I'm not sure what our government is thinking.

Police in 2016 used a "military helicopter to descend on an 81-year-old Grandmother's home to seize a single marijuana plant."

"Mr Holcomb said he was told that as long as he did not demand that a warrant be provided to enter the property or otherwise escalate the situation, authorities would file no criminal charges."

So, give up your fourth amendment rights, or else? For having 1 marijuana plant?

Source: www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/national-guard-and-police-in-military-style-helicopter-descend-on-81-year-old-s-home-to-seize-one-a7348666.html

Two things:

1. Legal weed is not almost here because of the 68' treaty that strictly prohibits it. That's the reason we see all of these "decriminalized" and "tolerated" scenarios. No one has yet to decide to just ignore the (very tiny) part of the full text that covers cannabis and no one is willing to step away from the rest of the text. Canada is showing signs they might do it, which will trigger a landslide, but at the moment that's only speculation. My country would have passed legalization months ago if not for this treaty :/. So the USA screwed everybody in 68' and they are still doing it.

2. The twilight zone is good for exactly one group of people: illegal dealers and growers. Imagine: the police don't prosecute you as aggressively anymore (or at all), the populous treats it as a legal substance, that's still incredibly popular (funny, it's culturally accepted, but still an act of defiance against the authority) ... and you have no taxes because you still can't buy it legally. I've personally seen dealers agents masquerading as pro-canabis campaigners derail political alliances that would have made realistic progress towards legalization.

> "Canada is showing signs they might do it, which will trigger a landslide, but at the moment that's only speculation."

Speculation? The federal government of Canada has passed a law to legalize cannabis as on July 1st, 2018. Implementation is left to the provinces, who can set target prices, who/how will sell it, how much it will be taxed, etc, but the law also explicitly allows shipping cannabis through the post across provinces, as a way to go around any restriction a province might impose. The effects are already very present on the stock market. This will have a very big impact on the US, one can suspect the same as the end of alcohol prohibition in the 30s (where Canada played an important role).

Seems I have been, and not been, missinformed :). They have passed a law, but as it does not yet break the treaties they still have "time" to do something about it. http://globalnews.ca/news/3606927/after-blowing-july-1-deadl...

Ah, good point, but that article also mentions (towards the end) that they are likely to just ignore the treaty, as Uruguay has (and some US states). They can also demonstrate that they are legalizing as a more efficient way to control/limit drug use.

As a Uruguayan I can tell you that unfortunately, ignoring treatises has had consequences - the U.S. banking system has issued some dire threats for us.

American banks, including Bank of America, said that they would stop doing business with banks in Uruguay that provide services to anything marijuana-connected.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/25/world/americas/uruguay-ma...

Likely, yes and I think that is probably the right course of action, but IANAL, at least politically.

As I understand the US situation the federal level, the signatory of the treaty, didn't actually legalize anything. The states did, in breach of the federal law, but they are not signatories of the treaty.

> No one has yet to decide to just ignore the (very tiny) part of the full text that covers cannabis and no one is willing to step away from the rest of the text.

Uruguay has fully legalized - not just decriminalized - cannabis, and they're a signatory of the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, which I think you are referring to? (although it was adopted in 1961, not 1968)

Yes, the one. Unfortunately at least for my country Uruguay does not seem to be a valid trendsetter and are still waiting for a western nation to do it.

It's good for massive companies positioning themselves to monopolize the legal market when it emerges, bad for everyone else.