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?

[ivykaty44]

40 years ago you could smoke where ever you liked, at work, at home and in the park or pub if you were pg no one batted an eye if you lite up, the children would run around the lounge whilst you could sit on the sofa and smoke and drink a cup of tea

20 years ago it was becoming increasing difficult to get away from the fact smoking was not good for your health, not soaking around children as it was bad for them.

10 years ago you couldn't smoke at work and smoking when pg had become a big no no

5 years ago you could walk into any supermarket and see cigarettes on sale and choose which packet you wanted to smoke - now though not alone don't you see the rows of packets of cigaretts they are hidden away behind a screen along with the king size rizlas - as the government don't want people smoking. So smoking in public places was banned

patterns and behaviour change and the laws of where you can and can't smoke as the government tries to make it more and more difficult for smokers

[Lazysuzanne]

And how does that relate to the question of whether or not cannabis will be legalized Ivy?

[ComposHat]

Ivy, Surely that just illustrates my point that attitudes shift shift radically in in comparatively short periods of time?

[Lazysuzanne]

Perhaps Ivy thinks that legislation inevitably moves in one direction, ie from fewer to more restrictions?

Therefore theorizing that prohibitions against cannabis use must increase.

Clearly such a supposition would be misguided.

[Lazysuzanne]

Syka, cannabis does not cause schizophrenia, if you think it does then you don't understand the difference between cause and correlation.

No one knows what causes schizophrenia.

[PigletJohn]

well, we know that cigarettes and alcohol definitely do cause ill health and fatal disease; and the riding of horses and motorcycles increases the probability of injury and death.

So we know there is no decision in principle that injury, death and disease lead to legal prohibition.

[TheFuzz]

Add in getting drunk and driving then. The amount of weed I smell coming from cars in rush hour is crazy. Legalise the lot then, including drink driving.

Bonkers.

[PigletJohn]

alcohol is legal, drunk driving is not.

Is that difficult for you to grasp?

[Dawndonnaagain]

Legalise the lot then, including drink driving.
Not really an argument, is it.

[PlentyOfPubeGardens]

ivykaty44 - The message on smoking being legal is awful, but slowly this is being addressed and we have a far lower rate of smokers than the rest of Europe.

This isn't true. There are quite a few European countries with lower smoking rates than the UK.

[womblesofwestminster]

No I don't. I've spent too much time trying to reason with/calm/talk down people high on the stuff

What do you mean?

[ivykaty44]

plentyofpube - which countries in europe?

[PlentyOfPubeGardens]

Well, according to this which has the most up-to-date figures I can find, Germany, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Italy, The Netherlands, Slovakia, Portugal and Sweden all have lower smoking rates than the UK.

Figures vary a bit according to source (these are official EC stats) but there are always a few places with lower smoking rates than the UK and Sweden always comes out lowest by a sizeable margin.

[ivykaty44]

Ash and the smoking tool kit have very different figures for smoking, press in 2013 all ran stories of UK getting under 20% in 2013/2014 and England alone is already at 19%

[CoteDAzur]

Ash and who?

European Commission report that Plenty linked to looks more credible.

[ivykaty44]

I

[ivykaty44]

If you want to discredit ash and smoking tool kit then at least come up with a valid reason rather than it looks better on another study

[PigletJohn]

Ash is the pro-smoking lobby group. Have they commissioned independent studies in multiple European countries using the same peer-reviewed methodology?

[PlentyOfPubeGardens]

As I said, 'figures vary a bit according to source'.

20% of GB population are smokers according to Ash's latest figures. Also the decline in smoking appears to have stalled since 2007 (which is what the press should have been reporting on).

These are national statistics though (Ash uses ONS) - numbers from other countries are not there for comparison. I haven't seen anything from Ash with Europe wide statistics. Do you have a link?

[mewmeow]

The Netherlands have a much better and more effective drug policy than us over here!

In terms of reduction of harm, drugs should be de-criminalised and treated by the healthcare system. Makes a lot of sense. Save a lot of money on prison bills etc. more likely to get clean too, and less likely to be harmed by unknown substances in drugs. Also, as someone else has said, they can make money from taxation, and significantly lower gang crime.

[PlentyOfPubeGardens]

You're thinking of FOREST, Piglet. ASH is the other lot, they're anti-smoking. Same difference

Sorry for the derail OP.

[Timetoask]

mewmeow, the healthcare system is already overloaded and cannot cope because of all the binge drinkers, binge eaters, you want to add on to the list drug addicts?

Why does money always come into it? Who cares how much money they will make from taxation. What matters to me is the health of my children. Children are already suffering the consequences from the "legal highs", what would happen if drugs were make even more available is that children would see them as nothing wrong, the government would have to invest thousands and thousands trying to convince people that they should buy them because they rot your brain.

I know kids already have access to drugs, we need to act on that problem rather than just open the door.

Saying that alcohol is terrible but legal, so why not make drugs legal is a nonsense rational. We are desperately trying to control the problem this country has with alcohol. Why would you add drugs to the mix as well?

Gang crime, would move on to something else, to guns and who knows what else. I prefer to put these people in prison and give in. Criminals are also involved in people trafficking, so, would yo legalise that to stop the criminals? Ofcourse not.

[Timetoask]

prison THAN give in.

[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.

[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