Your opinions on cannabis/weed?

[Laur91]

I’m of the mind everything in moderation. Be that drugs or alcohol even down to gambling. If you enjoy it and it doesn’t put your health at risk then why not. On another note I don’t drink or do drugs as I personally don’t enjoy being in the state of not knowing what I’m doing. I wouldn’t even have gas and air when in labour as I hated it. I wouldn’t judge anyone for it though as long as a) you smoke it at your own place and b) you don’t force it onto others

this. My partner smokes once or twice in the evening as it really helps him de-stress but he gets up every morning and goes to work at a huge telecoms company for a fantastic salary, he doesn’t do any other drugs and has complete control over his habit. I also smoke but only when we go to Amsterdam

I think it affects everyone differently but it really needs to be decriminalised.The UK are hugely missing out on a huge opp to reap Tax benefits from legalising marijuana.

Marijuana certainly has less damaging consequences to your mind and body than alcohol does yet legally you could drink yourself to death easily, baffles me slightly!

 

[Miss98]

My neighbour would smoke £100 of it a week if not more, was borrowing more off his dealer etc than he could pay for. He tried intimidating me and my mum to give him money for weed and when we refused he got violent and extremely aggressive. This is a man in his 60's... so personally, I don't think it's as harmless as some think. He was a horrible man anyway but a helluva lot worse when he couldn't get any weed.

That's my experience of some people who are smoking it daily. They smoke it all up when they get paid, so they need to tick some weed to tie them over, then when they're paid the last thing they want to do is hand over money when they want their weed so they then owe money. I've had to pay a friend out of debt from weed before because the dealer was in town waiting for him.

Also the people I knew who smoked weed tend to go on to deal it to help pay for their own weed and they've been so desperate they've tried to rob people for it or been robbed themselves when selling it.

Not saying by the way every single person who smokes weed is bad, can't handle it or a drug dealer, but certainly there's issues I agree.

 

[Danielle1]

I used to smoke it , have a laugh and eat way too much but don't smoke it anymore. Also I know so many people who go crazy if they can't find someone who isn't selling or don't have money for it for couple days they will get themselves in debt for it and it definitely can react so differently in different people. I'm glad I never got dependant on it.

 

[Bec3007]

I hate it. My ex used to smoke it daily. It turned him into an aggressive twit (towards me mainly) every single time. If he didn’t have any my life wasn’t worth living, he would use any means necessary to get some.

I live in a pleasant area of my city but my neighbour smokes & deals it. My house can reek of the stuff every few days and I have a young son at home. We actually had to switch rooms because his room (now ours) can sometimes smell vile. I don’t think innocent families should suffer because of selfish people like that, neither should innocent children living in households like that. Sickens me that people actually get away with it. A drug is a drug at the end of the day (in my opinion). I’ve known some people to be totally fine on coke, live normal lives and have decent jobs but that doesn’t mean it’s okay.

 

[Rinitiaa]

I believe in moderation also, plus if you don’t have anyone who will be disadvantaged by it (kids, relationships, etc) then each to their own.
also i smoked it once as a teen in the park with the cool kids, cried and threw up in a bin, ran home to my mum and got grounded for like two weeks. She still brings it up lol

 

[PineappleQueen19]

There is also the question of how it is produced - here in the UK it is mostly produced by trafficked children under horrific conditions of slavery

++++

Both Bao’s parents, fishermen in a rural part of Vietnam, were killed in a car crash when he was a baby, leaving him to be brought up by his grandparents, who lived in a wooden shack by a river. By the time he was 10, both of them had died, and he was living on the streets of a city in Vietnam, selling lottery tickets to feed himself.

When he was about 14, he was kidnapped by two men while he slept under the bridge; he was bound and gagged using duct tape, put into a sack and then into the boot of a car. Some time later, he was taken to China, where for several months he worked and slept in a warehouse, packaging saucepans. He was malnourished and beaten if he made the mistake of speaking while working. Later again, a group of young workers were taken and put into a cold shipping container, given a bag of bread and a bottle of water each, and kept there for around three months, while the ship travelled to a country that might have been France. He was later driven to the UK, smuggled above the wheels of a lorry.
The truck stopped in a forest in the UK, where he was shuffled into another vehicle and taken to a house. He was kept there for 10 months and forced into sex work. Then, for reasons that are no clearer to him than any of the other abrupt changes, he was driven to a house somewhere quiet, left alone and told to tend to the plants.

