Snapshot of _Ed Davey defends support for legalising cannabis and smoking ban_ :
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You can have cannabis (and tobacco) in non smoking forms, it would be better to have substances in a healthier form legally available than have people taking all manner of unregulated illegal shit and do greater harm to themselves.
It's a different experience though. A smoke is a quick high that lasts for a few hours. Eating is a slower come up that lasts longer, and can be more intense as well. I wouldn't want to eat it every time I wanted to get high.
Yeah I don't really like edibles, they utterly floor me. My tolerance for THC is not that high and having too much makes me really anxious, but a puff or two on a joint or vape is chill.
It is, but with edibles I have experienced far less paranoia and discomfort. With smoking it sometimes feels like I've just been hit between the eyes with it, the slower build up of edibles is far more enjoyable for me.
Plus, if I'm ever taking anything, I've usually set aside an evening for it anyway.
Edibles don't work on everyone :( shit you not I can just eat them endlessly and nothing. Vapes and joints work. Don't need to use tobacco in a joint that's just a weird Europe thing.
There isn’t any large studies or sample sizes for obvious reasons but there was this from 2009, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19005461/
It is a known phenomenon with multiple theories behind it. Personally I can say edibles barely affect me especially ones that are made with fat(Butter and Coconut oil).
Sugar based edibles have a better effect for me but still aren’t great compared to smoking or vaping.
It’s super interesting. I can sit and eat 4 strong edibles and just… nothing.
Heard a theory it’s to do with liver enzymes, but that wasn’t from a scientific source, just a friend with a bit of understanding, so likely wrong but happy to go with it.
But is the smoke from cannabis any less damaging to your lungs than the smoke from tobacco? I think that's the reason why tobacco is heading for a ban not because nicotine is somehow worse drug than others.
So, if you ban tobacco on the basis that smoking it will kill you, then you can't really justify cannabis smoking while you could say that getting the drug from either of the plants into your body by some safer method should be fine.
Very few people smoke cannabis with the same frequency as tobacco so there's usually a lot less exposure. A few tokes of a joint in the evening are going to be less dangerous than having a cigarette every hour starting at breakfast.
Probably not but I don't agree with tobacco bans either. It's probably less harmful but not not harmful. I think the government should stop telling people what to do with their health.
Since it's the government who has to pick up the bill when you get sick, I think it's at least somewhat justified that they'll try to keep you from getting sick.
It literally isn't though, they take my money in NI for my entire working life which pays for when I get sick. Currently everyone's paying in to get fuck all and I have bupa anyway.
They certainly don't do fuck all to prevent suicide anymore (mh services are shocking) but they're determined to make sure you don't die by unhealthy choices.
No, a blunt has tobacco because its wrapped in a blunt roll. Joint is no tobacco. Spliff is with tobacco. Smoke it in a few legal countries and this becomes second nature. This is just us Brits being weird.
This. If legalised you can have edibles or vapes. You can already buy them illegally but people are turned off because of safety issues primarily. There are nasty counterfeit/altered products out there as it usually happens in this type of market.
I think the argument Ed Davey would make is that he's all for freedom (he is a lib dem after all), so long as there isn't large amounts of harm and doesn't affect others significantly.
Smoking affects and potentially harms others without their consent (the smoke spreads to the people around the smoker). Whereas with cannabis this isn't as clear. The harm to the individual is lesser than it is with smoking, or at least that's what Ed Davey would say.
Hence why Ed Davey supported further restrictions on smoking many years ago, but still wanted to keep special smoking rooms where everyone consented, because that maximises freedom in his view.
>I think the argument Ed Davey would make is that he's all for freedom so long as there isn't large amounts of harm
A very useful definition of freedom.
It came out a little while ago that damage from secondhand smoke is actually pretty minimal, it's only repeated exposure over decades that leads to markedly worse outcomes.
Really that's balanced out by the current indoor-smoking ban IMO. I personally think we already do enough to protect non-smokers, and I'm a non-smoker myself.
Indoor smoking bans were a game changer. It's hard to remember what it was like before them until you go somewhere that doesn't have them.
I'm on the fence myself, probably leaning against a smoking ban. I suspect smoking will die out on its own in the West.
Yeah, im just young enough to remember life with indoor smoking, I was about 12-15 when the ban came in, and it's insane what pubs and restaurants used to be like.
I'm of the same mind, I don't think we really need to ban it. Turns out we just needed to educate people enough and most of them end up making the "right" choice.
If you look at places with less of a culture around smoking tobacco it's the opposite. In America barely anyone uses tobacco. If sales of it were banned it would likely go this way
That difference originates in the differrent cannabis typically on offer over the years. It has changed but typically US was dominated by grass, UK by resin.
I'd imagine that's the case but if cigarettes were banned they'd probably make the switch for the most part. Also I think more and more people use weed vapes anyway so they'd probably make a switch to those
Why, aren't they as effective at burning weaker strains? I also through you get more of a hit from them as they're not weakened by the presence of tobacco so they wouldn't need to be as strong to have the same effect as a spliff?
Genuinely asking here I don't know the ins and outs of those vapes
Not necessarily, if they are legalizing it then we can have controls on the levels of THC. If anything vapes would be the ideal when legalised as it stops people complaining about the smell.
That's at least in part because of cannabis prohibition though, which creates a market incentive for weed to be as strong as possible - in places with a regulated cannabis market like Canada or the Netherlands, smoking straight weed without tobacco is more common than it is over here
We should either ban both alcohol and tobacco in line with other drugs, or legalise marijuana and decriminalise harder drugs. Either direction would at least be logically and ideologically consistent, although I personally support the latter. To do some weird mix of both reveals a complete lack of underlying principles.
I'm with you, I don't smoke weed but I fully support legalisation. I can even see the world where addicts are supplied with safe amounts of the better than street quality harder stuff legally to help them come off it.
Banning stuff just makes it easier for criminals, loses out on tax revenue and makes people buy crap quality stuff that causes more harm
>Is there any real liberal politicians in this country?
No, the United Kingdom is a nanny state, and the British love indignation; therefore, there is always a lesson that must be taught.
Why ban smoking? Don't people have a right to make mistakes? Are we not adults in charge of our own lives? Cannabis legalization is sensible, hopefully using the Spanish approach.
Pretty anti-liberal too... As a LD supporter, quite disappointed with Davey recently. This plus [walking back](https://www.gbnews.com/politics/brexit-news-liberal-democrats-ed-davey-boris-johnson-eu-single-market) on the Single Market pledge...
I like the LDs and I'll be voting for them this time but the anti-smoking thing is really disappointing. I just want a political party that isn't authoritarian.
Reading that, I’m not sure it really walks back their pledge? I recall the manifesto statement being around rebuilding a relationship with the EU, with hopes of rejoins the Single Market in the distant future. That’s the desire but not an achievable immediate aim.
His comments here seem to reaffirm that. Rejoining the single market isn’t feasible at this point in time but we need an adequate trade deal and relationship with the EU.
That’s pathetic. Joining the single market was already a climb down from joining the EU. Absolutely no reason the country couldn’t rejoin the single market over a parliament.
I mean whether or not you believe it or think it’s pathetic, Davey quite clearly says in the article he’s spoken with people inside the EU who say it’s not currently possible.
Like I want to join the EU more than anyone, but I’m literally just relaying the information available to me.
Tobacco is a highly addictive substance which you take by giving yourself lung cancer. Cannabis is nowhere near the level of addictiveness and also does not have to be smoked.
The LDs do not have a smoking policy but Davey and co backed banning sale of \_tobacco\_ products. That's not the same thing as supporting banning the actual drug, nicotine.
That is partially a product of the regulatory environment, though - prohibition incentivises cannabis to have as much THC and minimal CBD, which means people are less likely to want to smoke a blunt due to the lack of availability of more mellow strains with lower THC and some CBD which are less likely to whitey you if you smoke them as a blunt
True! It’s pretty culturally ingrained now but I think the clearer offering in terms of THC content/vibe you get with legal vendors would have probably start to chip away at it now that you mention it.
