Different countries still treat cannabis very differently, and that alone shows how unsettled the whole topic is. I don’t know the full historical reasoning behind the bans, but there must have been perceived downsides at the time. It feels like society just keeps swinging back and forth on this.

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lucketone 15 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> there must have been perceived downsides at the time.

I also don’t know, but I seriously doubt there was cost benefit analysis.

My two bets would be:

- church/priests had power and they condemned most things, except for preying.

- it became widely known that opium is really obviously bad for you, after a bit of mental juggling that became “drugs are bad”, and then wholesale bans followed.

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ursAxZA 13 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Honestly, the whole thing feels too complex to trace cleanly. Even if you try to connect the history in a linear story, any missing piece makes the rest fall apart. If people have managed to live without using these substances so far, the only safe choice is to continue not using them until we understand more. Like with CFCs, there are many things we can only evaluate clearly in hindsight.

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binary132 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

if you honestly cannot comprehend why people might legitimately consider the use of cannabis to be a social ill (for reasons other than “they only think people should pray all the time”), you might want to stop using it for a while and reevaluate some things

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pstuart 13 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> church/priests had power and they condemned most things, except for preying.

The misspelling of "praying" is ironically on point.

	▲	lucketone 13 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Unintentional.

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rusk 15 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

World War 1 and 2 were drug fueled. Americans saw the carnage after WW1 and instituted prohibition and then entered WW2 as the only sober participants.

The Chinese 100 years of humiliation at the hands of the Brits, was down to Opium

The fall of the medieval European dynasties was all down to Luandanum

Time and again, the unhealthy, and unregulated use of drugs has toppled empires and led to social upheaval.

Makes perfect sense if you ran a country you would be scared of it.

	▲	lucketone 13 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Looked up: Luandanum is opium dissolved in alcohol (for next clueless reader)

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rusk 15 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

The UK actually did a report into drug use a number of years ago. Professor David Nutt identified the root causes of the phenomenon you identified and was sacked for it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Nutt