• @[email protected]
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    2017 months ago

    Some critics argue the DEA shouldn’t change course on marijuana, saying rescheduling isn’t necessary and could lead to harmful side effects.

    I wonder who those fuckheads are and how much of their portfolio is invested in for profit prisons.

      • @[email protected]
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        47 months ago

        Others may be forced to contort their neurons to uncomfortable angles trying to come up with reasons thisd be bad… just think of all those hurted brains!! The humanity!!!

    • @[email protected]
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      597 months ago

      The only thing that proves those worries wrong is every single place where marijuana has been legalized and regulated has less crime and more taxes collected through regulated legal sales. So, just reality.

    • @[email protected]
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      437 months ago

      It seems so out of touch when people make these arguments these days as they pretend like marijuana is some mystery drug that’s barely used when in reality it’s already medically legal in 4/5ths of the country and recreationally legal in 1/2 the country.

      • @[email protected]
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        237 months ago

        Our founding fathers grew and used hemp. For decades, the cotton industry was famously the largest lobbying agent against its legalization. It’s gotten a bad rap for centuries.

    • @[email protected]
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      77 months ago

      While I agree it should be 100% legal across the board someone made a good point. Once it’s rescheduled we could see it be classified at a medicine and ban recreational use then they’ll shoot the price through the roof re-opening the black markets. It’s worth treading carefully while we learn future plans that aren’t being spoken of loudly enough.

      • Almrond
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        57 months ago

        The thing is, if it gets rescheduled it will be entirely up to the states to handle growing the plant. I fully expect places like Wyoming to continue the draconian laws (like they just did with D8, it’s a felony after June 1st, farm act be damned) but most places will just regulate based on their current laws. What worries me is the ATF being assigned as the federal regulatory body, but that would only happen with it being a taxable, saleable, product. I don’t forsee big pharma being able to do much with rescheduling, it’s too easy to grow.

        • @[email protected]
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          57 months ago

          Holy hell, conservatives are such gigantic pieces of shit. Fuck red states, their beauty is absolutely destroyed by these anti-freedom cretins.

          • Almrond
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            27 months ago

            Yeah, red states are holding this nation back in a huge number of ways. Wyoming still publicly defends racism and hate speech under the guise of “free speech”. Check out the statements made by the University of Wyoming regarding a guy that comes onto campus specifically to harass and spew hate at transgender people this year. The college not only gives him his own table in the student Union, they encourage him to harass people. It sparked entire groups of people to literally scream racism and hate speech at people all over town because “muh freedoms”. It’s bad. Being a minority in this state is legit scary.

    • @[email protected]
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      27 months ago

      Some critics argue the DEA shouldn’t change course on marijuana, saying rescheduling isn’t necessary and could lead to harmful side effects.

      I wonder who those fuckheads are

      https://duckduckgo.com/?&q=police+no+longer+allowed+to+use+smell+of+marijuana+for+probable+cause

      Search link not because I’m being a smartass, but because there are so many articles with the same context in different parts of the country.

      Womp womp. Sorry you’ll have to give up your second favorite pretext, cops.

  • Flying Squid
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    1077 months ago

    The DEA’s proposal, which still must be reviewed by the White House Office of Management and Budget, would recognize the medical uses of cannabis and acknowledge it has less potential for abuse than some of the nation’s most dangerous drugs. However, it would not legalize marijuana outright for recreational use.

    I am really sorry for those of you who use it recreationally, because it deserves to be legal for you too, but as a medical user in a non-legal state, this is amazing news.

    • @[email protected]
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      367 months ago

      I am really sorry for those of you who use it recreationally, because it deserves to be legal for you too, but as a medical user in a non-legal state, this is amazing news.

      One step closer, IMO id rather medical people get it first ASAP anyways. Us recreational users have fun with it and it’s far better than say alcohol for a good time, but at the end of the day I don’t need it.

    • NoIWontPickAName
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      7 months ago

      ~~Fucking Biden must be about to unleash some truly heinous shit, if he’s playing this card ~~

      I withdraw this on the basis of hearing it started in 2022 and I haven’t had time to dig into it.

