Cannabis in Balisca

Cannabis in Balisca is fully legal for both recreational and medicinal purposes. It is widely used, considered now almost as part of Baliscan culture. It is quite common to see people smoking or rolling in the streets and parks, and growshops in nearly every commune.

Cannabis has a long history in Balisca, possibly the longest in the New World, as hemp production for fiber was carried as early as the 1540s. Similar attempts were made in Spanish colonies in Peru, Colombia, and Mexico, but only in Balisca and Chile did the crop also find success. The Maroon Confederacy was the first entity in the Baliscan archipelago to legalize cannabis consumption, doing so in 1878.

In the 1940s, cannabis was used extensively by Baliscan servicemen in the Second World War. The expanding use of cannabis outside of Araucaria in the 1950-1970s was associated with its popularization by returning servicemen, the decreixemento and later by hippies that arrived in Balisca from California or other Latin American nations. A confederal movement calling for recreational drug liberalization culminated in the 1962 Cannabis Initiative, in which Balisca the first country in the world to formally legalize the cultivation, possession, acquisition and consumption of cannabis and its by-products. By the early 1970s, a Secretariat of Education report stated that an estimated 80% of Balisca high school students had tried cannabis.

As of 2021, Balisca is the sole G20 nation to have fully legalized cannabis.

Balisca is the single-largest legal recreational cannabis market in the world, recording a total market worth of $58 billion (Ꭶ# billion) in 2020. Additionally, Balisca ranks first in the world in annual prevalence of cannabis use (with a 63% prevalence), a position which it has occupied since 1996 when it overtook Papua New Guinea.