Just interested on your thoughts

In the USA more states continue to go medical all the time. I chose within the 5 year range, but it's just a guess. It seems like we are moving toward decriminalization but it's hard to say because of the stubborn fools in charge of the laws.
On a federal level, it's still illegal, hell, Schedule 1 even! (Ridiculous)

But on a state level, patients can be evaluated by certain doctors and receive recommendations allowing them to use and grow cannabis.
The amount that you are allowed to possess and grow depends on the county within the state. At least this is the way California works, not sure about the other medical states.

So in a way, for me, it's perfectly legal. I'm not actually going to listen to the DEA. I don't think anybody is. They're desperately raiding dispensaries and growers and stealing their money and getting their adrenaline kicks because it's their job. It absolutely disgusts me. I am proud of my state, and others, for holding their ground and making it this far, though.

I am very grateful for organizations like MAPS and NORML. These guys, and many others, are doing great work!

In Spain, personal consumption is mostly decriminalized, de facto. If I grow two plants per person in my house, it's extremely unlikely that I will have legal trouble (only seeing the amount of growshops in the Barcelona metropolitan area backs this up, and I know myself a couple of them that do sell not only seeds and growing supplies, but small cuttings, under the table). However, law is ambiguous and can leave room for particular officers to decide what is growing for personal consumption and what is growing for traffic.

Interesting entry today in the news, The Basque Country prepares permissive regulation for Cannabis. The basque health councillor says "Logic asks for making sure people becomes responsible thanks to information and education (...) It's better to put some order, than forbidding conducts already consolidated in our society."

This is very good news for basque citizens. Although the last changes in the spanish central government, with conservatives taking over the office after the general election, makes nation-wide regulations impredictable at the moment. If they act following pressing financial concerns, they might lower the pressure on cannabis, but that remains to be seen. I'm skeptic.

I cant see it happening anytime soon in the uk, unfortunately. I thought that we might be on our way when they dropped the classification from a B to a C, but low and behold a few months later is was back upto a class B substance, it must have been the huge amount of deaths and civil unrest it caused.

It also seems that when experts are asked for there opinions and suggestions on such matters they is ignored/slandered unless it is the opinion that our law makers wanted to hear.

^^^ What 3rdI said... But, I do hold out hope, so voted for 15-20 years. It ain't going to be any time soon, our Politicians are more interested in public image than common sense.

I hold out hope, but its on my very optimistic side. Although legalisation/decriminilisation would be nice, it doesnt seem to make a huge amount of difference to the people i know.

Until they are stopped / searched by the Police... It's such a waste of time arresting stoners - we know that, the police know that, and yet we still have this ridiculous charade where we (society) carry on like it actually matters... Drives me nuts to think about it.

-Yes, of course you are right. ...I believe there was a recent war on drugs, and the big Cannabis Sativa plants were armed to the teeth with M16 rifles and hand grenades!!

-And of course there's the Evil, hideous, almost unmentionable crime of Cannabis's ability to give people a mind of their own. What use then would David Cameron have for his silly hand movements and silly serious face when addressing "issues"....BIG SOCIETY, WHAT A CROCK OF SHITE!!!????

5-10 is my hopeful prediction in Australia. I prefer to believe that people cant be that silly for that long. Also, makes sense to me that when America does it, we will follow suit.

I think it will go medical first, legal afterwads, everywhere. Thus I think below 5 years is an unrealistic idea, with 10 being optimistic.

Copenhagen's situation seems promising.

My optimistic vote for germany would be 10-15 years.
Lots of people are smoking it, it got at least *some* political support and it's kinda decriminalized depending on the state. That means, charges are automatically droped if you posess x amount of weed. But the police still bothers with you.

I'd say as long as the current law and government system is in place in the UK, never.

Have to remember theres no moral reason behind the passing of most of these laws and policies. If any of the parties thought that legalizing cannabis would guarantee them coming to and staying in power, they'd probably do it in an instant.

But they know that won't be the case. Even if cannabis was legal i doubt it would be a large enough percentage of people to swing the votes.

Also might seem funny, but i've never smoked cannabis, for me it was pretty much Salvia to DMT.

Here in PT, I don't think it'll happen - unless the US for instance legalizes it (highly dubious unless something dramatic happens, I think) - and then we're sure to follow the big US as usual.

Most people are highly uneducated about the subject and have a negative bias towards any drug (but will happily smoke tobacco, devour zolpidem/valium/vicodin/wtfwtv, drink, all in the safe knowledge that these things are legal therefore they must either be good for you (tm) or not as harmful as any illegal drug).

