[Redway]

There’s definitely a lot to be grateful for on the British isles (e.g., the NHS, as over-stretched as it is at the moment; a more condensed, textured society and way of being; no guns) but the flip can be switched and go both ways. So what are things you personally prefer about Canada and America relative to the U.K./Ireland?

For me:

1.) Progressive laws on non-alcohol drugs. With cannabis being legalised in Canada and various U.S. states, a finer lens of acknowledgement for the nuance of various cannabinoids beyond CBD, and the medicinal properties from there to psychedelics and ketamine (for trauma, for treatment-resistant depression that might otherwise only respond to MAOIs and ECT, for OCD), they’re making ways over in that continent, with a more moderate drinking-culture in Canada to boot. The U.K. at-least, by contrast, is still very backwards in its approach to drugs besides alcohol.

Tobacco’s rightly fallen out of widespread favour but as far as the nuance of various substances and their sensible utilisation for peace (rather than aggression, which alcohol is notorious for), introspection, creativity, sensorial deepening and medicine (especially psychiatric medicine), there’s an overriding sense of “drugs are bad end of,” despite alcohol being one of the most potentially destructive and harmful substances known to mankind (second only to heroin in many respects). But because it’s so deeply entrenched in the social fabric over here and normalised, even encouraged, not everyone acknowledges or dares to call out the hypocrisy in the gulf between alcohol and other drugs, some of-which don’t even lead to direct fatal overdose (unlike alcohol). You see the mentality of that echoed back through popular media, even our soaps (which are otherwise historically some of the best shows going) and the hypocrisy and double-standards are just very glaring and irritating to watch (e.g., human-trafficking murderer Ben Mitchell condemning Jay over a pint for taking ket. to cope with the grief of Lola passing away, when, really, that could’ve been an eye-opening story about informed use of ketamine to deal with trauma and grief in a medicinal context). I’ve learnt to just skip past those scenes. I just can’t abide the hypocrisy and ignorance, or the notion that you must be a junkie or hardcore stoner yourself to feel like discussions and perceptions about certain drugs should be more nuanced than much of the alcohol-centric discourse allows in this piss-head nation of ours. You don’t need to be non-teetotal to agree that prohibition of alcohol didn’t work and that, despite its many public-health risks, it shouldn’t be illegal and, likewise, you don’t need to be a user yourself to … y’know. It’s all about nuance, not absolutes, and certainly not addiction, because that is a toxic vice that would need to be addressed.

2. Proper seasons in America.

3. The way American healthcare, for all its expensive flaws, is more willing to prescribe certain medications off-label (e.g., topiramate for weight-loss, instead of paying lots for Mounjaro and being put on a very long waiting-list for Ozempic). The NHS can be very rigid and in that sense works against rather than with patients sometimes. Clueless GPs don’t help.

4. All things maple. Canada has the right idea.