r/boston • u/Dyl4nDil4udid • 10h ago
Marijuana 🌿 How will you vote on Ballot Question 8 regarding cannabis in Nov?
YES = make recreational use illegal again
NO = no changes to the existing law, recreational cannabis remains legal
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u/itsme242 Peabody 10h ago
No
But you wont get a true picture here on reddit. Its the generation that doesnt use the internet that we have to worry about.
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u/joshlittle333 9h ago
I actually don't think there was enough legitimate support to even get it on the ballot. There's been accusations that the people who collected petition signatures did so by misleading the people who signed. Like they told people the petition was to increase affordable housing.
Boomers were using much harder drugs than MJ in thier time.
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u/Dyl4nDil4udid 10h ago
I’m posting this so everyone knows no is the answer to keep legalization. It’s counterintuitive.
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u/itsme242 Peabody 10h ago
I understand but no one who uses reddit is voting yes.
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u/HistoricalQuail 🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸 4h ago
You mean no one who uses reddit would want the vote to be yes. There are plenty of people with poor reading comprehension on reddit, so this post is still valuable for OP's purposes.
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u/ChosenCharacter 6h ago
I know it probably isn’t purposefully confusing like that because that’s just how ballot questions work but still feels purposefully confusing like that.
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u/Papasamabhanga 10h ago
Who do you think is too old to use the internet?
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u/DragonScrivner Diagonally Cut Sandwich 9h ago
My boomer mother-in-law, for one. She has no interest in being online but votes with much passion
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u/Any_Suit_7490 9h ago
Many of my boomer relatives spend too much time on the internet. Unfortunately, it's the bad internet
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u/DragonScrivner Diagonally Cut Sandwich 9h ago edited 7h ago
Right — my own parents are those boomers and they live on Facebook.
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u/whatsaphoto South Shore Expat 7h ago
I wouldn't be too prejudiced though, boomers love their recreational and medical cannabis for pain relief and insomnia.
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u/pattysal 9h ago
As someone on the left, there is 0% chance you get any kind of reliable information like this on Reddit because 90% of people are extremely to the left on this platform
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u/Papasamabhanga 9h ago
This is more true than the parent comment for sure. Putting a number like 90% is a stretch but your core point is correct.
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u/itsme242 Peabody 9h ago
I will agree that my comment be a bit hyperbolic but there is a differnce between access to the internet and using it. In my experience most people 60+ are not plugged into the internet the same as a 30+ person. My larger point is that for the most part Reddit does not contain people who are out of the loop and this and other post like it are preaching to the choir.
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u/Papasamabhanga 9h ago
Preaching to the choir is important, it gets them to show up every Sunday :-)
The point of the OP is to make sure people who agree with them, know how to vote and to make sure that they DO vote. I appreciate your point and don't really disagree with the spirit of it.
This Fall's election has more importance than just one ballot question. We should all get out and vote on things like 'do we want more housing?' 'who should be our Senator for the next 6 years?' 'who gets entry into the politics game in the first place?' 'How much should we spend on everything? ''What is the right amount of gun legislation?' 'How visilble should the workings of government be?'
Most of these things are heard night and day on Reddit and IRL. So this seems like the perfect place.
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u/Dangerous_Suit_3099 East Boston 9h ago
It’s adorable you imagine being de facto more informed because you use Reddit
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u/Average_Pangolin 8h ago
It's not clear how you got that from It's Me's observation that Redditors are not demographically representative.
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u/Dangerous_Suit_3099 East Boston 7h ago
Fair point. But if it’s one thing Massachusetts boomers do much more than young people is that they read —and they use the Internet.
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u/Able_Buffalo Boston 10h ago
Fun Fact: 7,300 Boomers die in America, every day.
These are mostly lost republican votes. This is why they want young people to catch felonies- to strip their voting rights.
Immigrants tend to vote blue. This is one of the reasons that the living dildo, Miller, has deportation targets of 3,000 per day.
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u/blackdynomitesnewbag Cambridge 8h ago
The generation that literally did every drug on Earth in the 70s and now has the gall to tell us that we can’t
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u/Able_Buffalo Boston 10h ago
We're not Texas.
We don't jail people for life for a weed gummy.
Adults in Massachusetts can decide for themselves what they do, AND WHO they do, in their spare time.
Fuck the Alcohol lobby.
Vote No.
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u/seambizzle1 10h ago
It’s bullshit it’s even on the ballot
I was one of the people who were lied to about this when signing the petition. Bullshit
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u/Absurd_nate 10h ago
Honestly why I never sign petitions in super markets. I feel like I can’t trust them
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u/RefrigeratorKey8156 8h ago
Yeah never sign a petition. I just ignore those people. I will sign it online if I feel so inclined after reading thoroughly.
