Especially for protecting developing brains from long-term negative damage.
If you look at it as an illegal drug, it’s obvious that it doesn’t work to criminalize. It seems much more appropriate and effective to legalize, regulate, and have information and support programmes in place.
In Germany, it was legalized, but only in a very limited form, to get it through the coalition government. I think the current form is too bureaucratic, too restrictive. The most important thing is that it legalized holding personal consumption belongings.
Having lived in both, absolutely legalize.
I don’t personally care for it and I get annoyed by the public smells, the tacky and run-down stores that make neighborhoods feel trashy. But that’s all personal preference.
The one legitimate issue is that it is very difficult to regulate and enforce impairment. Someone driving or operating machinery high is just as dangerous as someone driving drunk. With alcohol, there are a number of different tests and impairment is well correlated with BAC. For marijuana, there is no quick and accurate way to assess how high someone is at a given time.
Impairment is impairment and being tired or distracted by phones/technology is often even worse than being intoxicated or high but we tend to love using BAC because it is easy to measure. Locations that legalized weed didn’t have an increase in impaired driving last time I checked, because most people don’t go out driving when they are high while people often drive intoxicated after drinking at bars.
BAC is also well correlated with impairment. Obviously it varies from one individual to another, but it is related strongly related enough to have fair and consistent enforcement.
AFAIK, blood tests that measure the presence of marijuana are relatively cheap, but measuring the concentration is slightly more difficult and is not well correlated with impairment. That means enforcement is problematic and subjective.
run-down stores that make neighborhoods feel trashy. But that’s all personal preference.
The dispensaries around me are really nice looking and always spotless
Look, I feel the same about liquor stores and mattress stores, to name a few. There are some nice examples, but most I don’t like to see.
Again, that’s my opinion and does not deserve any legislation. I’m glad other people feel differently. Businesses serve the needs of a community, not the feelings of internet randos. OP asked for our honest opinion and that’s just mine.
Level-headed response and you’re right that local zoning is handled locally.
If the community doesn’t want a business around they have to show up to the city council meetings and organize their neighbors against it. That’s how it works and I can speak from experience that it does actually work sometimes, at least with bars in mixed-use areas IME.
I’m sure it varies by location, but I mean like literally every single one I have ever seen in my state has been really nice. None of them look like liquor stores. It’s much closer to walking into a high-end jewelry shop, no joke. And I do not live in a great area by any stretch.
The ratio is the opposite of what you’re saying. A spotless liquor store is the exception, not the rule. Same goes for a grimey dispensary (assuming any exist at all in my state).
I live in suburbia and the cannabis stores cater, in part, to suburban moms. They are clean, well lit, and the staff are very approachable. It’s fascinating to see.
Someone driving or operating machinery high is just as dangerous as someone driving drunk
You have a source or anything to back this idea up?
I delivered pizzas in downtown Seattle for a couple years, and most of my coworkers were constantly stoned. Many weren’t just hitting pens or joints, they would hit a fat dab with a torch lighter and then hop in their vehicle and make a delivery.
Both years I worked there, our delivery team got an annual award for having 0 vehicle accidents.
Obviously this is anecdotal, but if you run this same situation back with alcohol instead of weed, I am confident there would have been many accidents.
I probably overstated by saying it is equally dangerous with somebody driving drunk. However, there are lots of studies that show it causes serious impairment.
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/fullarticle/2788264
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9940647/
https://jcannabisresearch.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s42238-023-00202-y
I think we should criminalize driving. It kills way more people than weeds and it smells way worst
I certainly don’t advocate people driving under the influence of any mind altering substances, and I believe if someone is found impaired at the time of an accident, the law should account for that.
