to wonder if this will have any effect on the legality of cannabis in the UK?

[ophelia275]

From 2014 in Washington and Colorado states in the USA, the recreational use of cannabis will be legal. It will also become legal in Uruguay, the first country to make recreational use legal. This has not been done lightly and legalisation will be tightly controlled and regulated after a lot of research was done on the impact in all 3 places.

It will be interesting to see if this has any effect on the future legality of cannabis in the UK. I think in the next few years more and more places will be making it legal to use recreationally, especially as there are potentially huge income streams associated with taxes/licensing of legal cannabis sellers.

Do people think it should be legalised in the UK if properly regulated/controlled in the same way as tobacco/alcohol is?

[CoteDAzur]

Awesome, ivy If you have now understood that the UK has nowhere near the lowest smoking rate in Europe, we can go back to talking about the subject of the thread.

[NiceTabard]

portugal stories

They decriminalised all drugs over a decade ago and results seem positive.

[NiceTabard]

Well given the response that Prof Nutt got from govt, along with his colleagues on the drugs advisory panel (or whatever it was called), I suspect the answer is NO.

Legislation to do with recreational drugs around the world (and I include alcohol and tobacco in that classification) is just totally bonkers, based entirely in political agendas, historical precedents, lobbying from super-rich corporations and the "war against drugs" trope.

What is happening now is NOT WORKING around the globe and is causing untold suffering for a tremendous number of people, leaving whole communities in the hands of extraordinarily violent criminals, and criminalising huge numbers of ordinary people, and also huge numbers of people who need help and not prosecution.

[ivykaty44]

Possibly you should read the thread a cote as I never said UK had the lowest smoking rate in the EU

I did refer to england and europe though and I am sure you know the difference between the two

[CoteDAzur]

So if ivy has understood that UK does NOT have the lowest smoking rate in the EU, can we get back to legalisation of cannabis?

[PlentyOfPubeGardens]

From what I have read, vapourisers are increasingly popular in the US for taking cannabis so it doesn't have to mean an increase in smoking.

Personally I don't know whether legalisation would be a good move or not. I would like our govt. to have a proper reasonable debate, focussing on harm reduction rather than ideal world scenarios and based on actual evidence rather than moralistic grandstanding. We still seem a long way away from that though.

[Sadoldbag]

I personally think it should be legal expect


-when In change of minors

• operating machines
• and driving trains,cars,motorbikes and scooters

[PlentyOfPubeGardens]

I looked at fig 2.5.1 in this document and I counted them

I can count 16 in europe (so including Turkey) on that chart with higher smoking rates. Clearly the chart doesn't include all countries in Europe if there are 50 of them so let's try this:

There are at least 14 countries in Europe with lower smoking rates than the UK

There are at least 11 countries in the EU with lower smoking rates than the UK

[ivykaty44]

There are 14 countries in Europe with lower smoking rates than the UK

There are 11 countries in the EU with lower smoking rates than the UK

plenty - how do you get to this conclusion?

on the chart you linked to there are 17 countries in europe with higher smoking rates than the uk

[ivykaty44]

plenty - there are not 14 countries in europe - there are 50 countries in europe

[ivykaty44]

the government has made steps to reduce smoking and regardless of whether there is a sensible discussion about drug policy, they will not want to have moved forward so far in decreasing smoking and then move to what they would see as a backward step in legalising a drug that includes smoking. By legalising smoking cannabis they would be then agreeing to people smoking and it is the tobacco that would also be a problem as the two are mixed and one is highly addictive and a substance they are trying to reduce the use of.

most of the countries you listed in europe - but not quite all - have a higher consumption of tobacco than the uk

[PlentyOfPubeGardens]

There are 14 countries in Europe with lower smoking rates than the UK

There are 11 countries in the EU with lower smoking rates than the UK

According to your wiki link, there are 112 countries in the world with lower cigarette consumption per capita than the UK - out of a total of 185 countries, so around 60% of countries score lower than UK (I have no idea how many countries there actually are in the world or how accurate this list is, btw).

Where are you going with all this data?

[PlentyOfPubeGardens]

Oops, so it does, it times out for some reason. Try this one instead.

Had a look at the wiki link. It shows that some countries have higher tobacco consumption than UK and some have lower. What point are you trying to make with this data?

FWIW I don't think the government are anywhere near even having a sensible discussion about drug policy, let alone legalising cannabis or anything else. Maybe, if the US are starting to back away from their thoroughly unsuccessful and politically dubious (but right-sounding) 'war on drugs', we are moving a step closer to being able to have that discussion.

[ivykaty44]

There are 50 countries in europe not 14

[ivykaty44]

plenty - it just shows an error page?

even on a world level the UK smokes less cigarettes than other countries - even it if means more people smoke less cigarette it doesn't equate
list of countries by annual per capita consumption of tobacco cigarettes

but why would the government try to put in measures to prevent people from smoking, reduce the amount of cigarettes people smoke and then legalise a drug which (for the most part) involves smoking -it wouldn't make sense?

[themaltesefalcon]

ASH are partly funded by Pfizer, who make various products starting with Nico- to sell to people once they are convinced they have to give up the fags. 'Tis quite a shameless con which it doesn't take much digging to uncover.

Mostly funded by the British taxpayer, though. Nice of you, funding fake charities who tell you what to do with your own money and time. :)

[PlentyOfPubeGardens]

Ah ok, that makes sense, thanks.

So there are 11 EU countries with lower smoking rates than UK and 14 in Europe as a whole.

[PigletJohn]

In Europe but not in EU.

[PlentyOfPubeGardens]

ivykaty44, here is the table you linked to, in context (see page 4). The table separates out male and female smokers and then arranges countries in order of number of male smokers.

Look at the table directly above it which lists countries in order of total percentage of smokers. UK comes in at 21.5% and doing better than UK are: Netherlands, Romania, Belgium, Denmark, Slovak Republic, Malta, Finland, Slovenia, Portugal, Luxembourg and in the lead by a wide margin, Sweden. There are four other countries listed at the bottom (not sure why they are separated?), out of these, Iceland, Norway and Swizerland also have lower rates of smoking than UK.

[PigletJohn]

you're right. It would be better if other drugs were legalised and controlled, to wipe out the illegal trade and its ill effects.

[winterchunderland]

Funny that alcohol stayed legal when other drugs became illegal when the country was run by alcohol loving middle/upper class men.

[winterchunderland]

Only read part of the thread.

The thing is that people take drugs including alcohol mainly as a form of escapism from the daily life. I would argue that everyone has a vice, some more virtuous than others such as sport which also changes the mind temporarily and induces a natural high.

Humans seem to need, crave this escapism/high and some more than others. Even food such as high sugar can give that euphoric feeling and some get addicted.

I am not sure that making narcotics legal will make people use more, people already have easy access to their chosen escapism. Perhaps there would be less alcoholics and more weed addicts? In my mind that wouldn't be so bad.

[ivykaty44]

the whole of europe I am unable to find England as a lone country, which would be lower than the UK as a combined union

[PigletJohn]

All Capone made his fortune and built his criminal organisation out of alcohol and gambling prohibition.

There's not much scope for organised crime to make high profits our of fake and adulterated alcohol here, where you can buy non-poisoned stuff at any pub or supermarket, with legal controls to reduce sales to people who are visibly drunk or underage, and bans for persistent abusers. I don't approve of excessive drinking but I am 100% sure that a legalised and controlled trade is better for society than Prohibition.

[Timetoask]

prison THAN give in.