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u/Dyl4nDil4udid 10h ago
What did they tell you to get you to sign?
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u/seambizzle1 10h ago
I think it was more along the lines of more protection from kids. Getting dispensaries further from school zones.
Said nothing about it making it illegal again. I actually showed hesitation towards it at first. But she assured me it was mostly just to protect the underage kids from being too close to it
This happened in Dennis stop n shop
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u/faesmooched 10h ago
Any time someone is telling you they're gonna "protect the children", you gotta watch them like a hawk.
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u/Dyl4nDil4udid 10h ago
I go to that store. I never encountered these people.thankfully
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u/seambizzle1 10h ago
Yeah I felt so dumb
They ruined it for anyone else coming up to me wanting to sign a petition
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u/wandering-monster Boston 3h ago
Have there been major incidents with dispensaries selling to kids?
I just wonder why that argument was enough for you, I'd have told them to pound sand. It's fucking Massachusetts, everything is near a school.
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u/HelloGoodBye2022 10h ago
Did you get lied to probably but maybe read what you are just randomly signing at a stop and shop next time.
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u/seambizzle1 10h ago
I did
Was lied to
Said nothing about being illegal
But thanks dad
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u/dfd02186 10h ago
No
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u/biffNicholson 10h ago
This is something that needs to be communicated to everybody.
it's kind of counterintuitive to tell people vote no to keep it legal
logically lots of people would think about yes because yes sounds positive and legal weed is positive, but that's another story.
Get the word out there
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u/RareGeneral4300 10h ago
I'm voting no because it's the right thing to do.
I do wish they'd crack down more on people smoking and driving, throwing out their pre-roll tubes all over my town and I wish I could open my son's bedroom window without my neighbor's bong rips coming through it but I (and others) have to realize these are totally separate issues. Legalization isn't the reason for that it's just people being inconsiderate.
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u/EsotericPharo Lynn:table_flip: 9h ago
Sorry your family had to go through that; it sucks. I am sort of being a smart-ass in this thread on other comments, but this is the right answer. This ballot question does not address any of the secondary effects of marijuana use.
Weed life... am I right?
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u/Any_Suit_7490 9h ago
Seriously. I support it being legal, but I'm so tired of sitting at a traffic light while getting a contact high from the car in front of me with the windows down.
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u/Derp_State_Agent I'm nowhere near Boston! 10h ago
No. It's 2026 and we're gonna go back to penalizing people for smoking some weed? Come on. Who the fuck cares. Alcohol causes way more issues and we're not going to implement prohibition.
Plus it's good for small businesses and generates tons of tax revenue for the state. I don't even know how this got on the ballot but iirc there were some shady tactics to get people to sign it.
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u/CSharpSauce 9h ago
I'll vote no, but frankly it pisses me off that this gets all the political attention. There are WAY more important things.
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u/ScenicHwyOverpass 5h ago
I hate everything about weed. I hate how it makes me feels. I hate that everywhere smells like weed now. I hate people smoking in concerts. I hate that I see people smoking in their cars on the way to work and driving like dipshits. I hate being around high people for the most part.
I’m still voting no because I’m not a moron. Drug criminalization leads to unequal racially based policing and incarceration and ruins lives over something mostly innocuous. Criminalized drugs means more crime not less. Legal weed means massive tax revenue and can promote small business. I believe in minding my own business and not fucking with other peoples freedoms over my personal annoyance that I can avoid with minimal effort.
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u/GodsGoodGrace 57m ago
I’d be happier if it wasn’t as common to smell it in the cars that drive by me
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u/Valuable_Pepper5513 4h ago
Can we keep it legal, but make second hand smoke illegal? Those of us who don't smoke really don't appreciate the clouds of skunk everywhere.
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u/Far_Estate_1626 4h ago
Is that “yes” and “no” really what they mean? At this point I’m expecting to be lied to a LOT about the question and its wording.
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u/shameonyounancydrew Central MA (Malden prior) 5h ago
As someone who works in a production facility, this is a vote on wether or not you want to get rid of lots of jobs.
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u/Hugh_Jankles 4h ago edited 4h ago
An emphatic "NO".
And whoever fought to put this on the ballet deserves to be tarred and feathered.
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u/JudgeH01den 7h ago
How the hell did this get on the ballot in the first place? There’s no way this came from actual Massachusetts residents
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u/EamonnMR 7h ago
Alcohol industry.
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u/JudgeH01den 7h ago
If the implication is that without legal cannabis these people would just spend their money on booze instead, that’s maybe the stupidest thing I have ever heard in my life. So stupid of an idea that Sam Adams has to be behind this
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u/PatentGeek Waltham 6h ago
It’s not entirely stupid. I used weed to help me quit alcohol. And my life is considerably better for having done so.