        • NoIWontPickAName
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          17 months ago

          Then I withdraw my statement until I have time to determine the truth of what you say

      • @[email protected]
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        157 months ago

        I think he’s just panicking about Trump actually standing a chance and actually doing something to claw back votes.

        • @[email protected]
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          107 months ago

          That’s definitely part of it, but I think this is also about locking in marijuana illegality as long as they possibly can. Schedule I was never going to last, but they’re hoping this will kill the political momentum for just descheduling it altogether so cops can keep using it as an excuse to harass people they don’t like.

          • @[email protected]
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            37 months ago

            I’m reminded of how Democrats said they would keep fighting for the public option and then didn’t.

      • @[email protected]
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        7 months ago

        What do you mean? This has been in process for over a year now. Unless you think Biden is a chess grandmaster of timing things out.

        • NoIWontPickAName
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          17 months ago

          Nah, i may have just been wrong.

          He’s done so much nasty shit lately, I just threw it in the pile.

      • BarqsHasBite
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        7 months ago

        But but but but but but but but but but Biden bad!1!1!1!

      • @[email protected]
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        17 months ago

        Ha!! I was fucking right! A mouthpiece for your orange man-god. How many nfts did you buy from trump? How many bibles? Does he say things that make you feel seen? Hahah! Fucking bootlicker!

    • @[email protected]
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      107 months ago

      Congrats to you!! Hopefully your ability to get ur medicine becomes easier/safer, but either way at least itll be legal for u!

    • @[email protected]
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      47 months ago

      which still must be reviewed by the White House Office of Management and Budget

      sigh So it hasn’t actually been rescheduled yet.

    • BarqsHasBite
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      7 months ago

      I think someone said the whatever agency needs to reclassify it before legalization can happen. I have no idea why or how it works. But this could be the start of legalization from Congress.

  • @[email protected]
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    647 months ago

    tl;dr: DEA moving cannabis, ketamine, and some other stuff to schedule III; first it goes to OMB for approval, then they have a comment period, then they issue their final ruling.

    Better a couple decades late than never, I suppose, but they should really just take it off entirely. Psilocybin too.

    • Flying Squid
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      467 months ago

      The idea that something you can just grow yourself like a plant of a fungus is illegal is ridiculous on the face of it.

      • Neato
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        77 months ago

        Yeah. It’s perfectly legal to grow and use your own tobacco plants. It’s only regulated when you want to sell or distribute it.

          • @[email protected]
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            67 months ago

            Apparently an invasive species that affects soil PH, not many animals eat it, it attracts ticks, etc

            • @[email protected]
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              147 months ago

              Invasive species are covered by an entirely different set of laws and agency of enforcement.

              I’m ok with putting jurisdiction over all drugs under the DNR.

              • AmidFuror
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                27 months ago

                I realize the post is about controlled substances, but the comment thread started with

                The idea that something you can just grow yourself like a plant of a fungus is illegal is ridiculous on the face of it.

                The idea that not being able to grow any plant you want is ridiculous is not well thought out. Something being natural doesn’t mean it should be available to anyone.

                • @[email protected]
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                  17 months ago

                  I genuinely think the only legal restriction on growing plants should be if there is credible evidence that it harms the local ecology, and then a ban can be bypassed if the harmful plant is grown in an environment that would prevent that harm (eg in an indoor lab setting where seeds/spores/etc wouldn’t be able to escape).

      • @[email protected]
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        147 months ago

        Yeah I think they misread that part. Cannabis was moved to schedule 3 which, for example, contains ketamine.

        • @[email protected]
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          57 months ago

          Probably. I was skimming it and couldn’t find any primary source linked in the article.

  • @[email protected]
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    447 months ago

    Just a reminder that if trump is elected, he will reverse this immediately only because Biden did it.

    That’s not speculation. That’s a godamn fact.

      • @[email protected]
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        97 months ago

        If you wanna burn yourself and all of us down then vote Trump/don’t vote. At least with Trump you won’t ever need to vote again.

      • @[email protected]
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        67 months ago

        You realize you’re inside the circus right? Burning it down quite probably means you and everyone you know burns to death too right?