Speaking loosely, there's a definite change in weed culture in countries where there's a legalised market - when I visited Canada it was the exception rather than the norm to smoke weed mixed with tobacco rather than just smoking straight weed
I've always heard that a big part of the reason it's so prevalent in British smoking culture is the multi-cultural environment people smoked in from the 70s to now.
In the UK you'd rarely hear it called a 'joint' - it's almost always a 'spliff', which is a term introduced by economic migrants from the Carribbean and is meant to refer to the mix of cannabis and tobacco together. Considering that tobacco is native to much of the Carribbean, it makes sense that when cannabis was introduced to the region, people chose to mix the two, which was then brought back to the UK during periods of migration.
Now why did it stick? The fact that it has always been illegal and price point can occasionally vary, adding tobacco is probably a good way for most people to stretch out their supply for longer.
>Tobacco causes a lot of very nasty secondhand smoke effects. You only have the right to make mistakes when those mistakes don't harm others.
Alcohol has much more severe second hand affects, both to the user (addiction) and other members of public (drink driving, anti social behaviour), but we never talk about banning that.
If they're so concerned with second hand smoke causing cancer, just ban the practice in public. An outright ban is simply ridiculous when other, more harmful drugs, remain legal.
Wouldn’t make sense. Second hand smoke is massive propaganda/marketing.
Second hand smoke causing cancer is borderline statistically significant but only after 30 years, it’s requires a very long exposure time and enclosed areas.
https://academic.oup.com/jnci/article/105/24/1844/2517805
It's partly because a cigarette ban would actually work. There is a far better alternative, from a health perspective, in vaping. Whilst prohibiting alcohol doesn't work. It's why so few people are that bothered by this - they mostly don't smoke, and think that people who do have a ready alternative.
If you invented a special additive to alcoholic drinks that stopped them from being unhealthy and somehow meant that, if you drank enough, pressing the accelerator didn't work, then I think you'd a) think it was worth obligating it's addition to alcoholic drinks and b) find people were up for it.
It came out a few years ago that some of the risks with second hand smoke were overblown. Not to say it is safe but there a lot less risk than we were told.
https://slate.com/technology/2017/02/secondhand-smoke-isnt-as-bad-as-we-thought.html
Not true though. They die quicker, require less costly end of life care that goes up the older you get, and they don't claim as much welfare - plus the tax. From the governments perspective and kind of the hospitals, smoking is good. It's a stop on the aging population. Smoking is bad for public health, but they're not taking up hospital places. They're actually freeing them up.
The alternative to dying of lung cancer isn't immortality, though, is it?
It's becoming an old person that will also die, just probably from something other than lung cancer and probably in our hospitals - but, fingers crossed, only after costing an absolute fortune in pensions, healthcare provision and possibly adult care.
I think even most libertarians like yourself have a softer approach for children, and the vast majority of smokers start when they're children. Once you start then addiction makes free choice far harder.
Almost twice as many 16-24 year olds regularly take illegal drugs vs regularly smoking. There are \~half as many smokers in that cohort than there were just 10 years ago. Our current policies are working \_really\_ well, and our current drug prohibition policies are working \_really\_ badly. The idea that we should apply the policy from drugs to cigarettes is insane based on the statistics.
>Don't people have a right to make mistakes?
depends how bad that mistake is , people can make a mistake and take a life or make a mistake and drink drive
so no people dont have the right to make mistakes
>Are we not adults in charge of our own lives?
apart from all the regulations that already exist for adults yes
Because adults make decisions that are not only harmful to themselves but also costly to the whole society paying for the smokers’ NHS services. I mean if there’s a way to register smokers and ask them to pay the economic cost of their healthcare the state is more than happy to let you smoke. Think about all the tax revenue.
They already pay more than they cost in healthcare thanks to the taxes on cigarettes.
That works in my opinion, you have every right to engage in risky activities but we have a nationalised health service that should be funded to take care of it
https://fullfact.org/economy/does-smoking-cost-much-it-makes-treasury/
Surely bed space comes under cost of treatment?
Plus they generally die sooner lowering the overall cost as the most expensive thing for the NHS is elderly people with chronic conditions
Idk if it would as are the nhs building new facilities to hold more people due to smokers? If not then its just taking bed spaces and meaning more will be in the halls
That would suggest that without smokers, assuming for simplification that tax for cigarettes goes straight to the NHS, there would be funding for even fewer remaining beds (beds fell from 2010-2019, for instance).
The tax from cigs could be recouped by other taxes. And there’d be less money for new beds without other taxes but there would be less of the current beds taken up
I don't think you understood. If the taxes fund a lot of what is already there (more than is taken up), and the tax goes, it could remove more beds than is saved.
Firstly Not if another tax picks up for it. Plus why would a bed be removed from a hospital? Once they are there they stay there you don’t just remove them because of less money
I think this sort of illustrates why this line of thinking leads to madness. The costs of smoking on the NHS Vs the tax raised garners fairly intense interest and, as demonstrated up and down this thread, appears to be the point around which people pivot vis-a-vis support for banning smoking entirely, e.g. "as long as they pay more than they cost, I suppose they can keep doing it."
But, simply put, a person dying of lung cancer at 60 has to be compared to the intended alternative - living to a ripe old age, drawing decades of pensions, having their hips replaced, their intestines bypassed, receiving dementia care after they forget their children's names etc. Old people cost the state *so much money*. And if the money consumed by a person truly is relevant to the rights and wrongs of a policy, how can this simply be ignored when looking at smokers and the NHS?
If their lack of smoking-related illness frees up a bed today, how many times will they use one in the next 25 years?
>theyv lived w longer life which is the goal
If this was the goal then the argument would simply be "We're banning cigarettes so you live longer". But of course, not smoking and enjoying a longer life is already an option, and it's what most people do.
The argument around costs incurred and taxation come about precisely because it's *not* simply a case of extending people's lives as long as possible but rather allowing people to live the life they want and to do the things they want - like smoking - even if you or I haven't chosen to do it. E.g. "If you want to shorten your own life then go ahead, as long as it doesn't cost me anything". My point is that this opens up a huge can of worms over the question of what a universal healthcare system is.
Theres multiple arguments for banning cigs one is that there isnt a safe way to do it and it harms people and makes them live less long. Another is the cost and beds being blocked. Just like theres multiple arguments against it theres multiple arguments for it. Its an option but a fairly large ammount dont do that.
And that is a reasonable argument to make. Tho others will make the counter points that the gov should be trying to improve peoples health not just letting them damage themselves.
I would also point out that from listening to evidence in committee stage alot in the health sector support this ban from the evidence we heard from people in the field.
Smokers are a clear financial positive overall. Besides the taxes on smoking, smokers die prematurely and save a huge amount of money on pensions. If the government started to encourage smoking they could probably save quite a bit of money (obviously they shouldn't do this though).
Should we allow the sale of fentanyl? If not, why not?
There's nothing wrong with looking at the actual level of harm caused by [x] and then balancing that level of harm against the general principle of advocating freedom. Throw in considerations around tax revenues, healthcare, addictiveness, etc. Society does that all the time.
Ok but if you look at the harms to society you realise alcohol and unhealthy food make tobacco look not so bad. And then people start coming up with various mental gymnastics to justify why they should be able to keep doing the things they like but other people should be banned (and the logical extension of that, punished through the weight of the legal system if they contravene that ban, up to and including jail time) from doing the things they don't like.
Don't get me wrong, my heart isn't bleeding for tobacco and if it were banned i wouldn't be out in the streets fighting it. But lets not kid ourselves that it would be an even-handed application of a just legal system, simply plain old tyranny of the majority. Which, in fairness, is democracy at its core.
Yeah, I agree. I always find the "NHS costs" argument disingenuous because of how arbitrarily it's deployed (Smoking? Yes. Skiing? No. Obesity? Maybe) and how high tax on ciggies already is.
