Make chocolate a class B drug

close
more_vert
Merrick M
Merrick Aug 25, 2009 11:31:03
Replying to pooley

The point that's being made here is that yes, cannabis can make a tiny proportion of users suffer. This is no different to ski-ing holidays or peanuts. Some people *die* from peanuts, which doesn't happen for cannabis.

I have a friend who has to carry an adrenalin injection everywhere with her and cannot eat any pre-prepared food for fear of peanut contamination.

Yet who among peanut users really needs them? Is our enjoyment, that could be so easily got elsewhere, worth the suffering of those who are severely allergic? Could you stand in front of a peanut death and tell the parents that your enjoyment of peanuts is worth it?

More than this, there is also no evidence that criminalisation reduces use, or conversely that decriminalisation increases it. In the Netherlands, use went down for six years after decriminalisation, then only went up at a similar rate to prohibitionist countries. Their use is around half ours.

When the UK government downgraded cannabis, use went down. But, more interestingly, it was already going down beforehand. Classification makes no difference.

What criminalisation does do is keep production, supply (and profits) in the hands of some of the most unscrupulous people imaginable, it gives criminal records (and thereby all maner of life ruination: careers, adoption, you name it) to otherwise moral law-abiding people.

I'm sorry that your friend has suffered. Nobody has said these drugs are harmless. It is precisely because there are dangers that they should be controlled. The suffering of a tiny minority doesn't justify prohibition for cannabis any more than it does for peanuts.

H handofdave
handofdave Aug 25, 2009 12:19:50
Replying to Merrick

Another benefit of legalization would be that the potency of pot could be controlled, unlike now, where some of it been ramped up to the point of being so heavy that it's more a narcotic than anything. This point seems lost on the drug warriors, few of which are old enough to remember that during alcohol prohibition the black market was full of dangerous 'bathtub gin', sometimes laced with poisonous wood alcohols and such. Legalization would remove much of the incentive to breed cannabis of such intense strength... the smuggler's aim is to pack as much THC into as small a space as they can, for obvious reasons.

Although not everyone in the pot trade is a sketchy character, people have and do get murdered over it. This is why I prefer to buy from local sources... the cheap commercial stuff from Mexico has bad karma all over it.

P pooley
pooley Aug 30, 2009 12:13:37
Replying to Merrick

Merrick wrote:
The point that's being made here is that yes, cannabis can make a tiny proportion of users suffer. This is no different to ski-ing holidays or peanuts. Some people *die* from peanuts, which doesn't happen for cannabis.

I have a friend who has to carry an adrenalin injection everywhere with her and cannot eat any pre-prepared food for fear of peanut contamination.

Yet who among peanut users really needs them? Is our enjoyment, that could be so easily got elsewhere, worth the suffering of those who are severely allergic? Could you stand in front of a peanut death and tell the parents that your enjoyment of peanuts is worth it?

More than this, there is also no evidence that criminalisation reduces use, or conversely that decriminalisation increases it. In the Netherlands, use went down for six years after decriminalisation, then only went up at a similar rate to prohibitionist countries. Their use is around half ours.

When the UK government downgraded cannabis, use went down. But, more interestingly, it was already going down beforehand. Classification makes no difference.

What criminalisation does do is keep production, supply (and profits) in the hands of some of the most unscrupulous people imaginable, it gives criminal records (and thereby all maner of life ruination: careers, adoption, you name it) to otherwise moral law-abiding people.

I'm sorry that your friend has suffered. Nobody has said these drugs are harmless. It is precisely because there are dangers that they should be controlled. The suffering of a tiny minority doesn't justify prohibition for cannabis any more than it does for peanuts.

Sorry Merrick, old buddy. I just don't buy the peanut argument.

Imagine saying the same thing about oh say Guns and Knives.

The Gun Lobby say that guns are fine, only kill a small amount of people who use them badly and are less of a menace than knives. knives are a useful tool for cooking, camping etc but can be usedfor bad.
using your argument, because some people use knives badly, we should also let them have guns.......