Cannabis should not be decriminalised - AIBU?

@bombastix

decriminalising doesn’t solve your neighbours. They won’t change. What changes them is likely much much stricter rules on housing. That kind enforcement which means they have to leave. This can be dealt with, but clearly no one cares about smoking That’s pretty much my exact point. There are insane levels of anti social behaviour going on in some places and the HAs struggle to tackle that. Smoking is so far down the list of their priorities that it’s nowhere near being dealt with. So it’s all very well shouting for legalisation from, what in effect, are your ivory towers, but for the millions of us in social housing, many of who already see the effects of cannabis use, it’s us who has to deal with the practicalities of legalisation. And those will be a lot worse than we’re dealing with currently because as I’ve repeatedly said, major drug dealers are not going to suddenly go straight and lose their drug revenue.

I don’t disagree that many cannabis dealers are in practice teeny circles of people buying kilos and splitting them. Most low level dealing is done by children, which is desperate. The choice of children is deliberate because of a) the lesser penalties given to them and b) their lack of judgment. Cannabis dealing via gangs depends on this structure. It is countrywide. We need to break that up and pull what are mostly stupid young teens from something that is going to ruin their lives and others. A legal market doesn’t prevent it all, but it would shrink the benefits of gangs who would be operating in a smaller market I disagree. The people running those stupid young teens are still going to want their flash trainers. The people running them are still going to want their flash cars. And the people running them are still going to want their flash houses. I only had a very quick Google but I can’t see any studies to show that arrests for large scale drug smuggling has dropped in countries where cannabis has been legalised or decriminalised. Their money is going to come from somewhere, and I don’t think it’s going to be legal.

What a boon for crisp and snack companies if this goes ahead. I’m going to get shares in walkers now

Cannabis should not be legalised not least because it saps people’s motivation to work and that is not what the country needs right now.
Also, just because the use of cannabis is already prolific doesn‘t mean we should make it legal. That would just encourage MORE people to use it.
I don’t want this to happen because I know using cannabis triggers psychosis in people who are susceptible. My cousin developed schizophrenia from smoking cannabis. The more people who do cannabis the more who will be affected in this kind of way - and each and every one of those people’s lives matters.
We are already in a mental health crisis and legalising a substance that’s proven to have negative effects on some people’s mental health is not going to help with that.
It also risks increasing the number of people who start to do harder drugs. People don’t tend to do harder drugs before they’ve done cannabis - the gate to harder drugs only opens after they’ve done cannabis - so cannabis is a gateway drug. The fact that not everyone goes on to do harder drugs does not stop it from being a gateway drug for some people.
Also, smoking per se is unhealthy and buying cigarettes is being made illegal for people under a certain age - moving forward for the rest of their lives. Banning people from buying cigarettes while simultaneously legalising cannabis sends a contradictory message, doesn’t it? Comparisons with alcohol don’t work either.
Alcohol is already legal - we can’t put that genie back in the bottle, but that doesn’t mean we should unleash another one.
Using cannabis for medicinal reasons is entirely different to using it for recreational purposes so that’s irrelevant to this debate. Cannabis can be legal medicinally while still being illegal recreationally: this applies to many different drugs.
I suppose legalising cannabis might make money through tax, I don’t know about that, but I do believe the trail of wasted and/or unproductive lives it would leave in its wake would soon outweigh any financial benefit.

I lived in a terrace house next door to someone who smoked very, very strong cannabis all day, every day. I kept all my windows and doors shut and it still stunk out my entire house and impacted my families health. It was horrendous- I hated being at home and couldn’t invite friends and family round. He was an addict so wouldn’t stop even when told how much it was impacting our lives. I reported to everyone - police, environmental health, landlord of neighbour - no one did anything to help despite them all saying it was illegal and needed to stop - we had to move. Yes maybe cannabis has some similarities to alcohol - but cannabis has other antisocial pathways which impact the health of those living in proximity to users.

Hate the stuff. Only dopes smoke dope.
Seen many a good person ruined by it.

@QuaintShaker

Thanks for the link, I’ll have a proper read tomorrow. I’ve only skim read it so far because it’s late, I should be working rather than arguing about drugs with strangers and I wanted to reply to you, but I’m not totally convinced. It says they’ve got their data from two surveys; a community health survey and under 6k people who have used in the past 12-months who have completed national surveys. Are these the sort of people who will be looking for alternative sources of income because their customers have gone elsewhere? I doubt there is one, but I’d be far more interested in reading a study on the effects of legalisation on people in deprived areas.

And FWIW, I've lived in two of the most deprived areas in the UK (never in a HA complex but next door to a large one) and have lived a low-income apartment complex in Canada (post-legalization), so you're wrong to assume my only experience is in "naice", middle-class areas That’s fair enough; I over generalised. How did you cope with the smell and the constant stream of young lads on bikes going to and from their dealers?

It's absolutely a gateway drug. It's destroyed half my family.

I think the use of cannabis gummies accounts for children and dogs being poisoned?

I live where it's been legalised, and overall I think the effect has been more negative than I had anticipated.

There has certainly been an uptick in use, impaired diving which now surpassed impaired driving with alcohol, hospitalisation due to over-use, and cases of poisonings of children and dogs.

I think what surprised me more is the extent to which many people seem to think that because it has been legalised now it must mean that it's quite safe, without serious side effects or risks. I guess in a way it makes sense though, the government are always trying to discourage people from smoking tobacco, telling about the terrible effects and showing awful pictures of what happens to your body. Not to mention all the other unhealthy things they campaign against. So people, logically enough, conclude that if they are actively promoting cannabis it must be just fine. There has also been a huge jump in dodgy woo health stuff around it, so that probably contributes as well.

