Plummeting Marijuana Prices Create A Panic In California
npr.org
npr.org
The only issue I have is I don't want to see Philip Morris buy up all of NoCal and force everyone out of business.
I think good growers will still be able to demand a premium for their marijuana no matter what happens in November.
The good growers will do so in climate-controlled, forced-flowering, sea-of-green indoor operations using massive lighting arrays and "low rider" hybrid strains that produce gigantic buds with amazing crystals.
It'll be like comparing "two buck chuck" wine at Trader Joe's to a Lafite Rothschild or Screaming Eagle. Most people won't care, but there is a market for the latter like you wouldn't believe.
The best weed on the market is already close to being as good as it's going to get. The real trick is going to be establishing brands with reasonably consistent quality. Right now even if you only go to the dispensaries with the highest Yelp ratings, it's still hit or miss on any given strain.
What I think you will see though is that people who smoke Philip Morris weed will start getting cancer, in the same way that smoking didn't cause cancer until PM starting making cigarettes. (Because of all the chemicals, the filters, and the fact that they're grown in radioactive soil w/ fertilizers that bind to uranium.)
I would be very surprised to find out this is true. Do you have a citation?
http://toxsci.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/64/1/4
Also, about the uranium, the typical smoker gets the equivalent of 300 chest x-rays per year from smoking American cigarettes:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/01/opinion/01proctor.html
Which probably explains why even today smokers in countries that don't use American cigarettes don't have anywhere near the same increase in lung cancer risk.
Also, the equivalent of 300 chest x-rays is based on 'pack-and-a-half' smokers not typical smokers and it doesn't say anywhere specifically from American cigarettes. This is also based on a lifetime consumption I believe.
For example, the levels of CEA (a cancer marker) in daily hookah smokers are so much lower than the CEA levels is cigarette smokers that they're actually statistically indistinguishable from non-smokers. Similarly, countries who don't grow tobacco in the same fields year after year using phosphate fertilizer have vastly less radioactive material in their tobacco.
http://www.harmreductionjournal.com/content/5/1/19
http://www.epa.gov/rpdweb00/sources/tobacco.html#footnote
The research on what about smoking actually causes cancer isn't very good yet, but if you combine the research that has been done with the data that shows the different points in history where lung cancer rates vastly increased or decreased, it starts to paint a pretty clear picture. For example, according to wikipedia, "From the 1950s, the incidence of lung adenocarcinoma started to rise relative to other types of lung cancer.[135] This is partly due to the introduction of filter cigarettes. The use of filters removes larger particles from tobacco smoke, thus reducing deposition in larger airways. However the smoker has to inhale more deeply to receive the same amount of nicotine, increasing particle deposition in small airways where adenocarcinoma tends to arise."
Again, there is no safe form of smoking, but all evidence points to the fact that smoking cigarettes made from American tobacco is vastly more dangerous than the ways in which people have used tobacco historically.
Do all American tobacco farms use phosphate fertilizers and other countries don't?
Inhaling burned tobacco has an above average ability to cause cancer.
Common commercial cigarettes, in general, have other ingredients that become carcinogenic when burned.
Nicotine, while not directly cancer causing, depresses the immune response in the affected areas, increasing cancer risk in those areas. This also affects chew, gum, inhalers, etc. Due to the nature of the rapid regeneration of the mouth and throat, this is likely a significant factor in the increased caused risk for chewed tobacco.
Additionally, chewed tobacco can cause Leukoplakia, which increases the risk of Oral cancer.
Cancer risk (most to least): Smoking, chew/dip, inhalers, gum, snuff.
This has always been a really difficult choice for me; because on one side I strongly feel that everyone should have their own choices and do what they want. But then on the other side I've seen first hand how easy it is to lose yourself to pot... and can't help feeling that exposing more people to that isn't a great thing.
I mean; heavy pot smokers are pretty non-functioning and
it seems a shame to risk more lively minds to that drudgery.I have a couple of extremely bright friends (one of them was possibly the smartest guy I've met) who became pot abusers for all manner of reasons. One wanted (and had the skills) to be a stock broker. He spent the first summer of university trading and made a really strong start. But from the second year onwards his pot habit inhibited his learning/development and he now does door-to-door collections for a charity on minimum wage. He was probably my second closest friend at university so I am absolutely sure that cannabis was the cause of his decline.
I think it is about the person at least as much as it is about the drugs, some people can deal with things like this better than others.
Unless he was just extremely awesome at hiding something from our circle of friends, for absolutely no apparent reason at all, by the second semester of college, he had all but stopped going to class, stopped doing homework, slept through early morning tests, etc, eventually losing his scholarships and failing out of school by his third semester. He was my roommate in the dorms, so I probably would have known if he was doing anything in excess that was directly interfering with his abilities to function, and we were enrolled in similar courses with similar course load, and I handled it fine. He just lost the motivation to continue college.
The point is, is that people fuck up, people get depressed, people change what they place value in, even without drugs.
I can tell many similar stories of friends who lost their way with drugs and alcohol. Bad shit happens in this world, and being successful means not only hard work but avoiding temptations. You've got to do well in all aspects of your life : to me there is little difference between the person who won't but any effort in to study and accepts a minimum wage, and those that put effort into study but waste it all by being a drug addict.
It seems that a decision has already been made: prohibition.
That your friend didn't fully realize his potential whilst becoming a pot smoker doesn't imply causation, it is just a correlation. There probably are all kinds of factors at play in your friend's case.
