Why is everyone smoking weed now?

[Thetepidstepper]

I mean it's everywhere. My neighbour smokes it and stinks the block out with it. In addition I smell it very often just round and about, coming from people's gardens and in pubs and that.

I don't like it because I had a massive anxiety attack first and only time I smoked weed and it left me with PTSD, I mean it was severe. According to my therapist this is actually quite common. I mean therapists know that weed is nasty stuff that makes people feel bad, quite a lot of the time.

But still people are smoking it. And cops are turning a blind eye obviously.

I wish it was legalised really so that these stinky people would have to fit fans and vents and the like.

But until that happens loads of people are at it even though it makes them be boring cunts. Why!

I think all those people who think casual weed use is ‘not doing any harm’ want to spend a day in a psychiatric hospital. So many awful stories of how cannabis started a descent into really severe mental health issues.

And that’s aside from the fact that pretty much everyone I know who uses weed into their 40s is a lazy arse who sits up all night smoking and then lays in late, often phones in sick and fails to pull their weight at home.

Great strides have been made to make tobacco socially unacceptable to the point where it’s difficult to be a smoker. It would be public health madness to legalise cannabis. Through my job, I’ve interviewed many officials on this topic over the years and all the sensible ones, including several chief constables, have said it’s a terrible idea.

@Thetepidstepper

Yes exactly so. It's like they don't give a shit.

I find that quite intimidating. Also just generally depressing: if you're stoned at 10 o'clock in the morning you're not going to work, achieve, do anything etc. Those little smoke spires signal your intention towards your community for the rest of the day and it's not a good one.

Depends on the weed. Some types are relaxing some perk you up. I live in a country where it is legal and very commonplace. Many high achievers smoke it.
I think you have a very skewed perspective.

If my job depended on cannabis being illegal, you can bet your bottom dollar I'd be against decriminalisation too. Admittedly not as much as the crime bosses are though. They may try to avoid prison, but the only thing that really terrifies them is legalisation. Why do you think they spend so much on the Daily Mail ?

Janice I have a relative who works in psychiatry who has said as much.

@JaniceBattersby

I think all those people who think casual weed use is ‘not doing any harm’ want to spend a day in a psychiatric hospital. So many awful stories of how cannabis started a descent into really severe mental health issues.

And that’s aside from the fact that pretty much everyone I know who uses weed into their 40s is a lazy arse who sits up all night smoking and then lays in late, often phones in sick and fails to pull their weight at home.

Great strides have been made to make tobacco socially unacceptable to the point where it’s difficult to be a smoker. It would be public health madness to legalise cannabis. Through my job, I’ve interviewed many officials on this topic over the years and all the sensible ones, including several chief constables, have said it’s a terrible idea.

I think all those people who think casual weed use is ‘not doing any harm’ want to spend a day in a psychiatric hospital. So many awful stories of how cannabis started a descent into really severe mental health issues.

Really drugs policy needs to engage with this problem then in a grown up way rather than placing the activity outside the law, turning it into a moral crusade and pretending that no sensible or respectable person would ever do it, and that it's only some tiny proportion of hardened criminals who do that sort of thing.

Sensible and respectable people are taking plenty of harmful drugs. The whole point of this thread is that cannabis use is all over the place. Pretending it isn't reminds me very much of my parents attitude to sex (I was born in the age of steam). They firmly believed that you didn't talk about it, you didn't teach kids about it and you certainly didn't make contraception available to them (or anyone who wasn't married), because that was sending out the message that sex was ok. The result of all that was a lot of teenage pregnancies, and a lot of people with screwed up attitudes to sex.

Another parallel - AIDs in the 1980s. Gay sex was still generally regarded as deeply distasteful and unacceptable. But to head off a public health crisis the government had to admit that the unspeakable was happening and to give advice on how to do it more safely.

Using psychoactive substances has been part of human nature for almost as long as sex has. Better to acknowledge it and minimise the harmful consequences than to declare war on it.

Not just us then! I live fairly rurally in a "naice" place. My house regularly stinks of weed, it appears to have become very popular over the lockdowns. It doesn't bother me I have to say, each to their own, but it was definitely not anywhere near as common as it is now. I also regularly walk past people openly smoking it. Maybe some think it's a safer vice than drinking daily 🤷🏻‍♀️

I'm sorry that you had a bad experience op. However, you could just have easily become addicted to it, and be the neighbour that someone else is complaining about today.
We all have to be a bit a tolerant in this world. One man's trash and all that. Hopefully, said weed smoker takes steps to minimise their impact on you, just as you take steps to reduce the impact of your behaviour(s) on others.
Noisey drunks, loud or whiney kids, litter, cooking smells, loud guests, crying babies, maintenance work, washing left in the machines, moving in and out, coming back late from work, or leaving early, slamming doors, shouting (domestic arguments), music, tobacco, pests/infestations from unhygienic tenants etc. You get the point, we all have to make slight allowances, a part of communal living.
BTW I say this as someone else who can't tolerate smoking weed, as it gives me panic attacks. I don't mind the smell of other people's weed. Someone in our block smokes it, and I keep getting the blame, even though i honestly can't stand it, and haven't smoked it in over 15yrs. Think I get the blame because I look like a hippy

Sensible and respectable people are taking plenty of harmful drugs

Alcohol and tobacco to start with. Plus plenty of prescription drugs too.

@TheUser420

Sensible and respectable people are taking plenty of harmful drugs

Alcohol and tobacco to start with. Plus plenty of prescription drugs too.

I didn't want to spell this out

I didn't want to spell this out

If you are discussing cannabis, you need to. Every Single Time.