I've always found it disturbing that a people that is known for having explored the world (like the dutch, spanish, british, etc) refuses to even acknowledge that there is a mindscape to explore.

never

Just in case you have not noticed yet the system we live in does not like intelligent critically thinking people. They need us stupid so they can manipulate us easy.

so the answer is in this society it will never be legal as any other eye opening plants or substances. we have to change the system first.

Might not be that long here in Canada. The Liberal party has been talking about making it legal (not just decriminalized) if they are elected. Like most politicians, it's probably an empty promise, but just the fact that a major party would state something like that publicly is a step in the right direction.

Every European country sooner or later follows US political trends.
I've really no idea what will happen to Cannabis laws & Policies here.

Officially Cannabis is still illegal in Holland, but the policy allows
it to be sold in shops anyways. The large scale growing of Cannabis &
sales of large quantities (to shop onwers) is still actively persecuted.

Really weird situation. A strong, seemingly growing political movement has
been restricting and pushing back Canabis-shops more and more here.
At the same time so incredibly many Dutch smoke Cannabis, it would be unthinkable
to go back to full prohibition policy. The Politicians supporting the war on drugs
and seek to americanise our druglaws & policies just know they can count on ferocious opposition of millions.

Still the mushroom was banned here some 3 years ago, following a propaganda campain that
spread ignorant lies & slander about the magic mushroom. It was almost banned within the
same month that the media anti-mushroom campaign had started. Politicians proposing the
ban got alot of criticism and were suggested to have 3 independant, professional organisations
investigate the possible risks of mushroom use. All 3 organisations came to the conclusion that
there's too little risk in mushroom use and that a ban would be too extreme a measure.

These politicians just blatantly ignored the advices from the 3 organisations and banned the
mushroom anyway. Who knows they might be planning a similair smear campain on Cannabis.
There are already plenty of Dutch "Just say no"-type organisations who spread lies and
out-of-context- & exagerated thruths about Cannabis for a long time. But I guess here
far too many people are too experienced with Cannabis use, directly or indirectly to
fall for those lies, whereas Magic mushroom users are much more rare and it is probably
much easier to get an ignorant mayority on your side against Mushroom use.


Right now the relative freedom is what keeps me in this country. If shit goes more South here, than
I will too; I hope to migrate to Portugal or Brazil, 2 countries who've been significantly loosening
up their drug-laws & policies recently. If the greatest Quality of this country will degrade much more
it will be the sign to speed up the process, buy land in one of those 2 countries and go.

If we're talking about waiting for the corporate shills who run the governments of the world (aka Politicians) to make this happen... you will be waiting until hell freezes over.

However, no civil liberties issue has ever come solely from the top down. So, if you want to see legal cannabis in your land, you will have to consider getting off your couches, computer chairs and futons and making it happen yourselves.

Last year, polls in the US showed that 51% of Americans polled supported cannabis legalization. This was the first time that more than half of the population has given support to legalizing pot. Not even in the early 70's when legalization seemed to be just around the corner, was there this much widespread support for marijuana to be legal.

Keep in mind that these polls are notoriously weighted towards the conservative views due to the fact that they are generally conducted during weekday afternoons when people answering their phones tend to be retirees, stay-at-home mothers, and people who still have fixed-net phones.

If stoners and liberals would get off their lazy asses, this could be done rather quickly. I say this as someone who personally got 1,000 signatures for California's prop 215... in a time when there was no medical marijuana in any state and the common wisdom was that we were naive lunatics. 215 has had its hardships, and people are still being harassed, but here we are 16+ years later, and medical marijuana is still on the upsurge.

Furthermore, recent studies worldwide continue to show more & more legitimate uses for cannabis. With the discovery of the endogenous cannabinoid system and the incredible health-giving benefits of the various endocanabinoids... it is becoming increasingly untenable for the forces of prohibition to continue to act as if cannabis deserves to be schedule 1. Even cocaine and morphine are schedule 2 (considered to have legitimate medical uses). Something is seriously wrong when toxic chems like antidepressents are being handed out like candy on Halloween, and kids are put on Ritalin for fidgeting in a boring class... and yet what is quite likely the most useful medicinal plant on the planet is still persecuted irrationally.

Every 30 seconds an American citizen is arrested for a cannabis law violation (89% of which are simple possession).

This is not even an issue of drug use per se. Check out the thread about juicing raw cannabis to see that non-psychoactive use of the plant is fast becoming the most important health supplement to come to light in over a decade. The fact is that people are too passive about this. Legalization forces should take an extreme stance with the intention that people will settle for full legalization as a compromise.

