Confident Cannabis (YC S15) is the stock exchange of weed
techcrunch.com
techcrunch.com
Trading commodities on an exchange definitely makes sense. Indeed, all legal commodities are traded on exchanges. It also makes sense for exchanges to create standardised grades for a commodity, in order to control for variations in the product. For example, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange defines the following grades of wheat just under a single tradeable contract: "No. 2 Soft Red Winter, No. 2 Hard Red Winter, No. 2 Dark Northern Spring, No. 2 Northern Spring, No. 1 Soft Red Winter, No. 1 Hard Red Winter, No. 1 Dark Northern Spring, No. 1 Northern Spring."
Commodities are generally traded on futures exchanges. You are not simply agreeing to buy a specific grade and quantity of the commodity for a certain price, you are also agreeing on exactly where and when that commodity will be delivered. This normally involves having standardised delivery facilities and handling procedures for the commodity. Since the transaction entails agreeing to purchase something at a future time, it is called a futures contract.
What's more, once it is accepted at a warehouse, everything else happens electronically, until such a time the commodity actually has to be moved somewhere. In the mean time, all that gets traded is the paper. Or its electronic version, or paper. If paper is involved (usually is), then there are business specializing in storing it, and providing certification that you indeed own this piece of paper, with in turn says you own X tonnes of cocoa of such grade at some location.
'Wholesale marketplace' is the right term.
To be perfectly clear, I am pro-legalization, as war on drugs only funnels money to criminal organizations, as if we did not learn anything from Prohibtion era. I still consider cannabis public evil in a way tobacco and excessive consumption of alcohol are public evil.
Taken occasionally for recreation it becomes just another form of entertainment, and the health and societal impact is probably similar to alcohol or coffee.
Calling cannabis a "public evil" seems a bit over the top. There are plenty of other pastimes with potential health and societal risks that outweigh occasional use of cannabis. Should we stigmatise every activity that isn't work, exercise or healthy eating?
I think adults should be given room to make informed choices about their recreational activities without being judged, as long as their choices don't negatively impact others.
Habitual cannabis users on the other side of the spectrum seem to be acknowledging the health risks of smoking, and (again anecdotally) I'm seeing a lot of habitual users switch to vaporising or other delivery methods.
Certainly there are people making poor decisions about cannabis use, but on a whole it doesn't seem much worse than plenty of other things that people do regularly without being stigmatised. Certainly not bad enough to become a moral issue in my opinion.
I don't get your distinction between cannabis and alcohol for recreational vs excessive use.
I know in recent years it's been a little easier to work on this stuff openly with medical grows in California, but the vast majority of breeding has been done illegally and therefore at smaller scales than you'd really want. Feels like there's still plenty of room for optimization of both the genetics and the overall growing process, and both areas could benefit from some specialized software.
Also, I wonder what happens if you get pulled over with certificates that say you own a whole bunch of weed? If that is found in plain sight, does it give probable cause to search further?
Steps 1 and 2 are more subject to state law, but their step 3 is literally to set up a marketplace for illegal drugs over the internet(which crosses state borders).
If their marketplace is just a directory and doesn't accept payment, they can at least stay in business until they're raided. But I imagine it's going to be very difficult to find a bank that's willing to process payments for a company that handles illegal drugs, or even just to give you a checking account. They have enough problems with regulators as it is.
If you stick purely to software and essentially only handle contracts, I still wonder if a contract for illegal goods can be enforced in court. If I unwisely buy 1000lb of marijuana from their marketplace and they don't deliver, what's a judge going to do - order them to commit a crime to fulfill the contract? Or void the contract entirely, which makes the whole system meaningless?
The practical legality of marijuana in many states is now basically the same as the practical legality of, oh, unlicensed transportation providers. You could be in trouble if someone wants to crack down -- and as demonstrated in Austin, this is distinctly plausible. And you could ask the same question: if I contract with a driver, and they refuse to do unlicensed pickups, can I actually get any restitution in court?
(Yes, I know that YC itself hasn't invested in the major unlicensed-transportation-provider startups. But I really don't think that's because they found them too risky.)
I have to say, it makes me a little bit happy they're respecting the interstate commerce clause if what you're saying is true. A credit union that doesn't allow interstate transfers from the marijuana account and doesn't settle transfers using the federal reserve does seem like it'd be outside their scope.
Step 1: Collect underpants
Step 2: ???
Step 3: Profit
Don't think it could happen? Do a little research on corn or cotton or sunflowers or soybeans.
Whether you ingest the stuff or not (I don't), this kind of thing only helps pave the way for truly nefarious corporate actors.
Source: raised in Iowa, son of a farmer, grandson-in-law of a deceased executive of one of the Big Ag companies, and former pothead living in Colorado.
Just think of it as industrially produced beer vs craft beer, there will be market for both if theres reason for there to be