One problem is that the market demand remains so high in the states with criminalization that the legal states like CA and CO (and the Feds) are faced with the challenge- and expense- of sorting out the unlicensed growing operations and busting them. That was never even an effective mission in the days when the states had criminalization…
One problem is that the market demand remains so high in the states with criminalization that the legal states like CA and CO (and the Feds) are faced with the challenge- and expense- of sorting out the unlicensed growing operations and busting them. That was never even an effective mission in the days when the states had criminalization statutes. Now they're being tasked to continue massive enforcement efforts in order to curb supplies for other US states that won't face the reality of their own demand.
I support the effort to shut down large-scale bootleg growing operations, the same way I support shutting down moonshine liquor operations. (Large indoor operations especially rub me the wrong way. Including the legal ones.) But as long as cannabis remains Federally illegal and interstate transport is outlawed, the illicit suppliers are going to find marked advantages cultivating their sources of supply from within the US rather than dodging interdiction at the national borders. Twistedly enough, many of the large bootleg growing operations in California are now vertically integrated operations funded, staffed, and run by Mexican cartels!
The answer should be obvious- Federal legalization, and the ability to lawfully trans-ship cannabis across state lines. (If a given state is bound and determined to keep cannabis criminalized, so be it...not much different than the way Prohibition played out with alcohol, although even Utah eventually gave up on distilled alcohol Prohibition a few years back.) But the risk-averse political class of our national leadership in Congress and the White House needs to be dragged kicking and screaming into the present day on this matter.
i 100% agree - although to your point about utah, i’m originally from arkansas which still has i think the majority of the remaining “dry counties” (not to mention a ban on alcohol sales on sundays. because jesus) but of course there are still plenty of alcohol users and abusers in those counties. i definitely agree with you on the enforcement issues of a mixed status system, but i sort of think about the issues of protecting a legal market and cutting off violent production organizations separately from like the efficacy of taxes/regulation costs and how they affect price and consumer behavior. drugs are often talked about as though they are the same as any other commodity, but there’s a lot of evidence that demand is driven by different factors. i support federal legalization but i also support strict regulation and a more comprehensive overhaul of drug policy. all our current information indicates hallucinogens and MDMA are way way way less addictive than alcohol or nicotine, and might have treatment potential for some mental health issues including…alcoholism. also they’re fun. so ayahuasca is illegal but oxycodone isn’t? there’s just no logic to it except profitability and european cultural history with certain drugs versus others, and when mental health is involved, when you have highly addictive legal drugs and hardly addictive illegal drugs listed schedule 1, you’re making policy based on ideology and not medical science, letting people get hooked and destroy their family’s lives and often die of their addictions to legal drugs and locking up people doing… just different drugs. i’m dying for a little consistency here that centers medicine and physiology and the fact that the illicit drug trade has been made so powerful BECAUSE people want drugs and self-medicate, they aren’t exactly pushing drugs on communities that have zero demand for them. evidenced in part by the fact that a majority of americans already regularly do a drug that has been made widely available, cheap, and socially acceptable.
There are at least as many long-term prescription SSRI users as regular cannabis users. And the SSRIs have much more seriously addictive properties- although the withdrawal is referred to by the euphemism "discontinuance syndrome."
Benzodiazepine tranquilizers are most commonly prescribed for occasional use, not regular use. But millions of people do use them habitually, or admit to overusing or abusing them. They're much more of an overdose liability than SSRIs or psychostimulants. They mix particularly poorly with alcohol, but also often show up in conjunction with opioid overdoses. The most lethal combination is of course alcohol, benzos, and opioids.
So who are we fooling? Tens of millions of Americans are on habit-forming drugs. They have legal drug habits. That might not be optimal from a health standpoint, but it doesn't appear to have led to mass behavioral dysfunction or societal chaos. Certainly not in comparison with the deleterious effects of social media- especially when used by the young and unwary, and people who haven't developed antibodies to unsupported speculations, logical fallacies, and unkind suggestions from anonymous participants.
