Finland is wrong.
“Often unenforced”
Who the fuck made this inforgraphic?
Finnish cops are obsessive over fighting cannabis, and in practice even having a single joint on you will lead to a criminal record, and not for just “personal use” or “possession” but the same crime you’d be charged with if you grow 27 plants at home.
And yes, I’ve personal experience on both, as well as several dozens of other examples, documented and otherwise.
Finnish drug laws are just as archaic as others, and the cops attitude and understanding is way worse than in most European countries.
It’s ridiculous.
So yeah, Finland is definitely wrong, fucking hell.
Who the fuck made this inforgraphic?
It’s from Wikipedia. Admittedly, I didn’t do much fact-checking and just trusted it. But of course you can always contribute by improving the map.
It’s like the “happiest country on Earth” bullshit.
Yes, Wikipedia is right that technically there is a way for police to not enforce the law when it comes to personal amounts of cannabis, but in practice that never happens, and the cops make even the smallest bit of weed be a “proper” drug crime. Medical use is technically legal, yeah, but there’s like at most a dozen people in the country, and most doctors would never ever even consider cannabis to be medicine, and even tiny use admitted to a doctor might lead to a loooot of discriminatory bullshit.
Basically the education material for the police and the doctors seems to have been “reefer madness”.
Just google “police prevented filming” in Finnish, “poliisi esti kuvaaamisen”, and see how many articles come up where you’re not allowed to even film protests or even when the police conduct a search at your home, you’re not allowed to film that, according to the police.
I had to set them straight about that.
https://www.hs.fi/kotimaa/art-2000009654524.html
That’s an article from when the police illegally searched my apartment and prevented me from filming them by grabbing my phone away from me. The supreme court decided they were wrong. But for 90% of the things they did wrong that day, the grabbing of my phone was the only thing I got them on, because I still had the clip of them actually grabbing the phone.
Finnish cops are undereducated authoritarians. Good in comparison to other countries police in a lot of things, but still not something to be desired when it comes to cannabis and matters of personal rights.
So even though I know the map is wrong, Wikipedia wouldn’t allow me to change it because on paper there’s a reference to a possibility of not being charged for personal use, even though that never gets utilised in practice.
Maybe some people aren’t happy in the happiest place on the earth.
Ofc they wouldn’t be, because of the variation within people.
But the study and especially the way it’s reported is complete and utter bullshit. The study itself looks at contentedness, not happiness. That’s very different, and when the Finnish cultural context is added, the difference is exacerbated even further.
I’m not saying Finland doesn’t have good social programs compared to other countries, but that doesn’t mean they are good social programs or that they don’t have massive systemic issues of their own.
So yeah, I can easily believe that according to subjective reports, we are the most contented country, as we have functional programs to keep everyone housed and fed at least, and it’s not in the Finnish culture to complain. So you’d go “no ei voi valittaa” = “well, I can’t complain”, meaning “it could be worse” or “I’m alright”, whatever your preferred form might be, which easily translates to “I’m content enough” which translates to a study showing “the happiest country on Earth”.
It’s much the same thing as when you see headlines saying “a glass of wine is equal to an hour in the gym” or “chocolate cures cancer” or something like that. It’s very misleading reporting.
Everyone is happy in Ba Sing Se (Finland)
Wikipedia operates in a very specific way. You’ll need a web article that says what you’re trying to tell them. They don’t accept first person accounts. For similar kinds of things in the US good places to look would be, NPR, Pro Publica, or the ACLU. If you have groups like that in your country then check them out.
If you have groups like that in your county then check them out.
I have very much exhausted all of the options available to me in this matter, but thanks.
Wow. The map doesn’t even match their own table underneath it (check out the UK, which is yellow in the table and dark red in the map).
Is Antarctica really “unknown”? The closest there is to antarctic law would be international treaties and they are mostly about nuclear weapons and oil drilling.
I feel like if you are willing to live in a frozen hellscape you should be able to smoke whatever you want
Since there isn’t a legal structure it falls in the default ‘unlnown’ category because legality doesn’t apply.
From what I’ve heard in the past the laws scientists follow are enforced administratively by their country. So while scientists for X country could smoke, an American scientist would be sent home for it. (But not charged with a crime)
Facilities operate under the flag of whatever country built them. Of course it’s complicated because there’s also no police there, so everything’s legal unless somebody wants to report it. Even then they would have problems because they wouldn’t be any actual evidence. At least not without sending an investigation team that to the Antarctic which they’re unlikely to do.
Realistically I think it probably exists in a sort of gray zone which operates mostly on a don’t commit any crime too bad rule. Don’t be murdering people and you’ll probably be okay doing whatever. After all, a certain amount of leniency is required because the world does not have an overabundance of people willing to live in Antarctica.
I mean it would probably be such a pain in the ass to ship weed down there I doubt anyone who works there would bother.
[x] Doubt
The Ununited States of America
Legal, but often enforced.
Lol wut??
I love it!
The USA map needs lines at state borders to remind us that the state border itself is a federal thing and one can definitely be pinched by the wrong cop at the wrong time.
