I live in Canada, I smell it maybe a dozen times a year? Certainly less than I smell tobacco smoke (that smell is nasty).

Could depend on where I live and hangout though.

See also, cigarettes, cigars, and pipe smoking. I find those smells about 10x as offensive as smoked weed. I don't see the HN crowd coming out against tobacco despite these two being roughly equivalent in use. And that 20 ft from the door thing is a joke when it's on the sidewalk you have to walk through to reach the bus stop or your car. At least the pot smell doesn't stick to my clothes until they're washed like the tobacco smell.

I dunno, I think it should be legalized and operation of a car or other heavy machinery while intoxicated should result in a swift and brutal public execution. Win/win. :D

But maybe I'm just a little jaded after having lived in a legalized area and almost being run down by hotboxed cars more than once.

Functionally in many places where the usage is unlawful, harmless use in people's private homes has very low risk of prosecution while dangerous or disruptive public use is still curtailed. I find it easy to sympathize with people who consider that a better tradeoff.

I strongly agree with de-federalizing any such decisions though-- your comment on freedom to move is a great one. I recently relocated to a place where it wasn't legal from one where it was, any when evaluating differential freedoms in making that decision the subject came up and I decided I probably actually preferred the restriction due to the collateral harms (although I strongly chaff at any restrictions on private activities or maintenance of your own body). I wouldn't say it was a major factor in the decision to move (other policy/economic/environmental/security matters were drivers) but for me it wasn't a reason to not make that move.

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The fact that so many people think it's fine to get high and drive is baffling to me.

Your nose is literally a special flower. What smells good to it may not to another and vice versa. I far prefer the smell of pot smoke on the sidewalk to the smell of tobacco smoke. You youngsters missed the years of indoor workplace smoking and smoke breaks with 20 smokers surrounding the office entry door. It's just another smell to you. But for those of us who lived through the bad days of smoking, it's a toxic soup, a smoke inferno hell pit we're not thrilled about revisiting right outside of our favorite restaurant. A little bit of grass burning, no big deal. A cigarette and my meal's ruined.

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