Beyond that, as more research is being done, more risks keep turning up, so that's concerning as well, plus the risks for young people and psychosis and schizophrenia. And vaping appears to be as bad as smoking in it's own way.

@WilfredsPies - decriminalising doesn’t solve your neighbours. They won’t change. What changes them is likely much much stricter rules on housing. That kind enforcement which means they have to leave. This can be dealt with, but clearly no one cares about smoking.

I don’t disagree that many cannabis dealers are in practice teeny circles of people buying kilos and splitting them. Most low level dealing is done by children, which is desperate. The choice of children is deliberate because of a) the lesser penalties given to them and b) their lack of judgment. Cannabis dealing via gangs depends on this structure. It is countrywide. We need to break that up and pull what are mostly stupid young teens from something that is going to ruin their lives and others. A legal market doesn’t prevent it all, but it would shrink the benefits of gangs who would be operating in a smaller market.

More crime committed by drinkers than heroin users? More punch ups maybe, I’ll give you that, but I’m pretty sure that your average heroin user isn’t holding down any form of employment and that their habits are funded entirely by crime (and that’s just after it’s on the streets). Did you get that assertion from reputable stats? Or are you just guessing?

Tea? Most heroin addicts drank tea before moving onto heroin. It's a gateway drug Aren’t you the lucky one to be able to take the piss?

I disagree that Canada as a whole (Quebec excepted) has a very different culture from the UK (in fact, it is one of the most culturally similar countries to the UK).

Feel free to peruse the methodologies used in the report (of course, any study of illegal markets is harder to determine than regulated ones, but there are established means of providing the best-possible estimates). www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0955395925001276

There has been an increase in use of other drugs over the last few years, but those trends pre-dated legalization of cannabis and so there's no obvious link. So far, no study has shown a correlation between legalization of cannabis and increased use of illegal drugs, though some have shown increased tobacco usage (but, on the positive side, reduced alcohol usage).

And FWIW, I've lived in two of the most deprived areas in the UK (never in a HA complex but next door to a large one) and have lived a low-income apartment complex in Canada (post-legalization), so you're wrong to assume my only experience is in "naice", middle-class areas.

Anything that can cause 'passive' effects on those who made no choice to be effected by it, e.g. inhaling smoke..... should be 100% illegal. The story of Roy Castle dying of lung cancer caused by passive smoking stands out as a clear example.

So, yes, count me in for criminalising tobacco too.

While living in our old place we had downstairs neighbours who would smoke weed during the summer, when all windows were open.... while our infant DD slept. Just abominable.

Yes it is and anyone working on drug and alcohol services will tell you that.

It’s precisely because my horrible neighbours are who they are, that I don’t think legislation will solve the problems you think it will.

Rhetorical question, but how many weed dealers do you think are in the UK? I’m talking about the people who use it to pay for their own habit. And how many more smokers who buy from them who don’t deal but smoke enough to be stinking of it when you walk past them in the street? You legalise or decriminalise weed and what do you think they’re going to do? It’s possible that they could give up and take up knitting instead. It’s far more likely that they will under cut or deal skunk instead. As you say, they are what they are.

People like @Burntt might be willing to pay over the odds for the knowledge that their drug of choice comes from a reputable source, but I somehow doubt she’s smoking it to the point where she needs to buy it as cheaply as possible. And people like Burntt are outnumbered by people like my horrible neighbours by 50 to 1. It’s naive to think otherwise.

Tea? Most heroin addicts drank tea before moving onto heroin. It's a gateway drug.

Yes it sucks and sends a wrong signal making more youngsters that less experienced in life think it is ok and not harmful, before too late. As prescription meds, sure, so? Morphine is prescribed meds too and so does chemotherapy. Anyone claims no harm to healthy human just because it’s prescription meds at the right situations?

I think people don’t have experience of this, and often don’t believe it happens. It’s a poor place for policy.

This is the system we have now. It is not working and we have given it a good go since 1971. When I did criminal law 25 plus years ago people routinely went to prison for possession. It made zero difference and offending has gone up and up.

That would be a bit tragic but I don't think employers generally contact job centers about candidates.

Do you have much experience with HAs? Because I can promise you that them designating properties as non smoking, and them actually doing anything about it are two very different things.

And re the suing, I get your point, but the sort of people who smoke enough to create enough of a smell to cover an entire estate tend not to be the sort of people who own their own homes.

It goes back to the age old thing of money I suppose. If you have enough of it, you can make these declarations about things that you don’t have to live in the middle of, safe in the knowledge that if/when it all goes tits up, you’ll be sat in your garden on a lovely summers afternoon with only the smell of cut grass and the occasional bbq to bother you. While @JenniferBooth and I are praying it rains so we can have our windows open for an hour without getting the munchies.

Most, if not all, heroin addicts will have drunk alcohol before using heroin. Is it a gateway drug too?
How many fires are started by drunk people? Much more crime committed due to alcohol use than heroin or marijuana.

I agree OP. It’s revolting stuff. It stinks. Even if it’s decriminalised it will still be part of organized crime.

I know loads of people can use it with no ill effects but it can mess people up.

It absolutely reeks . I know some people have it for health reasons but wish they could have it in tablet or patch form as the stench really is a plague on our public spaces and even gardens / own homes if neighbours smoke the putrid stuff. It should not be decriminalised. People should be arrested for smoking or carrying unless have prescription for tablet form

What you are saying is that these people are drug dealers and they won’t do anything productive. But legislation would solve a number of problems, just not these people. They are what they are. The status of cannabis as a drug won’t make a difference. Is that a reason to do nothing about the other issues that surround it, like spending money on enforcement that costs a fortune, instead of spending on social provisions and health to make some less likely to waste their lives? Guardian readers aren’t the issue, it’s your horrible neighbours