It was mostly intended as a rebuttal of:
Anecdotally it has little or no effect on the ability of a person to "function."
further up the thread.
It seems that a decision has already been made: prohibition.
I think there is dialogue to be had. I suspect (talking realistically) I will see legalization of a number of drugs in my lifetime.
I've got a large number of friends who smoke pot everyday. They're far from non-functioning.
Two of my closest developer buddies smoke all day long. Like, literally, all day long, smoking as soon as they wake up in the morning. That's about as extreme as you can get in the realm of the pothead.
They're fine. They've held their jobs for long periods, been promoted, given raises... all of the things you expect from a "functioning" member of society.
I don't really hang out with very many non-functioning member of society and I know a LOT of people who smoke pot... maybe you tend to hang out with a lot of non-functioning people for some reason? A rather larger percentage of people smoke pot around the world, so it would tend to cross a number of socioeconomic boundaries.
To me, this issue you have with perceiving that pot is making people in to listless sacks of flesh seems to be a personal problem and entirely subjective.
She interviewed hundreds cannabis users across the country and across various social strata - her general comment was that or the most part users did tend towards the slump. There were certainly a lot more "listless sacks of flesh" than high-functioning individuals (but she also noted that those who were "functioning" tended towards the extraordinary as opposed to just sticking on the normal curve).
I avoid using that as too much proof because it is entirely possible, and even likely, that cannabis is only a contributing factor in this and not outright cause.
If you're going to lobby for prohibition of pot then please also focus your attention on alcohol as well. This is a far worse 'drug' IMO than marijuana could ever be.
I don't understand how anyone could think alcohol should be legal but not marijuana.
EDIT: Also notice from the linked article that drug use actually went down after legalization in Portugal.
Plus there may be some selection bias going on. How do you know that some of your high-functioning coworkers aren't heavy pot smokers when they get home?
That doesn't make sense. There is a definite/noticeable slump below the norm for all the pot smokers I know (off hand count; perhaps 20-25) across a wide variety of jobs/ages.
Certainly some high functioning people I know could be abusers behind closed doors; but they exhibit none of the standard symptoms so it's hard to imagine that is true... (I will try and do some surveying though :))
In other words; you really need to find a high functioning heavy pot smoker to give the theory credence - and I don't think that is going to be easy.
Well, then we should avoid encouraging fast food, liquor, and a lot of other things
We are already doing that; indeed for several years now there have actually been campaigns to discourage the overuse of those things.
By day I'm a software developer. I smoke most nights, and I still get good work done (although it sometimes takes me longer). Have you ever gotten into a 'groove' when programming, when time fades away and you're generally very productive? Well, it's like that with pot...but more often, and to a greater degree.
It just makes everything better. Music sounds better, food tastes better, conversation is funnier, movies are epic-er, heck, even the laundry is fun again. Tonight I'm going to a concert, and I wouldn't dream of going sober.
I guess you raise an interesting point; the life enrichment versus the "although it usually takes me longer" aspect is the trade off.
I wonder at which point that becomes too much?
I've attempted a number of drugs over the years on the belief that you can't really hold an opinion without knowing all the facts, and trying it. I readily admit a slight bias arising from the fact I never really "got" any of the highs; the trade off was instantly too much for me.
I think a lot about whether pot has been a net positive in my life, and honestly I'm still unsure. Certainly I enjoy the experience, and I've met some great people as a result, but it comes with a cost (in dollars as well as time). Jury's still out.
I should add that I have a deep-seated loathing for most kinds of alcohol. I enjoy an occasional glass of red wine, but my alcohol consumption is easily less than 1 drink per week.
Carl Sagan. Richard Feynman. Steve Yegge. Thousands of others.
If you're involved in a creative profession, of which I think that software development is one, then smoking marijuana boosts your ability to function.
The only correlation between heavy pot smoking and low performance is that people with nothing to do in their life also enjoy smoking pot.
The only FUD your post was missing was a link to Reefer Madness.
(as a programmer I found that pot, which I tried for a couple of months - see elsewhere for my reasoning - didn't personally boost my ability to function, but instead tended to hinder it - particularly when not high)
Depends on your country. (Also for the other things you mention.)
If by widespread you mean it is everywhere then agreed. If you mean in terms of numbers I disagree - it strikes me as logical that a legalized drug will have more users, and equably more abuser.
That problem can be alleviated by legalization: We remove the legal difficulties inherent in asking for help with problematic consumption
I agree with the last part. But am unconvinced that legalization is required to achieve that - just decriminalize personal possession, or remove any legal fall out associated with rehab/drugs help.
If that's our sole reason for legalization I don't think it stands up.
As with alcohol, there should be consequences for being under the influence and restrictions on how to obtain it.
The point of making pot legal is so that casual users aren't fined or criminally punished for having a joint after work.
Ah, well that seems reasonable. I'd actually come out in support of decriminalization - it seems to have tentatively worked in countries where it has been trialled.
If you begin with the assumption that you can effectively control use, you're probably already off on the wrong track, based on the results of almost 100 years of failed policy.
It's probably worth saying now that I am partly playing devils advocate here because I suspect (from previous times this has come up) that the overriding consensus here is pro-legalization. I think it's interesting to provoke some debate where the pro-prohibition side isn't a troll/idiot (again, like has happened in the past).
