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Comment by colordrops | Hacker News Reader

It certainly reduces gang violence and fake or tainted drugs.

But I don’t think it really reduces the amount of fake or tainted drugs, at least not for those who really suffered from the prohibition.

The heavy taxation and the strict regulation of the market creates a massive cost overhead. Even the lowest quality of legally sellable weed is so expensive that it’s out of reach for poor consumers. The undergroud market may even be able to offer the same quality product for a fraction of the price, for obvious reasons of course.

So many people, especially those with less financial stability, will still choose the underground market over legal options. Also, I’d assume that since the legalization, the pressure by law enforcement has dropped quite a bit, at least for consumers. This would make the underground an even more compelling choice.

How common is fake pot, though? I mean, surely young folks try to do stupid things to other young and stupid people (fake and tainted drugs). Occasionally folks don't get the quality they expect. But all this stuff means you lose customers and you continually need new folks to dupe.

"fake or tainted drugs" has always seemed like a bigger problem with different categories of drugs.

Additionally, I'm not convinced it actually reduces gang violence since we still have a thriving black market.

I think k2 shows up occasionally.

Nope, fake and tainted weed is a very real problem when it's illegal.

I've seen cannabis with plaster mixed in; glass beads, added ketamine, synthetic fibres; anything cheap to increase the perceived effect and weight. And all of those are safer than legal synthetic 'weed'.

The THC to CBD ratio is completely impossible to control when in prohibition areas. Dealers select for maximum THC to minimize weight to effect ratio, which is the opposite of what you want if you're trying to protect people from any possible psychosis trigger.

People who are self medicating with cannabis in illegal countries have very little control over these factors. If they try to grow their own they can get prosecuted as suppliers and face higher sentences than rapists.

Ketamine is a bit harder to come by than cannabis, and at a dose that anyone would actually feel, it's going to make the weed more expensive. That just doesn't make any sense.

It makes perfect sense if you're an organized gang stealing horse tranquilizer, and adding it to awful quality hash that's been mixed so much with garden waste that it barely works.

It's not seen as much these days, but was literally a nationwide problem in Ireland for well over a decade.

FTR, ketamine is much more than a "horse tranquilizer" - it is used extensively in emergency rooms, for depression and neuropathic pain, and in general vetinary medicine. And of course, it has wide-scale use recreationaly.

I presume the "horse tranquilizer" moniker came about as some kind of anti-ketamine propaganda.

You're not wrong; but I meant it quite literally, as in, it was being stolen from vets and thrown into incredibly shitty hash.

I find it hard to believe people would mix $100/g ketamine to make $10-$20/g weed have more mass. US prices

The ketamine was for effect on very weak hash, not mass.

And did I mention the theft, in the very short comment you're replying to.The US might have a thriving K market but 90's Ireland did not.

Here in Europe, there have been a lot of cases where sort-of-legal CBD weed was laced with sort-of-legal synthetic cannabinoids, which are essentially research chemicals (i.e. nobody really knows about their long-term effects and risks). If it's done right, the end result is not easily distinguishable from the real thing, but it's cheaper and safer to obtain for the dealers.

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