Its more than that. I have a few dispensarys in CA and the experience is shit. The places are loaded with cash because they cant legally accept credit or debit cards. So you have to bring cash or use their ATM and get charged a withdrawal fee. This also means they are targets for robbery so security at these places is crazy with guards, waiting rooms and check points. This meeans you have to wait upwards of 20 minutes just to get inside to wait on a counter line for another 10 minutes. The experience is miserable.
My NYC dealer has been in the game for ages and moves volume. You can buy plates (pounds) from him if you wanted (usually $1800-2400 depending on the strain). I send a text and get an automated menu reply, text back my order plus address and within an hour or less someone is outside in an "uber" or "lyft" with my weed. I pay $80-100 for 0.5 oz.
BTW, if you live in NYC and pay over ~$30-35 for an eighth ounce you're getting ripped off BIG time (unless its in a branded bag like Jungle Boys etc.) I have a friend who moved to Williamsburg tell me how they buy from same the guy I do, more than double the price and sell it to "stupid rich white kids from Iowa".
That sounds awful to me. Here in Canada, legal dispensaries accept debit, cash, and various credit cards; you can order online for in-person, same-day delivery (within a couple hours); you can order online and pickup in person, too. If you go in-person, you might have to wait if their employees are all helping other customers, but otherwise I can be in and out within 5 minutes.
> I pay $80-100 for 0.5 oz.
That seems obscene, coming from Canada. A decent-quality 28g bag of weed here tops out at 160 CAD, from what I've seen (edit: and I just bought an ounce I am perfectly happy with for 90 CAD). I'm not sure I've seen an ounce for more than that. Half-oz usually range from 60-80 CAD, depending on quality/sales.
At this point I greatly prefer the legal dispensaries to any black market weed for quality, convenience, price -- whether MOM or dealers. I think the only place dealers would have an advantage is more freedom to offer a better price to certain clients.
Then how do you get your weed? Teleporter?
1. If he doesn't have your number in his phone ahead of time, he wont respond. I had to be recommended by a close friend of his who is in turn good friends with me. He has to trust you and any deviations from basic rules will get you banned (he ghosts you).
2. He doesn't deliver himself, he has 2-4 drivers he pays well ($400/day + all the weed you can smoke)
3. Most people in my neighborhood know how to mind their damn business or smoke too so no one gives a shit.
Since it's still illegal federally, dispensaries can't use banks as their funds could be seized without a trial, and merchant services (credit/debit network access) can't offer services to those businesses as it would be aiding in a felony.
Several places I have been to have a small waiting area that you must be let to pass, but that is more common in my experience in smaller towns.
I can't comment on the prices, since I have never bought bud illegally. But the in-store experiences have been just fine, and I don't have to hang out at a bar and try not to look like a cop to find a stranger selling.
Edit, the CA experience was 2-3 years ago, so maybe things have gotten worse or maybe in places where rule of law is less enforced, things have changed.
Not sure why they're so different but I don't think it's the cash-only property that is doing it, since it's the same deal in OR.
And CA is way ahead of MA in this regard. Dispensaries here are plagued by supply issues and frequently sell poor quality product at a premium price.
Part of the reason to justify all of this regulation was to ensure that the blackmarket would update accordingly. Instead, rich investors took control of the cannabis market and the underground market thrived without enforcement pressures. Poor people who actually suffered the consequences of prohibition received none of the benefits of legalization. This issue is certainly economic and racial.
Now the legal cannabis market wants to expand but can't. Now it has to compete with a market thriving due to enforcement evaporating. One way is to reduce taxes. This would make it more profitable for the already rich existing investors in cannabis to make more money. Taxes are extreme and certainly need to be reduced but the real issue is supply chain and access to market.
It's really difficult to sell weed legally if you want to. More importantly, it's expensive. We should make it cheap to sell weed. You should be able to sell weed like alcohol. Alcohol licenses are much cheaper and with much larger quotas. Additionally alcohol is more standardized than cannabis while facing less supply chain inspections & requirements. There should be strong exceptions to small producers. Also, interstate sales should be allowed. Illicit markets serving out of state customers won't go legit if they can't ship across state lines. Especially to adjacent states with legalized cannabis. Isn't it crazy you can't ship weed from Oregon to Washington?
Lowering the barrier to market would have the additional benefit of enabling smaller market participants like the people who did it before it was legal. I actually have no problem with very high taxes on the larger companies. Maybe it'll fund building schools and hospitals in the places ravaged by the drug war. It's a great disgrace that our laws have prevented any reasonable path for going legit while demonizing them in the process.