So; not currently on the side of legalization, but not on the opposite side either (though happy to play it temporarily)
My real feeling? I'm still not convinced by full legalization but equally not behind the current hardline attitudes. I've seen the negative effects of drugs - and they can be pretty awful for some. If we can offset those using education, taxation, decriminalization and other methods then that seems a great way to start - then legalization becomes a possibility in my eyes (consider it this way: trying to address the problems of alcohol abuse before it becomes widespread/common)
I'd like to think my aim is to help protect those who might be adversely affected by drug legalization rather than deliberately trying to prevent people having the choice.
EDIT: interested as to why the downvote. Is it for admitting to playing devils advocate - I only ask because if that proves unpopular Ill avoid it in future :)
So the solution is to throw them in jail?
Decriminalization is stupid. Dispensary systems are stupid. Coffee shops are stupid.
Decriminalization is stupid because the implication is that cannabis is evil, and the only reason people want to smoke it is that they're addicted. This is false. The "push toward treatment" isn't helpful for anyone who isn't addicted and doesn't want to be treated, like me. Plus there's the implication that selling someone to someone who asks for it is somehow evil, which is even worse ("Selling is legal! Fucking is legal! Why isn't selling fucking legal?!").
Dispensary systems are stupid because dishonesty is baked (haha) into the system. The South Park episode Medicinal Fried Chicken is a decent explanation, but the short of it is that people fake illness to get weed. Granted, this is like people faking illness to get painkillers -- but since cannabis is significantly safer than opioids and benzodiazepines, doctors are significantly less likely to care. It's not an issue with physical consequences, since cannabis is extremely safe when used under medical supervision, just the fact that lying becomes so much more prevalent.
Coffee shops are lame because free markets work[1], so why don't we have one? They're not that bad, though -- the implementation of such a system would bump the legalization of cannabis way down my priority list.
What really gets me on this is that people conflate the question "should cannabis be legal" with the question "should you smoke cannabis". Nobody conflates the legality of trampolines with the safety of trampolines. I find it incredibly disheartening when people I know -- smart people, in most respects -- respond to legalization with the idiotic knee-jerks "but it's dangerous!", "but my friend does nothing but smoke weed", ad absurdum. I know people who do nothing but play video games. I know at least one person who quit his job and left everyone he knew to become a paragliding instructor. He took a huge pay cut, too. And this latter example, I think, illustrates the biggest issue I have with arguments like yours:
Who the hell do you think you are that you can dictate what someone does with their life? If it's what they enjoy, they can go for it. Even if it is a bad decision -- you really can't outlaw bad decisions, because it's hard to say what is a bad decision. Thing is, the sort of "always-on" lifestyle, that sort where cannabis (also other distracting activities) is most likely to interfere, really isn't a good fit for some people. Some people burn out on weed, some burn out on other things.
Thing is, sometimes people just burn out. I think there are a lot of people who come into this argument from a pro-prohibition point of view because someone close to them changed after they started smoking marijuana. And I think that this is akin to blaming a spark for a bomb. The thing is, that your stock-broker friend may in fact have been unhappy as a stock broker. It is possible, even likely, from my anecdotal experience, that he latched onto weed because he didn't like where he was in life. It doesn't really matter if you think he should have liked where he was in life.
There are plenty of harm reduction arguments for legalization, but I prefer the libertarian argument because, I think, it most directly refutes the central point of the popular anti-legalization arguments.
[1]: with a few exceptions.
And yet decriminalization has proven tentatively successful when trialled.
If your issue is that cannabis use is still looked on as evil (that's something of a strong word; I suspect only real puritans view it as evil :)) then possibly that is something we can address. However on the other hand I suspect the idea of cannabis being looked on as bad/evil/nasty would be unaffected by decriminalization/legalization - at least in the short term.
Speaking personally I'd like to get to a happy medium where you can have the choice of cannabis if you like, but it's not so readily available that it becomes the kind of widespread habit smoking became. I'd like to see a society were cannabis use didn't raise any eyebrows and was accepted as something people chose to do.
What really gets me on this is that people conflate the question "should cannabis be legal" with the question "should you smoke cannabis"
I've personally tried to be very specific when replying here regarding this issue. I'm open to discuss the former and as to the latter I have a personal opinion - which is that, on balance, I think smoking cannabis is probably bad for you.
Who the hell do you think you are that you can dictate what someone does with their life?
That made me a bit angry to be honest; because I don't make personal judgements like that! Definitely pro-choice here and I tend to get angry when people berate my friends for drug use (it's not their place! as you say).
Sure, if someone asks me the outright question: "Tom, should I smoke cannabis" I would say no (and then try to back it up, obviously). I'll maybe, maybe, try and raise the issue with a close friend if they seem to be struggling/having issues due to drug use, but that's it.
As you say these are 2 different issues and we should definitely address them seperately.
As a quick further comment: I think it is absolutely fine to talk to people about their "bad" life choices. One of the worst life choices I nearly made was to do architecture rather than engineering - I'd have been a shit architect but it had been my passion from a very young age. A few close friends/family helped to show me it was a poor choice and for that I am forever thankful (I probably owe most of my current success to that single decision).
So, as long as your not forcing or overbearing on anyway it seems fair to lay out why they might be making a bad choice :)
Thing is, sometimes people just burn out. Agreed, ny friend was not one of them though. As I explained elsewhere a) we were extremely close during that period and b) it was less a proof that cannabis use was dangerous (I concede a single example is useless for that) as a rebuttal to someone else who suggested that cannabis could not have that affect.
