Biggest thing is that you can now at least legally possess it. They never cared where it came from before either. Smoking it isn't illegal, just somehow buying it and having it. Truly an insane situation. Now at least you can own a reasonable amount of weed without being in this absurd limbo.
> Biggest thing is that you can now at least legally possess it.
I really want this to be true for a lot of drugs and even other criminal activities. Not because I necessarily support these things, but because we've seen that when we don't do this, prosecutors put far more of their time and energy into going after the users because they are much easier to go after. But if we do consider these things problems, we need to go after those distributing and manufacturing. It's like trying to put out a fire by removing all things that are flammable. Sure, it can work, but you're going to have a hard time doing this if you're in the woods. Main focus should be on the fire.
but manufacturer and distribution is just filling a need the market. without the demand for the product, it won't sell, so what's really needed are better social services so addicts can get off their addictions. jobs, housing, counseling, hope.
saying it should be legal to have it and then go after the manufacturer instead is also treating the symptom, sucking out the smoke without addressing the fire.
Sure, I took Econ 101 too. But the problem is that that's 101. Once you get to a more advanced level you find more complexity. It is completely possible to generate demand. In some sense this should be obvious as there was no demand for smartphones 50 years ago. You might say some of the ideas were there and thus that's demand, so that could be fair. But certainly not if we go back 500 where even many of these concepts did not exist and the demand would be for easier communication, a much more abstract idea. I mean in Econ 101 you learn about the Efficient Market Hypothesis too, but no economist actually believes it to be true.
With drugs I think this is a bit more apparent because there is addiction. It is well known that a common strategy is getting users hooked. Either by offering some initially for free or at a reduced price, or by increasing the addictive qualities of the product. In fact, we even see similar phenomena in the white market. Starbucks coffee has about twice as much caffeine as a standard cup[0] and this certainly creates a higher demand for their coffee. But I don't think many are aware of this.
Also consider there are different ways of "legal." Some places have "decriminalized" drugs, which would be in line with this idea. For example, the state of Oregon in the US did this. Many people portray this as legality, but it isn't. If you are found with drugs there they will still be confiscated AND you pay a $100 fine and the court will give you information about addiction treatment centers. So not really legal, but not a major criminal offense. That seems like a fair way to put pressure towards manufacturing and distribution if you don't want to just legalize possession (which would always be limited in quantities).
I also just don't buy your analogy in any way. We reduce things that have demand all the time through market regulations. Anything that is illegal to sell or produce is something that there is demand for somewhere. There's a HUGE demand for slave labor, but we've regulated that away (demand is for cheap labor, and slave labor is towards the cheapest one can get if not THE cheapest). The reason to go after manufacturers and distributors is because network effects. When you cut off a dealer you cut off all the people who got their drugs through them. Of course another dealer can take their place, but the effect is still real and far more disruptive than going after tree nodes. You are cutting off branches and the new dealer is like trying to reorganize those orphaned nodes. It's harder. The manufacturers are nodes much closer to the root and so have much greater disruption downstream. You're right that there are orphaned nodes, but it isn't uncommon for people to get off drugs after their supply runs dry. You've essentially forced them.
Possession has been tolerated for a long time now. You can’t walk through a city and not smell weed. AFAIK the tolerable limit was 5g, a person should seek help if they need more than that on them.
That very much depends on the Bundesland where that city is located. Good luck doing that in Munich. Personally I got prosecuted for (ordering!) 3g of weed, although later that got folded. Still trouble, though. Also I can still get problems with my driving license for that same amount (even though that alleged possession was in no way connected with driving any vehicle).
That's a few joints as best, are we really declaring people as hopeless addicts for having more than a handful of joints on them? This seems similar to saying someone should never be allowed to have more than an 1/8th of alcohol on them at any time. Seems silly when put in perspective of what drugs are quantities are already legal.
I guess my point is we allow people to buy handles of alcohol (a much more problematic and harmful drug) at a time, even though consumption at that rate is also problematic. So why should we treat marijuana differently?
an ounce is about 14 grams. 5 is slightly more than an eighth. if you don’t live near the dispensary and want some for a month or a few months an eighth is not really that much. i don’t think seeking help is an appropriate response here.
yeah i see ads for 14g all the time and for some reason that stuck in my head as an ounce but 3.5 grams is an eighth of an ounce so 5 is slightly more than that. either way more than 5g is a reasonable amount to have on you if you are going to buy it for a longer timeframe.
An ounce is 28 grams, 5g isn’t that much flower at all in the grand scheme of things.
I presume it’s an attempt at stopping dealing, maybe to minors? But it feels asinine to have such a limit. Like another poster says, should this extend to a single crate of beer? One bottle of spirits? One pouch of tobacco?
Having a 5g limit just means I’m going to make more frequent trips to the shop to purchase more cannabis, just let me buy a pound and leave me to it.
True, as much as that’s not quite what I’d do because I like to just maintain a high, I’m sure a lot of folks would. Hell, on the weekend I’d switch it up to the higher %s to be fair.
NL has this same rule of no more than around 5g, I’m not 100% how much the exact limit is but it’s nearby 5g.
