I’ve been looking at the literature on psychoactive substances, and it’s interesting that there’s little correlation between the harms and the government response. Alcohol causes all sorts of problems, short and long term, in a subset of users, and it’s sold by government under a specific set of regulations, presumably to mitigate the harms, although not very successfully. Tobacco is harmful, as we all know, but remains legal, with the government regulating price through taxation and supply through regulations, again not very successfully, given the ready availability of illegal smokes. Cannabis is also harmful (and can be quite addictive), but was legalized, and the government would love to turn it into a profit centre, like alcohol, but they can’t compete with the “private sector”. At the other end we have opioids, which are useful for things like acute pain, as well as for recreational drug use, but again some users get into trouble. We’ve gone from “prohibition” to “decriminalization” to “safer supply” and “opioid agonist therapy”, the latter two of which are costing us a lot of money, all in the name of harm reduction, although the extent to which they reduce harms is up for debate. In between, of course, are all sorts of things taken for recreational purposes, all with varying harms and benefits, all subject to differing government regulation.
Bottom line is that addictive and harmful psychoactive drugs can fall anywhere on a spectrum from government supplied to government regulated to more or less unregulated. Makes no sense!
Growth in the popularity of food delivery services (UberEATS, etc.) in Canada tracks almost exactly with increased cannabis usage. Just sayin'...
Might our collective growing fondness for the jazz cabbage be part of our national productivity problem? Stoners aren't exactly known for their work ethic.
Commercial cannabis entrepreneurs and their weed activist friends did a nice collab vis a vis selling straight folks on the idea that weed was harmless.
Pity the Trudeau government did not opt for the middle way of decriminalization over legalization. Decriminalization would have spared police resources, and reduced the burden on the court system and the lives of people convicted of possession or minor trafficking. But it would have stopped short of actively encouraging the use of a substance --just to be cool--that causes problems for at least some users as your article makes clear. Thanks for sharing it.
Maybe the cannabis use and the psychosis and the other deaths of despair are all caused by the same factor, rather than one being causal to another. What causes the despair, or at minimum indifference to life, that precedes the substance abuse?
David, I offer both an answer and a cynical interpretation - all in one - to your concluding question of, "But I am wondering why politicians find it so difficult to wait for even minimal scientific evidence before driving the country over the cliff?"
The answer has to do with the dopamine high that the politicians of a particular party received when they received adulation and sufficient votes to form government in 2015. Put differently, who the hell worries about consequences when you can get elected for a policy popular (particularly) with young people legal to vote for the first time and who will vote FOR the policy, whether it is wise policy or otherwise?
I do not apologize for my cynicism as I believe it to be entirely appropriate in the particular circumstances.
Ken, your reference to politicians' dopamine high is a very interesting point and I think could be extended to other things such as:
- other bad policy ideas beyond the legalization of marijuana, and
- beyond politicians, the reason that so many people jump on dubious bandwagons that are nonetheless popular thus resulting in support and affirmation...and dopamine.
Endorsement of Marijuana implicit in "legalization" can be added to the long list of negative consequences of a culture of increased outsourcing of adult and personal responsibilities to the Nanny state. At least "legalization" relies on "free will" as opposed to the more mandated use of a certain experimental "vaccine" the adverse effects of which are continuously emerging from the fog of authoritarian deceit. The joke line (famous lie) of: "we're from the government and we're hear to help you" is well beyond funny and now just another sad truth.
I’ve been looking at the literature on psychoactive substances, and it’s interesting that there’s little correlation between the harms and the government response. Alcohol causes all sorts of problems, short and long term, in a subset of users, and it’s sold by government under a specific set of regulations, presumably to mitigate the harms, although not very successfully. Tobacco is harmful, as we all know, but remains legal, with the government regulating price through taxation and supply through regulations, again not very successfully, given the ready availability of illegal smokes. Cannabis is also harmful (and can be quite addictive), but was legalized, and the government would love to turn it into a profit centre, like alcohol, but they can’t compete with the “private sector”. At the other end we have opioids, which are useful for things like acute pain, as well as for recreational drug use, but again some users get into trouble. We’ve gone from “prohibition” to “decriminalization” to “safer supply” and “opioid agonist therapy”, the latter two of which are costing us a lot of money, all in the name of harm reduction, although the extent to which they reduce harms is up for debate. In between, of course, are all sorts of things taken for recreational purposes, all with varying harms and benefits, all subject to differing government regulation.
Bottom line is that addictive and harmful psychoactive drugs can fall anywhere on a spectrum from government supplied to government regulated to more or less unregulated. Makes no sense!
Growth in the popularity of food delivery services (UberEATS, etc.) in Canada tracks almost exactly with increased cannabis usage. Just sayin'...
Might our collective growing fondness for the jazz cabbage be part of our national productivity problem? Stoners aren't exactly known for their work ethic.
Commercial cannabis entrepreneurs and their weed activist friends did a nice collab vis a vis selling straight folks on the idea that weed was harmless.
Pity the Trudeau government did not opt for the middle way of decriminalization over legalization. Decriminalization would have spared police resources, and reduced the burden on the court system and the lives of people convicted of possession or minor trafficking. But it would have stopped short of actively encouraging the use of a substance --just to be cool--that causes problems for at least some users as your article makes clear. Thanks for sharing it.
Maybe the cannabis use and the psychosis and the other deaths of despair are all caused by the same factor, rather than one being causal to another. What causes the despair, or at minimum indifference to life, that precedes the substance abuse?
David, I offer both an answer and a cynical interpretation - all in one - to your concluding question of, "But I am wondering why politicians find it so difficult to wait for even minimal scientific evidence before driving the country over the cliff?"
The answer has to do with the dopamine high that the politicians of a particular party received when they received adulation and sufficient votes to form government in 2015. Put differently, who the hell worries about consequences when you can get elected for a policy popular (particularly) with young people legal to vote for the first time and who will vote FOR the policy, whether it is wise policy or otherwise?
I do not apologize for my cynicism as I believe it to be entirely appropriate in the particular circumstances.
Ken, your reference to politicians' dopamine high is a very interesting point and I think could be extended to other things such as:
- other bad policy ideas beyond the legalization of marijuana, and
- beyond politicians, the reason that so many people jump on dubious bandwagons that are nonetheless popular thus resulting in support and affirmation...and dopamine.
Endorsement of Marijuana implicit in "legalization" can be added to the long list of negative consequences of a culture of increased outsourcing of adult and personal responsibilities to the Nanny state. At least "legalization" relies on "free will" as opposed to the more mandated use of a certain experimental "vaccine" the adverse effects of which are continuously emerging from the fog of authoritarian deceit. The joke line (famous lie) of: "we're from the government and we're hear to help you" is well beyond funny and now just another sad truth.