Smoking weed - what’s your take on it...

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I don’t know much about it but on balance think it should probably be decriminalised. However, it is addictive and it obviously can have a negative impact on people’s lives and mental health. It does seem very prevalent around my part of London - I feel like I can smell it in the street all the time when I am out and about.

I could go on and on... my point is "but it's illegal we can't go changing laws" is a poor argument.

Yes, I agree. Firstly, it's arbitrary that alcohol is legal and pot isn't and more worryingly, this argument rests with Parliament possessing some divine interpretation of the universe.

It is pretty gross. I’d rather be around someone having a drink than someone stoned

I would like to see it decriminalised, regulated and taxed. I do think properly grown strains of cannabis (not skunk) are a damn sight safer than booze in some ways. I live in Glasgow. The drinking culture here is grim. Though I reckon it’s worse now in the small towns and around the west coast. It’s hard to maintain any illusion that booze is totally benign mummy juice.

Also glad alcohol is legal and dope is not. The law seems to be working in my favour

I’m surprised so many on here are pro it actually

It stinks, it makes people i’ve known paranoid, lazy, and horrible.
Gross

I’m surprised so many on here are pro it actually

I'm no more pro-pot than I am pro-alcohol. Rather, we need to carefully rationalise things we make illegal so that we can justify the state apparatus required to enforce it.

In this case it's just silly.

I very occasionally have a bit. Maybe half a dozen times in my adult life. Last time was a few weeks ago. Quite pleasant and I had a lovely nights sleep. There are worse things to worry about.

I used to smoke it heavily, I'd never touch it now. It was not good for my mental health.

I used to work in the prison service and have seen many men whose lives have been damaged by drugs, and I include weed in that. Their children's lives are also damaged by default.

I respect that adults can choose to use it recreationally in their own homes, and many use it sensibly and safely. However I do wonder when I smell cars go past reeking of weed, or see parked cars with drivers smoking and then driving off, just how safe that is- in the same way if I saw a driver neck a can of Stella or a glass of wine, then drive off.

I would hate to be stoned now, I would hate to walk around stoned, I feel it would negatively impact my life. I honestly don't know if I agree with legalisation or not, there are pros and cons to both sides and I have experienced the positives and negatives of both sides too.

I think my judgement is based upon the fact that I only ever used weed in 'unsafe' situations when I was quite vulnerable, and also that towards the end I experienced some very unpleasant side effects that were quite scary.

I would like to see it decriminalised, regulated and taxed. I do think properly grown strains of cannabis (not skunk) are a damn sight safer than booze in some ways.

I agree, and also agree that some people are vulnerable to abusing it with negative consequences. The research here generally shows that there is no significant increase in use with legalization, so that harm is already being done.

Does marijuana legalization lead to increased use?

The overall impact is pretty minimal

Here’s what the numbers show about the impact of legal marijuana

So why not regulate and tax it? As part of the legalization process prior criminal convictions for low level cannabis have been sealed or expunged in most states, which is a huge benefit to those seeking employment now with those offenses on their records. There's a social justice issue here too as most of those people with criminal records for cannabis have been minorities due to unequal enforcement of the laws.

Like with everyone, effects can be varied.

Some could take cocaine once a month and be fine whereas someone else could not cope with the psychological effects of marijuana.

The strength, method and regularity of use will make the biggest difference as well as that persons personality, environment when taking and any current life stressors.

I'd probably decriminalise but not legalise the use of have it sold in specialist shops like Amsterdam.

I have taken it about 20-30 times between 18-24. I've had an absolutely fine time but never did more than 3 a day and never more than 2 days in a row. It is strange how things that would normally freak me out wouldn't. Like I felt the walls closing in once and remember just thinking that's just weird.

My worst if it can even be classed as that as I wasn't particularly having a bad time was when I ate a whole bag and started seeing a black cat following me. God back to my partners Nans house and shut my eyes and had simeclosed eye visuals. I just told my partner how biZarre all these geometric shapes were - like.la RHCP videoand how the colour red was.

My aunts taken it for years nearly every day just before bed for chronic pain and no ill effects.

A friend took it on the regular and other thAn being very unmotivated was a happy, easy going and friendly person.

My partners cousin however took it and after heavy use for a few months stopped eating as she thought she was being poisoned and she had to be involuntarily sectioned (as well as assaulting a police officer as they were in on it too innher mind)xD. She was an inpatient for a month or so and was tapered off antipsychotics over 6 months. She's started using again 🤦‍♀️ and we all expect something similar.

So, so variable.

My DH and I share a smoke or two in the evening after the kids are in bed. Outside obviously! Its cumulative effect is basically that of a couple of glasses of wine (not, as someone said upthread, a bottle of vodka!)

My DB is an alcoholic and I've watched his life combust so I'm virtually teetotal these days, this is my method of winding down.

