shamus;
Where does one draw the line, though? What about people who abuse it and smoke it each and every day? That is what I can't get over........ and its hard for me to say yes to something like this, even though I smoke it maybe twice a year, and still love it.
Replace the subject 'cannabis' with 'alcohol' and 'smoke' with 'drink', and ask yourself "Where does one draw the line, though? ". Sorry, but your arguement doesn't stand for me.
There is a difference between use and abuse, of any substance, or indeed any pleasurable activity.
If you NEED the substance or activity to feel good, it is likely you are abusing it. Often such abuse will be linked to an inability to function in conventional society, difficulty holding down a job, etc. If you LIKE using the substance or activity to make you feel good, then you are using it, just like humans have vigourously and enthusiastically used natural products to get out of their heads for thousands of years. You will probably be able to function in conventional society.
Now use and abuse, as can be seen with alcohol, are not linked to availability. External factors don't influence use or abuse. Whether someone uses or abuses a substance is determined almost soley by internal factors. Some substances are more addictive than others, but in a society with decent drug education, people would be more able to make informed choices regarding the substances they use.
In research I have undertaken in the UK, I found that non-drug using teenagers were more likely to have inaccurate opinions about the effects and dangers of drugs. It was such a strong linkage that you could probably use a questionaire on the dangers of drugs to determine whether kids used drugs; the people with lots of correct answers would be the users! Some of the misconceptions were actually dangerous. For example, regarding solvent abuse, those who had tried some illegal substance were more likely to know how dangerous solvent use was. Their inexperienced contemporaries were more likely to rate it as less dangeous than MDMA, (E, XTC) which is utter rubbish.
How does that make sense? If we can't make sure our kids can make informed choices and minimise risk we actually put them in danger. We sure as hell cannot eliminate drugs, any more than we can eliminate brussel sprouts, so making sure kids are safer in a world with drugs by their own knowledge is better than pretending ignorance is the best protection.
All the evidence there is points to the fact that even if you could buy pre-packed injectors of heroin at Superdrug, you would not create a generation of addicts. What would happen is that the addicts of that generation would have better health and be able to avoid slipping into crime to fund their adiction. It is only the illegality of drugs that makes them expensive. Most recreational drugs would cost less than a night of drinking to get to the point of being 'full', if the drugs were available at the price of their raw material + transport + profit.
Therefore prohibition on account of some people abusing a substance should also lead to the overnight ban of alcohol and nicotine products. Alcoholism is a well know abuse issue effecting some people. A very heavy nicotine user will work less effectively in the work place if prevented from taking regular hits of their drug due to withdrawl symptoms, and will waste at least 5% of the time they should be working "chasing the tobacco" if allowed to take drugs on the job.
As has been pointed out, prohibition due for health reasons would also make alcohol and tobacoo illegal overnight; the small health benefits light drinkers experience are not worth the health damage heavy drinkers experience, and smoking nicotine costs huge amounts in health care.
Prohibition for crime control is the most stupid of the lot. Over 50% of the people in US jails are there for non-violent drug related crime. Crime rose during the prohibition of alcohol. Prohibiton criminalises users, often for doing something pleasurable to their own body in private (shock, horror!) without harming others, and prohibition generates crime by making criminal activity supplying the prohibited substance attractive due to the profits you can get due to its illegality. Criminals fight the police and each other. Police and innocent bystanders get hurt.
Prohibition for social reasons would also make alcohol illegal, for the reasons pointed out. Alcohol is a drug that makes many people violent when consumed in quantity. Cannabis is a drug that makes people giggle, eat junk food, and fall asleep when consumed in quantity.
Why then is cannabis illegal? Whay are drugs illegal?
Tradition and profit. Alcohol and tobacco are simply Western society's approved drugs, they are no less and are often more harmful than other substances.
Just as other companies don't like competition, tobacco and alcohol companies don't like competetion, least of all from a easy-to-grow (depending where you live) crop that would favour small localised production.
Also, the creation of a 'drug war' is a useful tool of political opinion moulding, and one which government departments have vested interests in maintaining to keep their budgets high.
In countries where some prisons are privately run, there are additional pressures from the companies running such establishments, as these companies profit from 'criminals', even if those criminals pose no harm to society. All current drug laws in most countries represent is a status quo, there's no logic to it at all.
I live in Holland. For a couple of decades now they have had decriminalised cannabis. You can buy it in a licensed 'coffeeshop' (up to 3 grammes at a time I think), and grow up five plants at home.
Society shows no sign of collapsing. A higher percentage of teenagers in the UK smoke cannabis every week than in Holland. The age of heroin users has climbed steadily in Holland, as the pot smokers don't have to go to drug dealers, who like any decent businessman might try to cross-sell another product they have in stock. Segregating cannabis supply into coffeeshops that have financial reasons to stop hard drugs being sold on their establishment (they lose their license) stops this.
There is no logical reason for cannabis not to be supplied in such a pragmatic fashion; don't think of it as being liberal, the Dutch don't really think of it that way. They just see that people will smoke it anyway, so creating a controllable supply network is better than creating problems through prohibition.
Obviously there are more issues regarding creating similar segregated legalised supply of more addictive substances. However, they are mostly perceptual, as the logical arguments against prohibition are the same, and arguments based on increased harm fail to take into account that extreme sports are quite acceptable even though they risk harm.
So, Canada is being very sensible. The police time freed-up by decriminalisation of cannabis alone is a good reason to do it. The decriminilaisation of otherwise law-abiding citizens is another. The destruction (if a licensed supply network is legislated for) of most criminal activity related to the drug's supply is another good reason. Anyone thinking such actions would create a wave of potheads is simply uninformed.
