"I just want to be able to buy and smoke weed legally"
That's the carrot they dangle - the ONLY thing that anyone gets out of it. And yes, you'll be able to smoke (at home) without arrest. But you can already do that. They aren't going to let you smoke in the park, or anywhere around people.
"decriminalization does not achieve that, it would still be illegal to buy and sell."
Huh? Decrim means ending all the bad cannabis laws that got created starting in the 1930s. It means not arresting people for weed, not charging people for weed, not going to court for weed, not punishing people for weed. It would still be illegal? Then that's not decrim. What we want is the end of the bad laws, NOT NEW LAWS.
"In many parts of Canada and the USA people can go into shops, and have a choice of many different cannabis products to purchase."
Government stores. Overregulated isn't the word. It's $30 for a shitty gram, but only $5 for a REALLY nice gram on the street. And you can't get edibles, or extracts. They even made weed shirts illegal in many places here. My wife needs a gram of THC per day, and she'd be DEAD right now if we had to buy at government prices. Besides, it's toxic, literally. People are getting respiratory infections left right and center after smoking govt weed. Grown in warehouses by corporate idiots.
Seriously, all these debates have been had, for years. Everything you say is like something out of a textbook here. We heard it here for years, the exact same justifications. You're making exactly the same mistakes, and I even saw that coming- I even said NZ would be next, YEARS AGO! And here we are, and you guys still won't listen to warnings.
You're aware cannabis messages are still censored on YT, right? I can't get this message out there. I can't warn people like you. Nobody can. We're SCREAMING over here, trying to get you to listen, but nothing we do has any effect.
Please, listen to those who were there! It's NOT a good thing. And no, I'm not paid by anyone to have this opinion, or to say these things. I'm independently motivated and have been speaking out against legalization since 2012, when it was just a distant rumour here.
That's Jan 2014, when I could see everything that's going on now forming up, I put out that warning to Canadians. I wasn't listened to. It was 100% right. When I show fellow cannactivists from Canada that clip now, they say "why didn't I see that back when it mattered?"
You have the opportunity to see it and hear it when it matters.
Your rejection of my research into vaccines hints that you aren't likely to be willing to consider my position on anything else. You have an unscientific approach - anything that doesn't agree with your hypothesis is discarded as "fake news". You will not reach the truth that way, unless you do so by accident, and I wouldn't count on that.
Whatever dude, if you had to live here you would be wishing for it to be the way it is in Canada now. Obviously it's not perfect - but you have no idea what it's like here now. Not everyone smokes weed, some people hate it and think other people shouldn't be able to do it. We have to be able to make compromises as we live with other people with different opinions. It's not all about what you or I want.
Of course I know how it is there. I have family and friends there, and I have the internet too. Anyone can find out how it is. It's exactly like it was here in Canada in 2017.
So in Canada in 2017 the market was dominated with crap weed sold by gangs, and that's what you want to go back to? sweet as bro
Yes, before legalization the Canadian cannabis market was about 1/3 gangs, and 2/3 mom and pops small growers. You rarely hear about the quiet mom and pops gardens. Mostly you hear about the gang stuff. You'd know that if you watched my video.
You would also know the only reason gangs get involved in cannabis is the price. That's why gangs don't traffic in carrots.
You'd know the price is only high because of prohibition. Cannabis isn't a difficult crop to grow. I can grow it for free, as long as I've got dirt and time. Warehouse grows get their prices down below pennies per gram here (and still can't make a profit). Cannabis is a weed, and it grows wild under the sun all over the world. Only prohibition makes it expensive.
The government doesn't let on, but it actually WANTS the gangs to continue, so they can wage a continuous "war on drugs" that can never be won. They profit off both sides of this war, just like the wars in the middle East. Police departments get bigger budgets. Prisons make profits when cannabis users go to jail, and lobby government to keep cannabis illegal. Legalization doesn't threaten any of that. Gangs continue after legalization - we have a much worse problem now than ever before. The more illegal something is, the more gangs will get involved, because the price of it goes up. The higher the price, the more violence you'll see related to buying and selling it. Legalization means 14 years in prison for growing too many plants at home, instead of just 6 months when it was "illegal". And it means you can get prison time for sharing a joint with a friend, under the wrong circumstances, because they call it "trafficking". Is that legal, to you?
These are the hard lessons we learned here. You know nothing and claim "it's different this time". Your feelings are meaningless. The intention is to crack down even harder than ever before, calling it "legalization", and destroying not only the free market but the entire cannabis culture, pushing it even deeper underground than it was in the 90s.
Legalization is nothing we want, and everything we don't. You're going to be allowed to smoke a joint, that's it. And you have to buy it from the ones who profited off prohibition since 1930, for ten times the price you were paying before. Oh and let's not even start on the irradiation, which is done to legal weed for safety. It kills the bacteria, which stops the curing process, resulting in dead bud that hurts to smoke. And it also blasts off most of the trichomes and cannabinoids, so you need more just to get any effect, smoking up large amounts of legal fungicides - even in "organic" cannabis. You're in for a real treat.
ok bro, i'm sure you have it all figured out. i'll leave you to it