It's not physically addictive, obviously I didn't smoke any for over a year each time I was pregnant and breastfeeding, or on holiday, or when the kids weren't well etc and didn't have any symptoms of 'withdrawal'. It helps me manage day to day tension and stress and my regular migraines.

For all those who think it's harmful, check out the actual studies - it's physically impossible to OD on, it calms you (sedative not stimulant) unlike alcohol and has no cumulative medical issues.

IMO, it's got amazing medical properties, for which it should be legalised, and personally I think it ought to be legalised recreationally (with medical / mental health checks in place). I'm not saying 100% that it can't trigger schizophrenia - but every serious study I've seen says that it can only do so in those already genetically predisposed to serious mental health issues, which could be triggered by a range of different things, including alcohol.

BTW, not sure if anyone's mentioned this but you know who the largest exporter of legal marijuana is, right? Yup, it's the U.K.!

Legally its citizens can't smoke it, but we can all benefit from the profits from selling it. Makes perfect sense (if we accept that our government are massive hypocrites)...

Trouble is you don't know if you have the genes that get expressed when smoking ...until it's too late.

Exactly why it should be regulated and a drs note required to buy it. People will always smoke it, at least this way there's some checks in place - both as to the quality of what is sold and the capability of the smoker to cope with it.

I'm not sure how having your genome profiled, which costs 10k, prior to a visit to the dealer, would help.

No one knows which genes express psychosis yet, although apparently there are loads more than earlier thought. And we've all probably got them.

Scientists just know weed switches psychosis genes on.

Scientists just know weed switches psychosis genes on.

Is that right? I've not seen any definitive studies that show this, can you link me to your source please?

Oddly enough we do have a testing ground in those US states where it is legal - take Colorado, where it's been legal for years. Statistics show that their violent crime rate has gone down, their % of opiate addicts (previously at a record high) has reduced, their tax revenue has gone up and (most telling of all) there has been NO upturn in mental health issues or hospital admissions.

No one knows which genes express psychosis yet, although apparently there are loads more than earlier thought. And we've all probably got them.

Not everything can be boiled down to a single snapshot of genes. There's a constellation of interactions that aren't - and may never be - understood. People with identical sets of genes can experience wildly differing effects, while people with no common genes at all can experience identical effects.

It's one of the current Holy Grails for modern pharmacology - trying to establish how a persons genetics can be used to determine an individual medication regime. It would make medicines far more effective, and reduce costs and risk.

And if we want to stray into little-understood science, we need to consider how humanity resides in not astride nature. We are as much a part of nature as every other living organism. Which means that we are having an effect on cannabis evolution as much as it is on ours. Some plants evolutionary strategy appears to have manifested itself in becoming tasty, or nutritious and/or (in cannabis case) exhibiting pharmacological properties. There is a school of though that cannabis has pushed us to develop higher THC strains as a mechanism to promote propagation.

All of this is moot in the UK though. A country where it has never been impossible to source something from a dealer since I was young (too long ago). While there are many reasons why a person may not have tried cannabis, the one reason that isn't in the list is "because I could find any". (Which neatly skewers 2 excuses for prohibition in one sentence: that availability somehow drives demand (it's vice versa) and that if cannabis were freely available more people would succumb to it. Meanwhile the alcohol industry endlessly finds new ways to make alcohol "cool" or "fun" for the next generation.)

If we remove anecdata about "cannabis" purchased on the street (which may or may not have some actual cannabis in it - who knows ?) we're left with the army of homegrowers that are sustaining a constellation of hydroponics suppliers (5 within a half hours drive) and the manufacturers behind them. Electronics, fans, lights and lamps, nutrients and monitoring equipment, pumps, ancillaries ... if nothing else the explosion in Kilner jar sales suggests a lot of herbal cannabis is being stored correctly. (What, you thought it was all jam ?). All of which arose despite a prohibition which has done far more harm than the "problem" it was supposed to address. (And that's before we start into the illegality of the current regime due to successive government breaking the 1971 Misuse of Drugs Act). That's before you look at online suppliers.

For all this threads handwringing pearl-clutching not one person today is going to fail to have a dose of cannabis if they want. As it was yesterday. And as it will be tomorrow.

Oops looks like I've started another dissertation .