Moldy cannabis is self-apparent in most cases.
Toxic distilled alcohol isn't. Some claim you can use a flame test to detect poisonous liquor.
Do you realize this ideia of poison alcohol was propaganda done by the government during prohibition, right?
We know how to distill from millenniums, and selling poisonous alcohol isn't a very sustainable business model...
I remember reading an article about the success of this campaign (was one of the first of this kinda). I'm mobile, but I'm sure someone can find a post a link.
Eh, I'm not sure about that. There are stories in the newspaper every few years about a corner stop selling cheap bootleg alcohol that has caused someone to go blind (or die) because it contained too much methanol. I for one am quite glad that alcohol production is well regulated.
If I’m very sensitive to food borne illness concerns, maybe I make the choice to go to a grocery store with vacuum sealed product, versus buying at a farmers market?
Similarly, folks who want “safe” booze can buy the bottled stuff from the big boys, not the corner store swill.
Of course, the weakness in this position is that the corner store swill is often substantially cheaper, and thus disproportionately affects low income communities.
No good answers. I’m not a smoker. So I have no dog in this fight. But I can’t help but read this article with a degree of schaddenfreude and frustration. The gov’t is so poor at executing sometimes, it’s astounding.
Simply, the "heads" (which are high in methanol) come out of the still first, so it's easy to remove them.
In addition, methanol test strips are cheap and easy to use.
Now say you're a shady corner store owner and you take some denatured alcohol or other spirits and dump it into some cheap vodka and sell it under the table as 'moonshine' or something else to make a quick buck...yeah you're going to hurt people. And not just a little. You could easily kill someone that way, or permanently damage them. But at home with your own still? You're way more likely to start a fire than you are to kill someone with your distillate. Unless you start cutting your output with other not-for-consumption spirits.
Do you realize that:
> During prohibition, the US Govt added poison to industrial alcohol to discourage consumption. People continued to drink it, so the government added more and they killed 10,000 people.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prohibition_in_the_United_Stat...
Can you find a case of methanol poisoning for beer or wine brewing where the maker hasn't deliberately added in something extra that contains methanol (e.g. from fluids sold for industrial use)?
I find when the news reports stories like this, they bury in the story where the methanol poisoning came from so the general public are led to believe that all alcohol brewing is incredibly dangerous, including making non-distilled drinks yourself.
For example, the first link from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_methanol_poisoning_inc... is https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-06-06/grappa-poison-william...:
"Man pleads not guilty to manslaughter and grievous bodily harm following home brew tragedy...Mr Meredith said Lynam bought methanol to use as industrial weed killer and confused it with ethanol when the home brew was made."
I'm reminded of that XKCD where every day, 10000 people are learning for the first time something that everybody knows...
No person alive today has known how to distill alcohol safe for human consumption for longer than about 100 years. The median experience among current distillers will be substantially lower than that age.
Methanol poisoning is a VERY real thing. Methanol is easily accidentally produced when using a poorly calibrated still and not throwing out enough of the early product, particularly while processing alcohol made from corn where pectin helps create methanol. It’s very real and very dangerous.
The problem is ethanol (the good alcohol) laced with a small amount of methanol won’t immediately cause obvious health issues, they tend to creep up over time especially given continued consumption.
The government did however also purposely release horribly adulterated alcohol into the black market during prohibition and literally kill people, which is probably where your belief of it all being propaganda comes from.
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methanol_toxicity
- https://sciencing.com/test-alcohol-methanol-8714279.html
- https://slate.com/technology/2010/02/the-little-told-story-o...
Easily? Yes.
Easily done unintentionally? No way in hell.
You don't even need to calibrate anything, just throw out the first bunch of stuff that comes out of the still. There's a ~10deg hop after the methanol is done boiling during which the still almost stops producing. You just throw out everything that comes before (and during) that reduced flow.
Only in the sense that we've had computers for millennia (i.e. the one before 2000 and the one after).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denatured_alcohol
> Denatured alcohol (also called methylated spirits, in Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa, and the United Kingdom; wood spirit; and denatured rectified spirit)[1] is ethanol that has additives to make it poisonous, bad-tasting, foul-smelling, or nauseating to discourage its recreational consumption. It is sometimes dyed so that it can be identified visually. Pyridine and methanol,[2] each and together, make denatured alcohol poisonous; and denatonium makes it bitter.
