Showroom7561 @ Showroom7561 @lemmy.ca

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60

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2,798

Joined

2 yr. ago

Enjoying a joint every now and then is far safer than toking every 30 minutes.

The problem is, what Health Canada once labelled as "heavy use" is pretty much normal use these days. Daily use, or using multiple times a day, is very common.

If people (and teens) were only consuming once in a while, I doubt we'd be in this mess.

They consume often, partly because they've been told "it helps with XYZ", so they self-medicate, which leads to greater problems. But also because they believe it's "safe".

Single cannabis use can also lead to acute impairment and puts stresses on the body. I've never heard of someone getting in a car and killing someone because they were impaired on having chocolate that afternoon. 😆

Only marketing I’ve seen is anti-drug ads

Recently, or around the time of legalization? Even pulling up Google Maps will highlight the cannabis shops, which is an insidious way to promote them.

The "experts" looked a lot different on 2016 Social Media... and that's what drove much of the public support.

The real experts would have never wanted cannabis to be sold and promoted the way it has been.

Prohibition

I don't think prohibition is the way to go. But we (society) should treat these drugs like we treat cigarettes: keep them out of view (i.e. "behind the counter") and stop allowing them to be marketed at every street corner.

I view it from the perspective of someone who might never want to get into drugs, or may have recently become sober: they see cannabis shops at every turn, they are being primed to fail, and that's not right.

We were able to get sensible people to stop smoking once we stopped allowing cigarettes to be displayed and marketed everywhere. I feel we need to do the same for cannabis (and alcohol) because of the harm we are causing to the most vulnerable in our society (youth and the poor).

Ah ok, “they” meant cannabis magazines.

Before legalization, there really weren't many other places promoting cannabis (maybe there was, but marketing back then was very different from now), so the promotion of their safety came from those sources (unfortunately).

Worse yet, as the plans to legalize were getting closer, I remember a massive push on social media by people promoting cannabis as a cure-all for just about anything: mental health, cancer, anxiety, bowel problems, etc. They used the Trojan horse of “medicinal use” to bring it into everyone's life.

I'm sure there was industry influence, because it was extremely rare to see people pointing out the harms of cannabis back then.

The experts were on the side of legalization, so they weren’t really ignored. If by experts you mean people who study public health policy and narcotrafficking.

Decriminalization is one thing, and experts were certainly in support of decriminalization.

But legalization, as in "allow stores to sell these everywhere and to everyone", just like alcohol and cigarettes, became a fucking disaster, and now we are seeing the result of what the experts warned us about.

What are these experts saying nowadays? What I see is a consensus that it has a pretty good move.

Again, they still agree that decriminalization was the right move. But experts, doctors, law enforcement, educators... all see what a disaster this has become.

We knew that normalizing cannabis and selling it everywhere would lead to more DUI, more hospitalizations, more poisoning of small children, lower academic performance in teens... just wait until the wave of long-term harm begins to surface. How will our healthcare system even handle that burden? Experts have warned us for decades, and still do.

Before legalization, pretty much every cannabis magazine and website was being cited as saying it was totally safe. Even mocked people for thinking otherwise.

That changed public opinion, and experts were ignored. These risks were known many years ago, so why has the industry been allowed to keep selling stronger strains, marketing to young people, and making these drugs available everywhere?

Now that the consequences are being seen, what are we going to do about it? This shit is being sold at every street corner, sometimes multiple cannabis shops at the same intersection. It's nuts.

"They're just taking innocent people who are trying to build their own American Dream," said Daniel Larios with the UFW Foundation. "This is not law enforcement. It's a campaign of fear against people whose only 'crime' is living and working in the U.S."

Cannabis, totally safe, they said. Nobody ever gets hurt, they said. It's not habit-forming, they said. 🫤

Based on the CBC report, there is so much to unpack here:

"Halifax now has the third-worst congestion in Canada and the fifth-worst congestion in North America," Fillmore said. "People here are spending 83 hours a year stuck in traffic. That's the equivalent of 12 working days behind the wheel in gridlock."

Mayor, people in cars aren't "stuck in traffic" they are the traffic. The idea that putting more people on roads (by not having them use other forms of transportation) will somehow fix traffic congestion is so terribly wrong.

Coun. Sam Austin said he was disappointed in Fillmore's motion and said bike lanes do not cause traffic congestion. He said delaying the work on bike lanes would worsen traffic.

Yup. And any work needed to expand car-centric infrastructure would absolutely worsen traffic, and then induce demand, which puts you back to square one without solving any problems.

Originally planned to be completed in 2022, about 60 per cent of the 53 kilometres of network has been done so far with temporary or permanent measures.

The bicycle network's original expected cost of about $25 million has more than tripled, now reaching about $93 million. The provincial and federal governments have contributed about $20.8 million, leaving about $66 million for the Halifax Regional Municipality to pay over the next few years.

53km of network for $93 million???

For context, Durham Region, which has a significantly larger population, has estimated that over 200km of cycling network would cost them around $81 million.

Even so...

Halifax spends more than $50 million each year to repave streets, with this year's capital budget totalling $314 million.

And those costs will continue to rise if the focus is on car-centric infrastructure. You don't "get back" the money you put into road maintenance like you do with active transportation and public transportation.

They are deliberately, methodically, maliciously driving good teachers away from the province and undermining public education

I thought Doug Ford was the Ontario Premier! /s

Bookmarking "headscale"!

I only recently started using Tailscale because it makes connecting to my local network through a Windows VM running in Boxes on Linux a hell of a lot easier than figuring out how to set up a networked bridge.