          • @[email protected]
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            47 months ago

            The circus is the US. The ringmaster is in DC. We all live in the circus, surrounded by clowns and lions, but if you set the tarp on fire, we all burn. We need a new circus.

  • @[email protected]
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    427 months ago

    Seriously fuck the fact that Marijuana is still illegal, broken ass racist bullshit system while alcohol is legal and marijuana is not.

    • @[email protected]
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      187 months ago

      Still makes me sick to think of all of those cunt fucking cops who sent people to prison for this shit.

      • @[email protected]
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        137 months ago

        Absolutely, and the DEA is a fucking failure, we have an opioid epidemic and they’ve done absolutely nothing to help the US. Complete fucking bullshit agency that does NOTHING to help the American people.

    • @[email protected]
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      737 months ago

      Because they used it as a tool to hunt down and arrest civil rights groups and Vietnam protestors.

      • @[email protected]
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        77 months ago

        The down voter should read Nixon quotes

        “I want a goddam strong statement… one that just tears the ass out of” cannabis supporters.

    • Seraph
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      7 months ago

      Marijuana was considered a black person drug. If you didn’t know, the US kinda hates black people, statistically speaking. It’s pretty fucked up!

      According to the available information, there is no direct mention of the percentage of black people who used marijuana in the 1960s and 1970s. However, we can infer some information from the provided snippets.
      In the 1970s, marijuana use became more widespread among the general population. According to Gallup’s trend by age, widespread experimentation with marijuana first occurred among adults aged 18 to 29 between 1969 and 1973, rising from 8% to 35%. It then continued to mount, reaching 56% by 1977, and remained at that level in 1985.
      It is important to note that the available information does not provide specific data on the percentage of black people who used marijuana during this time period. However, we can infer that marijuana use was more prevalent among younger adults, particularly those in the 18-29 age range, during the 1970s.
      In terms of the potency of marijuana during this time period, reports suggest that pot in the 1970s had THC levels of around 1%. In contrast, today, the herb you’re smoking has a lot more THC, with levels averaging more than 6-8%. Some specially grown plants can contain THC levels as high as 51%.
      It is also worth noting that a 2022 analysis of marijuana possession arrests in Texas for the years 2017 to 2019 reported that African Americans comprised 30.2 percent of all possession arrests, yet Black people comprised only 12.9 percent of the state’s population. This suggests that there may be racial disparities in marijuana use and arrest rates, but the available information does not provide specific data on the percentage of black people who used marijuana in the 1960s and 1970s.

      Edit: The above is kind of incorrect, the herb I smoke brags ~25%, though sources say those #s vary greatly.

      • partial_accumen
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        407 months ago

        Marijuana was considered a black person drug. If you didn’t know, the US kinda hates black people, statistically speaking. It’s pretty fucked up!

        John Ehrlichman, Assistant to the President for Domestic Affairs under President Richard Nixon said the following:

        “You want to know what this [war on drugs] was really all about? The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying?

        “We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news.”

        "Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”

        source

      • Flying Squid
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        7 months ago

        Before that, it was a Mexican person drug, which is why it’s called marijuana to many people. It was a scare tactic. “These Mexicans smoke MARIJUANA!” And why I will only call it things like ‘cannabis’ and ‘weed.’

        • @[email protected]
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          27 months ago

          And you can generally tell how scary the speaker wants it to be by how gutturally they pronounce the “j.”

    • @[email protected]
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      127 months ago

      They tried banning alcohol. There was enough popular pushback they had no choice but to un-ban it.

      There was less popular demand for marijuana. It seems like it’s moving in the same direction, just more slowly.

    • BarqsHasBite
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      27 months ago

      Alcohol has been part of society for a very long time, it gets exemptions.

      • AmbiguousProps
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        157 months ago

        Marijuana has been used by humans for just as long, if not longer:

        Cannabis was attested to around 12 000 years ago near the Altai Mountains in Central Asia, and since then, cannabis seeds have accompanied the migration of nomadic peoples. Records of the medicinal use of cannabis appear before the Common Era in China, Egypt, and Greece (Herodotus), and later in the Roman empire (Pliny the Elder, Dioscorides, Galen). In the 19th century, orientalists like Silvestre de Sacy, and Western physicians coming into contact with Muslim and Indian cultures, like O’Shaughnessy and Moreau de Tours, introduced the medicinal use of cannabis into Europe.

        https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7605027/

          • AmbiguousProps
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            7 months ago

            That’s just not true, especially for non-european cultures. As the study I linked shows.