> In many countries, sales of alcoholic beverages are heavily taxed for revenue and public health policy purposes (see Pigovian tax). In order to avoid paying beverage taxes on alcohol that is not meant to be consumed, the alcohol must be "denatured", or treated with added chemicals to make it unpalatable. Its composition is tightly defined by government regulations in countries that tax alcoholic beverages.
imagine believing propaganda about propaganda.
congrats, man, you've come full-circle. methanol poisoning is very real, and methanol is definitely present in the "heads" of distillations (speaking as someone who's done this), and since there isn't a clear delineation between what is the "head" and what is the "body", it's entirely too easy (especially if you don't want to waste any of the good stuff) to accidentally include too much methanol in your distillation... which is exactly why alcohol is regulated
At any appreciable scale you get a reduced flow/pause in output as the mixture finishes boiling off the methanol and has to increase in temp before boiling the ethanol. It's a 10+ degree temp change so it's not instant. You need to be creating a small batch on a heat source that's way overkill to not have a defined difference.
It was literally a government created problem, with the same government claiming to be the only layer of security protecting John Q Public from this super dangerous product.
Prohibition is a case study in so many different ways of how to badly govern with the best intentions.
That's the problem. Illegal weed is basically being created outside the US with labor who barely gets paid, of course the cost will be higher.
Because it's being imported via illegal channels this is now a customs problem.
My bet is that the way to solve this would be to create a legal weed import policy, letting it sit there for a decade, then when illegal weed channels don't exist, add on a tariff. Then things will balance out.
There is also pot being imported but a lot of it is grown in the state/national forests.
There's been rumblings of changing the laws to increase the penalties, but I haven't followed the issue closely. The large grows are problematic for the region's water security/quality, since the region is dependent on finite groundwater aquifers full of ancient water that isn't being recharged anywhere near the rate of consumption AIUI. There are reasons it's not zoned for agriculture.
https://www.princetonpolicy.com/ppa-blog/2018/5/15/we-are-wi...
https://sgp.fas.org/crs/misc/R45812.pdf
https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/oregon-state-police-seiz...
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/marijuana-seized-california-bil...
The next part of slave labor is just false. Trimmers I met were earning $500 to $1,000 a day. $100 per lb trimmed was pretty common. If anything, creating an import model will guarantee we use slaves. Columbia exports cannabis legally to Europe already with a lot less worker protections than in the US.
(1) https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/la-county-sheriff-m...
I don't believe this, the numbers don't line up. If it's wet, doing 5 pounds in a day is reasonable, but nobody's going to pay you $100/pound for it. 5 pounds of wet is a little over a pound dried, so $500 is around a quarter of the total sale price. I just don't believe anyone is paying that much for something a child with safety scissors could do (albeit much worse). I also don't believe that growers wouldn't simply buy automatic bud trimmers. They're not as good, but I would be willing to bet that consumers would be happy to not pay the apparent 25% trimmer markup in exchange for slightly less pretty buds.
If that's dry bud, the price is reasonable, but there's no way in hell anyone is trimming 5-10 pounds of dry bud a day. That's like a rolling curbside garbage bin full of weed.
I don't think they're using slave labor, but given the number of people I've heard wanting to do it so they can work with weed, I'd be surprised if they're paying significantly more than minimum wage. I'd wager it's very close to $15/hour + perks, where "perks" mostly means "all the free weed you can smoke".
It is a pharmaceutical. Using any given drug without doctor or pharmacist oversight isn't a great argument for less regulation. Even if you're overall against most regulation and govt overreach.
>Even the scales used must be of the same spec used for gold weighing and cost roughly $1,500 each. It's not just the dispensaries but the wholesalers, processors, and cultivators need to buy these scales and register them once a year with the state for $100.
Every scale or other measuring device involved in commerce has to be inspected and stamped yearly, in most states. That's why the scale at your grocery checkout and gas pumps have the same stickers on them.
Other than the banking issue, none of the common complaints are really specific to the cannibas market.
More likely this market has just attracted a disproportionate number of people with little or no business experience, who are oblivious to the risks, regulatory hurdles, and associated costs that all types of businesses deal with.
>Lowering the barrier to market would have the additional benefit of enabling smaller market participants...
>It's a great disgrace that our laws have prevented any reasonable path for going legit while demonizing them in the process.
Spoken like someone starting to understand some of those crazy right-winger, free-market, pro-business, small-government arguments.
I’ve searched high and low for good prices and found that even in states like CA (on average much more expensive than e.g. OR) you can find good priced bulk deals on good - not amazing but at least 6-7/10 - product. Definitely on par with the wider market’s prices. Talking about ~$150/oz.
The problem is just most dispensaries don’t want to sell this presumably because
1 it’s low margin
2 Demand for large quantities actually isn’t that high, go into a brick and mortar dispensary and usually you will wait behind someone asking really basic/newbie questions to the budtender. Which is to say, most customers are not hardcore and aren’t buying large quantities. Most customers probably don’t even know how much things “should” cost either, so no need to go super cheap.