Tens of millions of Americans seem to be maintaining their prescription drug habits without undue issues. As long as they have them.
Do I think that cannabis is "addictive"? Using the neologized definition that's become mainstreamed by the APA, for some people, yes, it is.
Does cannabis have as much addictive potential as any of the prescription drugs listed above? No.
so well put. americans already regularly using habit forming drugs might like feeling morally superior to americans who regularly use… different habit forming drugs?… but applying arbitrary standards of morality to human bodies has pretty much always been bad policy. maybe it’s not anyone’s job to tell anybody else what they SHOULD be ingesting to physically and psychologically manage their life and enjoy their time here…maybe it’s our job to keep each other from getting hurt and support each other in our various mental illnesses. which include addiction. AA is supposed to be a safe place for alcoholics, a community to help remain abstinent from an addictive drug that has negatively impacted our lives. recently at a meeting a girl who admitted to being on SSRIs tried to force another girl to leave because she takes stimulants. this was not a meeting for people whose lives have been negatively impacted by stimulants. she felt those stimulants improved her quality of life- but the first girl insisted she wasn’t REALLY sober…despite the fact ALL of us were having a cigarette outside 5 mins previously. superiority complexes about certain drugs have literally no place in addiction treatment, it only helps the people trying to feel better about themselves and feeds into the idea addiction is a moral deficiency and not a chemical response and mental health issue. it’s supremely frustrating and i so appreciate everything you said here about it.
Cannabis is nowhere near as effective as opiates for pain, but it's nowhere near as dangerous either. It has value as pain medicine and the idea that opiates (schedule II) can be prescribed for pain but cannabis (schedule I) can't be is both ludicrous and criminally insane. Why so much of the medical profession supports this nonsense is beyond me. History is going to judge them severely.
One problem is that the market demand remains so high in the states with criminalization that the legal states like CA and CO (and the Feds) are faced with the challenge- and expense- of sorting out the unlicensed growing operations and busting them. That was never even an effective mission in the days when the states had criminalization statutes. Now they're being tasked to continue massive enforcement efforts in order to curb supplies for other US states that won't face the reality of their own demand.
I support the effort to shut down large-scale bootleg growing operations, the same way I support shutting down moonshine liquor operations. (Large indoor operations especially rub me the wrong way. Including the legal ones.) But as long as cannabis remains Federally illegal and interstate transport is outlawed, the illicit suppliers are going to find marked advantages cultivating their sources of supply from within the US rather than dodging interdiction at the national borders. Twistedly enough, many of the large bootleg growing operations in California are now vertically integrated operations funded, staffed, and run by Mexican cartels!
The answer should be obvious- Federal legalization, and the ability to lawfully trans-ship cannabis across state lines. (If a given state is bound and determined to keep cannabis criminalized, so be it...not much different than the way Prohibition played out with alcohol, although even Utah eventually gave up on distilled alcohol Prohibition a few years back.) But the risk-averse political class of our national leadership in Congress and the White House needs to be dragged kicking and screaming into the present day on this matter.
i 100% agree - although to your point about utah, i’m originally from arkansas which still has i think the majority of the remaining “dry counties” (not to mention a ban on alcohol sales on sundays. because jesus) but of course there are still plenty of alcohol users and abusers in those counties. i definitely agree with you on the enforcement issues of a mixed status system, but i sort of think about the issues of protecting a legal market and cutting off violent production organizations separately from like the efficacy of taxes/regulation costs and how they affect price and consumer behavior. drugs are often talked about as though they are the same as any other commodity, but there’s a lot of evidence that demand is driven by different factors. i support federal legalization but i also support strict regulation and a more comprehensive overhaul of drug policy. all our current information indicates hallucinogens and MDMA are way way way less addictive than alcohol or nicotine, and might have treatment potential for some mental health issues including…alcoholism. also they’re fun. so ayahuasca is illegal but oxycodone isn’t? there’s just no logic to it except profitability and european cultural history with certain drugs versus others, and when mental health is involved, when you have highly addictive legal drugs and hardly addictive illegal drugs listed schedule 1, you’re making policy based on ideology and not medical science, letting people get hooked and destroy their family’s lives and often die of their addictions to legal drugs and locking up people doing… just different drugs. i’m dying for a little consistency here that centers medicine and physiology and the fact that the illicit drug trade has been made so powerful BECAUSE people want drugs and self-medicate, they aren’t exactly pushing drugs on communities that have zero demand for them. evidenced in part by the fact that a majority of americans already regularly do a drug that has been made widely available, cheap, and socially acceptable.
