Cannabis should not be decriminalised - AIBU?

[Alwaysoneoddsock]

I hate the smell of cannabis. It’s becoming the norm to smell it. I think decriminalising this drug will make it more prolific.
It is a gateway drug.
It does not help mental health (in fact it worsens it).
People driving under the influence of cannabis is a real issue.
AIBU to say it should not be decriminalised?

1. I hate the way armpits smell, should we also ban them?
2. It's not a gateway drug
3. Some people it helps, others it hinders. I am prescribed it for my mental health and all of my Drs are very happy including my NHS GP.
4. People driving under the influence of anything is a real issue. Set real evidence based limits and enforce them regardless of the legality.
5. These are just based on my experience etc. You are entitled to your opinion but what good has criminalising people for using cannabis really done for society?

Yes. Absolutely 100% for an alcohol ban.

I hate it too. Agree with you wholeheartedly.

How did that work out last time?

It will , I assure You
(Hug)

I am with you OP. Not just the smell, it will still be sold largely under the counter, and I don't want any more drivers under the influence of drugs.

I've taken many drugs and I didn't take the others because I smoked marijuana, I took them because I wanted to and I enjoyed getting high. My first intoxicant was alcohol and I suspect that's the same for nearly all drug users. Is alcohol a 'gateway' drug?

Let people do what they want to. Take it out of the hands of criminals and earn some tax on it. Prohibition has not worked.

Yanbu

Cannabis impairs driving in a similar way to alcohol & so very much can kill in the same way a drunk driver can kill. Driver's stopped are now more likely to have a positive cannabis swipe than fail a alcohol breath test.

Cannabis is also much slower to leave the body & so drivers are impaired for much longer after smoking cannabis. It also leaves the body in a much more unpredictable way.

It so is.

I agree with you about the effects and would prefer that cannabis just fall quietly out of use. However, some observations based on having lived in a few places (in Canada and the USA) where it is fully legal:

Cannabis sold legally is actual cannabis; I personally dislike the smell but it's just a strong, pungent herbal scent which some people even like. When I visit places where it's still illegal, I constantly smell horrible skunked weed everywhere. I do also still sometimes smell this in places where it's legal, but not as much. A key factor is price; if the price is allowed to inflate as most prices have here, you'll have a brisk illegal trade in cheap fake weed that stinks. If the price is regulated - or even more effectively, subsidized - people generally prefer to buy the real thing from a legal source.

Legalizing doesn't really make a difference to medicinal and therapeutic use (except in cases where many people are uninsured/don't have public healthcare, which shouldn't be the case in the UK) because prescriptions were fairly liberally granted and very easy to fill. It mainly makes a difference to recreational use.

Driving under the influence was initially a big problem in the US, mainly because individual states rushed to get legalization propositions on the ballot as soon as they felt they had a majority of voters on their side and didn't work out all of the details first. Now both the laws and the technology are (mostly) in place and it works pretty much like DUI for alcohol.

Official cannabis retailers are everywhere in my state and they have physically replaced a lot of other business and services. I suspect the pre-existing places would have gone under anyway due to the economy and effects of COVID, but perhaps without cannabis legalization they might have been replaced with more interesting and diverse businesses.

This is purely observation, but I think the interest in recreational cannabis has overall declined here, at least among adults. I literally never see anyone in the cannabis retailers besides staff, and the parking lots are always empty (of course, that may be because there are so many places that the business is spread out). In upscale communities even the teens consider cannabis downmarket and gravitate to cocaine and other "study drugs". College students, the "buy nothing/boycott everything" crowd, and survivalists still like weed, but the latter two categories generally grow their own.

Cannabis is very useful to manage symptoms of anxiety, insomnia, anorexia, arthritis, CFS, MS, and many other conditions.
It's not fair to criminalise people who simply wish to control their symptoms.