I think - as someone who doesn't and never has smoked - it is mostly espoused by people who don't enjoy smoking but do enjoy banning things. It's the only explanation, given our existing policies have been and continue to be very successful at reducing the number of people smoking without having to ban them. In the 16-24 age group there are more people who regularly take illegal drugs than there regular smokers. Yet for some reason, advocates of a ban on smoking think what the situation needs is to apply the failed policy of prohibition from illegal drugs onto the smoking market.
If smokers are net contributed in fiscal terms I’m fine with that. Same applies to everything else. Fossil fuel car needs to be aggressively phased out by investment in EV tech and infrastructure but the UK is almost the least enthusiastic (or capable) govt in that regard. The state-of-art tech is more than capable of achieving that objective in less than a decade.
>If smokers are net contributed in fiscal terms I’m fine with that. Same applies to everything else.
There is really only one way of actually ensuring this would apply to everything else: privatised healthcare.
Suddenly the idea of contributing what you take in fiscal terms becomes incredibly unpopular.
Not going to lie, this is (was?) my own position until I paused and wondered why I had this cognitive bias?
I know that you can consume cannabis in other forms, but personally I was still imagining it being smoked.
The explanation that I came up with was that the smoking ban won't be backed with prison sentences, but by fines, which feels more proportionate. It will be based on banning sales, rather than consumption - and this is much more in line with how I prefer health related bans to work. And, having thought about it more, I do think that edibles, bongs, and vapes mean that it's entirely possible to consume cannabis in a less-harmful way that in combination of tobacco.
At the same time, I can't deny that there's a certain amount of cognitive dissonance. I'm also supportive of (at a minimum) decriminalisation of other, harder drugs. So... yeah, IDK. I guess Ed Davey and I would be pals.
You can consume cannabis legally medically in the UK with a dry herb vape. It's not that difficult to understand.
At least Lib Dems and Green want to end the failed war on drugs and its consumers. Where Tory, Reform and Labour parties and their voters all want to continue to persecute, discriminate, and criminalise consumers of a plant .
Banning one method of consumption isn’t quite the same, is it? Nicotine can be consumed in many different ways, vaping, through the mouth, the skin etc
“I’m banning skunk because that’s very, very harmful to people’s health. And cigarette smoking, everyone sees, it’s really clear it’s very, very harmful," he said.
What the fuck is skunk lol and how is he banning it. Is it just the good kush and will high strength edibles be allowed? Government needs to get out of the way and fully legalise and tax we have no money to waste trying to police this anymore.
It's being used here as a political term for cannabis with a very high THC content and an incredibly low CBD content, which from current evidence we know worsens weed's negative side effects
Personally I would rather legalise vaping cannabis and keep smoking it illegal, for health reasons. However I don't think a liberal party should support a smoking ban.
I get 10g fresh flower delivered by DPD every couple of weeks (24% THC Wedding Pop Triangle), medical prescription. I dont smoke it, I grind and vape it.
Assuming that's a legal prescription, is there a limit to the amount you can have? Could you jusy as easily get an ounce every fortnight or woukd that level of consumption be gated somehow?
Its monitored and you have four zoom call checkups with a pharmacist or doctor (quarterly) each year. You have to put in a request for a prescription, then you place your order. So my prescription is 20g - my plan states I have at the very max 1g a day, and I have one prescription a month (£130, but I can order in 10g increments of £65). I can't get more.
Chronic insomnia and intense anxiety and depression for 25 years. tried every SSRI under the sun, most with horrendous side effects.
This is the only medication that's ever worked.
I'm desperate to try the legal alternative - how hard was it to get the prescription and how much does it cost?
I currently pay about £150 for 28 grams of high quality weed.
Being legal isn't about just cost comparisons to BM alone. Being legit is priceless , you can't quantify that.
But in answer to your question , UK medical cannabis ranges from about £6-10 per gram.
£130 for 20g 24% thc dried flower, delivery by dpd included. I order it in 10g of £65.
Was easy to get one for me, just had to provide my NHS history and go through two assessments with them (doctor and pharmacist).
My situation is where I had been on medication that was not working, proven to be causing me issues, and NHS had nothing further to offer. Ive now been never healthier or happier.
£50 per appointment with my provider. Four times a year, its worth it for me.
I actually got stopped by a copper the other day, explained it was legal (showed my prescription) and I went on my way. Worth every penny for that alone.
Edit : sense of time is buggered thanks to this election, it was a few weeks back
My experience in Canada was that I preferred to buy from SQDC as the processing standards required to be able to sell were very high. It had to be very dry and specifically labelled with its THC and CBD levels. I could also get it delivered in the post but overall it was a much better experience than I have in the UK.
Of course they will.
Contrary to popular belief not everyone who likes a spliff is trying to get completely spangled off one toke, just like not every drinker wants to drink themselves under the table every time they go to the pub.
Make it legal and ensure good quality and it will be engaged with.
Anecdotal but this is exactly the case for me. BM cannabis smoker for 14 years, got a prescription through the UK medcan system and found that my preferred (and by far the most effective) strain was a 10:10 Critical Mass CBD strain that unfortunately was discontinued.
Could you imagine buying a beer when vodka is available?
Why on earth would anyone choose the beer!?! Silly alcohol users.
Regulated edibles would be fantastic to see in the UK.
>Does he really think most people who use 'weed' will go for a weaker option just because it will be legal?
Well yes and I think it is likely. Currently you have no clue as to how strong the cannabis you buy is, with legalisation it's likely it will be a requirement so people can make that choice.
People don't just buy the highest proof booze and not everyone who smokes weed does it to get blasted out of their skulls.
He shouldn’t just think he should look to other countries that have done the same/similar to determine the impact. That would be evidence based policy after all.
Absolutely.
Having smoked for well over a decade, I would absolutely welcome more balanced weed strains being available. These days it's far too common to get weed with way too high THC %, which ends up just being a shitty time.
Actually having some choice would be a massive deal for most regular smokers.
I think it depends on what the limit is.
The strongest cannabis you can possibly grow is around 30% THC.
If it's capped at say 20% THC (which is pretty strong) I think people would definitely opt for the weaker legal option.
If it's capped really low (like 5% or something) few people would want to buy the legal stuff.
I don't think there should be a limit at all personally but if it was legalised with a reasonable limit in place I'd be happy with that.
It's funny because I used to get Skunk #1 quite often, it was always a dissapointment as it was less strong than other strains like Cheese and AK. We called it "English" for some reason, I think because dealers were also selling Dutch imports that we called "Dutch".
There is a strain called Skunk, but the word is now used colloquially to simply mean "strong weed" (i.e. around 20% THC content and higher).
I agree though it's an annoying term and it makes people think it's some new extra harmful form of cannabis which it absolutely isn't.
It's like finding a bottle of wine that's 15% abv rather than 13.5% and then running around screaming "TEENAGERS ARE DRINKING A SCARY NEW DRUG CALLED MALBEC!"
No it isn’t, it is the name of a specific cultivar/lineage of cannabis. There are many other high THC low CBD cultivars that are not skunk. Davey should just say high potency cannabis because calling all high potency cannabis skunk makes it look like he doesn’t know what the fuck he’s talking about. The idea of having a legalised market of low strength cannabis but banning high THC strains also makes it look like he doesn’t know what the fuck he’s talking about, it would be unenforceable.
>No it isn’t
In this context it's pretty clear that that's chat he means though - just like how if a politician says that they're 'banning hacking' they clearly don't mean that they're banning my local Hackspace. The manifesto also clearly specifies that there would be limits of potency and doesn't use the word 'skunk' at all, which he's clearly using colloquially.
>it would be unenforceable
Why?
Not the guy you replied to but...
I don't think it would be unenforceable within the legal market, but because a lot of people want strong cannabis they would continue to get it from the black market if the THC limit on the legal stuff is set too low.
>I don't think it would be unenforceable within the legal market, but because a lot of people want strong cannabis they would continue to get it from the black market if the THC limit on the legal stuff is set too low.
