The British Medical Journal editorial: treat cannabis like alcohol and cigarettes

[RainDog]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/8056292/Cannabis-should-be-sold-in-shops-alongside-beer-and-cigarettes-doctors-journal-says.html

The editorial, written by Professor Robin Room of Melbourne University, said: “In some places, state controlled instruments - such as licensing regimes, inspectors, and sales outlets run by the Government - are still in place for alcohol and these could be extended to cover cannabis.”

Prof Room suggested that state-run off licences from Canada and some Nordic countries could provide “workable and well controlled retail outlets for cannabis”.

Prof Room suggested the current ban on cannabis could come to alcohol prohibition, which was adopted by 11 countries between 1914 and 1920.Eventually it was replaced with “restrictive regulatory regimes, which restrained alcohol consumption and problems related to alcohol until these constraints were eroded by the neo-liberal free market ideologies of recent decades”.

The editorial concluded: “The challenge for researchers and policy analysts now is to flesh out the details of effective regulatory regimes, as was done at the brink of repeal of US alcohol prohibition.”

This is the model for Prop. 19.

[KT2000]

1. neo-liberal free market?

what is that?

[RainDog]

10. you'd have to ask the editorial writer

from the context, I take that to mean a move to let market forces play out in relation to the sale of things like alcohol and ciagarettes.

[muriel_volestrangler]

11. It's the current dominant world economic system (nt)

[DJ13]

2. Dont treat it like cigarettes

Few could afford it.

[qazplm]

4. well that's the idea

you legalize it and then tax the beejeebus out of it.

You'd reap money from the taxation and you'd save money in the criminal justice system.

[RainDog]

9. but the price itself will drop drastically with an open market

and people will be able to grow their own in CA if Prop 19 passes.

At this time, the high price is related to the illegality. The tax allows the revenue from the sale of cannabis to go to the people of a state to use in the state for their discretion via such a tax.

But, again, someone can grow his or her own if CA legalizes, and there's no tax on that.

[eridani]

8. Much easier to grow cannabis than to grow tobacco n/t

[CaliforniaPeggy]

3. I think the British have the right idea.

I hope the proposition passes...

[mike_c]

5. except that cannabis is BENEFICIAL while tobacco and alcohol are generally not....

Ethanol is likely beneficial for some in small doses, but one of its greatest drawbacks is that it affects judgment and leads too many to dose well beyond the beneficial level and well into the detrimental.

I can't think of a single benefit that tobacco offers.

[bemildred]

6. Dosage is everything, with all drugs.

Most effective drugs are strong poisons, though not cannabis of course.

[RainDog]

7. concentration

according to my ex who never smoked cigarettes until he was older (about the cigs thing)

I don't think this is to say that all of these things are the same - it's just to say that the recreational use of cannabis should be dealt with in society like we deal with other things that are limited to adult consumption - like alcohol and cigarettes.

This is yet another reason I support legalization - there are medical uses for cannabis - and some of those uses are geared toward cannabis with more CB2 and THC. But researchers in Spain recently completed a trial to do further research on injecting cannabis "concentrate" directly into brain tumors... again, nothing like recreational use.

Then there's hemp for industrial use.

I think in this case the Doctor was just talking about cannabis for personal recreational use - tho drug trials for medicines have their own guidelines and you know, probably more than I do, about the various strains that provide various benefits.