            • BarqsHasBite
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              7 months ago

              Sigh. Age is not the same as extensive use. We’ve been brewing copious amounts of alcohol for an extremely long time. With dare I say near 100% of the population drinking. Ciao.

              • @[email protected]
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                67 months ago

                Evidence to support your claim? Kinda bold to be so arrogant and dismissive of the other person’s point when you failed to provide a countering study.

                Arrivederci.

                • Alto
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                  7 months ago

                  The shit that happens when you have an exclusively eurocentric history education.

                  Edit: which isn’t even that good of an excuse. Even Herodotus’ Histories mentions pot use

      • @[email protected]
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        77 months ago

        It helps when you misapply the effects of heroin as the effects of THC. Reefer Madness is a trip.

  • @[email protected]
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    297 months ago

    i wish that they would also reschedule lsd and psilocybin to schedule III, but at least some progress is better than no progress

      • @[email protected]
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        47 months ago

        It is arbitrary. While what classification a substance is may have some grounding in research, it’s mostly up to what interest group has either lobbied to get something under or whatever group law enforcement wants to be able to get easy charges for. Cannabis was Sched I because it made it easy for law enforcement to get big sentences for minorities and the counter culture participants of the day. Same thing with LSD and psilocybin.

        All the DEA scheduling is just pick and choose your charge for whatever ideological ax they want to grind. Hence why things don’t line up with reality

    • @[email protected]
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      87 months ago

      And MDMA? It shows a lot of promise in therapeutic use. Schedule 1 is for substances with “no currently accepted medical treatment use”.

      • @[email protected]
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        27 months ago

        Yeah, MDMA also doesn’t belong in schedule I, although it is definitely more risky than lsd and mushrooms

          • @[email protected]
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            27 months ago

            Overdose of MDMA can cause seratonin syndrome, which can be fatal; and long term use might be linked to depression and anxiety (again, by the way it interacts with seratonin)

            It definitely should be rescheduled too, since it is not dangerous enough and definitely has potential for medical use (couple therapy was it’s original use)

  • @[email protected]
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    7 months ago

    I’m sure all the “stroke of a pen” trolls are going to be here to apologize any second, right?

    • @[email protected]
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      107 months ago

      Probably not, all of the hardcore Biden supporters I’ve met on this website are just utter scum who will never admit to anything no matter how obvious it is, like how this obviously could have been done at any point but was saved for an election year, or how rescheduling it instead of just descheduling it entirely keeps it federally criminal and breaks campaign pledges he made in 2019 and 2020

      Best thing you can do is just try to leave some truthful information where some people might see it and ignore the replies

  • @[email protected]
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    117 months ago

    I know Biden tasked the FDA to investigate reclassifying it, which should be a win, but until the FDA actually finishes the reclassification it won’t show in the polls. If the bureaucracy can move fast enough for this to get done before the election, it could mean a decent little bump for Biden.

    • @[email protected]
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      167 months ago

      DEA. The FDA makes the recommendations, then then DEA decides if they want to follow it or not.

      This should be fixed. DEA are cops, not medical experts, and shouldn’t be making this decision.

      • @[email protected]
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        47 months ago

        Thanks for the correction! So there is another level of bureaucracy involved before anything changes. Awesome.

        • @[email protected]
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          67 months ago

          Well, it’s already in front of the DEA, and then it goes to a White House committee. Good news there is that Biden would be directly in charge of a White House committee. It apparently took a lot of effort to get the DEA to pull their heads out of their ass, but it’s done now (hopefully).

  • Jaysyn
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    107 months ago

    The reactionaries in the GOP will immediately start trying to prevent this from happening, of course.

  • @[email protected]
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    77 months ago

    I don’t smoke, but I don’t care what you do to your own bodies as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone else.

    The same goes for women’s autonomy and assisted suicide. It’s your god damn body. As long as you don’t hurt anyone else. Who fucking cares.