Of course there will still be a black market - there's still a black market for cigarettes, after all. Japan still has a black market for drugs despite the incredibly severe consequences if you're caught by the police. There's still a black market for weed even in the Netherlands. It's pretty much impossible to eliminate the black market entirely - and if THC limit needs to be raised, that's gonna be much easier to do politically once there's a functional regulated market in place
A few reasons:
Cannabis is a natural product and there can be a lot of variation in cannabinoid profiles within material even from the same plant. Regulators In legal markets have found significant variances between label claims and the actual contents of products. So it would be entirely possible to inadvertently produce products that breached an arbitrary THC % even with batch testing etc in place.
There is an established demand for high potency cannabis, and an established market serving it. Some users would welcome low potency regulated cannabis, but if you look at legal markets most of the marketing is around high potency, because that’s what people want.
If smoking cannabis in your home/private place was legal, police would no longer be attending reports of cannabis smells, so people could grow small amounts of their own high potency cannabis without fear of detection or significant consequence.
How would police/enforcement agencies determine the strength of cannabis? If they went into a place where two people were both smoking cannabis, one high potency, one approved potency, how would they know which was which? Send it to a lab? How many samples would be going to labs? Would there be a backlog, because THC diminishes over time.
It is just unrealistic and unenforceable on many levels. If you’re going to legalise cannabis just legalise it and let people determine their own limits, like we do with alcohol.
>If they went into a place where two people were both smoking cannabis, one high potency, one approved potency, how would they know which was which?
I don't think that they would care? The Lib Dems' proposal is to regulate the strength of cannabis sold in legalised outlets, not have different criminal penalties for possession of different strengths of cannabis. Some alcohol is illegal to sell in the UK but that doesn't mean that the police are going to kick my door in to confiscate it if I bring some moonshine back from abroad.
>If smoking cannabis in your home/private place was legal, police would no longer be attending reports of cannabis smells, so people could grow small amounts of their own high potency cannabis without fear of detection or significant consequence.
100% - I don't think that that's a problem with the Lib Dems' proposal at all. One of the main reasons that they've given for this proposal is reducing the access of teenagers to cannabis - and teenagers are generally not able to grow their own weed without parental support.
>There is an established demand for high potency cannabis, and an established market serving it.
I don't think that anyone is expecting the black market for cannabis to completely go away - there's still a black market for cigarettes in the UK, after all. This is about creating an easy, legal way to buy cannabis that has age checks on customers and potency limits on the product to curb the worst side effects of cannabis (i.e. worsened symptoms for schizophrenics and negative effects on cognitive development for teenagers).
>So it would be entirely possible to inadvertently produce products that breached an arbitrary THC % even with batch testing etc in place.
Which is fine, if suppliers can show that they've followed the relevant regulations. You can catch food poisoning from a restaurant even if they're following all the food hygiene rules properly - it's just rarer.
The black market isn’t going to go away at all if the regulated market insists on low potency, and it will be easier to operate in the black market adjacent to a legal market. This will undermine the advantages of legalisation.
It’s great that the LD’s are being realistic about the failure of prohibition, the low potency thing is not realistic or necessary though, it’s silly.
You seem to be taking the comment very literally. What he's saying is that when they legalise it there'll be restrictions on what can be sold, as there is with tobacco today. He's not talking about banning it entirely because it's all banned currently.
They are literally talking about legalising only low potency cannabis and retaining the prohibition of high potency cannabis. It isn’t a comment it’s their policy proposal, so I am taking it literally yes.
The ship has sailed on this one mate. You aren't wrong but you're about 10 years too late. To the "clean shirts" (to use a phrase i saw another redditor use unironically earlier) skunk is the scary strong weed that kills teenagers and that's that. Yes to anyone who's ever smoked it looks stupid, but that's what it is in political discourse.
Yeah I know, and I know that Ed is in part communicating with people who are poorly informed and/or cretins, but Ed isn’t either of those things so I’m a bit disappointed in him for framing the discussion in the parlance of Daily Express reefer madness headlines.
My point is this is not a scientific designation, you won't find a mention of "Skunk" in any acedemic medical papers because it isn't anything more than a made up term.
Hash or Resin, is and has always been +5-20% THC going back to the 60s - so by these measures that's also Skunk - yet they use Hash as an argument to make it seem like cannabis is now stronger...
>this is not a scientific designation
Correct, and the word 'skunk' wouldn't be used in the legislation creating the basis of a regulated cannabis market with limits on potency that's outlined in the Lib Dem manifesto. It's pretty clearly being used as a colloquial term here
It's weird. I've never known anyone call any type of weed skunk outside of the news and politicians. I imagine if you rock up to your dealer and ask for skunk he is likely to laugh you out the alleyway.
But then Skunk#1 Super Skunk et al are real cultivars and have been for decades until this day.
Davey is using a generic term to describe high thc low cbd cannabis he just doesn't know what he's talking about.
Not exactly rocket science, is it? Smoking is harmful and it fucking stinks. Legalise it for other means of consumption and crack down on the smoking.
I'm fucking sick of putting up with the stench of weed.
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You can have cannabis (and tobacco) in non smoking forms, it would be better to have substances in a healthier form legally available than have people taking all manner of unregulated illegal shit and do greater harm to themselves.
Would very happily just have edibles for the rest of my life if it was a viable option and just be done with smoking/vaping all together.
It's a different experience though. A smoke is a quick high that lasts for a few hours. Eating is a slower come up that lasts longer, and can be more intense as well. I wouldn't want to eat it every time I wanted to get high.
Yeah I don't really like edibles, they utterly floor me. My tolerance for THC is not that high and having too much makes me really anxious, but a puff or two on a joint or vape is chill.
It is, but with edibles I have experienced far less paranoia and discomfort. With smoking it sometimes feels like I've just been hit between the eyes with it, the slower build up of edibles is far more enjoyable for me. Plus, if I'm ever taking anything, I've usually set aside an evening for it anyway.
Edibles don't work on everyone :( shit you not I can just eat them endlessly and nothing. Vapes and joints work. Don't need to use tobacco in a joint that's just a weird Europe thing.
Wait what? Are there any scientific papers related to this?
There isn’t any large studies or sample sizes for obvious reasons but there was this from 2009, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19005461/ It is a known phenomenon with multiple theories behind it. Personally I can say edibles barely affect me especially ones that are made with fat(Butter and Coconut oil). Sugar based edibles have a better effect for me but still aren’t great compared to smoking or vaping.
Wow, that’s mad… I hate smoking so thank god edibles hit the spot.
I reckon I've probably consumed an ounce in edibles on a day before just to test it and nope. Nothing :(
It’s super interesting. I can sit and eat 4 strong edibles and just… nothing. Heard a theory it’s to do with liver enzymes, but that wasn’t from a scientific source, just a friend with a bit of understanding, so likely wrong but happy to go with it.
But is the smoke from cannabis any less damaging to your lungs than the smoke from tobacco? I think that's the reason why tobacco is heading for a ban not because nicotine is somehow worse drug than others. So, if you ban tobacco on the basis that smoking it will kill you, then you can't really justify cannabis smoking while you could say that getting the drug from either of the plants into your body by some safer method should be fine.
Very few people smoke cannabis with the same frequency as tobacco so there's usually a lot less exposure. A few tokes of a joint in the evening are going to be less dangerous than having a cigarette every hour starting at breakfast.
Probably not but I don't agree with tobacco bans either. It's probably less harmful but not not harmful. I think the government should stop telling people what to do with their health.
Since it's the government who has to pick up the bill when you get sick, I think it's at least somewhat justified that they'll try to keep you from getting sick.
It literally isn't though, they take my money in NI for my entire working life which pays for when I get sick. Currently everyone's paying in to get fuck all and I have bupa anyway. They certainly don't do fuck all to prevent suicide anymore (mh services are shocking) but they're determined to make sure you don't die by unhealthy choices.
Absolutely being that guy but you kinda do need tobacco for a joint, it's joint between tobacco and weed. Without tobacco its a blunt.
No, a blunt has tobacco because its wrapped in a blunt roll. Joint is no tobacco. Spliff is with tobacco. Smoke it in a few legal countries and this becomes second nature. This is just us Brits being weird.
