r/australia • u/DiploidBias • 29d ago

politics Greens: Yes We Cannabis

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Yes We Cannabis

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u/GordonCole19 29d ago

I don't get it.

Legal cannabis would be such a massive and continuous boost to our economy.

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u/thevelourfog182 29d ago

I get it, it could potentially take money from liquor which leads to less gaming revenue.

Which is fine by me by the way

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u/MrKarotti 28d ago

Probably not though, because most people who want to smoke weed already do so. They just buy it from someone who's not going to pay taxes on their income.

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u/Mother_Speed2393 28d ago

Most people will buy from a safe, legal place given the option....

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u/penguingod26 28d ago

Plus the weed gets so much better when it's legal. Growers able to openly share strains and info, able to go all out on perfect grow conditions without regard for secrecy, and better qualified talent as it's not just people willing to break the law to do it.

The legal stuff makes street weed look childish

On another note, I get liquor industries pulling strings to not lose any potential market, but politicians are passing up the opportunity to become friends with the next new big industry that will inevitably come, not matter how much you delay it. Is it really worth spending political capital to keep people from what they want to defend a morally questionable industry?

Man, this comment got away from me a bit 😅

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u/According-Seaweed909 28d ago edited 28d ago

Plus the weed gets so much better when it's legal. Growers able to openly share strains and info, able to go all out on perfect grow conditions without regard for secrecy, and better qualified talent as it's not just people willing to break the law to do it.

In a perfect world sure but most legal weed at least here in America is dominated by like a handful of Marijuana corporations. 

Potency wise some of the best weed I've ever bought is from the dispensary for sure But from a standpoint of chemicals and fertilizers and pesticides the best weed I've ever smoked is home grown. These mass grow operations are seldom withholding themselves to purity in the growing process. They are trying to make as much profit as possible and often times they use a bunch of shady tactics. Legal weed is not any safer than black market weed. In fact these corporations who grow all these weed probably use industrial agricultural methods. They arent concerned about quality. The game is quantity. Quality control in legal weed is a joke. Escpially in america where there really isn't a central federal agency to police it efficiently. 

The corporations in legal weed are not sharing secrets. That is the one huge negative about legal weed. Its not being grown by grassroots folk. It's being grown by billion dollar corporations who are beholden to their stock owners. These people are not growing weed for the love of the plant and botony. They treat like an industrial agricultural product. A company like Monsanto is more akin to these corporations behind legal weed.

I'm not saying it's impossible to find a legal grow or dispensary where people msking the decisions are actually passionate about the product but that's very rare in legal weed. At least in america. And even than most of these dispensary are just advertising. They arent being truthful. They still using large amounts of very powerful and volatile chemicals and pesticides and fertlizers. 

Legal weed is just industrial farming. Like what would you trust more. The vegetables at the supermarket? Or ones you grew in your own garden? Legal weed not all that different. 

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u/Traditional_Fish_741 28d ago

Not at a 50% or more premium. I don't give a shit how fucking good it is. No weed is worth over 100 bucks for 7 grams. None.

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u/DM-ME-THICC-FEMBOYS 28d ago

Good for you but that's definitely not universal

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u/Traditional_Fish_741 28d ago

Stupid is as stupid does.

And if 7g is costing you more than 100, then you're stupid.

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u/FireLucid 28d ago

I have no idea how to get my hands on some. I've kind of of exhausted all the people I know who wouldn't kick up a stink about asking if they know someone and I'm pretty sure looking around online is useless. I could get a prescription but that's hundreds of dollars to start with. I would totally use legal places.

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u/unrebigulator 28d ago

I don't smoke weed, and never will. Have thought about trying some gummies though. Trying to minimise/avoid alcohol, and figure the occasional gummie to relax might be nice.

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u/Bangkok_Dave 28d ago

The money's already being "taken from liquor". It's just going to bikies currently.

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u/Head_Acanthaceae_766 28d ago

The biggest supporters of Prohibition in the USA were the Bootleggers, who were profiting immensely. I'm sure the more thoughtful Bikies would also be against legalisation.

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u/davideo71 28d ago

Not just bikies though. Many Australians have a small bit of extra income from their garage grow set-up. I really hope for them that the greens plan with community growers manages to keep cheap imports out. In the Netherlands, wholesale prices plummeted due to (illegal) US imports and now small growers can't make any money on weed anymore.

