Cannabis is illegal yet we have really strong 'legal highs' ?

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#823612 22-May-2013 16:20

There is another, less obvious reason for it to be illegal.

It is very hard to tax...

qwerty7

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#823621 22-May-2013 16:21

I struggle to understand how anyone can argue that cannabis should be illegal and alcohol legal. Or is it a case of that is the way it is now so making cannabis legal will further damage society but making alcohol illegal will cause too much of an uproar?

kiwijunglist

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#823635 22-May-2013 16:36

Asmodeus:

They actually say that cannabis use has been reported to be associated with these diseases by crappy studies and the debate is still out due to the crappiness of said crappy studies and that we need less crappy studies to sift out the crap

I wrote earlier

Summary of all of the above abstracts: Cannabis use is associated with psychotic illness and cancer. Further studies are needed to establish definite causation.

and you disagreed with me,

but now you appear to be agreeing with me.

It's really unclear to me if you are arguing for

- decriminalisation
- legalisation
- a stance that cannabis does not cause any harm
- randomized control trials as to the effects of cannabis (which would be unethical given it's known association with cancer, psyhological illness and lung disease)
- a stance that cannabis should be made legal because it is not as bad as alcohol or tobacco

As far as my opinion goes:

Cannabis is a harmful drug, that probably causes cancer, lung disease and exacerbates mental illness. There is probably a good case for decriminalization in New Zealand and I would support decriminalization. As far as tobacco and alcohol goes, I feel that tobacco should gradually be phased out of society through increased taxation and ultimately greater restriction on sales just like we have with alcohol. I would support an inquiry into either fines or making it illegal to be intoxicated in public.

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kiwijunglist

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#823638 22-May-2013 16:39

qwerty7: I struggle to understand how anyone can argue that cannabis should be illegal and alcohol legal. Or is it a case of that is the way it is now so making cannabis legal will further damage society but making alcohol illegal will cause too much of an uproar?

Yes, you can't argue to make cannabis legal because legal alcohol is problematic. Making alcohol illegal would be impossible, and I would guess that you personally wouldn't want alcohol to be illegal (cannabis also remaining illegal).

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plod

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#823642 22-May-2013 16:40

networkn:
plod:
GBristow: And now Dunne's new law is going to make drugs a priori illegal. They must be proven non-harmful before they can be scheduled. Yet he makes explicit exceptions for tobacco and alcohol and makes absolutely no explanation for this. It's hypocritical. If legality is based on harm then such laws should be applied to all drugs. Marijuana and MDMA is by far least harmful.
just wait till some smart person has the money to prove pot is not harmful.

LOL What a ridiculous statement, you don't think plenty of smart and or rich people haven't tried?

Drugs are bad mkay?

have a read on Portugal and there drug laws and the changes their have made.

P1n3apqlExpr3ss

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#823673 22-May-2013 17:32

Saw this comment over on thevote.co.nz

1) NZ would make a lot of tax revenue.
2) Tax revenue can be used to fund school lunches + roading + public transport.
3) No one harms anyone on weed. We have laws in place for muppets already.
4) Less alcohol related violence and deaths as people will stay home and watch South Park and eat pizza.
5) Fewer non criminals wrongly imprisoned i.e. less burden on the tax payer and more people living life.
6) More resources available to combat real crime i.e. rapists and thieves.
7) A chance to openly study the medicinal value of Weed.
8) #3 again, we ALREADY HAVE LAWS in place for people who are muppets. I have the right to put in me what I please so long as I don't harm others.
9) Tobacco, alcohol, synthetic drugs, anti depressants are legal so it's clearly not a safety reason why it's illegal.
10) I'd go as far as to say legalise MDMA too. If you've had a legal pill you know it's messing you up big time. MDMA would cause people to drink a looot less and they're a lot more loved up plus it's less neurotoxic than alcohol. Town would be safer. More resources available to cops to catch actual bad guys. Why do you think the CBD has become more unsafe at night in recent years?
11) Less revenue going into the hands of gangs and being pumped into the economy. Durrr

P.S. If you legalise real cannabis, no one in their right mind is going to consume synthetic rubbish so let's not lump the two together so the real stuff doesn't get shunned by association i.e. when people say 'drugs are bad' and lump everything together without thinking rationally.

