Apart from Amsterdam, are there any countries where cannabis is legal?
(yes I know that Amsterdam is not a country, but don't be a pedant).
Just was watching BBC2 Sanjeev Bhaskar in India where there were openly growing it.
Answers:
Here's a map. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/image:world...
And some more information http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/legality_of...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/legality_of...
Amsterdam is not a country!
it is not legal any place it is tolerated..but i went to Vancouver and it is tolerated there....as it is in amsterdam which i may add that i have been to several times..my favorite place is the greenhouse effect in amsterdam.
Canada, and California.
mexico
I don't think cannabis is actually legal in Holland. It's just tolerated in the red light district of Amsterdamn. I think, don't quote me on that
There are still laws on cannabis possession and dealing in Holland. A coffee shop can only sell 5g per person, and dealing cannabis in the street will still get you arrested. Coffee shops may not advertise the fact that they sell cannabis. Not that they need to when it is blindingly obvious!
The person above: cannabis was decriminalised (different from being legalised) in the whole of the Netherlands in the 70s to take police man hours away from dealing with petty soft drugs matters to concentrate on combatting heroin, cocaine etc. It was mainly in Amsterdam where a cannabis tourist trade emerged. The coffee shops of Rotterdam tend not to serve a customer until they have seen their face a few times. Smoking cannibis in the street is tolerated nationwide.
In Holland cannabis is not legal but social ably acceptable
its tolerated in Canada and also in cali and i remmeber hearing something not too long ago about denver CO allowing it there too with certain restrictions of course. and even in canada its not 100% legal if you have 10lbs on you there may be a problem lol.
Marijuana is a weed. In India I even saw it growing wild in Delhi Zoo of all places. A religious sect called the Sadhus are allowed to smoke it because it is part of the sacraments of their religion and therefore this allows it to be cultivated for their purposes. However the Sadhus are not averse to selling any surplus to visiting tourists.
In fact Cannabis is not 'legal' in Amsterdam. It is tolerated under a 'blind eye' policy that allows the police to overlook possession of up to 5 grams or small scale growing activities like a few plants and to allow designated coffeeshops to sell up to 5 grams. Other cities where the authorities have a tolerant attitude are Prague (Where I have seen it sold openly to selected customers) and in Brixton in South London where the police had for some time a blind-eye policy although this may have expired.
I know, you said Amsterdam is not a Country, it is Holland and the above posters are correct in that the laws are "overlooked" to free up the police for more important crimes. This attitude was recently adopted in Las Vegas, Nevada, the State of Oregon as well as the Country of Belgium (next door to Holland) I do not know the laws in Tibet, but the Hindu Kush (yessss!) have been growing and smoking it with impunity for several generations.
It was perfectly legal in ENTIRE USA until 1937, when the Government decided you needed a license to grow it and did not issue any licenses.
The post below from Carlos B is as about as far-fetched from reality as one can get. He smoked a little weed and ended up institutionalized? NOT from Marijuana! I have smoked weed every day (3-5 times a day!) since 1972 and I am quite healthy, employed, intelligent, articulate, humble (damn good looking!) and have NO known side effects from the chronic use of said drug. I did quit smoking cigarettes after 8 years of a pack a day habit, because Tobacco WILL kill you! Proven fact! There is NO empirical data to confirm ANY ill side effects from the use of Marijuana
Listen. Cannabis, marijuana, weed. sounds great doesn't it? And yes when I was younger I had some. But now listen to this. I have a thyroid disorder and ended up in a mental health facility for two years. I am fine now, but when I was admitted I suffered from extreme paranoia, dillusion and many other complicated psychosis. I am lucky - all I have to do is take thyroxine every day (it is not even a drug - it is what we all produce naturally).
Over 45% of the other patients were in there due to drug problems. Of those 25% were there specifically due to cannabis and weed addiction. When I started to become well enought to realise that I was actually surrounded by mad people and stopped trying to talk and relate to them as only the mad can talk to each other (it is very funny to look back and imagine the kind of nonsensical conversations I must have had - especailly with most of us suffering from extreme paranoia - just imagine 'Fabric' (a famous club in London) at the end of Sunday mroning and you'll get the idea).