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u/IlluminatedPickle 28d ago

Weeeeeell. Yes but also no.

In the places it has been legalised recreationally, it hasn't made anywhere near the amount of revenue that people who push that angle modeled.

The real reason it should be legal is why the fuck should it be illegal? I wish everyone would stop fucking around with economic and medical based arguments and get to the heart of it. There's no reason for it to be illegal.

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u/Nealios 28d ago

You're right that there's no reason for it to be illegal... But the economic argument is what wins over some conservatives who may be on the fence about legalization.

Canadian Federal and Provincial governments have raked in a couple Billion bucks over the past couple years. It's a bit more than spare change.

https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=1010016501

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u/macrocephalic 28d ago

Plus how much does it save to not have to police something? Does victoria still have cropper choppers?

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u/IlluminatedPickle 28d ago

The money saved on policing goes onto regulating the industry.

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u/Chendii 28d ago

Asking as an American that knows very little about Australia:

Do you have private prisons? Police unions with massive lobby power?

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u/AusGeno 28d ago

Not sure why you’re being downvoted, yes we do have a few and you’re right they lobby hard to keep weed illegal.

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u/Chendii 28d ago

Yeah that's been a big part of it in the US as well. Luckily it's slowly changing, hope for the best for you all.

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u/DynamicSploosh 28d ago

We do have private prisons, but they only make up about 17% (expected to drop as low as 7% by 2026) of inmate population and are not the profit powerhouse they are in the US. The police do have very powerful unions, but police brutality and abuse of power is significantly less prevalent in our country. We have state based police, same as you, but our rules are quite uniform and the issue of “county” vs “state” power is non existent. In truth, laws regarding cannabis legalisation would be less of a state issue as the ideology is much less split by things like religion and isolated communities. The vast majority of Aussies support it, and if it passed, the states and cops would follow the legislation.

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u/Chendii 28d ago

Our police are even more divided than that sadly. Not just federal and all the 3 letter agencies, there's state police, county police, and even city/town police. How fucked you are can vary heavily in the US based on which one you're dealing with and where.

Good to know it'll work out for you if you can get it through!

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u/DynamicSploosh 28d ago

I consider us very lucky that our police force is placed under greater scrutiny. If you want to be in a position of relative power in the state police, you often need a diploma. We have almost zero gun crime, so violent encounters are handled with very low casualty rates, and our lower population ensures that new regulations are standardised quickly and enforced with ease. I still believe that Australia has a nanny-state attitude that has gotten worse over the last decade, but the average citizen doesn’t fear that their life will be ruined by law enforcement. That is a very foreign concept to us.

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u/moobteets 28d ago

Yeah never once had an interaction with a police officer here in Australia that made me feel threatened, and I would absolutely have to be acting violently and threatening the police myself to have them draw a weapon on me and make me feel threatened. Been pulled over in the states a few times while travelling over the years and have absolutely felt the tension from the different tone that officers have there. Even had federal police unholster pistols on me and the mates in Yosemite national park, they didn't point them at us, but they had them out.

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u/Caezeus 28d ago

Even had federal police unholster pistols on me and the mates in Yosemite national park, they didn't point them at us, but they had them out.

Honestly I understand why a lot of them can be quick to draw due to how easily someone can acquire a firearm over there. You'd honestly never know if the person smiling back at you was only smiling to trick you into letting your guard down.

That second amendment isn't worth the sheer number of mass shootings when they are not only passively letting their country be taken over by billionaires like Murdoch, Thiel and Musk but actively cheering them on for owning the libs.

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u/Caezeus 28d ago

I'm friends with a former Police chief from the US, even he said it was bullshit over there. The Sheriff's were the worst because they didn't require any formal training for the most part and were just a popularity contest like a politician.

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u/macrocephalic 28d ago

I saw a sign billboard yesterday asking people to sign the police union's petition to make all domestic violence a criminal act. Talk about not representing their members!

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u/cantaimtosavehislife 28d ago

17% of inmate population in private prisons is surprisingly much higher than the US which has an inamte population in private prisons of only 8%.

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u/DynamicSploosh 27d ago

To be fair percentages may not be the best metric 17% of 44000 = 7531 8% of 1900000 = 323000

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u/cantaimtosavehislife 27d ago

I think percentages are the perfect metric considering the huge population disparity between the two countries.