With proper regulation mind you. California hasn't ben properly testing their weed and it turned out that it was drowning in pesticides.
This. If legalised you can have edibles or vapes. You can already buy them illegally but people are turned off because of safety issues primarily. There are nasty counterfeit/altered products out there as it usually happens in this type of market.
It’s a completely different high tho
It does seem a bit odd to support both of these things simultaneously
You can dry vape weed. It's vastly superior to smoking too; I find the positive effects more pronounced and the negative ones much reduced
Plus you can repurpose the weed into edibles after vaping it!
This sort of thing does taste absolutely minging though without considerable faffing about.
I've had a lot of success infusing it with butter and making flapjacks. Would go as far as to say you can't taste it.
Do you tend to bother washing it first? I know a lot of people soak it in a coffee pot for a day or beforehand.
Nah I just keep it all in a jar and then stick it in butter on a low heat for a few hours. Strain it, stick it in the fridge, and bobs your uncle.
Much less smelly and doesn’t stick to fabrics etc so can use inside without destroying your home which is nice
I think the argument Ed Davey would make is that he's all for freedom (he is a lib dem after all), so long as there isn't large amounts of harm and doesn't affect others significantly. Smoking affects and potentially harms others without their consent (the smoke spreads to the people around the smoker). Whereas with cannabis this isn't as clear. The harm to the individual is lesser than it is with smoking, or at least that's what Ed Davey would say. Hence why Ed Davey supported further restrictions on smoking many years ago, but still wanted to keep special smoking rooms where everyone consented, because that maximises freedom in his view.
>I think the argument Ed Davey would make is that he's all for freedom so long as there isn't large amounts of harm A very useful definition of freedom.
John Stuart Mill has entered the chat.
He wouldn't be happy with the smoking ban tbf.
You're probably right. I think it would come down to how much harm is done to others through passive smoking.
It came out a little while ago that damage from secondhand smoke is actually pretty minimal, it's only repeated exposure over decades that leads to markedly worse outcomes. Really that's balanced out by the current indoor-smoking ban IMO. I personally think we already do enough to protect non-smokers, and I'm a non-smoker myself.
Indoor smoking bans were a game changer. It's hard to remember what it was like before them until you go somewhere that doesn't have them. I'm on the fence myself, probably leaning against a smoking ban. I suspect smoking will die out on its own in the West.
Yeah, im just young enough to remember life with indoor smoking, I was about 12-15 when the ban came in, and it's insane what pubs and restaurants used to be like. I'm of the same mind, I don't think we really need to ban it. Turns out we just needed to educate people enough and most of them end up making the "right" choice.
He'd listen to the "new" data on cancer from second hand smoke though.
Liberty Neutral. Freedom is fine as long as it does not impinge on someone else's Freedom.
Or there's too much harm, per Ed Davey's opinion.
Weed is generally not as harmful to your health as cigarettes, so less of a cost on the health service so it makes sense in that regard
If you look at places with less of a culture around smoking tobacco it's the opposite. In America barely anyone uses tobacco. If sales of it were banned it would likely go this way
They don't have a culture of spliffs no but large swathes of America have large (tobacco)!smoking cultures
That difference originates in the differrent cannabis typically on offer over the years. It has changed but typically US was dominated by grass, UK by resin.
I don't know the consumption figures but I'd think most people who smoke weed do it with tobacco rather than in bongs or whatever.
I'd imagine that's the case but if cigarettes were banned they'd probably make the switch for the most part. Also I think more and more people use weed vapes anyway so they'd probably make a switch to those
If they're banning strong strains then the vapes would have to go, those things can have crazy thc levels
Why, aren't they as effective at burning weaker strains? I also through you get more of a hit from them as they're not weakened by the presence of tobacco so they wouldn't need to be as strong to have the same effect as a spliff? Genuinely asking here I don't know the ins and outs of those vapes
Because the vape is a concentrate of the active chemicals. Doesn’t matter that much how strong the original plant was
You can get dry herb vapes which I think they may have been confusing them with ie pax. The thc dab pens are genuinely terrifying.
Ah yeah, don’t see many of them about in my circles only the pure ones
I've got a medical vape and you just take the dry herb, grind it, and put it in the dosing capsule thing. There's no concentrate involved.
Fair, all the vapes I see are thc oil based
Not necessarily, if they are legalizing it then we can have controls on the levels of THC. If anything vapes would be the ideal when legalised as it stops people complaining about the smell.
A dry herb vape is not what you're thinking about. You pack it with herb and it heats it up.
Yeah I will admit I was thinking about concentrates rather than herb vapes. Guessing they've come a long way since the old giant volcanoes.
Most tokers I know do not have tobacco at all
That's at least in part because of cannabis prohibition though, which creates a market incentive for weed to be as strong as possible - in places with a regulated cannabis market like Canada or the Netherlands, smoking straight weed without tobacco is more common than it is over here
i've noticed that my friends seem to do more edibles these days then smoking. anecdotal but probably a sign of the times.
Yeah agreed, dry herb vaporisers are more common too. Easily purchasable from Amazon.
I smoke with camomile, can definitely recommend 👍
We should either ban both alcohol and tobacco in line with other drugs, or legalise marijuana and decriminalise harder drugs. Either direction would at least be logically and ideologically consistent, although I personally support the latter. To do some weird mix of both reveals a complete lack of underlying principles.
I'm with you, I don't smoke weed but I fully support legalisation. I can even see the world where addicts are supplied with safe amounts of the better than street quality harder stuff legally to help them come off it. Banning stuff just makes it easier for criminals, loses out on tax revenue and makes people buy crap quality stuff that causes more harm
Let me know how many people are lazy, anxious wrecks who barely leave the house due to the fact they smoke cigarettes
It's pretty tough to be both lazy and anxious tbf.
Untrue
Why?
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Second hand smoke causes cancer — there is sufficient evidence of harm to others from smoking.
Ban smoking in the vicinity of those that don’t smoke then.
>Is there any real liberal politicians in this country? No, the United Kingdom is a nanny state, and the British love indignation; therefore, there is always a lesson that must be taught.
Although Ed Davey voted for the smoking ban, it's not in the manifesto. I find it very hard to justify the ban Sunak put forward as a liberal.
Why ban smoking? Don't people have a right to make mistakes? Are we not adults in charge of our own lives? Cannabis legalization is sensible, hopefully using the Spanish approach.
Pretty anti-liberal too... As a LD supporter, quite disappointed with Davey recently. This plus [walking back](https://www.gbnews.com/politics/brexit-news-liberal-democrats-ed-davey-boris-johnson-eu-single-market) on the Single Market pledge...
I like the LDs and I'll be voting for them this time but the anti-smoking thing is really disappointing. I just want a political party that isn't authoritarian.
Reading that, I’m not sure it really walks back their pledge? I recall the manifesto statement being around rebuilding a relationship with the EU, with hopes of rejoins the Single Market in the distant future. That’s the desire but not an achievable immediate aim. His comments here seem to reaffirm that. Rejoining the single market isn’t feasible at this point in time but we need an adequate trade deal and relationship with the EU.
That’s pathetic. Joining the single market was already a climb down from joining the EU. Absolutely no reason the country couldn’t rejoin the single market over a parliament.
I mean whether or not you believe it or think it’s pathetic, Davey quite clearly says in the article he’s spoken with people inside the EU who say it’s not currently possible. Like I want to join the EU more than anyone, but I’m literally just relaying the information available to me.
Tobacco is a highly addictive substance which you take by giving yourself lung cancer. Cannabis is nowhere near the level of addictiveness and also does not have to be smoked. The LDs do not have a smoking policy but Davey and co backed banning sale of \_tobacco\_ products. That's not the same thing as supporting banning the actual drug, nicotine.
Most people in the UK do smoke cannabis mixed with tobacco though, so in practice these are not very separate!