…or so I read. Check it out for yourself. It’s a fun game!
I don’t know why you got downvoted, but I know someone who recently got a pretty big ticket for a few grams of weed at a border checkpoint between two completely legal states, so you are correct.
Welcome to Germany in blue since yesterday! Interestingly buying and selling it is still not allowed. You can grow up to three plants for own use
I would expect or at least hope Denmark will follow suit.
buying and selling it is still not allowed.
That’s somewhat misleading. It is allowed in the form of non-profit clubs
sellinggiving to members who pay a membership fee for personal use. It’s just commercial sale that’s banned.Edit to correct the above statement and to add that the clubs are only gonna be legal in July.
Not quite accurate. Selling is still illegal, even for the clubs. You pay a monthly fee to the club and the club is giving you a monthly allowance of up to 50g.
Yes, this is selling with extra steps but it circumvents EU stuff about not being allowed to commercialise cannabis.
Good clarification, I edited my comment accordingly, thanks!
Ok. The news did mention clubs but not in details
So people can sell their cannabis to other members of the club? Whould this allow people to grow their 3 permitted plants for selling to others even though its only allowed to grow them for personal use?
I haven’t looked too much into it, but iirc the clubs would be able to grow their own plants, independent of the allowance that individuals have for home-growing. Here’s a (German) article about how the clubs are supposed to work, that seems to confirm that, even if it’s not spelled out explicitly: https://www.wiwo.de/unternehmen/dienstleister/cannabis-legalisierung-mitgliedsausweis-und-schichtplaene-so-funktionieren-die-cannabis-clubs-/29733674.html
Also, see the other comments on mine, some good clarifications in there!
I think there is a lot of fine print, like
From that link, I find that each club is permitted a mix of 500 members (although some had 1000 sign up just last weekend). So existing larger clubs are splitting into smaller subclubs. It also states that they may only sell a maximum of 50grams per month to each user. They may not seek profit. Resale of cannabis from other manufacturers is prohibited, so the clubs need to grow their own canabis! They are also not allowed to hire people to grow, harvest, plant, or even sell in the clubs. It needs to be the members who do this
It’s all going to be very interesting to follow, but it looks like there will be a lot of space needed to grow them, and paybe even a lot of energy going to waste on this (instead of growing it places where the weather or even the landscape allows)! Its hard to grow enough cannabis in the center of Berlin I assume
The English word for this construct is Cannabis Social Club. It’s nearly identical to what Malta does, but you can get more per day in Germany because you can carry more in public.
Germany still allows more than Malta, Luxembourg and Georgia.
Clubs are only permitted to distribute in juli.
What about in Decembei?
What about it?
in vs. from (bzw. im vs. ab)
Oh, I wasn’t actually aware of that, thanks! Added it to my comment as well
Based Germany
The law has been changed literally today. I am surprised this infographic got it right.
I would think it is reason they posted it.
It is very limited though. I would consider Germany more on the decriminalized side.
You are allowed to own a small amount. You are allowed to grow up to three plants at home. It is illegal to buy, sell, or import.
There is rules for having cannabis social clubs similiar to Spain, but the rules around them are quite complex and a lot of it remains unclear, until the law will have been interpreted in court decisions.
Some German states have already announced that they will make life hell for anyone smoking weed in legal public spaces or operating a legal cannabis social club. Also the level of permittable THC for driving is still undecided.
Currently any level of blood THC is considered a DUI and can not only get you a fine, but also a suspension of your drivers licencse with an extensive “medical psychological check up” if you want to regain your licencse. That “check up” is run by private businesses who also sell courses on which answers are right and which are wrong. Basically anything beyond “this was the only time i swear, i was in a bad place and i should have never done it and i am so sorry, and i will never do it again” is a wrong answer.
Now we had an expert proposal for a higher level of permittable blood THC. The proposed level has yet to pass but it would effectively be fine for occasional users, but still a problem for regular users, as it is close to the baseline THC level that they have.
So all in all it is a great step forward, especially considering how the “debate” from the political right and fascists was run around 1970s war on drug prohibition and cultural deprevation talking points. However it still creates many aspects to watch out for and it should be noted, that the political right wants to do everything to reverse the laws, when they likely win the elections next year. The problem with that is also that the center right social democrats are still internally devided, with many of them still thinking of weed as the devils lettuce.
Of the 9 countries who legalized it, 1 reverted that already, 6 don’t allow selling and one of those six doesn’t even have proper laws for it, only the supreme court ruling that private growing and possession can’t be banned. For a blue country Germany is mid-table.
In contrast to Canada and Uruguay Germany is hesitant to openly violate international treaties for this.
It’s a long time like that in Germany…
Oh wait… It’s since… today actually.
I can’t decide if I think the stereotypically-uptight Germans being the first to legalize in Europe was unexpected or very expected.
