Legalise cannabis?

[lavrentis]

Go to 2.20 Edited 4 December 2012 by lavrentis

[Carl the Llama]

Go to 2.20

14 years old?! I'd say wait til he's 17/18 but otherwise that was some spot on parenting. I don't know if I'll still be smoking myself at their age although I'm definitely taking that common sense approach to the matter with my kids.

[Guest MattP]

14 years old?! I'd say wait til he's 17/18 but otherwise that was some spot on parenting. I don't know if I'll still be smoking myself at their age although I'm definitely taking that common sense approach to the matter with my kids.

I'm presuming this is a wind up?

[Guest MattP]

14 years old?! I'd say wait til he's 17/18 but otherwise that was some spot on parenting. I don't know if I'll still be smoking myself at their age although I'm definitely taking that common sense approach to the matter with my kids.

What do you think of parents who don't let their kids smoke cannabis at 14?

Edited 4 December 2012 by MattP

[flowwolf]

Really interesting article in The Guardian on the problems in Mexico that I read on Saturday:

http://www.guardian....liente-calderon

According to the article since December 2006 when Calderón started an offensive against organised crime between 60,000 and 100,000 people have been killed.

And people still think the "war on drugs" is a war worth fighting.

When you say people I presume you mean just about every major government in the world who recognise what drug abuse does to a society and acts accordingly to combat that. So that's the majority of governments opinion in the entire world as opposed to a poster on Foxtalk who knows better. And you still think this argument is still worth fighting for ?

Edited 4 December 2012 by flowwolf

[Steven]

When you say people I presume you mean just about every major government in the world who recognise what drug abuse does to a society and acts accordingly to combat that. So that's the majority of governments opinion in the entire world as opposed to a poster on Foxtalk who knows better. And you still think this argument is still worth fighting for ?

So abusing alcohol and tobacco is ok? What about the thousands of deaths each year due to poor air quality? You simply fail to recognise that "drug policy" is based on prejudice and not based on a sober assessment of the facts.

[James.]

When you say people I presume you mean just about every major government in the world who recognise what drug abuse does to a society and acts accordingly to combat that. So that's the majority of governments opinion in the entire world as opposed to a poster on Foxtalk who knows better. And you still think this argument is still worth fighting for ?

Except it isn't just me is it. And in any case the last place I'd go to for a reasoned, sensible approach to this issue is the world's major governments so not entirely sure what point you're making.

[Guest MattP]

You can't really compare the drug war in any part of Latin America to anything we should be doing here.

[James.]

You can't really compare the drug war in any part of Latin America to anything we should be doing here.

Not sure if that's directed at me but I wasn't, I was just drawing attention to the futility and tragedy of the war in Latin America.

[Guest MattP]

Not sure if that's directed at me but I wasn't, I was just drawing attention to the futility and tragedy of the war in Latin America.

No worries.

It is awful, I was speaking a few people who have left Cuidad de Jaurez in the summer and some of the stories they were telling me were horrific.

[Carl the Llama]

What do you think of parents who don't let their kids smoke cannabis at 14?

That they're intelligent enough to realise that someone who's brain is still developing shouldn't be exposed to the substance.

[AdamN]

It all depends if you believe every thing you are told by governments and their so called experts, personally I never have and never will.

When you say people I presume you mean just about every major government in the world who recognise what drug abuse does to a society and acts accordingly to combat that. So that's the majority of governments opinion in the entire world as opposed to a poster on Foxtalk who knows better. And you still think this argument is still worth fighting for ?

So do you trust government opinions or not?

[flowwolf]

So do you trust government opinions or not?

Of course not but I do trust that they know the reason why they are so anti drugs, they don't have that stance for no reason at all.

Edited 5 December 2012 by flowwolf

[flowwolf]

So abusing alcohol and tobacco is ok? What about the thousands of deaths each year due to poor air quality? You simply fail to recognise that "drug policy" is based on prejudice and not based on a sober assessment of the facts.

