Health Canada presides over birth of billion-dollar free market in marijuana

[The Larch]

Well, I don't intend to get busted in Portugal for posession, so excuse me if I didn't research it properly. 

There's no shame in contingency planning.

There's something creepy in knowing way too much about that. Like the kind of people that can quote ages of consent all over the world. 

[Neil]

Hard drugs are kinda legal in Portugal and it hasn't been the end of the world.

I've read up on Portugal, and they aren't legal at all.  What they do is heavy emphasis on treatment for end users, rather than punishment.  But the dealers still get punished.

That's why I said kinda, because I'm iffy on the details, but the thing is that posession of small amounts and consumption are depenalized, and reduced to an administrative fine plus you have to be reviewed by a panel of doctors and social workers to check on you if you're a recidivist, or something like that.

Sounds suspiciously like a death panel to me.  And no good ever comes of social workers.

[viper37]

zero contraband now, zeron health&social problems.

Sarcasm?

Yes.

We invest a lot to fight alcohol&tobacco contraband.  Well, it's hard to quantify, because it's often mixed with drugs&firearms, but we do have specific squads to fight this and they make regular arrests.

As soon as drugs are legalized, they will be heavily taxed and the psychoactive agents will be limited.  Wich will push consumers to seek cheaper&better products to give them buzz.  Just look at that silly new drug that burns the bones.  Once alcohol became legal, people turned to pot.  Once pot became legal/socially "ok", people turned to harder drugs.

[Ideologue]

Well, I don't intend to get busted in Portugal for posession, so excuse me if I didn't research it properly. 

There's no shame in contingency planning.

There's something creepy in knowing way too much about that. Like the kind of people that can quote ages of consent all over the world. 

Ignorance of the law is no excuse.

[MadImmortalMan]

Once alcohol became legal, people turned to pot.  Once pot became legal/socially "ok", people turned to harder drugs.

You make a compelling case for banning water.

[viper37]

Once alcohol became legal, people turned to pot.  Once pot became legal/socially "ok", people turned to harder drugs.

You make a compelling case for banning water.

I think I rather make a compelling case to ban cigarettes

[Ed Anger]

Well, I don't intend to get busted in Portugal for posession, so excuse me if I didn't research it properly. 

There's no shame in contingency planning.

There's something creepy in knowing way too much about that. Like the kind of people that can quote ages of consent all over the world. 

Mexico is 12.

[jimmy olsen]

Gross!

[garbon]

The day he told me the story he was really happy: he had just received his HIV results, negative.

Well that is something to be happy about.

[garbon]

As soon as drugs are legalized, they will be heavily taxed and the psychoactive agents will be limited.  Wich will push consumers to seek cheaper&better products to give them buzz.  Just look at that silly new drug that burns the bones.  Once alcohol became legal, people turned to pot.  Once pot became legal/socially "ok", people turned to harder drugs.

I don't think that's how it works.

[viper37]

As soon as drugs are legalized, they will be heavily taxed and the psychoactive agents will be limited.  Wich will push consumers to seek cheaper&better products to give them buzz.  Just look at that silly new drug that burns the bones.  Once alcohol became legal, people turned to pot.  Once pot became legal/socially "ok", people turned to harder drugs.

I don't think that's how it works.

drug users like the buzz, teenagers like the forbidden.  If we legalize some kind of drugs, they'll simply turn to stronger, illegal stuff.

[Jacob]

drug users like the buzz, teenagers like the forbidden.  If we legalize some kind of drugs, they'll simply turn to stronger, illegal stuff.

Have you ever drunk alcohol, smoked pot, or been a teenager?

It doesn't sound like it...

[grumbler]

drug users like the buzz, teenagers like the forbidden.  If we legalize some kind of drugs, they'll simply turn to stronger, illegal stuff.

Have you ever drunk alcohol, smoked pot, or been a teenager?

It doesn't sound like it...

It also doesn't sound like he has paid the slightest bit of attention to what actually happens in the world.  Banning drugs is what causes them to morph into stronger versions, because criminal penalties and difficulty of movement are based on raw quantity, not strength.  Producers therefor have an incentive to make each ounce/pound/ton they move as strong as possible, even if this is expensive to do.

The shift from powdered cocaine to the much more addictive crack cocaine came about because the vipers of the world tried to solve other peoples' problems.  Modern MJ is much stronger than the traditional stuff for the same boneheaded reasons.

[Ideologue]

That's something I'd never thought of.  I wonder if it's ever come up (based on sentence differentials for larger quantities) whether the law treats x amount of a bag full of 35% cocaine hydrochloride the same as x amount of a bag full of 99% cocaine hydrochloride.

[Tamas]

Maybe it was Soros who I once heard advocating a plan of legalizing basically every drug, by distributing them heavily supervised from government-owned shops, at a cut-back rate in order to destroy the drug cartels by making it impossible for them to turn a profit.

I am not sure how good an idea it is, but I cannot imagine having a lot of people who are only not doing hard drugs because it is not legal.
And it makes sense to me to a) sell it under strict state control, so it is not only taxable but also you can have a clear record of the buyers and b) sell it heavily under the street price, so that all the addicts would be willing to undergo said state supervision instead of just buying from a dealer.