Posts by Stephen McIntyre
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Cannabis may be legal in California this year. If so, it will provide a model for NZ to consider when we change the law here. Go to:
http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/politics/Planting-the-Seed-for-Legal-Pot-81222877.html
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I just don't buy the supposed social benefits you seem to envision.
Why? What makes you so sure things won't happen this way? Why the deep level of mistrust and fear around cannabis? What do you think is the worst thing that would happen if cannabis - rather than mostly being grown and sold by criminal organisations that also run the 'P' market - were regulated in much the same way that alcohol is (age restrictions, trading restrictions, some - hopefully more - advertising restrictions, etc)?
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I also believe that legalising pot will reduce tobacco consumption.
I have no idea how that works. Can you elaborate a bit?
Purely my own opinion: as an former-cigarette smoker I believe that legal cannabis would be be used as a substitute for tobacco my many habitual smokers who like the sensation of inhaling smoke but don't actually enjoy the taste, the smell or effects of nicotine.
And again, given the fact that cannabis is statistically safer than tobacco, any swap from cigarette smoking to cannabis is going to mean a positive result in overall public health outcomes.
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If you are proposing sales restrictions, what makes you think your son's 14 year-old classmates won't still be buying pot from a tinny house?
Just look at the Netherlands. Their rate of teen use is a fraction of ours.
My elder son is now 16. At 14, his friends smoked mostly pot because it was easier to buy than beer. Now, some of his friends are finding it easier to pass off for 18 and are shifting over to alcohol instead.
What irony: we live in a country where it's easier for a 14 year-old to buy cannabis than booze, and easier for an adult to buy booze than pot!
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And I simply don't see how legalising cannabis will make it less available.
Legalising cannabis will make it more available to adults in a far safer environment than we currently have; therefore encouraging adults to give it a go and see if they prefer it to alcohol.
But please remember I'm not advocating cannabis use.
Because I'm looking at a system based on the model set by the Netherlands, cannabis would be R18 or more and outlets - cafes, Daktories? - would require customers to present ID; the same way we currently regulate alcohol. It's not perfect, but it's a damn sight better than 'tinny' houses which happily sell pot to my 14 year-old son's classmates.
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The key flaw in this argument is the presumption that cannabis would become an alcohol substitute for a lot of people if it were legal.
No, not for a lot, but for some.
The balloon effect describes a situation where the proactive prohibition of one action produces a similar counter-action – like when you squeeze one end of a balloon, you simply shift air to the other end. We exist in a society where pressure is being applied to marijuana end of the balloon; as a result, air is shifted to the alcohol end and it’s use has artificially expanded.
Take the pressure off the cannabis end and we will see a shift - albeit slight - in the use rates away from alcohol and towards cannabis.
I also believe that legalising pot will reduce tobacco consumption - possibly quite considerably.
Because both alcohol and tobacco are demonstratively more dangerous than cannabis, even a slight reduction in their use will have an immediate postive impact on public health.
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Just Thinking wrote: "But come on, your source for Dak doesn't cause cancer is the Washington Post."
Here's the original study: Hashibe et al., Marijuana Use and the Risk of Lung Cancer and Upper Aerodigestive Tract Cancer: Results of a Population-based Case-control Study," Cancer Epidemiolgy Biomarkers & Prevention 15 (2006): 1829-34.
The study's conclusions were reported in the Washington Post, May 26, 2006. Here's a quote: "We hypothesized that there would be a positive association between marijuana use and lung cancer, and that the asociation would be more positive with heavier use. What we found instead was no association at all, and even a suggestion of some protective effect among marijuana smokers who had lower incidences of cancer compared to nonusers of the drug" - Dr Donald Tashkin, University of California