However, and this is anecdotal, I grew up in a house where I knew from a very young age that my parents were smokers. There were far fewer days that my parents were not high. They performed all necessary driving without issues. They maintained focus and followed all (other) driving law and never got into accidents. I don’t partake at all now, but when I did, I drove regularly and never felt unsafe. There were instances where quick reaction time was necessary (swerving to miss an unexpected obstacle on a dark windy road in the rain, accidents involving other vehicles in front of me, etc.) and my conscious effort to focus on the task was way more important than whether or not I was high.
Now I ride a motorcycle and am much more aware of what is going on with drivers around me. The amount of people I see in their cars on their cell phones or busy talking to their friends or just generally not paying attention, I want to say that is the bigger issue. Alcohol disables your ability to choose that focus, and at least for me or the people I’ve been in a car with, cannabis does not. I’ve ridden in cars with friends that touch their phones while behind the wheel and it has always made me feel much less safe.
But this is just my experience, and I wanted to share. You aren’t wrong and I know it makes more sense advocating driving without influence, but to say it is just as dangerous as alcohol seems a stretch in my eyes.
I’m happy with legalization and would do it again.
- the health impact is similar enough to alcohol and cigarettes so we should treat them similarly
- even before I agreed with legalization, the legal consequences seemed cruel and unusual, way out of proportion
- law enforcement needs to focus on things with more impact on our safety
- for-profit prisons? wtf
- I don’t know about medical benefits but how was pit so illegal that we could never even investigate such claims?
- smoking is a serious health hazard but now it’s easier to get marijuana products that do t involve smoking
The one thing I’d do differently is stricter regulations against secondhand smoke. Now that cigarettes have seriously declined, it’s easier to appreciate just how much they stink. But we’ve backslid: smoking pot stinks worse, and has a lot of the same second hand smoke hazard.
Disagree on first and last point. MJ is NOT comparable to cigarettes. At all. This is coming from someone who has partaked in both. Both produce smoke but are not equal.
Cigarettes are WAY worse for your chest, and far more addictive, and easier to access/cheaper.
I’m all for legalization everywhere worldwide but we got bigger fish to fry currently here in the US.
Yes let’s not try to make anything better until we solve all the major world problems good plan /s
I can’t think of a single negative consequence of legalizing marijuana here, while the positives are numerous such as earning the state more money and people having alternatives for pain management that isn’t a highly addictive opioid.
Scientifically speaking, the pros outweigh the cons everytime.
Public Safety should not be done with the assumption that the public is made up of stupid children that would kill themselves at every possible opportunity (though some people are like that) rather it should come with the assumption that adults are smart enough and have the right to make decisions about them selves.
The government should work towards education so that the public can be better informed and only restrict extreme situations where a reasonable mistake can lead to unreasonable consequences or harm to others. And “Gateway drugs” is as stupid as saying that teaching people how to use a knife would lead them to seek out sharper and bigger knives until they stab themselves and die.
I love that rhetoric but it reminds me of reddit discussion about mother suing the zoo after she dopped her children into…I think it was hyena pen?
People got pissed that it was ZOO that was at fault, not her. There was a barrier if I recall correctly, waist-level one, and the pen was lower than the walk to separate animals from humans, but parents liked to held their small children over the barrier for…reasons. Well, she lost hers.
And people absolutely blamed ZOO for not idiot proofing more. As if it was us that should be kept in pens xD
Oh yeah, my second foremost wtf with modern society: let’s build everything around what idiots are gonna do, with even fucking courts seing no problem with forcing companies to pay money to dumbasses (who do things like using electric stoves as cutting boards). Guess I will long be dead by the time this shit gets reversed
It costs more to police it. It is profitable otherwise. No one genuinely cares. I haven’t smoked since college. It eventually gets boring. It’s a business. That’s it. Sorry there isn’t a mystical description for it. It’s money.
I think that the pros are obvious. It should simply be legal, and other comments have given good reasons.
However, there are some cons that I haven’t seen mentioned yet.
It impairs you, so any activity where that is a problem, like driving, may need extra attention or public education.
For smokers, inhaling smoke is dangerous.