The thing is I recovered from my psychosis. But many of the patients that were being treated for the affects of drug abuse, I later learned, would only recover to a certain extent.
The affects of all illegal drugs (regardless of the affects of alcohol and smoking - which are no better - but are legal becasue they are actually proprtionally less harmful than illegal substances) are damaging full stop. If you smoke hash, cannabis, marijuana or weed or whatever you want to call it you WILL cause damage to your brain. It was thought a while ago that the affects of this kind of subsatance was actaully good, because it was observed that the particles of the drug latched on to certain receptors on the brain, diminishing and repressing certain emotions and psychological states. It has only recentely been admitted that those same particles don't latch - they attack those parts of the brain - causing in the long term permanent brain damage.
The brain is extremely complicated and the mind reacts in very protective ways. When the brain is under attack - the mind changes our thought processes to protect us. Another thing that happens is that our Super-ego takes over. This is another defensive devise - where the consciousness is protected (our ego) by the dillusion that there is nothing wrong with us - so everything external to that must be wrong. This is most reflected in specific types of paranoia.
The brain damage that occurs can sometimes happen very quickly or sometimes after long use - there are many factors - the strength of the drug, the strength of the victim (yes victim - because they are being poisoned by a drug - that's what makes you high - your being INTOXICATED - which is how most poison's work too) and other factors like previous susceptibility to mental health problems, age, etc. But drugs don't discriminate between people. They just don't care. Which neatly leads me on to probably the most dangerous aspect of the whole thing.
Once the chemicals in your mind reach a certain crisis threshold of imbalance - apathy begins to set in. Apathy is another defesive mechanism where the mind literally refuses to accept any new information that might challenge anything that it already knows. Apathy normally is only used on one specific subject that a person often finds too painful to confront. But with drug takers, because the brain is physically being damaged and the mind is in complete defense to justify not only the peroson' ego (ie. they are right to use the drug) but also the very severe problem of addiction - apathy becomes a major part of their emerging character.
There is a truth that often drug addicts are drug addicts not because they choose to be, but because the drug itself is stronger than they are.
If you believe the populist propaganda that has been forged by the drug dealers themselves (of course they are going to tell you that it is harmless - they want to sell it) then you are a fool to yourself.
If you have a problem and you can recognize that - then my advise is get yourself to your GP and ask for help and referal to a speacilist drug councilor as soon as possible. Don't be ashamed by such a step and if any of your friends have a go at you - tell them to f off, because they are no friend to you - in fact they may be addicts themselves and have many of the problems I have listed above already.
You only have one life. Don't throw it away so some fat drug dealer can laugh in the riviera, while you either go mad or die in a hospital bed in the worst way.
Not aware of any countries where cannabis is actually legal, but as pointed out by many here, it is tolerated in various dergrees in many countries.
Carlos B, I have a strong suspicion that you are not quite over your psychosis. You obviously have strong paranoid tendencies or you have been reading too many government propoganda pamphlets and are looking for a bit of attention.
For your information a recent study published in The Lancet on the harmful effects of 20 potientially dangerous substances placed cannabis in 11th place behind alcohol (7th) and tobacco (4th). In addition most of the harmful effects of smoking cannabis were attributed to the use of tobacco in taking cannabis. When you consider these findings it is difficult to justify the legality of tobacco against the criminalisation of cannabis.
My own personal experience of cannabis has been positive to say the least and the few people that I am aware of who have experienced psychological issues when smoking cannabis were not what I would describe as psychologically balanced in the first place. I have no doubt that cannabis compounded their mental issues but cannabis was certainly not the cause of their mental issues. I dare say that cannabis does not agree with everybody in the same way that alcohol does not agree with everybody but the effects of cannabis are, in my opinion, much more acceptable than the effects of alcohol and I cannot ever recall anybody who was stoned beating anybody to a pulp at the end of the evening.
You should really stop regurgatating government propoganda and instead try to work out why there is such an intense desire to keep cannabis out of the public arena. I will point you in the right direction and then see if you can work out the rest yourself. How much money do the tobacco and drinks industries make every year and how much money is taken by the government in taxes? How much money would the tobacco and drinks industries lose and how much revenue would the government lose out on if we were all able to grow our own little supply of legal cannabis?
Hopefully now your paranoia is focused in the right direction.
You're welcome.
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