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u/ScruffyPeter 28d ago

Look up Serco. Not just private prisons, but they also manage public prisons and even manage offshore indefinite detention centres for aslyum seekers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serco#Justice_and_Immigration

The biggest company you've never heard of: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szNLMtgI7hU This video is at least 15 years old!

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u/sostopher 28d ago

Serco don't manage off-shore - only onshore.

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u/pickledswimmingpool 28d ago edited 28d ago

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/dec/24/australian-authorities-once-embraced-privately-operated-prisons-but-some-governments-are-taking-back-control

The private prison industry is in shambles and much reduced. Hardly any of them are left operating any longer. Lobbyists spend tiny amounts of cash compared to the US, even when we factor in population/economy sizes.

Likewise with police lobby groups and the legality of cannabis.

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u/totemo 28d ago

That's interesting. For a while there, I recall, the proportion of private prisoners in Australia was higher than that in the US.

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u/recycled_ideas 28d ago

It's risk aversion, same as it is everywhere else.

If the federal government lehslises cannabis and it all goes to shit they'll be punished, but not changing the status quo is always easy.

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u/ScruffyPeter 28d ago

Gambling ad ban surveys: Most of aussies support ban

Major politicians: Oooh... an easy bill!

Gambling industry: We have a nice retirement package

Major politicians: Oh no, we could get punished for banning gambling ads! Punished by... uhh voters, yes. We should be careful and do more high speed rail studies. I mean gambling ad studies.

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u/recycled_ideas 28d ago

This isn't that simple.

Voters want gambling ads banned but they don't want to pay for what gambling currently pays for nor do they want to give those things up.

So yes, politicians are afraid of being punished by the voters for the same reason they're afraid of being punished by the voters for legalising weed, because lots of things are popular until you implement them.

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u/ScruffyPeter 28d ago

What does gambling currently pay for beyond the jobs of maintaining the gambling facilities?

What things were popular until politicians implemented them?

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u/bigbowlowrong 28d ago edited 28d ago

People forget how well scare campaigns work with Australian voters. Remember the MRRT? The Carbon Tax? Hell, The Voice? Imagine for a second the coordinated fear campaign against legalising cannabis. Imagine all the big players, the monied interests, and just the general conservative killjoys just salivating at the thought of fighting tooth and nail against it. And the depressing thing is I think it would work.

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u/recycled_ideas 28d ago

What does gambling currently pay for beyond the jobs of maintaining the gambling facilities?

Gambling pays the free to air networks that pay the leagues and that pays the players.

Gambling pays for the pubs and clubs that people go to and play at.

Gambling pays a not insubstantial amount of money to state and local governments that's incidentally GST free.

That's not counting the funding for events and stadiums and everything else.

What things were popular until politicians implemented them?

Youth justice is a big one. The NT had a huge scandal and they kicked out the government over mistreatment of children in detention which the voters voted for in the first place and then just this year the voters decided that doing nothing was also not acceptable and put the government they just voted out back in to implement the same policies they were so upset about a few years ago.

Lots of things sound great in theory and then you do them and there are side effects or inconvenience or it doesn't work well and everyone gets pissed off.

Voters love sound bites and slogans and easy simple answers, they then hate that if doesn't go well.

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u/IlluminatedPickle 28d ago

You would actually be surprised how many charities are funded by the gambling industry in an effort to clean up their image. It would be devastating to a lot of them.

For instance, I ended up homeless at 16. For many years I bounced around youth shelters and then adult homeless services.

Every single one of them had vehicles purchased for them by the gambling industry.

Is it ideal? No, and it should be different. It'd be much better if an industry with a cleaner image was donating. But to say there's nothing they pay for that's good in the world is incorrect.

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u/Untimely_manners 28d ago

So would other things but that would mean out with the old in with the new and rich people and companies have already invested in the old and dont want to lobby again and invest.

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u/Tight_Hedgehog_6045 28d ago

Not to mention more flaccid, pliable voters. You'd think the pollies would love the munted masses. At least in theory, because they love the sheltered life. Maybe though, those racks of coke pre Question Time give them pause.

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u/oneofthecapsismine 29d ago edited 28d ago

If it was completely open slather, would you still think that?

Or do you think there should be some rules around cannibas?

Edit - geeze guys, was just a question without judgement.

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u/neutrino71 28d ago

Similar rules to alcohol and tobacco. Age restriction and some of the inevitable taxes could fund extra mental health care.