Stigma surrounding legalization

[Fishgoddess]

This is just my opinion... Less than a month away. Media keeps stating that sales are going to skyrocket, but I'm not too sure. Initially maybe, but we've had medical and illegal weed for a long time. I think lots of Canadians will try grow a few plants so I think there may be a shortage of seeds for a bit. Weed stocks will drop drastically as I think they are way over inflated, when the market demand for the long run is not as huge as they anticipated.

My worry is traveling to the US. We are snowbirds so just hoping they don't give us a hard time at the border. Its going to be hard to not have any weed for three months and we can't seem to find any connections in florida. sucks.

Whats your opinion?

 

[GatorGumbo]

I applaud Canada for the steps they have and continue to take toward sanity. That said, there are a few stigmas about legalization that concern me. The biggest one is how it will appear to, or effect, underage people now that it's not demonized and lied about. There's a lot of soap-boxing about how harmless and even helpful cannabis is, but I think it's important for kids and teens to learn how to deal with life without the aid of recreational weed use. Anything that alters your baseline perception and reflection abilities is going to have an impact on coping mechanisms and stress reactions, regardless of the health effects. Weed also sparks intelligence by way of inspiring interests and creativity, but the worst thing in the world is to learn the terrible truths of life without having the ability to properly regulate the emotional repercussions. Worse yet is to be ignorant of such aspects of life. I know people that every time since the age of 14 if they are happy/sad/bored they smoke weed to augment it, and when they don't have weed they are a complete stress case. I think it's important to steer kids away from substance dependence, be it pharmaceutical or otherwise. This is beside the point of what the effects on other strictly biological developmental processes it may have. I think it's a great tool for adults to regulate with, even outright abuse it if they want to instead of going to harder drugs— and that is part of my personal belief in not telling people what to do if it doesn't effect me in the slightest. It could be heroin, I literally don't care about it unless you're stealing shit for drug money or spreading it around— though obviously I encourage everyone to stay the fuck away from heroin.

In the states we had DARE programs in school which basically told us that cannabis will kill you, by 12 we all realized this is patently false and I imagine a few also decided that maybe they lied about the other drugs, and would eventually go on to habitually use harder drugs. This is where I think weed gets it's "gateway drug" stigma from, not because it leads to a trend of substance abuse itself, but because they have been lying about it for decades and decades so it's logical to test what else they may have lied about. I personally don't even like drugs at all, I smoke weed and I'm incredibly thankful I don't require pharmaceutical medications, so maybe that's why I never really caught that train.

Basically I would hate to see cannabis being passed off to people who are too young to understand that stress and boredom are actually extremely important functions of facilitating and utilizing healthy stimuli, stimuli that we need to grow up and become stable and harmonious people. Calm seas make really shitty sailors.

 

[Fishgoddess]

It must be so difficult to be a youth of the last decade or so. I agree that it affects young people the wrong way. Weed is seriously messing up my young nephews life. Lets hope that some of the tax revenue goes to the education of youth of the perils.

I only smoke a couple of times a week for pain management and don't get much of a high (I think I'm naturally high) but its easy to see how it could take over.

 

[sfgiantsfan]

Valid concern. I live in California and after legalization last year, friends of mine started letting their hair down about use and views. I live in the conservative Placer County area and am a member of a local Rotary club. Most of my friends are Republicraps and conservative for California. A good percentage of them get high which surprised me. I live next door to a judge and across the street from a state employee.
For Christmas last year, one of my neighbors came by with joints as a gift! I was floored as I hadn't known him that long. He's like "hey, it's legal!" He grows too.
I think you might find that some in your circle are a little looser than they let on. That was my experience.

 

[Spaceman_cannadoctor]

In Canada it is not legal to grow outside to stop easy access to children. You are allowed in some provinces to grow up to 4 plants indoors only.

 

[Fishgoddess]

Can anyone clarify the growing rules for Canada/Ontario? I've read that New Brunswick you can only grow indoors, but in Ontario "I believe?" you can grow out doors. I did a google search and nothing is clear and many posts are pre-Oct-2018.

Also, I think you can only grow from seeds or clones from the Government registered sellers.