Basically, what drug dealers ask to see ID? and when the drug dealers support your laws it's time to amend them

Also big pharma special interests.. medicinal cannabis has been proven to treat many diseases such as cancer, asthma etc. Guess what if cannabis was legalised and used in hospitals for treatments? Well there goes a lot of big pharma profit. If they were able to replicate cannabis into a patentable form then I have little doubt it would be being used as we speak

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Asmodeus

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#823716 22-May-2013 19:10

kiwijunglist:
Asmodeus:

They actually say that cannabis use has been reported to be associated with these diseases by crappy studies and the debate is still out due to the crappiness of said crappy studies and that we need less crappy studies to sift out the crap

I wrote earlier

Summary of all of the above abstracts: Cannabis use is associated with psychotic illness and cancer. Further studies are needed to establish definite causation.

and you disagreed with me,

but now you appear to be agreeing with me.

It's really unclear to me if you are arguing for

- decriminalisation
- legalisation
- a stance that cannabis does not cause any harm
- randomized control trials as to the effects of cannabis (which would be unethical given it's known association with cancer, psyhological illness and lung disease)
- a stance that cannabis should be made legal because it is not as bad as alcohol or tobacco

As far as my opinion goes:

Cannabis is a harmful drug, that probably causes cancer, lung disease and exacerbates mental illness. There is probably a good case for decriminalization in New Zealand and I would support decriminalization. As far as tobacco and alcohol goes, I feel that tobacco should gradually be phased out of society through increased taxation and ultimately greater restriction on sales just like we have with alcohol. I would support an inquiry into either fines or making it illegal to be intoxicated in public.

Ok for the sake of not arguing ad infinitum, I do support decriminalisation, I don't think cannabis is dangerous and I don't think that it is "as bad" as alcohol or tobacco. Alcohol and cannabis can be safely and responsibly used with no significant long term effects, but abuse of either is bad for you. I also agree that tobacco should be phased out of society and look forward to the day that it is. I also think public intoxication (with caveats) or driving while intoxicated should be illegal. There we go :)

DarthKermit

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#823720 22-May-2013 19:14

I've never tried weed in my life and never intend to.

However, I don't see the problem in decriminalising it. If such a law change turned out to be a complete disaster, it could always be repealed, couldn't it?

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Asmodeus

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#823747 22-May-2013 20:18

DarthKermit: I've never tried weed in my life and never intend to.

However, I don't see the problem in decriminalising it. If such a law change turned out to be a complete disaster, it could always be repealed, couldn't it?

Yes

No disasters have been had elsewhere it has been decriminalised, and no disasters were had before it was outlawed either

oxnsox

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#823793 22-May-2013 21:05

qwerty7: I struggle to understand how anyone can argue that cannabis should be illegal and alcohol legal. Or is it a case of that is the way it is now so making cannabis legal will further damage society but making alcohol illegal will cause too much of an uproar?

Its politics, and history.
Powerful people once controlled the tobacco and alcohol trade, and they were well connected politically. Therefore they were able to convince the state that controlling these substances thru legislation would ggenerate good tax revenue and give some control over the population.

They found other drugs didnt give the control over the population (read working class) they needed (to ensure their wealth) and maintain productivity. But drugs could be used effectively on other populations to maintain control over them. ( UK controlled China with opium till the Emperor, who was an addict himself, banned it's use in order to wrest back control of the country).

But it will take years to change the legal status of alcohol (anyone in the local wine industry? ), but over the last 20 years we've been marginalizing smokers (globally), so one day we may have a smoke for nation. .....

Some things we can't change, but that is no rational argument for allowing other activities to become accepted.

JimmyH

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#823795 22-May-2013 21:06

Whee...... I love a good heated discussion, so thought I would weigh in as well. On balance, I favour legalisation.

I don't use cannabis, never have. It just doesn't interest me. But it is *ludicrously* easy to get, and anyone who thinks that having it illegal means it's hard to get hold of is fooling themselves, and I have certainly been offered it loads of times. By people you wouldn't necessarily call potheads too! But for myself, I've always found that coffee, sauvignon blanc or a good craft beer are all the chemical enhancement my life needs.