Of course not and I have never tried to defend either. The difference is those two genies alcohol and tobacco are already out of the bottle and if you notice both are are under attack from the authorities as we speak. Banning smoking from public areas coupled with successive ridiculous taxation on both commodities has resulted in thousands of pub closures across the uk and and the making of anyone who still dares to smoke a social pariah. And now the latest the government stopping the cheap booze by taxation that they encouraged in the first place.

You simply fail to recognise your being had left right and centre. Do you really think that a government hell bent on social control is going to let another genie out of the bottle by legalising drugs ? dream on.

[Carl the Llama]

Of course not and I have never tried to defend either. The difference is those two genies alcohol and tobacco are already out of the bottle and if you notice both are are under attack from the authorities as we speak. Banning smoking from public areas coupled with successive ridiculous taxation on both commodities has resulted in thousands of pub closures across the uk and and the making of anyone who still dares to smoke a social pariah. And now the latest the government stopping the cheap booze by taxation that they encouraged in the first place.

You simply fail to recognise your being had left right and centre. Do you really think that a government hell bent on social control is going to let another genie out of the bottle by legalising drugs ? dream on.

You make a lot of salient, factual points with regards to whether it will be legalised. Certainly under the current govt it won't happen in a month full of sundays, but the question is whether it should be legalised or not, not what the govt line is.

The problem so many of us pro-legalisationers have is that there is now a wealth of evidence that legal cannabis isn't the social self-destruct button that popular opinion portrays it as.

Leaving all other drugs aside (since it is a very different battleground when the negatives countering the positives are as soul/family destroying as some of the harder substances can be in the worst case scenario) it seems to be a dinosaur, ill-informed policy from our side of the fence. Hopefully the recent implementation of legal cannabis in a couple of the US states will put to bed the idea that having the substance readily available as a taxed, age-limited substance is bad for society. I look forward to a couple of years from now when the data is available for scrutiny - then again the examples from the Netherlands and Portugal apparently aren't proof enough so maybe it won't be the case! (They are of course only examples of 'decriminalisation' and not 'legalisation', hence my little bit of excitement that this might be the breakthrough case.)

Edited 8 December 2012 by BoxingFoxes

[Daggers]

Never did me any harm.

[Rincewind]

Get the prevention and education right before handing out the cure.

[foz.foz]

Times could be about to change??

"MPs will admit to the failure of the war on drug"

[Steven]

Heroin use shouldn’t be a crime PM urged and dealers should be licensed to sell ‘legal highs’, say MPs and peers

[flowwolf]

Heroin use shouldn’t be a crime PM urged and dealers should be licensed to sell ‘legal highs’, say MPs and peers

Still not going to happen.

[Steven]

Call off war on drugs, leader of Guatemala tells the west

[davieG]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-21833045

Cannabis scratch and sniff cards to track down farms

The card releases a scent that replicates the smell of cannabis when scratched

Marijuana-scented scratch cards are to be posted to hundreds of households in a bid to detect illegal cannabis farms.

[foxfanazer]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-21833045

Cannabis scratch and sniff cards to track down farms

The card releases a scent that replicates the smell of cannabis when scratched

Marijuana-scented scratch cards are to be posted to hundreds of households in a bid to detect illegal cannabis farms.

They'll make a good few roaches

[Steven]

http://www.bbc.co.uk...ngland-21833045

Cannabis scratch and sniff cards to track down farms

The card releases a scent that replicates the smell of cannabis when scratched

Marijuana-scented scratch cards are to be posted to hundreds of households in a bid to detect illegal cannabis farms.

Pathetic.

[Father Ted]

14 years old?! I'd say wait til he's 17/18 but otherwise that was some spot on parenting. I don't know if I'll still be smoking myself at their age although I'm definitely taking that common sense approach to the matter with my kids.

Are you on crack? Those parents should be ashamed, absolutely pathetic and imo really scummy. No standards or morals, makes me sick that we live in a society amongst tramps and scummers like that.