The thing is, that your stock-broker friend may in fact have been unhappy as a stock broker. It's a really sad story. He came out of rehab at the end of last year and is currently working in the city and doing moderately well - but his concentration is shot and his spark/skill aren't what they were. It's sad but, yes, not proof that all cannabis use ruins lives.
It's more of a logical thing than a physical thing. If you can't justify throwing a cannabis user in jail, how do you justify throwing a cannabis seller in jail? It's ludicrous! If you can't justify throwing someone in jail for smoking weed, how do you justify fining them $100?
It essentially encourages organized crime. You're feeding a black market that has no competition, for chrissake.
> I think it is absolutely fine to talk to people about their "bad" life choices.
Of course it is. I make no claim that you can't try to tell someone not to smoke weed, only that you oughtn't try to force someone not to smoke weed. And that's what prohibition is, and that's also what the goal of decriminalization is.
> it's not so readily available that it becomes the kind of widespread habit smoking became.
It doesn't matter! If 24% of the country wants to smoke weed, then 24% of the country can smoke weed! I think you'll find, though, that most people choose not to. This is another assumption that I think gets ignored: "if weed is legal, everyone will want to use it" -- well, hell, if everyone wanted to use it, they would already. Most people don't want to use it. If that's your main concern, it's worth pointing out that it wouldn't matter if weed were sold in every gas station in the country: cannabis usage probably would never rise above 15% or so. It's already 11%, according to the WHO. A lot of people don't even like it, if you read bluelight. This is the third thing that bugs me: somewhere along the line cannabis became the best feeling ever. I like alcohol more than weed. I smoke (vaporize?) weed more than I drink because the negatives are less severe.
> Agreed, ny friend was not one of them though.
But that's what they all say! Everyone's friend was perfectly happy. People who burn out don't do nothing -- they while away their time playing video games, or masturbating (ya rly), and slowly neglect things that they may have once enjoyed. That said, I accept what you are saying.
It's true: some people do get addicted. But punishing everyone because some people react badly doesn't work. More to the point: punishing me because someone got addicted is being a dick. Punishing the guy who sells me weed is still being a dick. Punishing the guy who sold your friend weed is being a dick.
I'd like to make a potentially difficult claim: selling cannabis to a burnout is not necessarily wrong[1]. It is not entirely the responsibility of a seller to control the use of their product. The image of a predatory dealer who pushes cannabis on an addict who is trying to quit[2] is, in my experience, largely false, especially among the affluent and the well-educated. It happens, though I can't think of any particular instance. It can't happen under a system of legitimized commerce. It is frightening to see people use it as an argument against a system of legitimized commerce.
[1]: In a world where cannabis is legal, they would be responsible for adequately and accurately informing the user of the risks of cannabis, verifying the user's age, and possibly for providing information about treatment for cannabis addiction. All of these are good things. All of these can't happen under prohibition or decriminalization. In fact, the only way I can see to blame a drug dealer is if they claim that their product isn't addictive -- which doesn't happen, and can't happen, in the world of legitimate commerce.
[2]: The image of a dealer who gives out free first samples of extremely addictive things is a little more grounded in reality. Cannabis is not one of those things, in that I hope we can all agree that it is not extremely addictive.
EDIT: Slight, but significant, modification to last paragraph. I intended to clarify that the provision of cannabis is not a problem in and of itself -- there are of course unethical things that a dealer can do and may have done in your friend's case.
ps: Personal freedom is a hard argument to make, and it can be a bitter pill to swallow (Farnsworth: "now, if they could put it in the form of a suppository"). I think that's why tax revenue dominates the national stage. I don't like it, really. Instead of having to make a difficult -- but ultimately sensible -- decision, that might establish a serious, meaningful precedent, we are instead distracted by the prospect of more shiny things that we might get.
Ok.. think of it this way - we can, as society, judge cannabis use a poor choice. And thereby punish people who encourage that choice. But accept people who make the choice for themselves.
well, hell, if everyone wanted to use it, they would already. That seems illogical. I'm sure there are many people who are interested in trying it but who don't. :)
Anyway; I'm talking more about things like peer pressure. A large number of people develop a smoking habit from peer pressure at school. It's already a problem with weed as well - but I'd personally prefer not to see it become more widespread.
But that's what they all say! We can argue this all day; but the fact remains that in this case you just have to accept what I observed in my friend :)
The image of a predatory dealer who pushes cannabis on an addict who is trying to quit is, in my experience, largely false... ...especially among the affluent and the well-educated
The killer point is that last bit; affluent/well-educated people aren't the problem demographic. A lot of effort it put into pushing drugs onto inner city/poorer families. It is easier to hook them because of social issues.
This is the sort of problem I feel we need to address.
but punishing everyone because some people react badly doesn't work....
Please read back; as I have reiterated a number of times the example was used to disprove somebody else's assertion that cannabis could not destroy someones life. It's not specifically relevant to the pro/anti legalization debate.
It's not particularly nice to be called a dick.. you seem angry so I will leave it there because it's never a good basis for debate.
(as an aside in that I hope we can all agree that it is not extremely addictive.. This is one area of this that interests me deeply. It is becoming clear that cannabis is not physically addictive - but I have observed dependence in most people I know who smoke it. I'd love to see some better studies into why that is - is psychosomatic because they expect to be addicted, or just a product of habit?)
