Beyond that, people are free to do as they please with a reasonable expectation that it's an informed decision.
I think a lot of what we're seeing in the US is simple "new market" factor more than anything else. The assumption is that it will settle down at some point once there's a reasonably established marketplace.
>I don't like the attitudes of pro-legalization people in the US. They wont accept that there are negative sides to drug use and seem to think there should be no restrictions.
Who's saying that? For example, I don't think anyone is advocating selling to minors.
>It is as if there is never any middle ground in the US. Either you got the moralists who spell doom or you got people who think you should be free to do however dam you please. Where are the pragmatic people who accept it is a bad thing to do drugs but that a strict regulation is a better solution than a war on drugs.
Why do pragmatic people accept "it is a bad thing to do drugs"? Do they drink coffee? Avoid OTC painkillers?
Here are are more of my specifics. I favor an absolute ban on any form of advertisement. Limits on the size and number of shops and their placement. I would also like the dispensaries to be non profit, or alternatively a government monopoly. One does not want anybody to have a profit motive to sell drugs.
I think a dispensary should be place that you can both buy drugs but also get information about health hazards and informations about available treatment. Edibles should be banned and government should set max rates for potency of the drugs.
But apart from that I of course wish that there is an end to the federal rules against this. People operating dispenseries should not have to fear being imprisoned by FBI and banks should be allowed to have them as customers.
I don't think "in whatever way they please" is the goal. Nobody is advocating legalizing driving while high, for example.
> One does not want anybody to have a profit motive to sell drugs.
Why? What is so bad about selling recreational drugs?
> Edibles should be banned
Why?
At first I was completely against the edible ban. Now, with shops only being able to sell things like infused oil pills and simple cooking oils, I'm fully in support of it. Weed gummy bears are a fun idea to think about, but it seems like these are novelties at best and extremely likely to be used in a distasteful prank or over-consumed by novice users.
I'm still kind of against the "300m from other pot shops" rule, but c'est la vie.
This sums up my experience both in this thread, and living in Colorado.
Of course it was going to get picked up by companies and exploited for every penny its worth. Of course there are going to be sensational moral debates that spiral out of control and detract from the issue.
This isn't the Netherlands. And since when did one country's policies blindly apply to another?
Why would one expect the same desires that drive alcohol's mass marketing and consumption to not be present for marijuana?
The side effects are certainly different, but they both affect your mental state, so comparing these seems pretty reasonable.
In the Netherlands there might not be a monopoly on drug sales, but the coffeeshops are generally small operations without a huge presence. There are no advertisement. So yes I have experience alternatives which don't treat these industries as big money operations. And perhaps I naively thought that was possible in the US, forgetting that Americans tend to think very big when it comes to business.
Alcohol has a huge industry behind it in the USA.
And who bought Budweiser-creator Anheiser-Busch, one of the USA's largest beer companies? InBev, based in Belgium.
Alcohol consumption per capita is higher in plenty of countries in Europe compared to the USA: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_alcohol...
Although I can't find numbers on international marketing expenditures for alcohol, personal experience informs me that most pubs in Germany, and plenty in Ireland and Austria, have a sign from a beer company hanging outside the front. That's actually something the USA doesn't have; neon signs are in some pubs' windows, but not every single one like I'd see in Germany. That sign outside the bar is most definitely marketing, even if it's less glitzy than American alcohol TV ads.
I then asked a question about why, and you answered - thank you! I didn't know alcohol ads (do you mean on tv, in print, on the radio, online...?) were banned in the Netherlands.
I also must ask for clarification: because I can't sense the tone with which yore typing these words, it seems like you're using the word naive in a way that suggests you are simply disappointed that the USA is not behaving like your country. Am I interpreting that correctly?
Americans do think big when it comes to business... as do many other countries. The Forbes international 500 [1] has companies from all over, and the USA does not dominate. In fact, the Netherlands shares the number 3 slot with the UK. I hope you don't naively think businesses want less success outside the USA; they may want less growth, though, but the Forbes top 10 global would seem to say otherwise.
Ambition for business is everywhere in the world, although the USA does indeed have its share of large companies.
Here in Norway pot is not legal, but there is a gradual sort of decriminalization with respect to drugs. They are still keen to point out it is illegal but police reactions to abuse is quite mild. It is mainly the big sellers they are going after.
I guess naively I had expected the US to first change their laws to be milder long before any full legalization happens. But I think a major difference is that in Norway a lot of the liberalization is driven by the legal profession and actors rather than by some popular opinion in the population. Citizens aren't really favoring legalization the way Americans are, but nor are they really favoring a harsh response either. It is people working close to the issue that typically push for some form of legalization.
I think the unique aspect in the US is legalization happening in the context of a very polarized population. Where many are like, just let people do whatever they dam please and others are very moralistic and want to keep going with a sort of war on drugs. This seems like an explosive combination.
You might ask why do I care at all. Well American has tremendous influence on the rest of the world. I fear that a failed legalization experiment in the US would set back legalization everywhere else. People will point to the US as a horror example. The US is already used like that as a way to scare people away from any sort of privatized hospitals or clinics.
Can you explain this sentence? I'm having trouble parsing it and the preceding sentence isn't providing any helpful context.
One company called Spot (in Seattle) has a little chart on the back, as well as these informative numbers, that roughly equates the dose of a cookie to a certain number of glasses of wine for further expectation setting. Overall, the packaging is very clear[0] about dosage, the time of the onset, and other factors that may contribute to the type of buzz you'll get.
It's very much similar to ABV on an alcoholic beverage, though. You can know exactly what you're ingesting, and you can get the general idea of what to expect, but it's impossible to label a can of beer with something like "5 of these will make you drunk in about an hour and half".
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0. http://twotentwice.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/SPOT-Bites...
So the parent comment is saying that all of the variations/flavors of these pot candies can be disorienting.
American traits of moralizing and money obsessed are showing some bad trends here.
My opinion favoring legalization is based on a desire to take the organized crime out of the equation and avoid turning lots of normal teenagers into criminals.
But like everything else it just looks like the US is totally overdoing this. Huge pot companies with advertisement and lots of variation of products and financial muscles is definitely NOT what I wished for.
With this approach one risks getting more new users than ever and get existing users to develop new bad habits. All these edibles makes my head shake.
I lived many years in the Netherlands where pot has been decriminalized for a long time. There is none of this American big capitalist approach to drug sales.
I don't like the attitudes of pro-legalization people in the US. They wont accept that there are negative sides to drug use and seem to think there should be no restrictions.
It is as if there is never any middle ground in the US. Either you got the moralists who spell doom or you got people who think you should be free to do however dam you please. Where are the pragmatic people who accept it is a bad thing to do drugs but that a strict regulation is a better solution than a war on drugs.
I just hope the Canadians can manage to do this is a more sensible way.