Probably because politics is so easily manipulated. You get the local church group behind you. Encourage them to join the local branch. Have them vote for you for preselection for a safe seat. Enter politics and voila they become an expert in ignorance from the minute they start taking taxpayers money. Then they give lots of taxpayer funded grants to the same church that encouraged their members to join the local branch and vote for that particular politicians entry into politics. You don’t need brains to become a politician you need shithouse rat cunning.
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You don’t want to kill the beer and Jägermeister, Bommerlunder industry.
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TPTB don’t seem to realise that the harder they tighten up supply, the more prices go up and the more incentive people have to grow the stuff.
Since cannabis is pretty easy to grow, the obvious solution would be to just make it legal and allow the price to fall through the floor. The average farmer would then make a rational decision to grow eg., broccoli, on the basis that he can make more money that way.
OTOH I don’t think it would be a good idea to promote the stuff as harmless for the same reason we shouldn’t be promoting alcohol as harmless. In my experience, cannabis rots your brains if you smoke too much of it. It might not be exactly addictive, but potheads do seem to develop an unhealthy obsession with the next hit and lose their interest in the ordinary stuff of life. So while it’s not a danger to the public (as alcohol is), it’s still a danger to the individual. I suspect legalisation is a long way off in Taiwan, but if it happens it needs to be connected to some sort of “get high carefully” public-education campaign.
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Thailand and Korea and Australia are moving ahead with a medicinal cannabis industry.
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Meth rots your brain if you smoke too much of it. It has been proven time and time again that pot is not a gateway drug. Alcohol is THE gateway drug. Taiwan only criminalized ketamine in 2012. Ketamine is way more harmful than marijuana.
A total of 2.8 kg of hashish, 60 kg of ketamine, 509 packets of drug-laced coffee, 2,763 kg of ingredients used to produce mephedrone, over 1 million tablets of sedative Etizolam, and 11 kilos of mixed third and second class drugs have been seized from warehouses.
https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3646593
It’s ridiculous. A top US cardiopulmonary specialist tried proving marijuana was harmful for about 15 years. At the end of it he gave up because he couldn’t find any causal link between marijuana and lung and heart disease. Meanwhile excessive use of alcohol is known to cause a multitude of health problems including many cancers. Then there’s the societal costs of alcohol to consider.
You are right though. The simplest solution would be to legalize marijuana and let people choose for themselves.
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There’s a massive amount of synthetic drugs being trafficked around Asia including Taiwan (as noted above ). That stuff is rough guys…Don’t touch it…Some skunk marijuana could be too strong , often adulterated with cannabinoids , and it does impair driving, so it will be regulated one way or another
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All drugs rot your brain if you consume enough of them, and do it religiously enough. The key, IMO, is to recognise mind-altering drugs for what they are and treat them with respect.
Where governments screw up, IMO, is failing to understand why some people can use drugs (alcohol, hash, whatever) without those drugs taking over their lives, and some people can’t. There’s are some fundamental differences between the person who can drink a beer or three and then go home, and the person who gets drunk until he falls over or starts a fight with a bouncer. It’s important, I think, for any society to try to minimize whatever factors lead to the second scenario if they’re going to allow legal access to any particular kind of drug.
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I don’t think church has that much sway in Taiwan politics. They were really against same sex marriage, and it wasn’t just churches, but also a bunch of other religious and non religious groups. But it was rammed through because Taiwan wanted that recognition.
I think marijuana is more than just religious people. Many Asian countries, including Taiwan pretty much swallowed the whole “drugs are bad and evil” from US war on drugs, and maybe some of the really harsh penalties on drugs here had to do with the Opium War, and as a result any illegal drugs was seen to be as bad as opium. I think it started from the days when the Ching dynasty would execute any junkies or people dealing in opium.
That and drugs are seen as a hindrance to Confucian ideals, because they want people to be obedient to the family, and drugs prevent that.
Don’t drive and smoke or eat …
What? That seems wildly optimistic.
Waaay off in fact.
