alt Hacker NewsDifferent 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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rusk • today at 8:04 AM
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.
> 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.