Debate

Before I go on telling how my trip to The Netherlands changed my thinking quite a bit, let me write a passage about debating since I've done so quite a bit the latest months - pro-Cannabis mostly.

Let me first say that persoanlly I think creative discussion and dialogue are good things, actually democracy itself is quite dependent on them, I guess so far we've all agreed. Now in Sweden, the people who speak up against Cannabis and the decriminalization of it are actually kind of ruining the constructive dialogue. There are actually two kind of "against debaters" some of them just write foul words and accuse people working for a decriminalization as being bastards with smoking-trashed brains - this kind is mostly in forums. The other kind which you can find both in mainstream-media and forums use poor or even false arguments, or simply putting things totally out of context. For example speaking out against Cannabis by telling how dangerous heroine is, or telling outright lies such as that risks of getting an unrevokable psychosis from Cannabis is actually considerable. In the forums the pro-Cannabis people usually wins since they simply have more knowledge and thus better arguments, in the mainstream media the against-people wins because they are the only ones who are allowed to speak there - it's not politically correct to be pro-Cannabis here, it's sad because it kills the debate. How are things in Caliufornia?

Regardless the outcomer I'm really glad you Californians are up for this poll, after being debated fairly only on Internet forums the issue can now be analyzed - hopefully objectively - in "serious media" this should be good news also for all people who are against Cannabis and the legalization of it. See, the arguments whos's been used and that I've seen so far have all been so poor that me and many others have almost laugheds at them. I'm sure there are bad things that comes with the legalization of Cannabis, let's take those things up and weigh them fairly against the good things that comes with legalization.

Personally I think that you should try to get as accurate information as possible on a matter before voting on it. Furthermore it's my conviction that any vote based on what one with brain and heart feels is right, no matter what others think or if your side wins or not.

Why swedish perspectives on an issue on "the other side"?

Let me introduce myself shortly, my name is Mikael and I live in Stockholm, Sweden. I just became 34 years old and the last year has been very turbulent for me in many regards: Love, self confidence, view on the world... it's been a great year, but hey, this blog is about ´Cannabis and my views upon the plant so let's get to my history with this plant.

Luckily it isn't long, at the age of thirteen they started bombing us with anti-drug propaganda in School, I was taught that one drag from a joint could be sufficient to give me a non-revocable psychosis after 5-15 years after smoking, that it would lead to more dangerous drugs (gateway theory) and lots of other things, as a matter of fact the anti-Cannabis talk was such a major part of the anti-drug program that many of us in the end believed that Cannabis was more dangerous than heroine and cocaine!

In my case this program succeeded - I didn't take any drugs... ...or did it succeed? I'm curious, would I have started with pot at an early age even if they wouldn't have scared the heck out of me? Me along with most other kids didn't do weed or any other "forbidden things" - even things that this important looking police woman didn't spend 2 hours telling us how dangerous it was... we did our homework, didn't go too fast with our scooters, didn't drink until we were 18 (that's the age in Sweden for alcohol consumption).

The usual troubled kids did smoke weed, the ones that didn't do homework, who bullied other kids, did shoplifting, had miserable conditions at home and did smoking either to "escape" (in these cases alcohol was more popular actually) or sometimes just because it was a thing to do something illegal. With the swedish policy not to differ between soft and hard drugs and making kids believing there was no actual difference in severity between Cannabis and for example Heroine sadly the step wasn't really big for my less fortunate countrymen to take the step to harder drugs and giving some evidence to the "gateway theory".

Pot illegal? In Sweden yes! We have amongst the most repressive drug laws in all of Europe, but the troubled kids knew exactly where to get Cannabis (and other drugs) prohibition didn't help them, neither did tactics to scare them, rather it boosted their interest. While we others were so scared of drugs and their dealers that we didn't even dare to report if we saw some drug fiend lurking around the school...

Just before last summer, roughly a year ago I still believed in the psychosis and I went to The Netherlands for the first time in my life...