I read a lot of excerpts from his post as him just ranting against a general 'you,' not you in particular. I wouldn't take it personally.
The small basement operations aren't part of the crime problem (ignoring the illegality of marijuana itself).
crime is reduced
I'm not so sure that is the case (well, apart from the fact that selling the drug would no longer be illegal :)).
It wouldn't reduce crime due to people taking the drug, technically that may increase - but I suspect (for weed) it's a low value anyway.
But would it reduce crime associated with drug dealers/drug gangs etc.? I'm not so sure; there are plenty of other illegal substances to sell so it seems unlikely dealers et al will just give up and go work in 7-Eleven :D
That depends on what you mean by 'crime due to people taking the drug.' How much of the drug-user related crime is due to the users seeking to lie, cheat and steal their way to the next 'score?' If their 'next score' is that much cheaper it reduces the need to commit crimes just to feed the habit.
> But would it reduce crime associated with drug dealers/drug gangs etc.? I'm not so sure; there are plenty of other illegal substances to sell so it seems unlikely dealers et al will just give up and go work in 7-Eleven :D
True, but then it would no longer be 'pot-related crime' where people get all worked up over how 'pot is destroying our society' because it's 'causing all this crime.' You've just pointed out that people will commit crimes regardless, and if you take away one form of committing crimes for fun and profit, it will just be replaced by another.
We still have to account for potential taxation etc. so the price might not go right down. Secondly there will certainly be more users and possibly people using more of the drug.
With all that said I highly doubt there is a meaningful statistic for pot abusers causing crime; it's just not the profile of the drug.
You've just pointed out that people will commit crimes regardless, and if you take away one form of committing crimes for fun and profit, it will just be replaced by another.
Agreed, that's exactly what I meant. Unfortunately I've never considered that a particularly good argument on the side of pro-legalization. Simply because what's the use in pushing crime somewhere else; if the aim is to fix/reduce crime then it's a pointless exercise :)
where people get all worked up over how 'pot is destroying our society' because it's 'causing all this crime.'
So then it becomes "crack is destroying our society" - there will always be people saying these things. Just like there are some people who say "alcohol is destroying our society". I guess pot is more widely lambasted due to being illegal (and possibly due to the fact it tends to inhibit abusers interactions in a much more noticable way)
In this situation I would probably support legalization; if you look at the drugs profile in the area most of the production is from small/medium gangs and individuals. The legal trade has changed that profile even more.
The major stumbling blocks I feel exist generally for legalization of pot is that in other areas larger, more dangerous drugs gangs exist and I a) don't think we should give into them and b) don't imagine they will let us take a lucrative industry from them without a fight.
My point was that a number of people point to crime as the reason to keep it illegal. "If it's causing all this crime now, then making it more easily accessible to larger amounts of people would cause even more crime." Crime is the symptom, but <insert illegal drug here> is not the disease.
> Just like there are some people who say "alcohol is destroying our society"
To a lesser extent though. People like to attack drugs that are illegal much more just because:
- They have been illegal. (i.e. the government says it's bad so therefore it must really be bad)
- They have been demonized for very long time. (i.e. "I grew up hearing about how bad <drug> is; therefore that is 'the way things are.'")
- They are an unknown. (i.e. "I've never taken the drug, and I don't know anyone that has taken the drug so therefore it's very easy for me to just believe all the demonizing stories I hear and blame drug users for all the ills of the world.") This is very similar to the attitudes that a lot of people have (or have had) towards homosexuals. Some of the ideas that people have about how 'all' homosexuals are, are completely outrageous, but they hold these ideas very easily because they've never met/known someone that isn't heterosexual. (I'm not really saying that 'drug users' are just persecuted like gays are/were. There are plenty of people have have wild fantasies about what the reality of drug use really is, and I'm using the wild fantasies that people have about what homosexuals are really like as a parallel.)
Yeh, sorry that was my point. I was trying to say; it's not an ideal argument because there will always be people who say these things.
In a small part they are right (because heavy pot smokers are generally low-achieving/non-functioning due to the drug). But then the same applies to heavy alcohol abusers.
Basically; it's possible to simply ignore those who blame pot/alcohol/broccoli etc. because they will always moan about something regardless of what happens :P
That's just like, your opinion man.
(update: I am lowering the tone with a Lebowski quote)
I'm willing & happy to be proved wrong, but there hasn't been enough studies yet to prove one way or the other (though as far as I last read it was starting to come down on the side of what I have seen)
I totally agree, and that's why we should bring back alcohol prohibition. Sure, it would increase alcohol-related violence, but "people will commit crimes regardless", so what does it matter?
I think that you're missing the point. Like was said before, most of the people committing crimes related to cannabis will just move on to commit the same crimes, but related to another drug or illegal substance. The effect on overall crime will probably be negligible.
On the other hand, it would reduce the 'crime' related to things like possession. I guess it really comes down to which stats you are using to look at 'crime'...
As I pointed out, it's incomparable because it is a different type of crime. Prohibition of Alcohol probably would reduce the overall amount of crime in society. But it's another matter. If, on the other hand, prohibition drove individuals to other (hypothetically legal) substances which had the same affect as alcohol and were eventually as widespread then it is a comparable issue.
You can't turn around and present legalization as a way of reducing crime - because that seems very unlikely. It's better to rely on other arguments.
Now, look at what is happening in Mexico and the southern parts of the U.S. Try to tell me that crime wouldn't be reduced.