This sounds like a great alternative, and it looks like it can even work on a Synology NAS.

Air-fried oatmeal, FTW!

In a quite unexpected turn of events, it is claimed that OpenAI’s ChatGPT “got absolutely wrecked on the beginner level” while playing Atari Chess.

Who the hell thought this was "unexpected"?

What's next? ChatGPT vs. Microwave to see which can make instant oatmeal the fastest? 😂

Not pictured the 5000lbs of watermelons, the 2500lbs of onions (those will last a lot longer).

That's brutal. This time of the year has festivals pretty much every weekend for the next few months, so can these be donated to those events, so that it doesn't go to waste?

But parents shouldn’t give 10 year olds responsibility over 7 year olds, and I’m very firm in that belief.

This is the reply I gave someone else, and it addresses your points, too.

I'm going to leave that as my last reply.

I'm going to leave this here as my last reply, and I do hope that you take the time to read it: Children’s Independent Mobility: an international comparison and recommendations for action (PDF)

And I quote the following findings and recommendations from the authors:

" At age 7, a majority of Finnish children can already travel to places within walking distance or cycle to places alone; by age 8 a majority can cross main roads, travel home from school and go out after dark alone, by age 9 a majority can cycle on main roads alone, and by age 10 a majority can travel on local buses alone"

"Withholding independent mobility at a young age may expose children to greater risk later in their childhood."

Note the following responses below, starting at kids age 7. It's not a coincidence that the countries who give their kids more mobile independence, are also the ones who Unicef ranks as having the greatest well-being and achieve higher education levels:

Then I hope you can take some time to read this post, which was written specifically about this child's death, and how authorities dealt with it.

And I quote:

But in fact what the parents did was something normal, rational, and common. “Ten-year-olds and 7-year-olds have been walking to and from school, unaccompanied by adults, for over 100 years,” says Pimentel.

The implications of this prosecution “are very troubling for parents everywhere who can never provide a guarantee against their kids getting hit by a car, even if they were right there with them,” notes Diane Redleaf, author of They Took the Kids Last Night and Let Grow’s legal consultant.

I will close by saying that while it may sound "insane" to let kids have responsibility and independence, the reality is, this is normal in most of the world.

Incorrect.

Being old enough to walk home alone is not equivalent to being old enough to escort a younger sibling on top of that.

Cite a source, please.

I would say 12~13 bare minimum to simultaneously watch over a 7 year old, alone, while also being in a higher danger area (like a 4 lane busy road)

What do you base that on?

But for clarity, this was two lanes, a large grass island, and another two lanes with cars going in one direction. They would have only been crossing two lanes, as do other pedestrians in that area. And a motorist seeing two kids about to cross should be able to assess the situation and slow down.

But the point is being missed: kids are being killed by drivers in "safe zones" like school areas, adults killed waiting inside bus shelters, adult pedestrians killed with the right of way at intersections, etc.

The problem are the cars, not the age of the kids.

We can't keep prioritizing cars, leaving no room for pedestrians and kids to move freely, then blame the victims.

Even in areas where adults are walking their kids through a crosswalk, cars are killing them all.

Age doesn't matter if the problem affects everyone from 7 to 70 year olds.

God, I really hope you don't have kids if you seriously think it's cool to let a unsupervised 10 year old watch a 7 year old near a busy road, that's exceptionally negligent, lol

LOL. My kids are in their twenties, and when they were that age, it was completely normal for their friends to walk over to our place, or for them to walk to their friend's place. Or them going to the park with their younger siblings or to play outside.

I have two elementary schools nearby, and it's totally normal to see young kids walking to school on their own.

And when I was a kid, this was also normal.

And all over the world, this is normal.

What's not normal is the shift of responsibility from drivers to victims. And this is coming far too common, and needs to be called out at every chance.

We obviously have different perspectives, and experiences, but maybe we can distill this.

Say your property was massive. Would you be OK allowing a 10 and 7 year old play together, or would you want an adult to be there?

I think most people would be OK with that, even in a much smaller front yard, or a cul de sac, or park.

Assuming no predators (humans or animals), the only real concern is cars. And it's maddening that we won't allow kids to be kids because of cars in any given community.

Just the other day, there was a story if a teenager getting hit and killed by a car on school property. Cars are the problem. Nearly 100% of the time.

And it's not the parents or kids' fault that they want to interact with their community outside of a vehicle. We are punishing the wrong people, in my opinion.

I agree that kids shouldn't be raising kids.

But these kids were simply walking a few hundred meters from the store to their home in broad daylight, while on the phone with their father, and were old enough to be doing so.

This would be considered completely normal in any other country.

It's also important to note that I don't believe any city, state, or country has minimum age laws for kids to walk. Staying at home alone or in a car? Yes, but not walking (or playing outdoors, or riding a bike, etc.)

So for the courts to charge the parents with child neglect and manslaughter seems wildly unbalanced.

Of course, there are always special circumstances when a child should have constant adult supervision (developmental delays, medical needs, etc.), but this wasn't the issue here.

But according to experts, if younger children (under 8) should be with an adult or older sibling, and if 10 is old enough to walk alone, then 7 with a 10 year old is fine to walk 300m home. It would make both kids safer and more visible, since they are in a "group".

If the kid was 4 or 5, then that would be different, for sure.

But why is blame being shifted onto the victim here?

There is no reason whatsoever that an older kid and their sibling shouldn't be able to safely walk two blocks to their home.

This wouldn't even be a topic for discussion anywhere outside of the united states or for anyone who was a kid before the 90s.