You'd be amazed the number of people who insist alcohol is not a drug. Or tobacco too. Starting with the government who had to specifically exempt them from the 2016 PSA, as they damn well are psychocative substances. Along with incense

I think all those people who think casual weed use is ‘not doing any harm’ want to spend a day in a psychiatric hospital. So many awful stories of how cannabis started a descent into really severe mental health issues.

I don't think anyone can say "cannabis causes no harm", clearly it does. It (a) causes harm to the user physically and mentally and (b) purchase of cannabis funds criminal gangs who sell harder drugs and are involved in human trafficking and lots of other horrifying things.

What most people are arguing on this thread is it causes no more harm than alcohol or tobacco.

For your argument above, You may as well go and see lung cancer patients. Or people in alcohol rehabilitation units.

@IceLace100

I think all those people who think casual weed use is ‘not doing any harm’ want to spend a day in a psychiatric hospital. So many awful stories of how cannabis started a descent into really severe mental health issues.

I don't think anyone can say "cannabis causes no harm", clearly it does. It (a) causes harm to the user physically and mentally and (b) purchase of cannabis funds criminal gangs who sell harder drugs and are involved in human trafficking and lots of other horrifying things.

What most people are arguing on this thread is it causes no more harm than alcohol or tobacco.

For your argument above, You may as well go and see lung cancer patients. Or people in alcohol rehabilitation units.

I was thinking of the trauma clinic at Val D'Isere. Anxious souls would never ski again if they saw the people being stretchered in there! But it's not really very representative of what's going on outside on the mountain.

It smells stronger as it’s likely to be skunk

It’s cheap easy to get hold of and most people like to feel intoxicated in some way at times

It’s a very worrying trend I dread ds smoking it though I’m sure he shall try drugs at some point

It’s having an absolutely devastating impact on so many peoples mental health

I think all those people who think casual weed use is ‘not doing any harm’ want to spend a day in a psychiatric hospital. So many awful stories of how cannabis started a descent into really severe mental health issues

Absolutely agree. This weekend alone given that it’s a bank holiday the number of young people sectioned from cannabis induced psychosis will be far higher than any alcohol related or other drug related issues

I work in mh every person I have worked with under say 25 or when they came into the system cannabis is a huge factor in their deteriorating mh. Lives absolutely ruined as they started smoking weed at 14. We just not seeing the same issues with other drugs or alcohol with young people

It would be public health madness to legalise cannabis. Through my job, I’ve interviewed many officials on this topic over the years and all the sensible ones, including several chief constables, have said it’s a terrible idea.

If the law isn’t enforced to the point where openly on the street is a very common sight, what is the point in it being banned though? We get all the ills of illegality (modern slavery, criminality) because it can’t be sold openly but nobody is actually prevented from using it.

I think it sends out an awful message that the law is optional. Either enforce the law or legalise the stuff.

My police force doesn't police cannabis use at all.

It would be better regulated and licensed.

@Thetepidstepper

Naw it was just weed. Fucked my entire life up though, that's the truth. I know that's not a nice message. I don't care.

Something similar happened to me OP, and mine was definitely just weed because I bought it in a cafe in Amsterdam. I had the most frightening, mental health episode afterwards and it took me a few years to feel normal again. I hallucinated on it for hours after smoking it. Fucking awful experience.

@TheAntiGardener

It would be public health madness to legalise cannabis. Through my job, I’ve interviewed many officials on this topic over the years and all the sensible ones, including several chief constables, have said it’s a terrible idea.

If the law isn’t enforced to the point where openly on the street is a very common sight, what is the point in it being banned though? We get all the ills of illegality (modern slavery, criminality) because it can’t be sold openly but nobody is actually prevented from using it.

I think it sends out an awful message that the law is optional. Either enforce the law or legalise the stuff.

Agree- the current situation is the worst of both worlds. Either it's "properly" illegal and policed correctly, OR it's legalised and society benefits from the additional taxes.

We're in this daft half way house where strong stuff ends up in the wrong hands, police don't do anything because they don't have time / resources and the money goes to gangs.

@SpindleWhorl

My police force doesn't police cannabis use at all.

It would be better regulated and licensed.

We have clearly drifting in that direction for some time, and it's inevitable, but no politician has the guts to grasp the nettle and be honest about it.

@WorraLiberty

Plus alcohol really isn't fashionable anymore, for youngsters.

I think this ^^ is a big part of it, yes.

Multiple pubs have closed down everywhere since long before the pandemic and the price of alcohol is far greater than say a £10 bag of weed, that'll last for possibly a few days.

You really can't get a bag of weed for £10 that will last several days. It's expensive stuff

@Yellowbowlbanana

I agree with you OP. People minimise weed so much. I used to smoke a lot whilst at uni. It made me lazy and anxious. I now work with vulnerable adults and there is a huge incidence of MH problems and cannabis use. My experience is anecdotal but there seems an obvious, clear pattern.

Its more a case that those with mental health issues will often self medicate with weed, rather than weed causes mental health issues

@MurielSpriggs, indeed. If you go online and look at the various Constabularies' annnual business reports, and go to the 'disposal' data columns, quite a few now list 'cannabis disposals' separately from every other crime, caution, incident, you name it.

In policing terms it's basically already being separated out from 'actual' offences in practice.

If users are even stopped or spoken to it's a verbal warning not to annoy the local residents.

I'm hoping some new PCCs will, as you say, grasp the nettle, as cannabis production and selling is an area that needs regulation asap, particularly around strength.

this seems like a balanced assessment

I think that it should be legalised following Portugal's example, i.e. position it as a medical problem instead of a legal one.