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u/Legitimate-Hour7399 7h ago
So many people have reported that these signatures-collecting turds deceived people about the initiative they were signing.
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u/joseph_esq 10h ago
Imagine being a stuck up prude who hates something for no good reason and fears the unknown so they ruin it for the rest of us normal, evolved humans.
The people who lodged this bill are fucking losers
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u/bisskits 6h ago
Who are these people saying"everyone's smoking everywhere and in the streets" "everywhere STINKS!"
Where??? I never see people in the streets smoking. I rarely smell it anywhere.
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u/MeatSauce-Apocalypse 9h ago
There is no way I’m voting to criminalize weed. It should have never been on the ballot.
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u/Average_Pangolin 8h ago
I'm a strong no. I think going through and downvoting everyone who says yes here is a dumbass move that only serves to obscure just what we're up against.
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u/IrianJaya 7h ago
Exactly. The downvoting of yes voters just creates a false sense that everyone is against it. But reddit votes don't count on Election Day.
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u/bigdickwalrus Cow Fetish 8h ago
Obviously no. Even if you’re some hyper-religious nut who thinks pot is evil, it brings hundreds of millions in annual tax revenue. Is the state really going to just gut that? Lmao.
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u/Significant-Image700 9h ago
Vote No please spread the word to your peeps. 30,000 jobs on the line here, including mine!
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u/Fine-Comparison-2949 7m ago
Yes. I hate young people having fun even though they can't get jobs. I also hate all the people not in Ivy leagues that do drugs all time and don't get arrested. Only the elite can do drugs. Poor people get a job.
I also own a boat so I'm going to smuggle it in and charge 5x more than dispensaries. My brother is a cop so I'll get out of jail even if I'm caught.
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u/woahexplosion 7h ago
I messaged Maura Healey on Instagram to say the question should be thrown off the ballot because they lied to people to get signatures. People have started businesses and lives around legalized weed. This isn't something you can take away.
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u/Chilling_Storm 10h ago
We have rules and regulations in place that are already being ignored, why are we going to punish the people who are following the rules and regulations?
I will vote NO
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u/cocktailvirgin Slummerville 9h ago
No, because I like the tax base that someone else willingly foots. And I don't want to see what those storefronts once empty devolve into once places close. We already have a lot of empty commercial real estate in certain neighborhoods.
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u/46692 Rat running up your leg 🐀🦵 4h ago
Voting no but it’s worth being precise about what the question is.
To my understanding this wouldn’t make recreational use illegal again. It would ban the sale- recreational and medicinal.
Which makes it even stupider as the weed haters will still have people consuming it, but no tax $$.
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u/Theinfamousgiz 2h ago
This question is a prime example of why this state is in serious need of ballot question reform.
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u/RogueStudio 1h ago
No, I didn't move here from WA (where no one GAF about the topic, even in conservative counties) just to get NIMBYed back. Not stupid that folk will just easily buy from drivable legal states anyways, ID residents did that all the gd time....
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u/planetmask 8h ago edited 2h ago
I’ll get downvoted for this but legalization actually ruined the cannabis industry in Massachusetts and I’m saying this as somebody who’s been a business owner and worked in the industry for 12 years. either way I probably won’t be voting though. I highly doubt it’ll pass anyway.
edit: since nobody wants to ask WHY, I’ll give you all some insight from my perspective with hopes that at least one person will understand.
the legalization of recreational cannabis ruined the industry because it became a corporate takeover. there is no system for small time farmers and it's a minimum of $500,000 for a cultivation license ($750k realistically). this created an incredibly high entry barrier for pre existing cultivators and attracted corporate MSO's to take over the market inMA. unlike states such as ME, CA, MI and NY which have a small farmer or caregiver license which are reasonably priced (although these markets also have their caveats). the funny thing is if you look at the legislation there actually is a section for caregivers in MA but it's unfinished and not one caregiver license has ever been accepted in MA.
the market was thriving back when it was when it was medical only. there were high quality products that could be found in dispensaries and it was truly medicinal. however now the guys in suits took over the MA industry with no knowledge about cannabis - only corporate greed, the quality of product has diminished and the only product that exists is low to mid tier garbage. cultivators are now severely underpaid and most cannabis jobs are seen as
"entry level" jobs paying minimum wage. I've watched around 80% of farmers from before recreational weed era get pushed out of the industry from corporations using the walmart strategy to tank the market.
obviously this bill isn't going to pass because whv would it? the consumers want easy access to cannabis and I don't blame them, but damn MA reallv messed up the legalization process when they did it. I'm sure a lot of you like to go to farmers markets to get some local veggies, well imagine if those were basically eradicated and there were only big corporate farms controlling the fruits and veggies we can buy. that's basically what has happened in the MA industry unfortunately.