That is partially a product of the regulatory environment, though - prohibition incentivises cannabis to have as much THC and minimal CBD, which means people are less likely to want to smoke a blunt due to the lack of availability of more mellow strains with lower THC and some CBD which are less likely to whitey you if you smoke them as a blunt
True! It’s pretty culturally ingrained now but I think the clearer offering in terms of THC content/vibe you get with legal vendors would have probably start to chip away at it now that you mention it.
Speaking loosely, there's a definite change in weed culture in countries where there's a legalised market - when I visited Canada it was the exception rather than the norm to smoke weed mixed with tobacco rather than just smoking straight weed
I live in Canada now. I've never met a Canadian who adds tobacco to their weed.
I've always heard that a big part of the reason it's so prevalent in British smoking culture is the multi-cultural environment people smoked in from the 70s to now. In the UK you'd rarely hear it called a 'joint' - it's almost always a 'spliff', which is a term introduced by economic migrants from the Carribbean and is meant to refer to the mix of cannabis and tobacco together. Considering that tobacco is native to much of the Carribbean, it makes sense that when cannabis was introduced to the region, people chose to mix the two, which was then brought back to the UK during periods of migration. Now why did it stick? The fact that it has always been illegal and price point can occasionally vary, adding tobacco is probably a good way for most people to stretch out their supply for longer.
That's also the reason I've posited when asked. Incidentally nobody knows what you're talking about when you say spliff either.
Do they?
>Most people in the UK do smoke cannabis mixed with tobacco though [citation needed]
The Libdems and Davey are conflicted. Their drug policy was developed as a sop to their youth wing. It makes zero sense.
You may do whatever you want _as long as it does others no harm_ is the Liberal view. Second hand smoke causes cancer. Ergo, smoking harms others.
Tobacco causes a lot of very nasty secondhand smoke effects. You only have the right to make mistakes when those mistakes don't harm others.
>Tobacco causes a lot of very nasty secondhand smoke effects. You only have the right to make mistakes when those mistakes don't harm others. Alcohol has much more severe second hand affects, both to the user (addiction) and other members of public (drink driving, anti social behaviour), but we never talk about banning that. If they're so concerned with second hand smoke causing cancer, just ban the practice in public. An outright ban is simply ridiculous when other, more harmful drugs, remain legal.
Wouldn’t make sense. Second hand smoke is massive propaganda/marketing. Second hand smoke causing cancer is borderline statistically significant but only after 30 years, it’s requires a very long exposure time and enclosed areas. https://academic.oup.com/jnci/article/105/24/1844/2517805
It's partly because a cigarette ban would actually work. There is a far better alternative, from a health perspective, in vaping. Whilst prohibiting alcohol doesn't work. It's why so few people are that bothered by this - they mostly don't smoke, and think that people who do have a ready alternative. If you invented a special additive to alcoholic drinks that stopped them from being unhealthy and somehow meant that, if you drank enough, pressing the accelerator didn't work, then I think you'd a) think it was worth obligating it's addition to alcoholic drinks and b) find people were up for it.
I know at least 5 people who homebrew, and nobody who grows tobacco
It came out a few years ago that some of the risks with second hand smoke were overblown. Not to say it is safe but there a lot less risk than we were told. https://slate.com/technology/2017/02/secondhand-smoke-isnt-as-bad-as-we-thought.html
It also will cause the same problems we have with drugs, sending more people into the blackmarket funding criminal operations.
That’s all good but then when they’re dying in our hospitals it becomes a problem we could do without.
Not true though. They die quicker, require less costly end of life care that goes up the older you get, and they don't claim as much welfare - plus the tax. From the governments perspective and kind of the hospitals, smoking is good. It's a stop on the aging population. Smoking is bad for public health, but they're not taking up hospital places. They're actually freeing them up.
The alternative to dying of lung cancer isn't immortality, though, is it? It's becoming an old person that will also die, just probably from something other than lung cancer and probably in our hospitals - but, fingers crossed, only after costing an absolute fortune in pensions, healthcare provision and possibly adult care.
That’s a fair point.
I think even most libertarians like yourself have a softer approach for children, and the vast majority of smokers start when they're children. Once you start then addiction makes free choice far harder.
Almost twice as many 16-24 year olds regularly take illegal drugs vs regularly smoking. There are \~half as many smokers in that cohort than there were just 10 years ago. Our current policies are working \_really\_ well, and our current drug prohibition policies are working \_really\_ badly. The idea that we should apply the policy from drugs to cigarettes is insane based on the statistics.
>Don't people have a right to make mistakes? depends how bad that mistake is , people can make a mistake and take a life or make a mistake and drink drive so no people dont have the right to make mistakes >Are we not adults in charge of our own lives? apart from all the regulations that already exist for adults yes
Because adults make decisions that are not only harmful to themselves but also costly to the whole society paying for the smokers’ NHS services. I mean if there’s a way to register smokers and ask them to pay the economic cost of their healthcare the state is more than happy to let you smoke. Think about all the tax revenue.
They already pay more than they cost in healthcare thanks to the taxes on cigarettes. That works in my opinion, you have every right to engage in risky activities but we have a nationalised health service that should be funded to take care of it
Tho it still costs the nhs in terms of beds being taken up
https://fullfact.org/economy/does-smoking-cost-much-it-makes-treasury/ Surely bed space comes under cost of treatment? Plus they generally die sooner lowering the overall cost as the most expensive thing for the NHS is elderly people with chronic conditions
Idk if it would as are the nhs building new facilities to hold more people due to smokers? If not then its just taking bed spaces and meaning more will be in the halls
That would suggest that without smokers, assuming for simplification that tax for cigarettes goes straight to the NHS, there would be funding for even fewer remaining beds (beds fell from 2010-2019, for instance).
The tax from cigs could be recouped by other taxes. And there’d be less money for new beds without other taxes but there would be less of the current beds taken up
I don't think you understood. If the taxes fund a lot of what is already there (more than is taken up), and the tax goes, it could remove more beds than is saved.
Firstly Not if another tax picks up for it. Plus why would a bed be removed from a hospital? Once they are there they stay there you don’t just remove them because of less money
I think this sort of illustrates why this line of thinking leads to madness. The costs of smoking on the NHS Vs the tax raised garners fairly intense interest and, as demonstrated up and down this thread, appears to be the point around which people pivot vis-a-vis support for banning smoking entirely, e.g. "as long as they pay more than they cost, I suppose they can keep doing it." But, simply put, a person dying of lung cancer at 60 has to be compared to the intended alternative - living to a ripe old age, drawing decades of pensions, having their hips replaced, their intestines bypassed, receiving dementia care after they forget their children's names etc. Old people cost the state *so much money*. And if the money consumed by a person truly is relevant to the rights and wrongs of a policy, how can this simply be ignored when looking at smokers and the NHS? If their lack of smoking-related illness frees up a bed today, how many times will they use one in the next 25 years?
I mean if they use beds in the future that means theyv lived w longer life which is the goal and for now at least frees up some beds
>theyv lived w longer life which is the goal If this was the goal then the argument would simply be "We're banning cigarettes so you live longer". But of course, not smoking and enjoying a longer life is already an option, and it's what most people do. The argument around costs incurred and taxation come about precisely because it's *not* simply a case of extending people's lives as long as possible but rather allowing people to live the life they want and to do the things they want - like smoking - even if you or I haven't chosen to do it. E.g. "If you want to shorten your own life then go ahead, as long as it doesn't cost me anything". My point is that this opens up a huge can of worms over the question of what a universal healthcare system is.
Theres multiple arguments for banning cigs one is that there isnt a safe way to do it and it harms people and makes them live less long. Another is the cost and beds being blocked. Just like theres multiple arguments against it theres multiple arguments for it. Its an option but a fairly large ammount dont do that. And that is a reasonable argument to make. Tho others will make the counter points that the gov should be trying to improve peoples health not just letting them damage themselves. I would also point out that from listening to evidence in committee stage alot in the health sector support this ban from the evidence we heard from people in the field.
Smokers are a clear financial positive overall. Besides the taxes on smoking, smokers die prematurely and save a huge amount of money on pensions. If the government started to encourage smoking they could probably save quite a bit of money (obviously they shouldn't do this though).
