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Say10sadvocate t1_j6melkn wrote

It's fucking crazy how countries which outlawed cannabis because of pressure from the US, still have it prohibited despite much of America legalising.

Yet another situation where the US should have minded it's own fucking business.

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UltimateGamingTechie OP t1_j6mfud6 wrote

I don't see the reasoning behind their pressure at all

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Say10sadvocate t1_j6mg8vk wrote

I've always thought it was just to justify their own position.

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TheRedBow t1_j6mlxn9 wrote

And to stop them from exporting it maybe

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kaizokuuuu t1_j6mumod wrote

No not for that, India and Nepal were a haven for the hippies during late 1900s, it was banned in Nepal in 1985 as well. Before that, a lot of young people from the US would just come and chill in Nepal and India. This was a big problem for the US because they were losing able bodied people who they could send to Vietnam and middle east to die. So they forced the countries to ban all types of grass. I have seen pictures of old shops in Freak Street Kathmandu with sign boards advertising marijuana. Guess how the street got its name.

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Fidonkus t1_j6owgic wrote

My heart can't take people refering to 24 years ago as "the 1900s"

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SpeshellED t1_j6n9eup wrote

"I don't see the reasoning behind their pressure at all"

Big Pharma

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hambluegar_sammwich t1_j6oenog wrote

This. The US government is an extension of corporations, and pot competes with pharmaceuticals.

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aZamaryk t1_j6ovaow wrote

For their idiotic war on drugs, probably.

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MrArgento t1_j6nu7ae wrote

Simple really:

The legalization of any drug would drive down the prices, so it helps to prohibit things, at least on paper.

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UltimateGamingTechie OP t1_j6nvm5b wrote

Drive down the prices where? It was illegal in the US back then so I don't see how the government would benefit from this.

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MrArgento t1_j6nxmpi wrote

Everywhere.

True tho, in this case it was small time smuggling.

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mihirmusprime t1_j6omwpk wrote

So with the pressure gone, why haven't they legalized it again?

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Say10sadvocate t1_j6or11t wrote

Here in the UK my theory is the unhealthy connection between politics and media.

The newspapers, to back up the government position, convinced a generation it was evil. That generation still votes, so being "tough on drugs" is a vote winning position. 🤷🏽‍♂️

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blahblahgreymatter t1_j6p5rsa wrote

Especially if the said Charas been consumed by some parts of India much before US got independence

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neverfarts t1_j6mae23 wrote

Yet, it grows wild everywhere. In the villages where charas is produced they have lookouts, and when the local police come to do a burnout, they will give them some money to go away. Only when the federalos come it is an issue. Honestly, I dont know what is the issue. There are sadhus smoking chillum everywhere on the street and as long as you are not an idiot about it, charas is widely available.

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entjies t1_j6maxva wrote

You can buy it from government shops in some states. Not certain about charas exactly but definitely weed. If I remember right they make lassi out of it

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neverfarts t1_j6mga26 wrote

Yes it's called bhang Lassi or special Lassi. God I love India, not only because of the charas, just an amazing place.

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phenolic72 t1_j6nh2n7 wrote

Is this a northern thing? I've never seen it in the South.

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neverfarts t1_j6nkddx wrote

Idk, I've had it from north to Central, there in Varanasi special Lassi shops

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phenolic72 t1_j6o2w44 wrote

Damn. Was just in Varanasi. :) Probably would have skipped it though on that particular trip.

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mrarmyant t1_j6njh0k wrote

Nothing like food poisoning and the organized chaos of traffic. /s

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pinthetestonthe t1_j6nletv wrote

The funniest part is that without context you could be talking about almost any country. USA would be pretty high on the list of guesses.

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mrarmyant t1_j6nmo2s wrote

https://www.who.int/india/health-topics/food-safety

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pinthetestonthe t1_j6no9cd wrote

When comparing population America has more cases of food poisoning per capita.

Something about stones and glass houses.

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zombie522 t1_j6nqvlo wrote

It might just be how cases are tracked. Unreported cases still happen, but don't count toward statistics.