Living in a flat that has been converted into a cannabis farm is fraught with danger. “Above my head there were wires hanging down,” Bao says, “and I had to be careful to make sure the duvet didn’t catch fire. There were wires everywhere, powering all the electricity to the room. I had to step around them when I was watering, and they were hung quite low – so if I wasn’t careful, it would burn my hair. That happened quite a few times. Sometimes, I would brush past the lights and singe my hands and arms. I found it tiring. There were so many plants to look after, and the flat was very squashed.”

Bao was under strict instructions not to answer the door to anyone, so when police knocked five months after he had arrived at the flat, he did not answer; instead, they knocked the door down. He tried to hide beneath the cannabis plants that had flourished under his care and grown to waist height. But the police found him and bombarded him with questions, which, not speaking a word of English, he didn’t understand. He was handcuffed, taken away and held in police custody overnight. A solicitor was found, who advised him to plead guilty to cannabis cultivation, regardless of the fact that he was clearly a child and had been trafficked.

In the most outlandish discovery to date, police last month found three teenage boys from Vietnam working in a former nuclear bunker in Wiltshire, living in a subterranean warren of 40 rooms built in the 1980s to accommodate government officials in the event of nuclear attack. The boys are said to have been held behind a five-inch-thick metal door, with no access to daylight or fresh air, instructed to look after thousands of plants growing in 20 rooms.

https://www.theguardian.com/society...eenagers-tending-uk-cannabis-farms-vietnamese

 

[bubbletea123]

I wouldn't smoke it, can't stand the smell and I am a paranoid person so I think it would make me worse. In Canada it is legal, I have considered using CBD oil without THC to try and help with my endometriosis pain. The funny thing is, now it is legal, people are still using the black market as it is cheaper so legalising weed hasn't taken off like they thought it would. People that didn't smoke it before, haven't started smoking it, etc.

 

[DCICassieStuart]

I've never smoked it myself (never smoked cigarettes either, bar trying it once or twice in school) but have a couple of friends who used to smoke it 10/15 years ago from time to time, may be every couple of months or so. Both of them say that they'd never touch it now because the stuff that's out there now is much more dangerous than what they smoked back then. They reckon there could be anything in it now.

 

[Strangewords]

There is also the question of how it is produced - here in the UK it is mostly produced by trafficked children under horrific conditions of slavery

++++

Both Bao’s parents, fishermen in a rural part of Vietnam, were killed in a car crash when he was a baby, leaving him to be brought up by his grandparents, who lived in a wooden shack by a river. By the time he was 10, both of them had died, and he was living on the streets of a city in Vietnam, selling lottery tickets to feed himself.

When he was about 14, he was kidnapped by two men while he slept under the bridge; he was bound and gagged using duct tape, put into a sack and then into the boot of a car. Some time later, he was taken to China, where for several months he worked and slept in a warehouse, packaging saucepans. He was malnourished and beaten if he made the mistake of speaking while working. Later again, a group of young workers were taken and put into a cold shipping container, given a bag of bread and a bottle of water each, and kept there for around three months, while the ship travelled to a country that might have been France. He was later driven to the UK, smuggled above the wheels of a lorry.
The truck stopped in a forest in the UK, where he was shuffled into another vehicle and taken to a house. He was kept there for 10 months and forced into sex work. Then, for reasons that are no clearer to him than any of the other abrupt changes, he was driven to a house somewhere quiet, left alone and told to tend to the plants.

Living in a flat that has been converted into a cannabis farm is fraught with danger. “Above my head there were wires hanging down,” Bao says, “and I had to be careful to make sure the duvet didn’t catch fire. There were wires everywhere, powering all the electricity to the room. I had to step around them when I was watering, and they were hung quite low – so if I wasn’t careful, it would burn my hair. That happened quite a few times. Sometimes, I would brush past the lights and singe my hands and arms. I found it tiring. There were so many plants to look after, and the flat was very squashed.”

Bao was under strict instructions not to answer the door to anyone, so when police knocked five months after he had arrived at the flat, he did not answer; instead, they knocked the door down. He tried to hide beneath the cannabis plants that had flourished under his care and grown to waist height. But the police found him and bombarded him with questions, which, not speaking a word of English, he didn’t understand. He was handcuffed, taken away and held in police custody overnight. A solicitor was found, who advised him to plead guilty to cannabis cultivation, regardless of the fact that he was clearly a child and had been trafficked.