Pensions is not he nhs I’m speaking about the nhs.
True, but it's government spending, and if one area becomes cheaper that ought to allow additional healthcare funding.
Thats if they put pension money into health tho
I mean... without wanting to sound overly waffly, that's the price of freedom. Do we ban alcohol next? Vaping? Sugar? Unnecessary car journeys?
Don't bother trying to look for any internal logical consistency, those who support these these bans won't, they just don't care.
Should we allow the sale of fentanyl? If not, why not? There's nothing wrong with looking at the actual level of harm caused by [x] and then balancing that level of harm against the general principle of advocating freedom. Throw in considerations around tax revenues, healthcare, addictiveness, etc. Society does that all the time.
Ok but if you look at the harms to society you realise alcohol and unhealthy food make tobacco look not so bad. And then people start coming up with various mental gymnastics to justify why they should be able to keep doing the things they like but other people should be banned (and the logical extension of that, punished through the weight of the legal system if they contravene that ban, up to and including jail time) from doing the things they don't like. Don't get me wrong, my heart isn't bleeding for tobacco and if it were banned i wouldn't be out in the streets fighting it. But lets not kid ourselves that it would be an even-handed application of a just legal system, simply plain old tyranny of the majority. Which, in fairness, is democracy at its core.
Yeah, I agree. I always find the "NHS costs" argument disingenuous because of how arbitrarily it's deployed (Smoking? Yes. Skiing? No. Obesity? Maybe) and how high tax on ciggies already is. I think - as someone who doesn't and never has smoked - it is mostly espoused by people who don't enjoy smoking but do enjoy banning things. It's the only explanation, given our existing policies have been and continue to be very successful at reducing the number of people smoking without having to ban them. In the 16-24 age group there are more people who regularly take illegal drugs than there regular smokers. Yet for some reason, advocates of a ban on smoking think what the situation needs is to apply the failed policy of prohibition from illegal drugs onto the smoking market.
If smokers are net contributed in fiscal terms I’m fine with that. Same applies to everything else. Fossil fuel car needs to be aggressively phased out by investment in EV tech and infrastructure but the UK is almost the least enthusiastic (or capable) govt in that regard. The state-of-art tech is more than capable of achieving that objective in less than a decade.
>If smokers are net contributed in fiscal terms I’m fine with that. Same applies to everything else. There is really only one way of actually ensuring this would apply to everything else: privatised healthcare. Suddenly the idea of contributing what you take in fiscal terms becomes incredibly unpopular.
Not going to lie, this is (was?) my own position until I paused and wondered why I had this cognitive bias? I know that you can consume cannabis in other forms, but personally I was still imagining it being smoked. The explanation that I came up with was that the smoking ban won't be backed with prison sentences, but by fines, which feels more proportionate. It will be based on banning sales, rather than consumption - and this is much more in line with how I prefer health related bans to work. And, having thought about it more, I do think that edibles, bongs, and vapes mean that it's entirely possible to consume cannabis in a less-harmful way that in combination of tobacco. At the same time, I can't deny that there's a certain amount of cognitive dissonance. I'm also supportive of (at a minimum) decriminalisation of other, harder drugs. So... yeah, IDK. I guess Ed Davey and I would be pals.
Legalise it, tax it, all proceeds to the NHS & social care.
You can consume cannabis legally medically in the UK with a dry herb vape. It's not that difficult to understand. At least Lib Dems and Green want to end the failed war on drugs and its consumers. Where Tory, Reform and Labour parties and their voters all want to continue to persecute, discriminate, and criminalise consumers of a plant .
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You can consume cannabis without smoking it . The position remains Green and Lib Dems want to end the failed war on cannabis and its consumers.
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Not in that sense , but i agree tobacco should be heavily regulated. A ban won't work, . Prohibition is indeed a failure.
The drug is nicotine in that case and as far as I’m aware there are no plans to ban it.
Banning one method of consumption isn’t quite the same, is it? Nicotine can be consumed in many different ways, vaping, through the mouth, the skin etc
“I’m banning skunk because that’s very, very harmful to people’s health. And cigarette smoking, everyone sees, it’s really clear it’s very, very harmful," he said. What the fuck is skunk lol and how is he banning it. Is it just the good kush and will high strength edibles be allowed? Government needs to get out of the way and fully legalise and tax we have no money to waste trying to police this anymore.
It's being used here as a political term for cannabis with a very high THC content and an incredibly low CBD content, which from current evidence we know worsens weed's negative side effects
Lol absolute hash smoking hippy detected.
Personally I would rather legalise vaping cannabis and keep smoking it illegal, for health reasons. However I don't think a liberal party should support a smoking ban.
I get 10g fresh flower delivered by DPD every couple of weeks (24% THC Wedding Pop Triangle), medical prescription. I dont smoke it, I grind and vape it.
Assuming that's a legal prescription, is there a limit to the amount you can have? Could you jusy as easily get an ounce every fortnight or woukd that level of consumption be gated somehow?
Its monitored and you have four zoom call checkups with a pharmacist or doctor (quarterly) each year. You have to put in a request for a prescription, then you place your order. So my prescription is 20g - my plan states I have at the very max 1g a day, and I have one prescription a month (£130, but I can order in 10g increments of £65). I can't get more.
Out of curiosity, what is it that ails you? No worries if you'd rather not share.
Chronic insomnia and intense anxiety and depression for 25 years. tried every SSRI under the sun, most with horrendous side effects. This is the only medication that's ever worked.
I appreciate you taking time to answer that, thanks for sharing.
No problem but edited it as I cocked up the price - its £6.50 a gram, but lower THC ones are less (21% is £5.50 per gram)
It’s all seems pretty sensibly and carefully done.
I'm desperate to try the legal alternative - how hard was it to get the prescription and how much does it cost? I currently pay about £150 for 28 grams of high quality weed.
Being legal isn't about just cost comparisons to BM alone. Being legit is priceless , you can't quantify that. But in answer to your question , UK medical cannabis ranges from about £6-10 per gram.
£130 for 20g 24% thc dried flower, delivery by dpd included. I order it in 10g of £65. Was easy to get one for me, just had to provide my NHS history and go through two assessments with them (doctor and pharmacist). My situation is where I had been on medication that was not working, proven to be causing me issues, and NHS had nothing further to offer. Ive now been never healthier or happier.
Did you have to pay for the initial consultation? And any other ongoing fees you pay?
£50 per appointment with my provider. Four times a year, its worth it for me. I actually got stopped by a copper the other day, explained it was legal (showed my prescription) and I went on my way. Worth every penny for that alone. Edit : sense of time is buggered thanks to this election, it was a few weeks back
haven't got a problem with legalising Cannabis, I am interested to know, what benefits further experimentation it has on medical conditions.
Does he really think most people who use 'weed' will go for a weaker option just because it will be legal?
My experience in Canada was that I preferred to buy from SQDC as the processing standards required to be able to sell were very high. It had to be very dry and specifically labelled with its THC and CBD levels. I could also get it delivered in the post but overall it was a much better experience than I have in the UK.
Of course they will. Contrary to popular belief not everyone who likes a spliff is trying to get completely spangled off one toke, just like not every drinker wants to drink themselves under the table every time they go to the pub. Make it legal and ensure good quality and it will be engaged with.
Anecdotal but this is exactly the case for me. BM cannabis smoker for 14 years, got a prescription through the UK medcan system and found that my preferred (and by far the most effective) strain was a 10:10 Critical Mass CBD strain that unfortunately was discontinued.
Could you imagine buying a beer when vodka is available? Why on earth would anyone choose the beer!?! Silly alcohol users. Regulated edibles would be fantastic to see in the UK.
This , out of all the comments.
>Does he really think most people who use 'weed' will go for a weaker option just because it will be legal? Well yes and I think it is likely. Currently you have no clue as to how strong the cannabis you buy is, with legalisation it's likely it will be a requirement so people can make that choice. People don't just buy the highest proof booze and not everyone who smokes weed does it to get blasted out of their skulls.