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mrarmyant t1_j6o0vbo wrote

Not when comparing number of Americans getting food poisoning in America compared to the percentage of Americans that get it while in India. You think Dehli Belly for a reason. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-4507376/Delhi-belly-food-poisoning-says-expert.html but you might just be someone who doesn't venture out of Goa or the Himalayas. Mumbai and Bangalore over 10 trips treated me far worse than 30 to Mexico.

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wurstcases t1_j6mlc1n wrote

Cept for the feces in the streets

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theninefan t1_j6n345a wrote

Bro I saw more feces on the streets of SF than I did in India

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Sentsuizan t1_j6ng7ai wrote

Walk around Washington DC you'll see plenty of sentient feces in the street

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Deafwindow t1_j6mpfgm wrote

British colonization will do that to ya

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Shooter2970 t1_j6mqmnr wrote

Damn. Wonder why the British are not shitting in the streets? Maybe it has something to do with India ya think?

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Deafwindow t1_j6mqxct wrote

No, it's got to do with extreme fucking poverty due to the British occupation

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Shooter2970 t1_j6mr9js wrote

Oh I thought they left India years ago. Not to mention they have had a population problem for years. But hey you want to rag on the Brits. Go a head get it out.

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FunkIPA t1_j6ms4n0 wrote

Hey you want to defend colonizers, go for it.

Imagine thinking colonizers leaving “years ago” erases everything they did.

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Shooter2970 t1_j6mszuf wrote

Population would be the #1 factor for India being the way it is. Oh and it has been 70+ years since the Brits left. So I should have said "decades ago." 70 years of running themselves. They can take credit for their country.

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-6-6-6- t1_j6mv6d8 wrote

People don't shit in the streets on China. Obviously population has nothing to do with it. You've never been to India; and only circlejerk or perpetuate racist memes on the internet about the country. Nor have you apparently been to certain cities in America; both the deep south and those big "liberul" cities that the news is always droning on about, because the same shit happens there. The only difference is scale; and you're right in the sense that the scale of population and levels of poverty are far different. Reason being?

Colonization. Let's take a look at the dissolvement of the Ottoman Empire after WW1 and how the borders were drawn between the French and the British with a complete and utter disregard for the ethnic make-up and historical constituency of the Levant and Middle-East. Because of their mistakes; the middle-east exists and will probably exist in constant turmoil. India is similar; in the sense that the population was kept under such a level of poverty that 70 years alone isn't anywhere near enough to cover it. Ontop of that; a rapid growing population. Population isn't the reason people shit in the streets though.

Funny enough; the only two countries who have had that much development in 50 years is China and the USSR. Weird how that works right? Look at them now, sadly.

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SolidSquid t1_j6mv47p wrote

We left years ago, but we took pretty much everything with us when we did

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Mister_Brevity t1_j6n7szf wrote

Ok

Why did the British work so hard to collect spices and not use any of them in their food.

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Deafwindow t1_j6mrtk8 wrote

I apologize for offending you. I have no ill will towards British people, just the old East India Company.

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FunkIPA t1_j6mthmz wrote

You’d think a colonial snowflake would have melted by now.

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LovelyBeats t1_j6msmdz wrote

The sheer amount of wealth they extracted from india is insane, it's why they built the railroads, to get it out if the country.

The British Raj and their impact on Indian society is a very fascinating topic

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Shooter2970 t1_j6mtgw3 wrote

I wonder how much wealth was taken out of America when it was colonized. I need to research both countries about this.

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-6-6-6- t1_j6muo3n wrote

Not nearly the same, actually. Making the comparison means you're looking for baseless justifications for your bigotry. While you're at it, you should ask the Irish how much they took from them.

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Shooter2970 t1_j6mz9u4 wrote

Just comparing two countries that were both colonized by Brits. One did better than the other. So I have questions. Population is a factor.

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rash-head t1_j6n32f4 wrote

India was the richest country in the world before colonization. You don’t have to wonder what happened. There’s plenty of research on how British Raj ruled India to enrich the homeland.

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UltimateGamingTechie OP t1_j6mdgu0 wrote

They do, it's called Bhang

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Adbam t1_j6n96bm wrote

If you buy it in large quantities, do you get more Bhang for your buck?