In the most outlandish discovery to date, police last month found three teenage boys from Vietnam working in a former nuclear bunker in Wiltshire, living in a subterranean warren of 40 rooms built in the 1980s to accommodate government officials in the event of nuclear attack. The boys are said to have been held behind a five-inch-thick metal door, with no access to daylight or fresh air, instructed to look after thousands of plants growing in 20 rooms.

https://www.theguardian.com/society...eenagers-tending-uk-cannabis-farms-vietnamese

Yep, extremely unethical to buy any illegal drug due to the human costs involved. Trafficked children and adults involved in farming etc and vulnerable kids forced into selling drugs on the street too.

 

[bubbletea123]

I've never smoked it myself (never smoked cigarettes either, bar trying it once or twice in school) but have a couple of friends who used to smoke it 10/15 years ago from time to time, may be every couple of months or so. Both of them say that they'd never touch it now because the stuff that's out there now is much more dangerous than what they smoked back then. They reckon there could be anything in it now.

Yep, some of the street stuff here had fentanyl in it.

 

[Miss98]

I don't know if anyone saw the recent 24 hours in police custody but the young guy was murdered by his 2 friends because he was in a group dealing weed. I'm not saying the guy who was murdered was totally innocent as he too was dealing weed and carried a gun on him which was found near his body at the scene, but now 3 people's lives are wasted. They were making 2k a weed selling weed!

 

[Laur91]

I don't know if anyone saw the recent 24 hours in police custody but the young guy was murdered by his 2 friends because he was in a group dealing weed. I'm not saying the guy who was murdered was totally innocent as he too was dealing weed and carried a gun on him which was found near his body at the scene, but now 3 people's lives are wasted. They were making 2k a weed selling weed!

i watched that and he was definitely selling more than weed to be making 2k a week - his girlfriend also mentioned MDMA. I think those ‘friends’ of his were just very jealous of his money and they wanted it for themselves. That show is almost another reason why marijuana should be legalised and goverened properly, then boys wouldn’t be killing each other over it in the park.

 

[Be More Pacific]

i watched that and he was definitely selling more than weed to be making 2k a week - his girlfriend also mentioned MDMA. I think those ‘friends’ of his were just very jealous of his money and they wanted it for themselves. That show is almost another reason why marijuana should be legalised and goverened properly, then boys wouldn’t be killing each other over it in the park.

It didn't make it clear on the programme but the judge (and he's the only one that matters) determined that Sam was murdered because he'd become a liability and also for financial gain. He actually worked for Shepherd but had been robbed and beaten up and few times and Shepherd felt he was a problem that needed to be got rid of to protect his reputation and drugs business. White bought drugs off Sam to sell and made a few hundred pounds a week. With Sam out of the way, he would pick up his share of the business.

That's why the sentences were so high. The judge ruled it as a murder carried out for gain - which means a 30 year starting point - and not just the immediate gain of the cash and drugs in his rucksack that they took and spent but other 'gain' they would get for killing Sam - namely the enhancement in Shepherd's reputation for dealing with a problem and shoring up his business and White's financial increase.

 

[Miss98]

i watched that and he was definitely selling more than weed to be making 2k a week - his girlfriend also mentioned MDMA. I think those ‘friends’ of his were just very jealous of his money and they wanted it for themselves. That show is almost another reason why marijuana should be legalised and goverened properly, then boys wouldn’t be killing each other over it in the park.

Oh I agree, it wasn't only weed but weed definitely was the main factor throughout the show. I think even if it was legalised, the government would put taxes on it and it would cost even more than £10 street value so unless the government were to sell it cheap as chips the dealing would still go on.

 

[PoleStar]

It didn't make it clear on the programme but the judge (and he's the only one that matters) determined that Sam was murdered because he'd become a liability and also for financial gain. He actually worked for Shepherd but had been robbed and beaten up and few times and Shepherd felt he was a problem that needed to be got rid of to protect his reputation and drugs business. White bought drugs off Sam to sell and made a few hundred pounds a week. With Sam out of the way, he would pick up his share of the business.

That's why the sentences were so high. The judge ruled it as a murder carried out for gain - which means a 30 year starting point - and not just the immediate gain of the cash and drugs in his rucksack that they took and spent but other 'gain' they would get for killing Sam - namely the enhancement in Shepherd's reputation for dealing with a problem and shoring up his business and White's financial increase.

I was really pleased to see the length of the sentences Shepherd and White received, they deserve those sentences. Throughout the police interviews White came across to me as a snivelling little tit trying to save his own skin and telling lie after lie. I thought Shepherd came across as very cold and calculating and I wouldn't be at all surprised if I heard he was deemed by psychiatrists to be a psychopath. I found him a lot more scary than White.