So has the removal of prohibition removed problems due to trading in illegal substances? Answer, by your own admission, is no :)
Most of your post I am entirely in agreement with.
The problem is thus:
Currently we are discussing cannabis legalization. I for one could see myself being convinced, and even supporting, it's legalization at some point (certainly my attitude has changed in the last 12 months!). However, in realistic terms, that is not going to reduce overall crime related to the illegal drugs trade - dealers will simply shift focus to other drugs (I admit that there could well me a small reduction where dealers find it too much hassle etc.).
For your scenario to take affect all drugs have to be legalized. I cannot see a reasonable argument for making Heroin, a highly addictive and dangerous substance, legal. I'm fairly sure that many people behind the legalization of cannabis would feel the same way.
And even then I feel the problem would not go away - at least in the long term. Illegal markets will always exist. Sure we can keep legalizing them - but at what point does the danger become too great, at what point does designer drug X become too dangerous? I posit that such a point will come (given rampant legalization) and as such the illegal trade will continue to flourish.
Essentially what you are arguing is the idea of shifting poisonous assets (crime) elsewhere to allow positive gains in certain areas (cannabis industry/use). Which is fine but a) you have to be aware of where those poisonous assets are going to (can you control them?) and b) those assets still exist and you have to deal with them at some point.
That is economics :)
With regards your other post, which you deleted, I can't (and wouldn't anyway!) down mod your replies [for obvious reasons] but I suspect the reason was because of the first comment - the tone of which is usually frowned on here.
"For your scenario to take affect all drugs have to be legalized."
"I feel the problem would not go away"
You seem to assume that the amount of illegal "effort" to supply illegal substances (with the violence that follows from those activities) has and will remain constant trough prohibition/legalization of some of the most common drugs (alcohol and cannabis). This contradicts basic economic theory. If there is a bigger demand (for illegal substances) there will be a bigger supply (of illegally distributed illegal substances) if an increase in this supply requires organized criminal effort (involving, among other things, violence) prohibition will lead to more crime. (It could also decrease other forms of crime but thats not the matter here.)
"Essentially what you are arguing is the idea of shifting poisonous assets (crime) elsewhere to allow positive gains in certain areas (cannabis industry/use)." I'm not arguing for anything, I'm trying to get the point above across. There are cost and benefits to prohibition of any substance. One of the most widely recognized costs (this is literally the first time I have hard it questioned) is that it causes organized crime.
While we are on economics there is another issue you've ignored. The fact that legalization removes a revenue stream for the drugs gangs. They will want to expand markets - that means new drugs and new problems.
If they cannot supply cannabis why is it illogical to imagine they would not expand the heroin/coke markets.
If you want some "insider info"; we did a couple of investigations into drugs gangs last year. There is already a lot of market control within the gang infrastructure - they use fairly sophisticated market strategy to expand usage of underperforming drugs in an area for example.
High quality oregano is ~$5 a pound, according to a quick web search. Is there any particular reason to believe it wouldn't stabilize in roughly the same place give or take, say, 5x, if legalized? (And bear in mind that taxes not only don't go to the producer, they actually inhibit produce demand (http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Academic/Price_Theory/PThy_Cha... , search for "Who Pays Taxes?"), so that only makes it worse for these guys if the government starts taxes it punitively.) That's still over a full order of magnitude price drop from the estimates of MJ/lb I could dig up. It strikes me as very, very likely the bulk of the cost is compensation for taking on risk, rather than material or labor costs.
True, and grapes are 2.99 a pound at the local grocery store. Doesn't seem to explain why a good dinner table wine can be upwards of $100 a bottle.
Never underestimate the power of a mind-altering substance, or the price that people are willing to pay for it.
While there is an element of perceived value built into the price of a bottle of wine, much more goes into pricing a bottle of wine than the price of grapes.
Different grape varietals can be more or less easy to grow depending on skin thickness, adaptability to different climates, and disease resistance. The pinot noir grape, a notoriously finicky varietal, really only shines in cooler regions and its thin skin makes it highly susceptible to disease. Other grape varietals, like Chardonnay, are highly adaptable to a number of different regions and soil types.
Once harvested, grapes are typically sorted according to quality. The best grapes are used for the best wines. The excess, low-quality harvest is usually used for blending into massive batches of lower quality wine or grape juice or it's thrown into compost to fertilize the next year's crop.
Once the juice from the grapes is pressed and fermented, the wine, depending on type, will either be aged in oak barrels or steel tanks. American Oak Barrels can range in price from $500-$1000 and French Oak Barrels can be double that. If aged in oak, which is typical of many reds and a few whites, the aging can typically take anywhere from a few months to many years.
Once aged, the winemaker will typically select small samples from different barrels and experiment with different blends to get the optimal blend for balance and aging.
All this being said, here's what I learned from working at a smaller winery in Virginia for a year: As a rule of thumb, most of our wines cost about $5-6 per bottle to produce. In the winery, we would sell at retail between $10-30 depending on the type of wine. We would sell at wholesale to restaurants and stores at $8-12/bottle. Stores would typically mark the bottles up to match what we sold the wine at at retail in the winery. Restaurants on the other hand will typically mark up a wine 3-5x what they purchased the wine at to account for corked wine, uncorking fees, storage costs, and of course to make a profit.
So sure, marketing and perception play a big part establishing a market price for wine. (Thus a huge jump in Pinot sales the year after Sideways came out, and a corresponding drop in Merlot sales). But it's also naive to compare the mass-produced Concord or Niagra grapes you're getting at a grocery store to the bottle of wine you're getting at a restaurant.
