Tim Stephens writes: We need Gough Whitlam back to do what he did with brewing one’s own beer at home (“Is NSW ready for cannabis reform? Weed activists prepare for the election”). Before he acted, it was illegal to brew beer at home even for your own consumption. Since legalisation, brewing has developed into a magic little industry of its own. Society hasn’t collapsed and commercial breweries still exist.
Of course cannabis should be decriminalised! What is the coherent argument against me in my own backyard growing a plant or two and doing what I do with my home (craft?) brew? That is, sitting quietly and contemplating the madness of the world with some synaptic enhancement.
Get rid of the dealers and scum, for sure. There is no profit for them if all it takes is a pot (pardon the pun), some water and sunshine.
ZuZu Burford writes: My daughter was working in the US department that raised the tax and licences when Washington state legalised the recreational use of cannabis. Growers were bringing in US$35 million monthly, and during COVID that rose to US$42 million monthly.
The legislature decides how that money is dispersed. A lot of it goes to children and families, but also to universities to do studies, to the towns that said yes to selling or producing marijuana, and to the Agriculture Department so it can do tests for pesticides and research. It’s a no-brainer when it comes to money for the government.
David Wright writes: Legalise cannabis? Why not? Does it do more harm than alcohol and tobacco, two inherently harmful but fully legal drugs? I cannot see that it does. It is linked to various mental illnesses — but then so is alcohol.
Making drugs of any kind illegal makes them more attractive to our youth and makes the criminal classes rich. It also has a corrupting influence on our police forces. Making all drugs legal is a sensible solution. Make them freely available from pharmacies around the country, drugs of known purity and potency.
There is no way in the world that legislation and enforcement is going to stop those bent on consuming these substances from doing so. There is no way in the world that enforcement is going to stop the criminal classes supplying the market. Why not simply bow to the inevitable? Spend the money now spent on ineffective enforcement on education instead. Sure, people will die of overdoses, as they do now while the drugs are illegal, as alcoholics die of their addiction, as smokers die of their addiction. It is impossible to stop people suiciding in cars, by rope, by firearms, by drugs. It happens every day.
William JF Ditmarsch writes: Neither I nor anybody else of my generation that I know ever heard of cannabis until 1970 or so. I have never needed it, tried it or wanted it. Whether it is good for you or has unhealthy side effects does not matter. I believe in the right of an individual to choose. Thus, provided it does not adversely affects others, cannabis should be decriminalised. Getting a penalty for driving while under the influence of it is no different from getting one for being drunk.
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Until 1971 in the UK, any GP could prescribe heroin, cocaine, Methedrine etc (even tincture of cannabis) and there was no market for criminal involvement.
After pressure from the USA threatening an IMF loan to ‘solve the traditional Sterling Crisis’ that 100yr old policy ceased.
Fortunately the tabloid moral panics had long forewarned the “international drug lords” and they were able to step into the breach, seemingly overnight and, voila Dixon St W1 boomed after being just a street of cheap Chinese restaurants since the daze of Empire.
In 1971, there were fewer than 10,000 registered addicts receiving free, pure addictive drugs and they were mostly doctors, nurses, dentists and war vets.
Today the best UK guestimate is half a million hard core junkies and twice/thrice that number en route.
Talk about success!
In the early 70s US, there were the ‘Rockefeller drug laws’ introducing harsher penalties including prison time, round the time of Nixon.
However, the same laws were allegedly used to profile and target Latino, black and poor white types, i.e. glorified eugenics policy used by the GOP to attract white conservative voters.
Legalise it and at the same time amend the legislation for breath tests so Marijuana testing has the same “expiry date” as alcohol.
A side benefit is that we may get a better class of Copper in our Police Forces.
“…’get rid of the dealers and scum'”?
How is legalising marijuana going get rid of politicians and corporate and media moguls?
We should legalise everything ASAP just for the sake of minimising Richard Nixon’s legacy of 100% wrong policy.
When US industry invented synthetic fabric (rayon) they had the govt ban hemp which was a better cloth. Hemp as a drug was the excuse. So now we have clothes that fall apart, micro plastic in our food even and the oceanic garbage patches. Levi jeans made of hemp were handed down the generations. Henry Ford made a car body out of hemp and was filmed bashing it with a sledge hammer with no damage. Hemp grows very well in poor soil and conditions and requires almost no pesticides. Oil-derived cloth adds to greenhouse gasses, replaced by hemp greenhouse gasses would be much reduced – effectively taking CO2 out of the atmosphere.