If it was decriminalised or legalised then it would be no more a 'gateway' drug than tobacco or alcohol. I know people who've been heroin and crack addicts who've never used cannabis. So I don't even think the 'gateway' thing is true.

This

Its Russian roulette and adolescent brains are particularly susceptible.
I know 3 people who were very unlucky & discovered via canabis that they have fragile mental health. Plus several who just aren't the productive members of society that they would have been if they didn't smoke.

I think it should 100% be available to people who benefit from medicinal use but we've got enough problems with the drugs we already made legal why on earth would we add to them?

I agree with you OP.
I think fine on prescription for health issues, but criminalise the recreational use.
I really hate the smell, it makes me feel sick.
I hate that I can’t use my garden because my neighbour smokes it constantly and the permanent smell makes me sick.
I hate that some friends use it and claim they are exactly the same but just more relaxed, when they are actually complete idiots on it.
The smell 🤮

I'm no expert on this, but all the 'gateway' this and that is nonsense, is a glass of wine at a family get together at 14 a gateway to alcoholism? This is half the problem, because it's all unregulated and criminal, that's why it's such a problem and young children die because of this. Children and teenagers will experiment, and try things which are dangerous, be it jumping off cliffs, staying out when saying they were with another friend, or trying smoking/drinking/drugs.

Legalise the whole lot, tax it, and properly help the current addicts with cleaning up and getting useful.

Not only would we see a massive reduction in petty crime, and all that nonsense, it'll help raise taxes, and force the organised crime lot into something else.

It's available on NHS prescription for sickness caused by chemotherapy.

It's available on private prescription (prescribed through an NHS doctor) for certain medical conditions and has been since 2018.

It is illegal to smoke cannabis and can only be vaped or as an edible.

If you want to see a drug that does serious damage to both physical and mental health - not counting what it does to families - have a look at alcohol.

My first intoxicant was alcohol and I suspect that's the same for nearly all drug users. Is alcohol a 'gateway' drug?

This is the thing @MaySea

I don't get the people who say cannabis is a gateway drug, but won't accept that alcohol is too.

I'd say the vast majority of people who have ever been intoxicated or who are now addicted to drugs, will have started with alcohol.

I've yet to meet any cannabis user or drug addict who didn't try alcohol first.

I have believed my whole life that personal use of all drugs should not be a crime. Based mainly on a belief in bodily autonomy, but also that the govt should have no say in my private life, and also that on balance there'd be less crime and antisocial behaviour.

Ex toker here. Cannabis is really not good for your mental health. When I smoked it was soft black and suchlike now it's super strong skunk that's fucking up our young people's minds.
I suppose if the gvmnt manages to "control" the pureness of weed legalising it could work, especially for health reasons.
Can't see that happening though

It's only a gateway drug in that it puts the user in contact with dealers and other dodgy types.

I've used cannabis on and off all my life, I am not a user of anything else (well nothing else non-prescription!).

Legalising/decriminalising it means control can be taken over quality and availability, removing the connection with dealers, reducing the chances of it being a 'gateway drug'.

Same here

It’s known not to be a gateway drug when legalised

and prob not a gateway drug at all

Massive link to psychosis and poor mh in cannabis smokers (who will say it helps them manage their anxiety without realising that in fact it worsens it). I hate the legalisation in Vancouver. Beautiful city now stinks of weed. Decriminalising it opens up a whole new group of young people who will do it but wouldn’t while it was illegal.

I tend to agree with legalizing (not just decriminalizing as the link to crime is still there if it isn't commercially available), taxing and controlling. With very strict regulations on advertising.

I do think the links with mental health are worrying and the smell from smoking it is unpleasant. Legalization could be contingent on it being in edible rather than smokable form and regulation on marking how potent it is and suggested limits for intake, as we have for alcohol, could help people regulate better.

But I don't think police time should generally be taken up with stopping people from ingesting something they want to ingest or that people should be criminalized because they ingested something they wanted to ingest. That just doesn't seem like an appropriate use of the criminal justice system to me.