It isn't just alcohol.
There are at least as many long-term prescription SSRI users as regular cannabis users. And the SSRIs have much more seriously addictive properties- although the withdrawal is referred to by the euphemism "discontinuance syndrome."
https://bpr.berkeley.edu/2021/11/07/americas-epidemic-of-antidepressants/
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/one-6-americans-take-antidepressants-other-psychiatric-drugs-n695141
https://www.wsj.com/articles/new-concerns-emerge-about-long-term-antidepressant-use-11567004771
Same with amphetamines: https://www.webmd.com/add-adhd/news/20230331/adhd-drug-prescriptions-went-up-during-pandemic-study
ADHD drugs are prescribed as a regular regimen, to be taken every day, according to accepted medical practice. Otherwise, you're doing it wrong.
At least as many Americans use benzodiazepines: https://www.benzoinfo.com/prescribing-statistics/
Benzodiazepine tranquilizers are most commonly prescribed for occasional use, not regular use. But millions of people do use them habitually, or admit to overusing or abusing them. They're much more of an overdose liability than SSRIs or psychostimulants. They mix particularly poorly with alcohol, but also often show up in conjunction with opioid overdoses. The most lethal combination is of course alcohol, benzos, and opioids.
Oh yeah, opioid painkillers: https://www.cdc.gov/drugoverdose/rxrate-maps/index.html
So who are we fooling? Tens of millions of Americans are on habit-forming drugs. They have legal drug habits. That might not be optimal from a health standpoint, but it doesn't appear to have led to mass behavioral dysfunction or societal chaos. Certainly not in comparison with the deleterious effects of social media- especially when used by the young and unwary, and people who haven't developed antibodies to unsupported speculations, logical fallacies, and unkind suggestions from anonymous participants.
Tens of millions of Americans seem to be maintaining their prescription drug habits without undue issues. As long as they have them.
Do I think that cannabis is "addictive"? Using the neologized definition that's become mainstreamed by the APA, for some people, yes, it is.
Does cannabis have as much addictive potential as any of the prescription drugs listed above? No.
so well put. americans already regularly using habit forming drugs might like feeling morally superior to americans who regularly use… different habit forming drugs?… but applying arbitrary standards of morality to human bodies has pretty much always been bad policy. maybe it’s not anyone’s job to tell anybody else what they SHOULD be ingesting to physically and psychologically manage their life and enjoy their time here…maybe it’s our job to keep each other from getting hurt and support each other in our various mental illnesses. which include addiction. AA is supposed to be a safe place for alcoholics, a community to help remain abstinent from an addictive drug that has negatively impacted our lives. recently at a meeting a girl who admitted to being on SSRIs tried to force another girl to leave because she takes stimulants. this was not a meeting for people whose lives have been negatively impacted by stimulants. she felt those stimulants improved her quality of life- but the first girl insisted she wasn’t REALLY sober…despite the fact ALL of us were having a cigarette outside 5 mins previously. superiority complexes about certain drugs have literally no place in addiction treatment, it only helps the people trying to feel better about themselves and feeds into the idea addiction is a moral deficiency and not a chemical response and mental health issue. it’s supremely frustrating and i so appreciate everything you said here about it.
Nice to see such serious, reasonable comments.
Cannabis is nowhere near as effective as opiates for pain, but it's nowhere near as dangerous either. It has value as pain medicine and the idea that opiates (schedule II) can be prescribed for pain but cannabis (schedule I) can't be is both ludicrous and criminally insane. Why so much of the medical profession supports this nonsense is beyond me. History is going to judge them severely.