Talk:Cannabis in Norway

Accuracy

The article cites Norwegian sources, but reveals poor or no understanding of what the sources actually say. The author clearly does not have sufficient command of the Norwegian language and does not understand what the sources say. Some of the sources are out of date, legal regulations are not understood and in general the article shows poor understanding of cannabis regulations in Norway. I have taken away the template suggesting content to be transferred from the Norwegian article as the article was deleted due to being a machine-translation of the present English article. The content did not gain value by being translated from English to Norwegian. --ツ^ツDyveldi ^{☯ prat} _{✉ post} 19:27, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

Hello @Dyveldi: thanks for your insight. The current article was taken from some older content on a list that was broken up into individual articles, so I can't vouch for the originator. I've proposed at no:Diskusjon:Cannabis_(rusmiddel)#Del_ut_.22Cannabis_i_Norge.22_innhold.3F that we break up a larger article and create a proper "Cannabis in Norway" article in Norwegian based on existing content, but no consensus yet. We could take that new article, written from Norwegian sources by Norwegian speakers, and translate it to this page. Goonsquad LCpl Mulvaney (talk) 03:11, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

Hi. Thanks for your answer.

-- I agree with your removal of this content from the list. But in my opinion it should be removed entirely form Wikipedia and not moved to a different article. The content is inaccurate.

-- I do understand that you have a special interest in cannabis, but I hope you agree with me that it is better that legal matters including national legislation is not included when the quality is poor or questionable. I think legal matters should be correct. Particularly in matters concerning cannabis which is much used and have the possibility to affect many persons lives in different ways some of which is seriously negative such as being faced with criminal charges.

-- At present the Norwegian article w:no:Cannabis (rusmiddel) needs considerable rewriting before any translation from this article should be considered. The sources cited need to be consulted and in particular it needs to be meticulously compared with [[1]] (not available on the net). This as well as the fact that all the legal material needs reworking. The Norwegian material appears in at least 4 different sections and needs to be worked together as well as rewritten before a split is considered. It is no small job and must be done before it is considered to split the article and move Norwegian matters out of the article.

-- To rewrite legal matters concerning Norwegian legislation, punishment of drugs offenses, matters concerning criminal records, the writer need to read somewhat more than the sources at present referred to in the article and not just know Norwegian well but also to understand Norwegian criminal law and terminology. Then the terminology needs to be properly translated to English and English (or American) law differs in many ways from Norwegian law. Some of the mistakes or inaccuracies I know enough about to spot and I am able to understand the legal matters referred to (and what the sources say), but writing about it is a different matter entirely and I would need to do quite a lot of reading to be able to produce a translatable text. I'll put it on my agenda, but my rewriting agenda is unfortunately getting longer every day so I will not be the rewriter in the near future.

-- I am sorry I am negative in this case, but at present as matters stand I think Wikipedia and its readers are better served if we lose this article.Regards --ツ^ツDyveldi ^{☯ prat} _{✉ post} 20:51, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

I'm reluctant to completely delete the article; can we not just take 10 minutes to find just a minimum of two documentable facts about cannabis in Norway, and thus make it a properly-sourced stub? Goonsquad LCpl Mulvaney (talk) 19:55, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

The claims made above that "the article cites Norwegian sources, but reveals poor or no understanding of what the sources actually say. The author clearly does not have sufficient command of the Norwegian language" are completely untrue. In fact, I wrote this at some point, under a different user name, and I am an expert on the subject. I have also written the article on cannabis on Norwegian wikipedia, and I am a Norwegian academic. Could someone please remove the claims about the factual accuracy being disputed? LuckasK1998 (talk) 16:23, 26 February 2017 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by LucasK1998 (talk • contribs)

Please do not remove the accuracy tag. The accuracy is disputed for two reasons. The sources does not say what is in the article and because the wrong Norwegian Criminal Act which was changed in 2017 when w:no:Lov om straff of 2005 replaced w:no:Almindelig borgerlig Straffelov of 1902. There are however some modifications to this because the 1902 act is still valid and in use. Since the Norwegian version was deleted as a concequense of LucasK1998's request due to lack of accuracy and being a machine translation I assumed the English text as well was written by someone who did not read Norwegian without a machine translating. The sources are not correctly quoted and consequently the article is not accurate. On Wikipedia we are all anonymous and we do not write with our academic degrees whether they are Norwegian or not. It is not a 10 minute job to get this article in proper shape. --ツ^ツDyveldi ^{☯ prat} _{✉ post} 19:43, 26 February 2017 (UTC)

I'm not saying that fixing the whole article would take 10 minutes, just saying that if consensus does turn out to be that this article is grievously flawed, instead of deleting it entirely we should take 10 minutes to establish just two basic facts about cannabis in Norway and make it a stub rather than leave the subject uncovered entirely. But for the present it would seem important to fix the Norwegian coverage, probably make an equivalent article at no.wikipedia, and then have someone proficient translate the Norwegian article here. There's a lot of content on no.wikipedia, and if it's wrong it should be gradually improved, and again I argue it'd help to form a separate no:Cannabis i Norge to bring focus to improving that content. Goonsquad LCpl Mulvaney (talk) 03:49, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

The information here is based upon the most recent guidelines from the Attorney General (rundskriv) from 2014. These are what gives the threshold regarding amounts (currently 15 grams in the case of natural cannabis and 2 grams in the case of synthetic cannabinoids) regarding when they can give a fine+criminal record instead of suspended or normal prison sentences, as well as the recommendation for using drug testing as an alternative to avoid prosecution if the user is between 15-18 and caught for the first time. It is well known for anyone with insight into Norwegian drug policy that the Attorney General have been giving such guidelines for a number of years, as the punishments on paper are not what is really given regarding small amounts. The punishments on paper are in Legemiddelloven § 23 and Straffeloven § 162 and proscribe many years in prison or large fines for use/posession. Both are used regarding small amounts, as Straffeloven § 162 is usually used when we are talking about more than 2 grams for immediate personal use. All of these result in a criminal record - the only way to avoid this is the drug contract, which will give "påtaleunnlatelse" (waived sentence) but which is arguably more intrusive/punitive in its' own sense. It might be true that there is some slight imprecision regarding some of the references, but the information is correct, and the reference to the guidelines from the Attorney General are, as far as I know, the most recent. The fines given are usually from 3500 NOK - 10 thousand NOK depending on the person's income. This is not a machine translation, by the way, and the Norwegian article on cannabis has similar information on punishment for these kind of offences. In any case, this law is up for review, as both of the largest political parties have promised to implement some sort of decriminalisation of use, and consequently we might see some changes in the next two to three years. LucasK1998 (talk) 13:07, 27 February 2017 (UTC)