Legalising marijuana doesn't solve this problem, thats not the point, it's about reducing harm which IMO would be the case if marijuana were legalised and its sale was restricted to those 18 years and over.
It was much easier for myself and my peers to get weed compared to alcohol during high school, much easier. Just food for thought.
This is definitely true, weed is incredibly accessible to youngins, whereas the only way one could get alcohol back then would be through older brothers/mates/your local hobo - plus its way cheaper, depending on how much you smoke though I spose.
If it is legalised/decriminalised I hope they take a lesson from tobacco and ban smoking in public. Watching people spark up as they roll down the street is crass and not an example I want to set for my children. The smoke pollution in my personal space is a pet peeve and it is not that difficult to smoke in private before venturing out. (Hell isn't that what pot smokers do now any way?) There is not added health benefits to smoking shops like Amsterdam. There should be only a visible retail arm and not a social scene.
This on the other hand I disagree with. While I can see sense in a ban on smoking in public areas, if you're going to disallow specific weed-smoking venues as well, then I'd like to see every pub in the country shut down also, as I feel these set an example which is just as 'crass,' if not more so, than that of a weed cafe.
I think benefits would be realised far more in countries like the US, where cannabis-policing expenses exceed ours dramatically, and as such has led to a situation which is best described as ridiculous.
Additionally, a point that's been brought up time and time again is that society would feel some sort of a drain, due to on average more people becoming stoners, and this leading to laziness, etc. I don't see much sense in this, for a number of reasons.
First, although predominantly weed is associated by many with causing laziness, such hasn't been evidenced in any actual study which I have caught wind of, and I've seen plenty of evidence to the contrary. For myself and others, weed has had a motivational effect. It's something to look forward to at the end of the day/week, and that alone is enough to make me work harder, and probably overall be more successful to date, than had I never picked up smoking (can't really ever be wholly sure of this though, obviously). That said, weed's psychological addiction can be powerful. One would assume that proper education and services in place could address the problem of lazy, psychologically addicted stoners to make the overall situation less detrimental on society than it is currently (which overall is probably pretty minimal anyway - in the whole scheme of things I'm doubtful weed is a major contributer to the number of dole bludgers and so on - it's definately a factor, but there's plenty of lazy fucks out there who are too stupid/brainwashed to want anything to do with weed).
Moreover, why is everyone even jumping to the conclusion that the legalisation of weed, or any drug for that matter, would even lead to a significant increase in use? How many of your parents/grandparents/other people you know would begin using if something became legalised? What proportion of people who do not take drugs choose to do so solely because they are illegal? Very few, I believe. I think the overriding reasons are more in the realm of image/stigma attached to the drug, as well as the health consequences. So from this I gather that there are only two factors that could lead to increases in use. The first would be from people becoming better educated about the health consequences of the drug, along with further research being conducted on the health consequences, and finding that the health consequences are lesser than previously imagined, should that turn out to be the case. The other is that if over time, due to legalisation, the stigma behind the drug is eliminated from generation to generation. This could become especially significant should social scenes develop and it become not only 'not uncool', but cool. However, from memory, 7% the Netherlands population are smokers, and something like 7.2% of US population are - legalisation, in the long term at least, doesn't appear to increase use, cultural differences aside (after reading further into the thread, the abstract ayjay posted on page 2 affirms this).
Lastly, a societal drain due to increased prevalence of mental illness is definitely a potential issue. However if use doesn't increase, or only does so slightly, as described above, and education & an age requirement were implemented, this should be easily offset, without even bringing in the tax revenue which can additionally contribute to such an offset. Plus we don't have any solid facts on just how marijuana leads to mental illness or in what percentage of people such will occur - more research definitely needs to be conducted on the subject.