As naive as some here assuming that all marijuana would be grown, harvested, processed, packaged, and marketed like bulk oregano?
The process of cultivating, harvesting, trimming, drying and curing medicinal-grade Marijuana is as involved and labor-intensive as any other artisanal process like winemaking or gourmet food preparation. It can't be that everyone still thinks it's essentially Cheech and Chong growing bagseed in their high school dorm room closet.
Take a look at the lengths people will go to find and cultivate world-beating cannabis:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsKOzrymxZE
I can definitely tell you this much: California has had essentially legal cannabis for over a decade now, Amsterdam even longer. Growers and dispensaries/shops operate in clear view of the law and only a few ever see serious legal repercussions.
I can also tell you that properly dried and cured cannabis of an exotic or perceivably powerful or flavorful strain is about $400 per ounce. Regular, serviceable "bulk" weed grown outdoors for commercial trade runs about 75-100 an ounce. THAT market I can see becoming commoditized. The high-end market, maybe a bit, but not nearly to such an extent.
I think you may be making a critical, but easy, economic error, which is considering only one side of the supply/demand dynamic. Yes, demand may be sky high, but that only implies high prices if supply is scarce. Things with sky-high demand and a corresponding sky-high supply are still frequently very, very cheap. And legal MJ's supply would be sky high; as others have pointed out, it's called "weed" for a reason. It is not hard to grow, it is not hard to process, it is not hard to move, it doesn't take specialized equipment beyond what already exists off the shelf. The only two ways for the price to end up even remotely high is for the government to tax the hell out of it, or for a cartel to form. And it's very difficult to see how a cartel could form under those circumstances, too; how would you form a dandelion cartel?
First, it takes ~3 lbs of grapes to make a bottle of wine (and the grapes aren't likely the same as the ones you buy in a store). So that would be ~$9/bottle based on the 2.99/lb you mentioned, which is probably a lot more common than $100/bottle. Trader Joe's wine is what, $3?
Even so, you haven't accounted for the winemaking process, which I imagine is significantly more complicated and time consuming than the marijuana-making process (does it involving anything more than drying the leaves?).
Surely there would be craft/luxury brands that are more expensive, but I think for mass-producers, selling a cheaper (as in not cost prohibitive) product would be significantly more profitable.
Well, if we're to set aside the actual strain-crossing, hybridization of sativa and indica (not to mention with ruderalis for a different flowering and flavor profile), cloning, pulling of males and hermaphrodites, creating plants simply for harvesting feminized seeds guaranteed to yield _foo_ amount of grams per plant or per square foot of space depending on lighting, and on and on... then yes, cannabis is not like wine.
Making high-quality hashish, butane hash oils, tinctures, or other "decoctions" such as icewater extraction, are supplemental processes that require significant labor for the amount produced.
I hear you, though. Winemaking is fancy and there have been shows like "Falcon Crest" that chronicle it with an heir of refinement and love's labor that you don't see from, for example, "Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle". Cannabis will, until fully legalized, always be demonized and caricatured as a rebellious college kids' vice.
It is an extremely significant cash crop in the US, though; and I think it will be even when legalization does come around; much moreso than, say, oregano or sage.
Yes, and by the pound is how bulk MJ is bought and sold at a wholesale level.
> Doesn't seem to explain why a good dinner table wine can be upwards of $100 a bottle.
This has been post-processed, aged, and blended by masters whose work is more art than science. I'm not sure there is a good analogue in MJ world except perhaps hashish or hash oil. Hashish is relatively easy to produce and may be aged. It is certainly refined to a greater potency than bulk MJ.
So it will cost more per weight unit than bulk MJ.
A lot of pro legalisation campaigners take the "imagine how much you could collect in taxes" approach and calculate based roughly on the current size of the industry.
I think marijuana is easy enough to produce and responsive enough to modern agricultural tricks to be a pretty small industry. Perhaps orders of magnitudes smaller then alcohol.
As others have mentioned, there will probably be a premium market, but even there it is hard to imagine a prices anywhere near $2k per pound
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=554166
which links to this article: http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2009/04/have-you-ever-legali...
Perhaps not an argument against, but certainly a 'reality' check argument against the "it's so obvious we should do it" mentality that seems to thrive in online forums.
EX: A "major" issue is it's hard to detect if someone is currently under the effects of pot. Because, apparently drug test are designed to detect if you have smoked not if you are currently impaired. However, an officer can do a road side sobriety test without using a breatilizer so it's not a real issue.
Now if there was some sort of bioaccumulation of pot ever time that caused massive issues then that single issue could prevent legalization on its own.
I don't see a problem. Pot use can be detected, sometimes days (or weeks) after. The law in most of europe is simple: If you're tested positive while driving then your license is gone.
Seems fair enough.
The bioaccumulation idea was a separate issue; if smoking pot for 30 years turned people into zombies with an uncontrollable desire to eat brains then it should be illegal regardless of other negatives. (I could not think of any issues like this so I made something up for the sake of argument.)
PS: You can probably detect pot in the blood of 75% of Americans if you set your threshold low enough. (Second hand smoke from 2 blocks away etc.) That does not mean it's impossible to separate smokers from non smokers just you need to set a reasonable threshold and accept you might miss the occasional smoker.