3 It basically cannibalizes business from their much higher margin SKUs, like 1/8 oz of 9/10 quality weed.
4 It starts a race to the bottom which isn’t really where you want to be.
Only a sith etc..
You do know there are low THC strains available? And that there are people who self medicate with cannabis for scores of reasons?
What exactly are you scared is going to happen to these people? An increased risk of bronchitis? Some people would consider that a great trade for reduction of chronic pain, nausea, or seizures.
That state of mind is like turning the temperature up on the generative function in the mind. Lots of exciting, weird shit reveals itself to your conscious perception. On the other hand, our brains probably evolved to favor adaptive ideation. If that system's filters are always tweaked or turned off, then eventually the ideation will be misaligned with the "sober" environment.
I'm convinced people just produce and pursue bad ideas in general. That's why our society functions best by rewarding people with good ideas, and making damn sure everybody knows the core ones, from language to mathematics.
Every idea starts out bad, anyway. That's what design, engineering, and craft are for: Making ideas better until they're useful, beautiful, or good enough to experiment further with.
But as has been pointed out, people are dumb. 90% of everything is bad.
Remember when some guy came up with a "juice machine" that just squeezes capri-sun style juice pouches, that you got as a subscription service? And people gave him millions of dollars to build and market the thing? And were surprised when it failed spectacularly?
They also tend to have little enjoyment due to increased tolerance and are mostly addicted (being sober is not comfortable for them).
Ss for the dependency, I am aware of no study that shows lingering effects on anything after two weeks off. And it's much easier to break a cannabis dependency than, say, an alcohol dependency or most others.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannabinoid_hyperemesis_syndro...
Did you try drinking more water?
We're pretty sure high-potency (legal) dabs were tied to his case, but regardless, it's very troubling to see people in the comments so dismissive on the science of CHS (and how much more common it has become in the past few years in particular).
I actually approve of cannabis for recreational use, but in moderation.
Based on... what? Your opinion? Your parents? Your god? Because it's certainly not based on fact.
https://www.uq.edu.au/news/article/2021/01/long-term-study-r...
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https:/...
But I'm just playing devils advocate here, I doubt daily consumption of any stimulant is great in the long term, but cannabis is probably not worse than anything else really.
I'd be willing to go out on a limb and say that cannabis is a lot worse than caffeine in this respect. I have known quite a few people who smoked cannabis daily, and while they didn't seem to notice they were mentally slow (compared to their normal selves) and almost entirely unmotivated.
Still better than alcoholism of course. But we shouldn't pretend that their aren't issues with every day cannabis use.
I think we can however be fairly confident that daily consumption of tea and coffee is safer in term of stimulants. Not many develop chronic bronchitis from tea.
I use the case as an illustrative example of the effect of the cannabis. Not judging the case here
I can't even open your second link.
Picking sources from a Google search generally doesn't help to back up whatever point you're trying to make fwiw.
I mean, I'm also arguing against him in this thread, but this comment in particular doesn't really stand out to me
Neither does going "ehhh who knows what sort of biases exist there". What are you implying here, the people running the experiment are all inveterate stoners or something?
https://accp1.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdfdirect/10.1002/...
That study tested the effects of withdrawal within long-term users, and the cognitive impairment resulting from that, over 28 days of abstinence.
From the conclusion:
> It is unclear whether these deficits might be attributable to a residue of cannabinoids in the central nervous system or to withdrawal effects from abruptly stopping cannabis, although both factors likely contribute. In any event, our data suggest that these deficits are largely or completely reversible after 28 days of abstinence.
So, this study found no evidence long-term permanent cognitive impairment, which does nothing to prove the point the person who posted it was trying to make.
But hey, I don't have to power to forbid you anything. I'm just saying how it is. You can just choose to ignore this and keep using every day.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/alicegwalton/2014/10/07/what-20...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-term_effects_of_cannabis
That said, outcomes may vary by individual, daily quantity, and whatever strain was most commonly smoked, and frankly, if it had been decriminalized and taxed instead of demonized from the get-go, research would have been much further along by now (can't exactly easily study an illegal substance).
In terms of bad effects, it's not as simple as "yes" or "no"; it's more about how much you use, as well as how often. For example, I use 10mg/THC oil at night, and vape up to 0.2g in the evening - the only adverse effect I have is some acid reflux from the oil, which is easily dealt with.
Everyone is free to do whatever they want with their body, of course, but it had a negative impact on me.