One puff, one draw
Frees the mind
Woah woah

Feeling irie
Take a pull an' fill my lungs
Every worries inside me
I turn them into little clouds
So gratefull to nature
For this sweet euphoria
Feeling Highrie
Hmmm I'm feeling good

Bob Marley know it all along
(Yeah yeah yeah)
Them willing to grow it all along
(Yeah yeah yeah)
They even try to say it's wrong
(Yeah yeah yeah)
But I knew it all along
(Yeah yeah yeah)

That the marijuana, frees the mind
Yes, the marijuana, get me high
So put your lighters in the sky
Tell the Government; "Legalize marijuana, marijuana"

Jah cured these herbs and they good for me
I'm floating on a Hill so Stoney
I'm glad to know I'm not alone
Becau' Rastafar-I is my custodian and... (and The Creator)

We represent the herbs on the podium
The Indicas are short like Napoleon
Sativas don't like so much sodium
The seed can replace your petroleum

The leaves have a skunky aroma scent
THC makes you feel like it's heaven-sent
CBD is to me like a medicine
Do some research and you will be pleased by the evidence
Perhaps you will cultivate some trees in your residence
And agree to disagree with the Presidents
Tell the Prime Ministers; "Please don't be hesitant
To let the herbs grow and be free"

Aha, The Marijuana, frees the mind
(Yeah yeah)
Yes, The Marijuana, get me high
(Yeah yeah)
So put your lighters in the sky
Tell the Government; "Legalize marijuana, marijuana"
Frees the mind

So many legal drugs are killing us
Illnesses they giving us
Yet, they still criticize The Marijuana, yeah

Marijuana yeah, frees the mind
Yeah yeah yeah
Marijuana, get me high
Put your lighters in the sky
Tell the Government; "Legalize Marijuana, Marijuana"

Any one who drinks is a hypocrite for criticising weed users. It's the only thing that helps my ptsd anxiety.

Oddly enough we do have a testing ground in those US states where it is legal - take Colorado, where it's been legal for years. Statistics show that their violent crime rate has gone down, their % of opiate addicts (previously at a record high) has reduced, their tax revenue has gone up and (most telling of all) there has been NO upturn in mental health issues or hospital admissions.

and the amount of prescriptions for painkillers has gone down. Bigly. In a country where you can end up paying full price for medicines that's not a bad thing. Well, unless you are a manufacturer of said painkillers.

Given how the world suddenly seems so down on plastics, maybe it's time to re-evaluate the use of hemp as a material ? After all, Henry Ford designed a car where anything not metal was hempen. You can grow a field of 6m plants in a year (well 9 months) and get seeds, oil and fibres from it. Plus it fertilises the soil. Plus it pulls in a lot of carbon dioxide. Plus it's pretty hardy and needs little pesticide treatment. And at the end of life it just degrades into the soil (as do we all ...). I hesitate to say "miracle crop", but it's certainly a tick in the biodiversity column. Ironically, fields of commercial hemp would be a real pain in the arse for homegrowers; as it would mean much more pollen around. Which is not what you want if you are trying to grow a female plant (where the magic is ) and keep it unfertilised. ("Sinsemilla" as the Spanish say. Meaning without seed).

I wouldn't care if they smoked it in there own homes. Publicly the smell is disgusting and I wouldn't want my children having it second hand just as much as a normal cigarette. A neighbour a way down smokes it in his garden and I have to bring my kids in and close the window, the smell is just vile.

I wouldn't care if they smoked it in there own homes. Publicly the smell is disgusting and I wouldn't want my children having it second hand just as much as a normal cigarette. A neighbour a way down smokes it in his garden and I have to bring my kids in and close the window, the smell is just vile.

Personally agree. But it's probably better to deal with anti social behaviour because it's anti-social, rather than connected to any individual activity ? That's before you consider that whatever the offence in exposure to the odd whiff of smoke maybe, it's in now way comparable to the shit in the air that we all have to breath 24/7. Certainly in cities. But that simply brings us back to the fact that it seems OK as a society to put up with a massive risk whilst at the same time deploying the full idiocy majesty of the law on a tiny risk. Although woebetide anyone who dares to point that out because - as frequently noted - the UK just doesn't do science.

I take the concerns around mental health very seriously, especially of adolescents, but personally I don't see that banning it has prevented these issues.

If it's true that high THC-content can damage mental health and cause psychosis, I think the best way to deal with that would be making it legal to produce and sell low THC-content cannabis. Make it easier for people to buy the regulated product.

He's in his own bloody garden he can do what he likes it's not his issue if you don't like it. It wont have the slightest effect on your kids ffs lol!

I've never had worse physical and mental health than when I was on citalopram and had the naxaplanon in. I started having brain zaps, gained two dress sizes in a matter of months and started losing my vision. I also went insane and had mental breakdowns often. I now only use weed for ptsd and anxiety and it works. I have two young DC so no time to be lazy. Definitely not grumpy off it either more like opposite lol!

He's in his own bloody garden he can do what he likes it's not his issue if you don't like it. It wont have the slightest effect on your kids ffs lol!

Spot the antisocial neighbour at number 36, Otherwise Okay Street...

Bet you have a barbecues or a bonfire every sodding opportunity, don't you? No matter that some of us would like our washing on the line not to stink.