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Train-Robbery t1_j6off5f wrote

You should not buy bhang in large quantities, it's not nearly a good thing to do more than once a month.

Only for Holi when we play with water and colors it feels great, other days it is not good. If you are just sitting around doing nothing then it is of no use

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oscar_w t1_j6p6y9p wrote

But sitting around doing nothing is my favourite thing to do, when I'm not working to buy food etc.

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ipostsmaller t1_j6pitdh wrote

Bhang high is a little different from regular weed high, lots of people have saed that. Maybe that's why?

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Train-Robbery t1_j6oexaw wrote

No that is not true, Government Shops don't sell weed.

People working at Government Shops might sell it, but that's their personal operation. Not the government

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Train-Robbery t1_j6oessx wrote

It is legal for Sadhus to use Ganja and Charas , you can consume it too if they give it to you. But possession still is a crime, can easily bribe your way out of it.

I know places that sell weed openly in Delhi, especially in Subash Nagar. Proper Shop with a glass top mahogany office table and a leather chair with a guy dressed well sitting there with packets of weed through the table. Not a slight threat of police , it's in Subash Nagar C Block. The shop is on GPS as well

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SaltNo3123 t1_j6mszk3 wrote

America has been pressuring other countries under the guise of drugs for over 100 years.

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Sankofa416 t1_j6nmnzi wrote

And the British did it before that. Selling and controlling drugs seems to be a thing.

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MajorSauce t1_j6p1hds wrote

Well, an apple does not fall far from the tree.

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UltimateGamingTechie OP t1_j6m8mu0 wrote

> Despite this long history, charas was made illegal in India under pressure from the United States in 1985...

Way to ruin the fun, eh?

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BrokenEye3 t1_j6mcd0x wrote

Why? What does the US get out of exactly one other country not getting high (legally)?

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One_Eyed_Kitten t1_j6ml3ju wrote

It was the same for many places. I learnt in Cambodia that to accept U.S. aid after the vietnam war/khmer rouge they had to adopt U.S. laws. Probably the case for India too.

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UltimateGamingTechie OP t1_j6mdfwh wrote

I have no clue

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BrokenEye3 t1_j6mdocx wrote

Was India a major importer of cannabis to the US?

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slimzimm t1_j6ooel0 wrote

This is a valid question that’s relevant to the discussion, and should be upvoted so people can learn.

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SaltNo3123 t1_j6mtzss wrote

No. Afghanistan, turkey were the main exports in the 80's.

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apprehensivelights t1_j6m8qbz wrote

Then the US turned around said see even India wants to outlaw it

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kibufox t1_j6mtqka wrote

Nope.

India didn't even outlaw it. All they did was, in exchange for lower import tariffs on other goods, stop sales of it around major airports into and out of the nation.

The problem wasn't the charas itself, it was people trying to bring it back to the US. The main issue here being Customs (the guys that search your bags when you return from an overseas flight), are federal officers. So they follow federal laws. Whether something is 'legal' on a state level, really doesn't matter when you're talking about federal laws. So people were getting arrested for smuggling and trafficking in states where marijuana use had been decriminalized. Since these were federal charges, and not state level charges, there wasn't anything that could be done about those charges, regardless of how 'legal' cannabis was in them.

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hassh t1_j6n90bu wrote

Your comment does not make sense because the substance was outlawed in India in 1985, decades before legalization began in the United States at the state level

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MobOnAHighHorse t1_j6nweyx wrote

By 1975, Oregon, Alaksa, Maine, Ohio Colorado, and California all had decriminalized weed, which is what the commenter referred to.

Edit: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_cannabis_laws_in_the_United_States

Going down to the state section, you can actually see some forms if medical marijuana being legalised in the late 70s!

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hassh t1_j6o0olp wrote

Decrim ain't legalization

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canyonstom t1_j6n9bgt wrote

So rather than the US minding its own business and getting the differing levels of law to agree, they just make impositions on other sovereign nations?

