Weed leads to more open mindedness. Why bother using it as an opiate of the masses when you have actual opiates. Push those instead while throwing anyone who has touched weed into the private slave system for superprofits.

There's already plenty out there to keep a population complacent. Also, the prison industrial complex and all that surrounds it is big business.

If you are as smart and educated as Carl Sagan, I’m sure weed isn’t doing the heavy lifting.

Maybe weed isn’t relevant in that case, let’s not forget that in the US, weed was promoted by liberals and opposed by the MAGA crowd.

Can't win em all. Also, weed in the UK is rubbish /s

Here is a summary with a link to the PDF: https://bigthink.com/health/carl-sagan-on-smoking-marijuana/

Don't forget "from scratch" lol

K2-18b is a nothing burger. The scientist who made the announcement has done similar before, he seems to really want to be THE person who discovers life on another planet so he skews facts and ignores other facts just for the small chance of being right. Watch this: https://youtu.be/HYjYvKoQVeM

A consequence of its prohibition. History keeps on repeating itself, yet we never learn.

I keep hearing that it's supposed to be much stronger these days, but my experience is just the opposite.

I was a heavy weed smoker in my young years, smoking standard generic pressbud, and it got me nicely stoned. I even had a couple of years where I was growing my own, so I'm very experienced with fresh homegrown weed, which was beautiful. Tasted great, with a very satisfying intense high. Then I quit smoking for a few decades.

I recently started smoking again in my retirement, and was looking forward to trying this stronger weed I was hearing about. I've tried legal weed from various states, and none of it gets me nearly as stoned as the cheap pressbud of my youth.

This is just anecdotal, but that's been my experience.

you know you can just smoke/vape 5x less material, right? i'm personally not a fan of the "high THC-A % at all costs" commercial grows and there is a wonderful variety of 3% or less CBD hemp or type 2s with 4%

And this rising potency is a direct consequence of cannabis being illegal. Producers are breeding stronger and stronger strains with higher THC content and lower CBD to get the most bang for their buck. This is true for all illicit drugs, as they tend towards becoming more potent when they need to be smuggled (e.g. why fentanyl is often added to heroin, as it delivers more potency per gram).

If you legalise and regulate it, suddenly that pressure is taken away. Cannabis is produced in consistent and known strengths, distributed in packaging that clearly states the potency so people can make informed choices about what they take.