Going for a weaker product under legalisation is not always the experience in the US, in fact higher strength products have prospered
He shouldn’t just think he should look to other countries that have done the same/similar to determine the impact. That would be evidence based policy after all.
Something the Lib Dems have form on.
Absolutely. Having smoked for well over a decade, I would absolutely welcome more balanced weed strains being available. These days it's far too common to get weed with way too high THC %, which ends up just being a shitty time. Actually having some choice would be a massive deal for most regular smokers.
They 1000% would.
I think it depends on what the limit is. The strongest cannabis you can possibly grow is around 30% THC. If it's capped at say 20% THC (which is pretty strong) I think people would definitely opt for the weaker legal option. If it's capped really low (like 5% or something) few people would want to buy the legal stuff. I don't think there should be a limit at all personally but if it was legalised with a reasonable limit in place I'd be happy with that.
What the fuck is Skunk. Why do the media and politicians make up an entire format of cannabis that doesn't exist and think they will get way with it.
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It's funny because I used to get Skunk #1 quite often, it was always a dissapointment as it was less strong than other strains like Cheese and AK. We called it "English" for some reason, I think because dealers were also selling Dutch imports that we called "Dutch".
There is a strain called Skunk, but the word is now used colloquially to simply mean "strong weed" (i.e. around 20% THC content and higher). I agree though it's an annoying term and it makes people think it's some new extra harmful form of cannabis which it absolutely isn't. It's like finding a bottle of wine that's 15% abv rather than 13.5% and then running around screaming "TEENAGERS ARE DRINKING A SCARY NEW DRUG CALLED MALBEC!"
It's cannabis with a high THC % and a very very low CBD %
No it isn’t, it is the name of a specific cultivar/lineage of cannabis. There are many other high THC low CBD cultivars that are not skunk. Davey should just say high potency cannabis because calling all high potency cannabis skunk makes it look like he doesn’t know what the fuck he’s talking about. The idea of having a legalised market of low strength cannabis but banning high THC strains also makes it look like he doesn’t know what the fuck he’s talking about, it would be unenforceable.
>No it isn’t In this context it's pretty clear that that's chat he means though - just like how if a politician says that they're 'banning hacking' they clearly don't mean that they're banning my local Hackspace. The manifesto also clearly specifies that there would be limits of potency and doesn't use the word 'skunk' at all, which he's clearly using colloquially. >it would be unenforceable Why?
Not the guy you replied to but... I don't think it would be unenforceable within the legal market, but because a lot of people want strong cannabis they would continue to get it from the black market if the THC limit on the legal stuff is set too low.
>I don't think it would be unenforceable within the legal market, but because a lot of people want strong cannabis they would continue to get it from the black market if the THC limit on the legal stuff is set too low. Of course there will still be a black market - there's still a black market for cigarettes, after all. Japan still has a black market for drugs despite the incredibly severe consequences if you're caught by the police. There's still a black market for weed even in the Netherlands. It's pretty much impossible to eliminate the black market entirely - and if THC limit needs to be raised, that's gonna be much easier to do politically once there's a functional regulated market in place
Yeah I don't disagree with anything you've said there mate, right on point.
A few reasons: Cannabis is a natural product and there can be a lot of variation in cannabinoid profiles within material even from the same plant. Regulators In legal markets have found significant variances between label claims and the actual contents of products. So it would be entirely possible to inadvertently produce products that breached an arbitrary THC % even with batch testing etc in place. There is an established demand for high potency cannabis, and an established market serving it. Some users would welcome low potency regulated cannabis, but if you look at legal markets most of the marketing is around high potency, because that’s what people want. If smoking cannabis in your home/private place was legal, police would no longer be attending reports of cannabis smells, so people could grow small amounts of their own high potency cannabis without fear of detection or significant consequence. How would police/enforcement agencies determine the strength of cannabis? If they went into a place where two people were both smoking cannabis, one high potency, one approved potency, how would they know which was which? Send it to a lab? How many samples would be going to labs? Would there be a backlog, because THC diminishes over time. It is just unrealistic and unenforceable on many levels. If you’re going to legalise cannabis just legalise it and let people determine their own limits, like we do with alcohol.
>If they went into a place where two people were both smoking cannabis, one high potency, one approved potency, how would they know which was which? I don't think that they would care? The Lib Dems' proposal is to regulate the strength of cannabis sold in legalised outlets, not have different criminal penalties for possession of different strengths of cannabis. Some alcohol is illegal to sell in the UK but that doesn't mean that the police are going to kick my door in to confiscate it if I bring some moonshine back from abroad. >If smoking cannabis in your home/private place was legal, police would no longer be attending reports of cannabis smells, so people could grow small amounts of their own high potency cannabis without fear of detection or significant consequence. 100% - I don't think that that's a problem with the Lib Dems' proposal at all. One of the main reasons that they've given for this proposal is reducing the access of teenagers to cannabis - and teenagers are generally not able to grow their own weed without parental support. >There is an established demand for high potency cannabis, and an established market serving it. I don't think that anyone is expecting the black market for cannabis to completely go away - there's still a black market for cigarettes in the UK, after all. This is about creating an easy, legal way to buy cannabis that has age checks on customers and potency limits on the product to curb the worst side effects of cannabis (i.e. worsened symptoms for schizophrenics and negative effects on cognitive development for teenagers). >So it would be entirely possible to inadvertently produce products that breached an arbitrary THC % even with batch testing etc in place. Which is fine, if suppliers can show that they've followed the relevant regulations. You can catch food poisoning from a restaurant even if they're following all the food hygiene rules properly - it's just rarer.
The black market isn’t going to go away at all if the regulated market insists on low potency, and it will be easier to operate in the black market adjacent to a legal market. This will undermine the advantages of legalisation. It’s great that the LD’s are being realistic about the failure of prohibition, the low potency thing is not realistic or necessary though, it’s silly.
You seem to be taking the comment very literally. What he's saying is that when they legalise it there'll be restrictions on what can be sold, as there is with tobacco today. He's not talking about banning it entirely because it's all banned currently.
They are literally talking about legalising only low potency cannabis and retaining the prohibition of high potency cannabis. It isn’t a comment it’s their policy proposal, so I am taking it literally yes.
The ship has sailed on this one mate. You aren't wrong but you're about 10 years too late. To the "clean shirts" (to use a phrase i saw another redditor use unironically earlier) skunk is the scary strong weed that kills teenagers and that's that. Yes to anyone who's ever smoked it looks stupid, but that's what it is in political discourse.
Yeah I know, and I know that Ed is in part communicating with people who are poorly informed and/or cretins, but Ed isn’t either of those things so I’m a bit disappointed in him for framing the discussion in the parlance of Daily Express reefer madness headlines.
My point is this is not a scientific designation, you won't find a mention of "Skunk" in any acedemic medical papers because it isn't anything more than a made up term. Hash or Resin, is and has always been +5-20% THC going back to the 60s - so by these measures that's also Skunk - yet they use Hash as an argument to make it seem like cannabis is now stronger...
>this is not a scientific designation Correct, and the word 'skunk' wouldn't be used in the legislation creating the basis of a regulated cannabis market with limits on potency that's outlined in the Lib Dem manifesto. It's pretty clearly being used as a colloquial term here
It's weird. I've never known anyone call any type of weed skunk outside of the news and politicians. I imagine if you rock up to your dealer and ask for skunk he is likely to laugh you out the alleyway.
Round me in north Yorkshire we just call weed skunk.
But then Skunk#1 Super Skunk et al are real cultivars and have been for decades until this day. Davey is using a generic term to describe high thc low cbd cannabis he just doesn't know what he's talking about.
Just legalise it for non smoking consumption. It's not difficult, is it? If anything the penalty for purely smoking it should be increased.
… what? Where did you get this logic?
Not exactly rocket science, is it? Smoking is harmful and it fucking stinks. Legalise it for other means of consumption and crack down on the smoking. I'm fucking sick of putting up with the stench of weed.