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kibufox t1_j6mt5qb wrote

Part of the issue with it wasn't the concentrate itself, but the sheer number of people being arrested for trafficking by trying to bring it back into the country.

One of the things people tend to forget is that even when something is decriminalized on a state level, it remains illegal on a federal level unless Congress passes a law that over rules the previous law.

The laws which govern customs, which handles importing of goods into the US, is federal law, not state or local. It also covers things like tobacco, and food. Meaning yes, you can also get arrested for bringing too many cigarettes into the country, but I digress.

The problem that the US noticed, was that US citizens were going to India, buying charas, and then trying to return to the US with it. When they would pass through customs, those people were getting found out and were being arrested on smuggling or trafficking charges. Since these were federal charges, this was happening in places where cannabis use was technically legal, and it was creating a severe backlog in the federal legal system.

To help curtail this, the US State department reached out to other nations where this drug originated, and requested that they do something about the sales of it in and around where major international airports were. The reasoning there being that it would prevent US citizens from getting it and bringing it back; while at the same time it would help cut back the number of native Indian smugglers, since drug mules rarely operate too far from points of embarkation due to how the internal (inside their body) smuggling is performed. Meaning there's a short time frame between ingestion of the smuggling packets, and when the mule boards a plane.

For India, there were concessions also made, as things like this are never so one sided as they're presented on places like Reddit or Facebook. These concessions were a relaxation on import and export tariffs (basically taxes), which would allow legal importation of other goods at a higher rate, since companies wouldn't need to pay as much to do so. Given how high tariffs are to begin with, when offered a chance to lower them and only needing to make a simple concession to prevent sales of something around major airports, well it's no surprise that the Indian government agreed to the decision.

Oh, and something that may interest you. Going back to the point I made about federal charges, LAX (Los Angels Airport) has clear warnings that while you may legally have cannabis on your person inside the non secure areas of the airport, attempting to go through TSA with it will result in your arrest for smuggling charges.

Edit: One final note. TSA and Customs are not the same thing. Customs officers, those who search the bags of returning passengers, are federal officers. TSA are employed by the airport themselves, or in some cases by the state.

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monkeypox_69 t1_j6mcc25 wrote

The war on drugs continues..

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filutch t1_j6mq6dp wrote

What do you mean continue? Drugs have won for decades now

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SirRedRising t1_j6o8qz6 wrote

And much like Vietnam, or Iraq, or Afghanistan, the United States government largely refuses to admit defeat and some pockets will try to keep it going indefinitely (most likely because they personally stand to profit from the continuation of whichever "war" we happen to be talking about)

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rumblemania t1_j6myjze wrote

The United States deserves everything it’s currently getting

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Laxjudgement t1_j6p6krz wrote

You are ignorant. The people you are referring to as “the united states” are a small number of wealthy shitbags and they aren’t suffering at all. Regular folks in the us don’t deserve the shit they are getting.

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ipostsmaller t1_j6pj948 wrote

Learn how to protest and or general strike. The masses not trying anything to change usually implies no will for change

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rumblemania t1_j6pdh9h wrote

Regular folks have done nothing, boomers stole everyone else’s future. Your all tools who export your problems to every other county just to destabilise them and to keep your hegemony. The ending of the hegemony is a good thing that can’t happen soon enough

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accidentalshelf t1_j6p4h66 wrote

And people wonder why I hate America so much

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hassh t1_j6n7yqh wrote

It's beautiful

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HalLundy t1_j6os6k8 wrote

so regular cannabis is still fine tho?

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Rethious t1_j6p7ltm wrote

The US did not force India to ban it. I checked the article wikipedia cites for details, and in a 1961 UN treaty, India agreed to ban consuming certain parts of the cannabis plant while permitting others. There’s no suggestion of any coercion; UN treaties aren’t the most forceful things on Earth.

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KellosaurusGrows t1_j6ph47i wrote

charas are insanely gross, idk about you, but i’d rather not smoke some random persons skin and whatever else they had on their hands

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_thankyoucomeagain_ t1_j6m8wcg wrote

Ya, sure. Of all the problems going on between India and u.s..... that the one the u.s. said no to.

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