 

[Youcantsitwithus]

I think it should be more legalised in the UK for medical use, I suffer with chronic pain from multiple incurable conditions (sorry sounds dramatic when I type it).
The only illegal options available in the UK are made to make you as high as possible which is the stuff which makes people paranoid and anxious.
If it was made legal for medical use (more widely than it is now) it would allow strains to be grown which aren’t the super strength available from dealers and can actually help people like myself who have to rely on opioid medications to hold down a job and live a functioning life. You can pick particular strains of the plant in places like the US depending on your physical or mental health concern.

I also know people who use it from time to time in the same way people have one or two drinks at the end of the week, but I also know people who go wayyyy OTT with it in the same way so many people in the UK get drunk until they blackout. Some people can moderate and others cannot.

 

[onmylunchbreak]

I am somebody who has sadly seen a bad side of it. My brother began smoking it around age 13. His personality changed, he became argumentative, aggressive, and would steal from me and other family members. He is now mid twenties, still living at home, wastes all of his money on drugs. Has many pay day loans (I’m assuming to fund his habits). He is employed by my mums business and many times should have lost his job but my mum covers for him. He smokes it constantly, we were round for dinner on Sunday and went outside three times, came back in stinking of weed each time, trying to pick my baby up. It’s getting to the point where I feel I don’t want my three young children around him, I worry about the effects of the second hand smoke on my children’s immature brains and their development. I’ve avoided confronting it, my parents pretend they don’t notice it and give me a blank look when I bring it up, but I think I’m going to have to tell them straight soon. I don’t want to fall out with them over it but my children are my priority, I’d be interested to know whether you all think I am overreacting? Or am I within my rights to have a problem with it?

 

[Lardoflife]

I am somebody who has sadly seen a bad side of it. My brother began smoking it around age 13. His personality changed, he became argumentative, aggressive, and would steal from me and other family members. He is now mid twenties, still living at home, wastes all of his money on drugs. Has many pay day loans (I’m assuming to fund his habits). He is employed by my mums business and many times should have lost his job but my mum covers for him. He smokes it constantly, we were round for dinner on Sunday and went outside three times, came back in stinking of weed each time, trying to pick my baby up. It’s getting to the point where I feel I don’t want my three young children around him, I worry about the effects of the second hand smoke on my children’s immature brains and their development. I’ve avoided confronting it, my parents pretend they don’t notice it and give me a blank look when I bring it up, but I think I’m going to have to tell them straight soon. I don’t want to fall out with them over it but my children are my priority, I’d be interested to know whether you all think I am overreacting? Or am I within my rights to have a problem with it?

I'd say you're within your rights. With regards to your brother, he's their child and it's their choice to ignore it, just as much as it's your choice not to do so when it could effect your young ones. You can only do what you feel is best for your kids.

I'd always go on the side of caution where kids are involved, especially since you said your brother can be aggressive. Is that really someone you'd feel comfortable being around your children if he wasn't so closely related to you? It's probably an easier conversation to have sooner rather than later as well I'd think?

 

[onmylunchbreak]

I'd say you're within your rights. With regards to your brother, he's their child and it's their choice to ignore it, just as much as it's your choice not to do so when it could effect your young ones. You can only do what you feel is best for your kids.

I'd always go on the side of caution where kids are involved, especially since you said your brother can be aggressive. Is that really someone you'd feel comfortable being around your children if he wasn't so closely related to you? It's probably an easier conversation to have sooner rather than later as well I'd think?

He was aggressive with me as a teenager but to be honest I haven’t seen that side of him in the last few years. He’s still argumentative but it’s more of an annoyance than a worry - they are never left alone with him (obviously I wouldn’t ever let him babysit). My children are very close to my parents and I want to tread carefully around that relationship. I am not interested in becoming estranged but I worry about an ultimatum of ‘sorry we would be coming around your house any more, because he is using weed’ would lead to them cutting us off, because they feel a criticism of how he behaves is an indirect criticism of them and the fact they turn a blind eye. It’s not easy! I can’t see him ever moving out which would solve the problems I’m facing. Sometimes he alludes to how when they are older he will take them out ‘for their first pint’. I definitely worry about his influence in that regard being the cool, bad boy uncle. I can’t fall out with him without falling out with my parents.

 

[candyland_]

Do what you want but you smell horrific.

It stinks and you absolutely reek if you smoke it. You can smell it on you, you can smell it a huge distance away and you can smell it as you pass your house. It’s rancid.