Cannabis should not be decriminalised - AIBU?

Parents who miss use alcohol don't give it to their kids though.

It already happens. And it’s about the same for mothers who drink too much after school. Neglect is not fussy about your choices

Personally I can't think of anything more ghastly. If you think I don't trust criminals not to adulterate and thin out cannabis, why would I be happy with big business doing it ?

When Channel 4 ran their "Pot Night" back in the 90s, the vehicle of choice was a box of chocolates. You had a rather happy Adam Faith knocking on advertising agencies asking "How would you market this ?". It was hilarious watching the disjoint between what they had to say ("Obviously we'd never advertise anything harmful") with the way they were obviously keen as mustard to get a slice of the action if it were to come to pass.

You should be able to buy 20 joints at the petrol station no different to how you can buy 20 B&H Superkings. They should be covered by shutters, not advertised and restricted to over 21s, but other than that, the same.

You don't get drunk on cigarette smoke. But kids can get high passively from cannabis smoking. Can you see how the analogies with smoking and drinking are very different when it comes to smoking cannabis around children within the home. We don't give our children our kids teeny tiny amounts of alcohol. It's a drug and it's harmful.

Plenty of people would be responsible I'm sure and not smoke around their kids. But plenty wouldn't and would think it would be okay.

I think this just shows how the health consequences haven't really been that fully thought through as a society.

OK, we're happy with the laws around tobacco then.

Trying to regulate - or ban - cannabis is always going to rub up against the incongruity of the fact that we are more than happy to allow alcohol and tobacco in society.

Also, why is cannabis the only issue where it's on the beneficiaries to provide all the answers ? If society insisted dog owners come up with all the answers to dealing with deadly dogs and dog shit everywhere before they could be allowed to have one, there would be an uproar. And dogs kill way more people than cannabis with it's LD50 of 10kg? every single year.

You don't inhale alcohol and aren't able to passively smoke alcohol though.

I'd be interested to know how other countries have dealt with the obvious child protection issues legalising cannabis throws up. If cannabis is legal surely no issue then smoking around your kids or getting high in the comfort of your own home....

We're quite happy with the regime around alcohol.

https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/secondhand-marijuana-smoke-and-kids-2018060514012

I'd be interested to know how other countries have dealt with the obvious child protection issues legalising cannabis throws up. If cannabis is legal surely no issue then smoking around your kids or getting high in the comfort of your own home.... No worse than alcohol or smoking apparently? How about a nice post school run spliff. How do you legislate for this. Leaving gummies about the house. Let's not pretend this won't happen.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/35181438/cupboard-council-flat-heroin-needles/

@Gattopard. If I had known how strong it was, or what it was cut with i would have thought twice. You drive things unrerground and there is no regulation, no control. I think it should be legalised but properly and heavily regulated.

You suffered a serious mental health crisis from one hash cake but you still want to decriminalise cannabis?

criminals will always be seeking the very strong strains that many prefer to use

I would gently disagree. When criminals are in charge - without any oversight - things will always tend to the most profitable way of satisfying demand.

If alcohol were illegal, then you won't find criminals messing around with a vast range of craft beers for punters to peruse. They will develop the most effective way of making money. So 60% spirits bulked out with methanol. Which is the alcoholic version of a Super Skunk #1 cut with ketamine.

As with alcohol, there are a spectrum of ways people have developed to partake over the millennia. Inhaling ground smoked flowers; creating a resin from the flowers; pressing into hashish and a variety of ways of dissolving the cannabinoids in alcohol or oils for tinctures and application.

I'd say decriminalise because police resources are scant, but taxed and heavily regulated with a min age. It is a nuisance but I don't think current system is working and I wonder if making it more regulated would protect some people as there could be more testing of strength and labelling etc.

I ate a hash cake about 25 years ago and ended up in hospital hallucinating for over 5 hours. I suffered a major mental health crisis for years afterwards and it still impacts me to this day. People often laugh when I tell them, but it was truly horrible.

I agree that cannabis should be legalised as mentioned earlier

I don’t think it will solve the problem (certainly hasn’t in California but there the strains that can be sold are very strong) but money raised can go back into the system and there is a level of control

criminals will always be seeking the very strong strains that many prefer to use

Taking regulation and control of these drugs out of the hands of criminals seems like the most sensible first step to me then!

Well, if you delegate your quality control to criminals, it's hard to know what else you expected.

Even if we assume "cannabis" bought on the street has any relation to cannabis at all, it's likely going to be from a strain selected for THC and bred from there.

In nature cannabis produces a combination of THC and CBD, which seem to have a complementary effect ... the CBD moderates the psychotropic properties of the THC complex. Almost as if the plant carries it's own regulation.

The ethnobotany of cannabis is interesting.

It could certainly be better

some people do self medicate many just enjoy getting high there isn’t always a deep rooted need it’s just enjoyable

the issue is more that cannabis use is so prevalent now and the cannabis strains (high THC levels) that is being used is the cause of such negative impact on so many young people

So potentially because the UKs mental health provision isn't very good, it actually drives people to try other avenues (e.g. alcohol and other drugs) ?

Therefore rather than bemoaning the effect cannabis use is having on mental health provision, if there were better mental health provision, cannabis use would be less prevalent ?

Not with young people

we are seeing far higher numbers with drug (usually cannabis) related issues some may have had low level depression/anxiety before (not that unusual for teens) but many are not reporting having any serious mh issues beforehand they are it necessarily self medicating (some are) and their cannabis use has led to drug induced psychosis with for some long term consequences

Correlation is not causality.

But what came first, the mental health issue or the cannabis use? We ARE seeing this in high numbers with alcohol, I'd bet that a higher percentage of mental health inpatients have experimented with alcohol than cannabis...

Alcohol is far more damaging than any form of cannabis and that is legal.