Don’t look into any details if you want to keep that opinion
Any details
- Only adults may consume and/or own cannabis
- No buying, selling or giving away weed
- Only consuming cannabis you or your Cannabis Social Club (CSC), should you join one, grew is allowed. In a CSC cannabis may be grown and sold to its members
- CSCs may not make profits
- No more than 50 (30 if you are younger than 21) grams of cannabis per month may be handed out to you by your CSC
- No cannabis with more than 10% THC may be handed out to people younger than 21
- Consuming cannabis within 100 meters (visual range) of a playground, school, youth center, public sports facilities or CSCs is prohibited
- Consuming cannabis between 7am and 8pm in a pedestrian zone is prohibited
- Consuming cannabis “close” to minors is prohibited
- No CSC may be established within 200 meters of a school or playground
- max 500 members per CSC
- no more than 1 CSC per 6000 city residents (or 1 CSC if the city/town has less than 6000 residents)
- no extracting THC from cannabis
- no owning more than 3 cannabis plants
- no owning more than 50 grams of dried cannabis, including plants
- no carrying around more than 25 grams of dried cannabis, including plants
- CSCs have to keep meticulous records about their members, who received when how much cannabis and how much cannabis grew in total
- police can just go and take these records without requiring a judge’s approval
- for the coming months: no driving a car or bicycle with more than 1 ng of THC in your blood or you will lose your car driver’s license and pay a fine (yes, even if you’re caught riding your bicycle, you will lose your car driver’s license). Fun fact: the police announced they will significantly increase controls
Ah, there’s the uptightness I expected!
Also, LOL, only 500 out of every 6000 people are allowed to have weed they didn’t grow individually. Of all the arbitrary restrictions, that seems the arbitrariest.
no owning more than 50 grams of dried cannabis, including plants
Plants don’t have dried cannabis on them.
No carrying around more than 25 grams
Being allowed to carry 25g in public is still a lot more than the 7g allowed in Malta and the 3g allowed in Luxembourg. Some US states only allow to posses 28g in total.
Mexico is wrong. Supreme Court approved to make it legal in 2021 but no laws have been written (and it doesn’t work like in the US were the SCOTUS makes it legal automatically)
The UK should probably be pink not red.
The police actually wanted to legalize it but the government refused to. They even fired their advisor when he said that cannabis isn’t really that bad and probably shouldn’t be an illegal substance. The UK government is awful and corrupt as hell.
So it’s still illegal but the police very rarely actually do anything about possession. They may take it off you but it’s not going to result in any legal action.
Yeah, were the biggest producer of medical weed in the world but its illegal to have any here, without knowing the right people.
Like you said, pure corruption.
Teresa May’s husband owns the largest supplier in the country. I suppose the family deserves some success but it doesn’t exactly sit very well.
Virginia is wrong. It is not illegal to have on you, but there is no way set up to sell recreationally legally. The medical market got its claws in and is holding on tight.
No occifer I didn’t buy this in Maryland. I left it with my friend Chuck at the border and picked it up on the way back. The MD flag on the packaging is like, ironic.
tfw México has more freedom than tejas
Fucking Canberra has it but not the rest of us
Cannabiserra
Give the capital some love ya dogs
Love? It’s full of politicians and roundabouts.
Politicians who are legalising it not criticising it
It’s illegal in Jamaica?!
Yup. But, the thing about laws in the third world is that they only kind-of exist.
They exist for sure if you’re a tourist. You’re either a payday for a local cop or an example to be trotted out as proof they enforce those laws. The latter is so a higher up can divert DEA funding into their bank account.
Obviously that’s not every developing country, maybe not even most. But unless you’re very familiar with the country and area, it’s not a risk you should take.
Exactly. Whether you’re in the kind-of or kind-of-not has everything to do with bribes and/or local connections. And how many other people are also breaking that particular law, like in Jamaica’s case. Sometimes this is bad, sometimes this is paradoxically helpful. Technically homeless people in the third world can often build a permanent house anyway, for example.
It also varies significantly by level of urbanness, with cities being the most formally run. Even backwoods first world will have things going on that would never fly in the cities.
They recently decimalized it and legalized medical use. Getting a medical card involves filling out a form self proclaiming a need and paying a $15 filing fee. You can do this in the dispensary while they are bagging up your weed and psychedelic mushrooms.
brazil can probably be pink instead of red if you are not poor or not black
Given that weed is now legal for medicinal use, there’s been a lot less enforcement here in NZ.
Mostly, at the outset cops have no way of knowing if you have a prescription or not, and asking if it’s a suitable prescription is a pretty big no-no.
Thailand can be taken off this list. New conservative govt made it illegal again.
or rather, will, by the end of the year.
What’s with the tiny blue dot in Australia
That appears to be the Australian Capital Territory. Being from the US, I’m going to assume Canberra has a separate jurisdiction from surrounding states, like Washington DC
Good call, I found this
On 25 September 2019, the Australian Capital Territory passed a bill allowing for possession and growth of small amounts of cannabis for personal use as of 31 January 2020, although the laws conflict with federal laws that prohibit recreational use of cannabis and the supply of cannabis and cannabis seeds are not allowed under the changes.[5]
Yep, and they’re far more progressive than any of the neoliberal bastards that travel there to make laws for the rest of us.
