Smoke up losers

I hate this line of argument. Whether Big Brother gets his beak wet really shouldn't be the determining factor in whether something's legal or not.

 

DAMMIT

 

I really think it's important to keep pot out of the hands of teenagers. I had some very bright friends who got into hash and pot at 15 or so, and it really messed them up and, I think, messed up the rest of their lives in very real ways. I'm glad I didn't start smoking until my mid 20s. I'm assuming the legal age up here will be the same as alcohol, so 18 or 19 depending on the province. I think that might be too young.

 

We've been over this here before. In California, the pot revenue is going almost exclusively to pot education, pot studies, help communities effected by pot. Look at page 4.
http://www.lao.ca.gov/handouts/crimjust/2017/Proposition-64-Revenues-021617.pdf

There is no windfall for the state. It's just a pot mari-go-round.

 

It does prevent people like me from having to buy from sketchy-ass people in parks. I kind of marvel that up until about two years ago, when you bought "pot," you got whatever you got. I know pot users talking about strains is like craft beer people talking about hops, but there really is a big difference between them, and "civilizing" the market has benefits aside from the taxation.

 

Fair enough.
There are positives about the pot laws. A windfall for the state isn't one of them.

 

In Ontario, at least, the stores themselves will likely be government owned and run. Like the LCBO and The Beer Store, those stores will make bank.

 

There's also some theory/evidence from the economics discipline that the "marijuana is a gateway drug" argument doesn't hold up so well when marijuana is legal. Apparently when it's illegal, the reality is that to get it you have to deal with someone who's more likely to trade in it and other drugs. When it's legal, so the argument goes, that risk is far, far lower.

 

I can see that. Although I've always thought the "gateway" argument was overblown. In my experience, there are people who will do "natural" drugs, like weed and shrooms, and people who will do fucking crazy shit like crack and heroin.

Which reminds me of a funny miscommunication I had recently with a youngster. I was talking about "dope," as in weed. Apparently "dope" is now the preferred term for heroin. I nearly bought something I really didn't want. I wondered after whether a judge would buy that excuse.

 

This part is scary, yes. I'd hate to try it again, when it's legal, only to find out that it's just too strong now.

 

It is very strong right now. And I can't do edibles. They have gone insane. I popped a capsule a few months ago, and I was high for 15 hours—like, really high, all night and into the next day. It sucked. I was standing beside my bed at 5 AM, willing myself to straighten out. Never again. You just can't regulate it properly, and apparently some people like to get high to the point of paralysis. I still like to do shit.

Two or three tokes. Literally, that's all you need anymore. Which is great value for money, really. A $10 purchase will get you high, like, ten times.

 

This accurately reflects my experiences, as well. Restricting to 5-10 seems to work OK, but it really does last forever, and there's not shit you can do about it for a very, very long time period.