Pound of Weed Price
| Quality | Av $/ 1p |
|---|---|
| Low | $ 1660.00 |
| Medium | $ 1603.98 |
| High | $ 1980.88 |
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The opium wars explains part of it. Another part is the rubbish that was offered up when the UN Charter on International Drug Control Conventions was established. It was basically a propaganda campaign which has since been proven completely untrue and irrelevant to cannabis.
Drugs don’t necessarily prevent that from happening. Alcohol is still permitted. Alcohol is a drug. Causes way more problems. Domestic violence. Child abuse. Sexual abuse. Often at family gatherings. A lot of country people still make their own alcohol. That ghastly red rice wine/spirit. They tell you it’s good for your health.
People fall into what’s call their preferred drug of choice. When that happens it usually becomes habitual. Even if a person is addicted. Once habitual the individuals actions/reactions become a lot more pliable and predictable. Fabricating an hysteria around marijuana just makes those saying it look uneducated and inexperienced. Taiwan could be making a killing out of Medicinal Marijuana as well as leading the field in research and application. Instead they trot out the usual rubbish.
As for Taiwan politicians embracing religion they seem to have been jumping on the Evangelical bandwagon while still keeping up with their Taoist temple traditions. Maybe it’s a result of trying to get access to US politicians (and Australian and British for that matter). It’s also another way to guarantee votes come election time as congregations will usually vote en masse for their preferred candidate.
That seems like the regulated distribution prices. Since legalization in California prices have plummeted. Although they made it pretty difficult to get licenses to grow and have only made it harder over the last 2 years. $900 a pound is a pretty good street price for a grower and they usually only get that if it’s moving across state lines. Then there’s Washington and Colorado to consider. Quite a lot is still moving across both the Mexican and Canadian borders too.
I think we are unlikely to see much change here until the US legalizes marijuana on the Federal level. Not sure when, if it will ever happen.
But Asia has always been traditionally over the top harsh with drugs, so I don’t know.
Then China also treats marijuana like hard drugs too.
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you mean legal.
You mean illegal?
Still, 900 is like far from 400-500. And my gut tells me if you’re paying 400/pound it’s cheap Mexican skunk.
I’ve seen guy come out of a MA dispensary with 300-400’s worth of high quality flower in a small bag the size of a stylish woman’s purse. I’m not going to argue back and forth, but I think you just maybe might be exaggerating for effect here.
Sure super high quality strain specific weed can go for really high prices. Not all weed is like that though. That’s the problem. Medicinal grade marijuana is all cloned from an original plant and grown to specific soil/fertilizer ratios. So is medicinal grade opium used for making a multitude of medications. The other relatively new emergence of converting weed into dab (butane derived hash oil) and oil immersion to create edible forms. Or the combination of all 3 to create some really crazy super high THC mixes that also sell for quite a bit. Most of the butane derived hash oil is made from the cheaper pounds of weed. The $400-$500 stuff. Certainly not like the Northern Indian or Afghani hash bricks that used to get around back in the 80s and 90s that were made from banging the resin off the flowers and then heated over a low flame until it turned into a thick paste which was left to cool down and dry before being compressed into bricks, wrapped, and sealed with wax and a stamp.
But sure. I’m exaggerating.
You can make em.a bit sick to induce flowering if you are in a rush. Well that is what a friend told me.
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Sounds plausible. A lot of plants respond to water stress by flowering.
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Seven foreigners and six Taiwanese.
Taipei police on Wednesday last week made arrests linked to a drug ring in New Taipei City, the Taipei City Police Department said yesterday.
Thirteen people, six Taiwanese and seven foreigners, were detained, the department said.
The operation for more than a year sold heroin, amphetamines and other drugs to Indonesian migrant workers in New Taipei City’s Sinjhuang (新莊) and Shulin (樹林) districts, Criminal Investigation Division senior officer Tseng Yi-chun (曾逸群) said.
Thirteen arrested in Taipei after drug post on Facebook - Taipei Times
There are many autoflowering strains so I doubt that’s the reason.
“13 marijuana plants, 19 joints, and related paraphernalia. It is estimated that the market value of the marijuana plants and products is about NT$5 million (US$179,340)”
I’m guessing they are migrant worker on farms.
And all of them 40 years or older, kind of strange.
Mostly Thai. People, not pot.