When I went overseas for exchange last semester, I lived with 5 other Canadian girls which gave me a whole new perspective of what a Canadian University student can be like.
I was cautioned by NUS' International Office that one may come across Canadians who smoke marijuana, or what the Canadians term 'weed'. Never did I expect myself to land exactly into that situation. The packet of weed was causally placed on the living room table, where some of my housemates will smoke it every 2 to 3 days. It really came as a shock for me at first, but after a while I just got used to the sight of it lying around the house, along with the bong that they would use to smoke it.
I actually talked to them about how shocked I was to see illegal drugs lying around the house, and they were shocked to hear it was even illegal in Singapore! Moreover the penalty for having large amounts of weed around results in a death penalty, which came to an even larger shock to them. More than once I comtemplated whether I should try smoking it, but in the end the difference in culture, which I feel leads to differences in believes, stopped me from doing it. What they felt was the norm in Canada, was a crime in Singapore.
So i came to a conclusion that weed in Canada is like chewing gum in Singapore. It's illegal to eat/take it, but authorities will not actively go around to arrest anyone that's caught with it.