We should demand that not only should cannabis prohibition be brought to an immediate halt, but that everyone who has been injured by this irrational policy be reimbursed. We should demand that anyone who purposefully and knowingly withheld life saving medicine from those in need be prosecuted for manslaughter. All properties seized and legal fees spent under this policy should be refunded and a class-action lawsuit on behalf of all cannabis users be brought against all relevant agencies which includes the emotional and psychological damage of being made to live in fear and be an outlaw for what is demonstrably a non-harmful activity.

If the choice is to pay out billions for belligerence or to make billions in taxes on a substance that is basically a non-issue sociologically... you might begin to see people jump ship from the hardline Drug War ship. The War On Drugs has been an abject failure. It was wrongheaded from its inception. You would be hard pressed to find any sizable portion of any population that thinks the $40 billion the US spends a year to fight it is a worthwhile investment.

And, it is easy to show that the very corporations which colluded to have cannabis illegalized in the first place are still profitting from this illegal attack on our natural civil right to grow and use a plant that can be used as a fuel, a source of plastic, paper & wood product replacement, erosion control, a superfood source, a medicine, a textile... that is non-toxic, sequesters 4 to 5 times more CO2 per acre as trees, while adding nitrogen to the soil... that has been a staple of human agriculture since pre-historic times... and was even illegal not to grow at a number of periods in US history.

The only reason that this is not a done deal is that pot smokers are unbelievably lazy. The debate on this issue is so one-sided that you would have to try very hard to lose it.

Get off your asses people. Seriously.

One problem is that we're all still so easy to discredit, Hyperspace Fool. Most people still think that any drug user is somewhat lunatic, half insane, and most likely addicted to whatever he's using.

Of course anyone who's taken some time off to investigate knows that there is no truth to that.


But how do you convince people? Having them try the psychedelic is a very direct route, and in less than 8 hours depending on the substance they'd finally see what it's really about.. But the conditioning works very well: everyone knows you shouldn't let anyone take you down that road, and that such a person is someone you should avoid.

Perhaps if enough "successful" people spoke up - if one cares to search, it's obvious that respectable people also use the substances, but since they're highly illegal, tend to keep their mouths shut. I see this happening to a certain extent now, with people like Hoffman, Metzner, Fadiman, Nichols, Stolaroff etc speaking up (or having done so, for those who already passed away).

But you won't see their point of view in TV or in the newspaper. Therefore the people who discover their works tend to be people who are already interested in the subject, I reckon.


What are we left with? Perhaps just slowly disseminating true information and sharing our experiences with those who are willing to listen.


For the sake of the planet and our species I hope all of this is obvious a few decades from now

This has been the case in times past, and is still the case in some antiquated corners of conservative idiocracy... but this is not really the case by and large today. We are like dogs who have been beaten so much to stay in the back yard that when the gate is open, we still stay in the cage.

People need to have some guts and be willing to face ridicule to fight for what they believe in.

If you think that drug users are looked down upon, think about black people in the early days of the Civil Rights Movement... or under Apartheid. The Civil Rights Act didn't get passed until 100 years after slavery. If we get our lazy asses in gear, we might be able to avoid a similar statistic for drug use.

The examples of popular acceptance of drug use are legion. Bill Maher is taken more seriously than most news broadcasts while mentioning his love of weed on literally every show. He has world leaders and politicians talking casually about his being a pothead, and not one of them in recent memory has condemned him or acted like he is a lunatic.

The fact is, most people these days don't care if you use cannabis so long as you are not a problem.

With the facts about cannabis being so overwhelmingly in its favor, a little disseminating here and there is not good enough. People who care about the issue... not just smokers mind you... but people who want to see the plant be used for renewable fuel, to stop the killing of trees for paper, for food & medicine... these people need to stand up and scream it from the mountaintop. I'm not saying this out of ignorance or speculation. If it wasn't for my friend Dennis Peron (RIP) who authored 215, and a core group of a couple hundred people like me... you wouldn't have Medical Marijuana in any state. If it wasn't for guys like another friend of mine Jack Herer (also RIP), who literally wrote the book on the cannabis conspiracy and revealed some of the ground breaking truth of this wonder plant... most of you wouldn't even know what the word HEMP means.

These are a couple people who stood up by themselves, and attracted a very small group of followers. They did this in a time when public sentiment against drug users was at an hysterical fever pitch. Imagine what would happen if all you cowardly stoners got off your asses. Until you have the courage to talk openly to your grandparents about this subject... you are merely passive spectators in this fight... armchair quarterbacks who call out plays to the few friends sitting in the room with them.

No offense y'all... but if you think 10 more years of the drug war are acceptable... perhaps you need to stop smoking for a while until your complacency fades away. No more pissing and moaning. March in the streets. Write initiatives. Pass out flyers and hold rallies. Or just take another bonghit and shut up.