I think it will just be a matter of time before Colorado gives us a complete case study of the whole issue of recreational cannabis legalization.Xelor you are the only person I have ever seen who gives TOO MUCH documentation and links to support your views.I'm apprehensive about responding to the OP above for seeing loaded language like "surrender to the issue of drug abuse" does not suggest the OP actually wants, as stipulated in the thread title, a factually dispassionate discussion of pros and cons. Instead, it intimates that s/he has an axe to grind, for the pros and cons, along with comparisons and descriptions of various jurisdictions' policy and legalization terms, are widely available from myriad sources on the Internet.
- Comparing legal marijuana systems in Colorado and Washington
- Washington’s Marijuana Legalization Grows Knowledge, Not Just Pot: A Report on the State’s Strategy to Assess Reform
- Marijuana
- Weed pass sparks new problems (Holland)
- Legalization is a balancing act
- 60 Peer-Reviewed Studies on Medical Marijuana
- Marijuana and Your Health: What 20 Years of Research Reveals
- Legal status of cannabis around the world - map (as of 2014)
- Legality of cannabis by country (I don't know how current be the information here.)
- Options for Gleaning Revenue from Legal Cannabis
- An Examination of Benefits and Adverse Effects of Legal Clinical Cannabis
- Design considerations for legalizing cannabis: lessons inspired by analysis of California’s Proposition 19
- New regulated markets for recreational cannabis: public health or private profit?
- Assessing the Public Health Impacts of Legalizing Recreational Cannabis Use in the USA
- Interpreting Dutch Cannabis Policy: Reasoning by Analogy in the Legalization Debate -- This paper isn't expressly about marijuana legalization. Rather it is about the pitfalls of and rational limits to using Holland's experiences as an analogy for what other nations may or may not observe were they to follow Holland's model.
- EVALUATING CANNABIS LEGALIZATION
- Obstacles to a Regulated Cannabis Market (Canada)
- Uruguay’s Drug Policy: Major Innovations, Major Challenges (Unrelated: If you ever bother to go to Buenos Aires, extend the trip by a couple days to allow yourself time to go to Montevideo as well, or vice versa if you plan a trip to or find yourself in Montevideo.)
The specific ideas I would share can be found in or inferred from the linked content above, and I have nothing new or different to add to that content that directly addresses the matter of cannabis legalization, its incidence and impacts.
Overall, I favor legalizing marijuana use and possession, or at least decriminalizing it. [1] I have a concern about marijuana's "gateway effect," but I also don't cotton to the principle of protecting individuals (adults) from themselves, so I weigh that concern as very low among the reasons for not legalizing/decriminalizing cannabis. I might assign greater weight to the concern and its consequences were cannabis as addictive as is nicotine [2], but it is not. Moreover, it's not clear to me that, and the extent that, the "gateway effect" of cannabis derives from its being "forbidden fruit." [3]
What strikes me as "special" about Canada and its legalization of cannabis, thus what I suspect gives rise to the somewhat vocal concerns and discussion of Canada's stance on the matter, is that among nations that (would) grant legal status to cannabis, or that have a laissez faire approach (in law and in law enforcement) to it and its users, Canada abuts the U.S., and travel by "typical Americans" between the two countries is relatively frequent and common. In contrast, not many "typical Americans" go to, or go often to, Spain, Iran or Uruguay, or the Netherlands, where "Mary Jane" is legally obtainable for recreational purposes by non-citizens in some jurisdictions and not in others.
Note:
- I think the distinction between "legal" and "decriminalized" substances, objects and behaviors is absurd, but nobody solicited me in the fabrication and "socialization" of that distinction, so it exists widely enough that it is "a thing" now, and I therefore acquiesce to the accepted distinction.
- Linked table is part of this study: Comparative risk assessment of alcohol, tobacco, cannabis and other illicit drugs using the margin of exposure approach
- Thinking back to my youth, my peers who were inclined to drink a lot and later, when they could legally buy booze, did drink a lot, were the kids whose parents made a big deal about their kids not drinking alcohol. My own parents never locked or stored the hootch away from my reach or sight and routinely allowed me a sip or two of it when they were drinking it and at "special occasion" dinners.
didn't, at the time, care much for the taste of most alcoholic beverages I encountered, especially beer, so it wasn't a big deal for me to not drink much of it later in my life. (The very sweet wine served at church with communion was okay, but that isn't what my parents had at home.) It took only one college instance of my over imbibing, thus progressing from "buzzed" to "wasted," for me to know I was not ever going to let that happen again, for I didn't enjoy it. In fact, I thought, "why do people actually do this on purpose."
It creates a bottomless pit that nobody can possibly dive into, sort of like the bibliography after a book.
The one sentence that I got out of your long spiel is that you support the "legalization" of cannabis.
That is the salient issue.
In Colorado so far this legalization seems to have accomplished what was intended. There are still some doubts and reservations about it by a significant portion of the population there however.
I suspect that the high concentration of Catholics and Mormons in the Rocky Mountain states will always have reservations about cannabis.
It will take time and further observation about Colorado to find out if any such doubts are warranted.
Colorado is the test case. The people there are our lab rats.
Well, I'm not sure what to say to or about that. I read the stuff to which I link (except when I not that I have not done so). The "pit" doesn't seem so bottomless to me. Mostly, one need only read the introduction/framework and conclusions or discussion sections of the papers to which I link. If, however, one takes exception with the conclusions, discussion and/or results, well, then one needs to read the whole paper so as to have a sound basis for refuting the methodology that gave rise to the researchers' conclusions and so on.
If one endeavors to take on discussing a complex topic that has many variables to consider and to which one must rationally assign weights, there's usually a lot to think about and read. I say "read" because reading well developed work by others is generally more efficient than figuring out all that stuff on one's own. Don't you also think that availing oneself of the existing body of knowledge is better that "reinventing" it oneself?
What I shared as being my position, just as with others and their stated position, on the matter is the least important thing I wrote in the whole post. What I think, or what any other non policy maker or topical expert thinks isn't really all that important/worth knowing, except when a ballot is offered and the quantity of people who hold a given position determines what policy action(s) will ensue as a result of our learning the collective stance held by the polled population/sample.
Trudeau does not seem inclined to wait however. He wants to smoke his dope now.
That's the bottom line on this, for the O/P up in O Canada.