    I’m also in the same boat for AI generated porn. If it doesn’t hurt anyone, who cares.

    • partial_accumen
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      227 months ago

      This isn’t a new position for Biden with regards to his presidency. Here’s his statements on it over 4 years ago in Feb 2020:

      Biden’s campaign told POLITICO that in his remarks on the recording, he was simply “restating his cannabis policy,” which includes eliminating criminal penalties linked to marijuana, erasing marijuana-related criminal records and “letting states set their own policies regarding legalization of recreational marijuana while further effort is made to study the effects of cannabis use.”

      source

        • @[email protected]
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          177 months ago

          If he wanted to do that he’d have pushed his AG to deschedule it entirely

          The attorney general doesn’t set the drug classification level, that’s the DEA. This is power was established by a law passed by congress, so if Biden had his AG try to overrule that some states would sue and the Supreme Court would clearly side with them. He could have his AG refuse to prosecute any cannabis crimes, but that would immediately be undone the next time a conservative AG takes over and prosecutes everyone who got a pass now. Also, they’ve already been ignoring any cannabis prosecutions where it’s someone following state law.

          Apart from congress passing a law legalizing cannabis (which is not possible with the republican house, not to mention most of the senate) having the DEA reschedule it is the only “permanent” path forward. And it has to be done to the letter of the law because you know some republican states will challenge this move.

  • manucode
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    57 months ago

    Maybe the drug control agency should clarify that marijuana shouldn’t be consumed at beer festivals, to protect the children.

    • HopeOfTheGunblade
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      47 months ago

      Maybe we shouldn’t make laws about what adults can do because it wouldn’t be good for children. Unless you think we shouldn’t have beer festivals, to protect the children, and no food not pureed should be available for purchase, to protect the children.

      • Alto
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        47 months ago

        I say this as a pothead. If you’re smoking in a public area where it’s not specifically designated and there’s people there that don’t want you to, you’re an ass.

        • Flying Squid
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          27 months ago

          Honestly, I would have absolutely no problem with cannabis being legal but you can’t use it in public. If I can buy it, take it home and use it without fear of arrest, that’s all I ask.

          • Alto
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            67 months ago

            To an extent, smoking in public is fine. My regular smoke spot is in a park. But I also hike 20 minutes to it explicitly because its as far away from everyone else as possible, and the wind is usually going away from them.

            Maybe I’m overcautious, but I remember walking down the street as a kid and just hating the smell of cigarettes. I never found weed as bad, but I don’t want to br the asshole who’s the reason some poor 8 year is holding their breath as you walk past them.

            • @[email protected]
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              7 months ago

              My teenager still holds his breath as we walk by pot smokers …. Tobacco smokers are much rarer in public where we live

            • Flying Squid
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              17 months ago

              I was thinking public municipal streets and the like, not out in the middle of nowhere.

              And honestly, I’d apply that to cigarettes too if we wouldn’t be forcing a bunch of addicted people to quit cold turkey because they can’t take smoke breaks at work.

              • Alto
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                47 months ago

                Really the biggest thing is just having some common courtesy and being considerate of where and when you do it.

          • @[email protected]
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            37 months ago

            My biggest objection to smokers is the stink. Maybe it’s not as cancerous as tobacco, but why should I be stuck with a jacket that smells like pot after walking out the entrance to my building or walking through the park? Can’t smokers (of anything) just try to be courteous of non-smokers?

            • Flying Squid
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              27 months ago

              I have sympathy for them because they’re kind of fucked. They’re addicted, but they can’t smoke inside, and their job only gives them a few minutes to take a smoke break, so what else can they do? I hate the smell too, but forcing an addict to just stop smoking is not fair to them either.

          • hook
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            37 months ago

            Just treat cannabis the same way we treat alcohol and I’ll be happy. It’d be nice if we had cannabis bars where I can buy it and consume it in the location.

      • manucode
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        37 months ago

        Sorry for making such a niche reference. I was joking about a specific tweet by a specific German politician. This was only meant for any German reading the comments.

        • HopeOfTheGunblade
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          17 months ago

          I’ve seen too many serious comments along these lines to take that as a given, unfortunately.