Well, the tests are not that precise (yet), but it's the same with alcohol. You may very well be tested positive if you had been drunk the day before.
Imho that's just fair. If I want to smoke then leaving the keys at home for a few days seems reasonable. If I want to be a regular pot smoker then I shouldn't be driving anyways, as my reflexes are permanently reduced.
I can attest to the latter from experience, as I used to smoke quite a bit for a while. The longterm effect on concentration and memory have been fairly small, but definitely noticeable.
Anyway, as a non smoker I assumed Pot like most drugs had a fairly short term effect, if you are impaired for 3-7 days then that's a separate issue I was not aware of.
FWIW, I've been smokin' quite a bit myself for a few years, I'm in no way against it.
I think your reasoning is not correct. I think the quick-tests go for the metabolic waste simply because there is no other reliable test short of taking your blood.
I've not been in the situation but I guess that blood test will take place before you actually lose the license, just like with alcohol.
Anyways, like I said, I know what I was like when I was smokin' frequently and anyone who does will probably agree that your overall performance is slightly reduced even a few days after. For that reason I'm okay with not allowing people to drive during a reasonable timespan.
I have a couple of pretty simple one (it's worth considering).
The long term affects of pot abuse are pretty easy to develop - I've seen medium-heavy users become fairly "brain dead" after several years of use. This is entirely from observation but it seems to occur faster than the same effect due to alcohol abuse. As a result we could see quite a few problems from more long term users.
It is also harder to determine if someone is under the influence. This would mean some industries would have to begin mandatory drug testing prior to performing sensitive work - random examples: doctors, pilots. That's costly, time consuming etc. And if the long term affects of the drug are as pronounced as I suspect you could see heavy abusers in those fields actually pass drug tests and still fail to concentrate at a critical moment.
It's certainly an area that needs a lot more research before legalization occurs.
Mandatory drug tests are common already (Home Depot does drug tests on all employees -- don't you feel safer about hardware?) People's performance are also impacted by stress, sleep deprivation, etc. - they should be monitored for performance, not blood chemistry.
>It's certainly an area that needs a lot more research before legalization occurs.
No it doesn't. It's safer than other existing legal drugs: http://www.saferchoice.org/content/view/24/53/
A gallery of loser stoners: http://coedmagazine.com/2009/02/06/the-10-most-successful-po...
And if it is a concern about people's health, why is it treated as a criminal matter?
Solid point. I can't disagree. Possibly the only issue worth raising is that cannabis influence may not be as physically obvious as those things you mention. For example a nurse may notice a brain surgeon is looking fatigued and raise concerns, but if on drugs his attention may wander at random moments which are not immediately obvious in the same way.
Legal marijuana makes it so that people don't start using more dangerous drugs on a whim. They are no longer presented with an easy opportunity.
If pot is on the same level as alcohol which do you think is more of a gateway drug? One that makes you introverted and cautious or one that makes you more confident while simultaneously impairing your judgement?
Actually, I'd be ok with the latter discussion too, but only in person, not on an internet fourm.
Please don't take this the wrong way, but your account is 49 days old...I'm not sure that you're at the "I get to tell people what sorts of discussions they're allowed to have" stage yet, especially not to people that have been here for almost three years.
I'm sorry I didn't know that you had an alt account, it's just annoying when people start showing up and trying to dictate how things "should be" to established members of an existing community.
They don't call it "weed" for nothing ;)
You can cover up a multitude of sins using solvent extraction + chromatographic separation + blending. If legalization takes off, I suspect we will see the rise of blending conglomerates that assemble products for various tastes and purposes, like we see with whisky.
It would be pretty lame if the Budweisers and Phillip Morris of the world come in and commoditize Marijuana, and it would put a major dent in some local California economies. But like a fine microbrew or boutique web shop there will always be a market for quality.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_destruction#Downsides_...
Please.
Futures markets in heroin and cocaine could be used to predict political instability in Afghanistan and Colombia, respectively.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Policy_Analysis_Market
So unfortunately it might be a little complex as a government project. But surely there's at least one wealth stoner who might want such a market to exist. Maybe James Cayne wants something new to trade.
It's time to stop the War on Some Drugs (as Robert Anton Wilson so eloquently put it). I'm glad to see that it sounds like we're getting closer, with California leading the way. The amount of abuse, crime and fraud in the legal drug industry dwarfs the illegal drug industry combined, so by taking the spot light off this silly war on drugs, we can achieve many bigger policy goals in the pharmaceutical industry.
Another plus will be we can finally help to strengthen Mexico. Anything about Mexico is politicized due to the current economic issues with immigration and drugs, so you see very few people calling a duck a duck, and saying the US indirectly caused spill-over failure in Mexico by having the war on drugs at all. Anyone who wants to fix immigration and stop all the rampant crime on the border, well, you need to also be on board with stopping the War on Some Drugs. If Mexico was as stable as Canada there wouldn't be as many immigrants, and if Mexico wasn't run by ultra-violent drug lords making billions off of US consumers, then not as many Mexicans would even want to leave their own country.
100 years from now everyone will look back at the decades of the war on drugs and consider our entire culture as being cruel and barbarous. As a society, we punished millions of people and ruined countless lives because we chose to collectively treat drug use and chemical addiction as a criminal issue, instead of a health issue. To be fair, we simply didn't have the technology to frame it as a public health issue, treat it medically, and thereby take it out of the hands of law enforcement and the courts. But we could have at least not ruined millions of innocent people's lives.