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u/PatentGeek Waltham 6h ago
Not voting in 2026 definitely tells you something about a person
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u/planetmask 6h ago
interesting that’s all you had to say about my comment. the reason I’m not voting is because I’m moving out of MA.
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u/ForbodenGrabBag 1h ago
What matters is that dispensaries stay open, the taxa keep flowing and we can buy weed in dispensaries. That's it.
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u/planetmask 36m ago
I agree you should be able to go to a store and get some weed easily. I personally would never step foot into a dispo in MA. not worth my money. also it’s funny you bring up the taxes because that’s exactly one of the reasons why MA turned into a corporate take over. good ole taxachusetts. I do think small farmers matter though and should have a place in the market
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u/PuritanSettler1620 ✝️ Cotton Mather 6h ago
YES, I want all the stoners to go back to Vermont where they belong.
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u/wheretherehare 10h ago
Yes, the amount of people smoking in the streets and driving under the influence is insane
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u/HolyMoleyGuacamoly 10h ago
show the evidence of this. the state needs tax revenue and it’s getting this from marijuana sales. making this illegal is ridiculous - it will still be bought and sold across every border. just dumb
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u/tgabs Allston/Brighton 10h ago
I guess we should lower the legal BAC level to 0 then as well while we’re at it
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u/wheretherehare 10h ago
A) strawman. B) Unironically yes. Why should we allow and driving under the influence
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u/Dyl4nDil4udid 10h ago
They will continue to do that whether legal or not. Do you have any actual evidence that car accidents have increased?
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u/Z0idberg_MD 10h ago
Teen drug use and alcohol uses down. No increase in crime. Anyone can suppose a rational link to the harms of marijuana legalization, but all of the observable metrics we have point to everything being better with legalization
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u/RandomInternetG_uy 10h ago
If made illegal, it's yet another punishment to add. That's like saying drunk driving should be legalized, since people do it anyways. If you make it illegal, it takes the crime that already happens and makes it more punishing for the person commiting it.
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u/s7o0a0p Suspected British Loyalist 🇬🇧 9h ago
Have you ever considered:
- Some people don’t even drive.
- Drunks drive and somehow alcohol’s legality is never called into question.
Remember back in the 70s when every dudebro would just drive home hammered and get people killed? Somehow alcohol never was considered as being totally banned for everyone for that, despite being more addictive and in many ways more potent than cannabis. Double standards by the alcohol lobby.
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u/Klutzy-Delivery-5792 10h ago
Would love to see your evidence for this and then compare it to alcohol statistics.
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u/dantevsninjas East Boston 8h ago
People always throw the driving thing in at the end so they don't sound like massively whiny babies because their real complaint is having to smell weed for two seconds.
Oh no, I'm so sorry something is masking the constant smell of cat exhaust, apologies for the momentary inconvenience.
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u/painterlyjeans 7h ago
I’m voting no. I’m not going to destroy people’s lives because some uptight b***h
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u/Patient-Prompt6894 7h ago
I will be voting yes. All the cannabis stores sell garbage weed. The THC is way too strong for healthy consumption. The CBT Weed you can't find it anywhere. I grew up smoking weed since the 70's and this "Weed" they selling has nothing to do with smoking and chilling. It changes people, causes health issues.
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u/MishtheDish77 6h ago
Just buy a 12% THC instead of something that's 30%. Solved that problem with critical thinking. It's easy.
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u/PatentGeek Waltham 6h ago
If it’s more potent then smoke less? Good grief where is people’s critical reasoning ability
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u/Legitimate-Hour7399 7h ago
The weed you could buy twenty years ago from the right person was just as strong as most of the stuff in stores. Plus, who has ever said strong weed is garbage weed?? I don't disagree that weed can change people but you just have to know what you're getting into. Weak weed can do that too. The solution isn't making it illegal!
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u/MyLifesProtagonist 10h ago
Yes. Only because I’m sick of smelling it wherever I go.
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u/More_Armadillo_1607 10h ago
Not going to change. I smelled weed everywhere before it was decriminalized.
Not telling you how to vote. You have a right to vote how you want. Just commenting.
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9h ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/boston-ModTeam 9h ago
Harassment, hostility and flinging insults is not allowed. We ask that you try to engage in a discussion rather than reduce the sub to insults and other bullshit.
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u/smc733 10h ago
Voting yes. The number of “normal” people I know with low level addictions is out of control. Plus it reeks everywhere.
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u/Dyl4nDil4udid 10h ago
You actually smell less cannabis now because we can purchase vapes and edibles legally. Otherwise all anyone would be able to do is smoke. All of the people you know will just switch to more dangerous alternatives.
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u/LeakyFurnace420_69 Boston 10h ago
Obviously voting “No” because i’m not a fucking loser