I'm also struck by the similarities between the situation re: cannabis in NZ now, and the excellent documentary series on prohibition in the US that has been running on the History Channel.

I'm not arguing that smoking cannabis is a good idea. It clearly isn't. Yes, it has a cancer risk, apparently there is some evidence it can aggravate mental health conditions in some people (although I'm never clear whether that's just correlation, and that the direction of causality is instead that people with mental issues are more likely to smoke), and I believe it lowers fertility as well.

The issue isn't whether cannabis is a good thing - that's a no brainer, it isn't. It's about whether legal cannabis would be less bad, on balance, than illegal cannabis. On that basis, I favour legalisation. Points of note:

1. Making it legal wouldn't necessarily increase consumption. Indeed, evidence from places like Portugal is that it might actually lower it.

2. At present illegality means it is illegal to sell to anyone, so illegal dealers will sell to everyone. A legalise and licence regime means that it might be harder for the under 18s to get it it. It will never be impossible, but it isn't impossible now - the counterfactual is important here.

3. Under a legalise and licence regime at least people who want to smoke it will know what they are getting. At present, who knows what much nastier substances it may have been adulterated with?

4. If people are going to smoke it, we might as well "do a tobacco" and tax it, to at least get some tax revenue to fund health etc and offset the harm it causes. At the moment it's essentially subsidised - you mostly pay tax/GST on alcohol but not on weed

5. Having cannabis illegal doesn't really stop access/use. It does, however, encourage massive criminality - tying up police time and expensively filling jails with people for an offence that, in many segments of society, is no worse than having a glass of wine. I would love the Police being free to follow up on crimes with higher harm to the innocent (burglary, assault) and truly nasty drugs like P, have the government save hundreds of millions by not clogging the courts with this nonsense, and also deal a body-blow to gangs and organised crime. The close similarities to prohibition in the US are eerie in this regard. If it's down to a choice between money going to the gangs or to the taxpayer, I know which option I favour.

Also, while I'm not pro-cannabis, there is one aspect of it that I am strongly in favour of. I have had friends and family go through terminal cancer, and the hell that is intensive chemotherapy. Reportedly cannabis is very effective at helping with the side effects of chemo. Personally, I am in favour of *anything* like this that will ease the hell that terminal cancer patients go through. If they wanted me to, I would have gone out and purchased some for them. I think that anyone who would deny a terminal cancer patient this relief out of moralising spite is cruel beyond belief.

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Asmodeus

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#823800 22-May-2013 21:21

The anti-drug panel on The Vote are an absolute joke and I have lost a lot of respect for Duncan Garner too. They opened with lies, misinformation and nonsense and then persisted with it along with bullying and immature stunts.

Disappointed with the program for lumping cannabis in with the synthetic crap too.

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#823809 22-May-2013 21:26

there's no point arguing whether cannabis should be legal ... let's vote!

oh wait a minute ... we don't have a say, the members of parliament do ... let's let them vote! ... ok they're not interested ... there you go, cannabis remains illegal

P1n3apqlExpr3ss

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#823823 22-May-2013 21:44

Was it just me all did they make it sound like synthetics are criminalised yet are legally sold in dairies? So are synthetics currently criminalised or not?

I don't know the specifics of Dunne's bill but the obviously bad synthetic stuff that is being presented/exposed on Campbell Live a lot recently should no doubt be banned, and the whole "prove it's safe before it goes on sale" thing should go into effect ASAP

I also see it as unfair that they threw harmful synthetics in with natural cannabis

Jeeves

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#824004 23-May-2013 10:34

Klipspringer:
My point, and the reason why I brought the binge drinking into question is that quiet frankly I don’t believe our youth are mature enough to handle legalizing marijuana.

If we were not such a careless binge drinking nation I would probably be all for legalizing it.

Agree on the binge drinking culture - that's never pretty (But we most certainly arn't unique in that aspect. Australia, America, and the UK I feel are on pretty similar, if not worse levels of teen binge drunkedness).

However, I still stand by the fact that weed is so easy to get at the moment for teens, that not much will change with decrim/legalisation. The legality of it does not stop them at the moment, so changing that won't really change the current state of affairs.
Legalizing it will certainly reduce the "badassness" of it. As in 'ohh look at johnny, he's doing something illegal'.

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