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Comment by standardUser | Hacker News Reader

The blacket market for weed still exists for a lot of reasons, taxes being a small one, but weed is not a good comparison for other drugs. The markets for most drugs are comparably minuscule and the drugs themselves are not so trivially produced by anyone with a patch of dirt.

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Taxes/minimum pricing, certified chains limiting supply, profit seekers. Taxes and min pricing are a big part of it.

There's also the fact that the black market is massive and deeply-embedded in American (and Canadian) society. Even without taxes it was never going to just disappear, certainly not in a single generation. Add to that the fact that most states still don't have legal weed, so wherever someone is growing they are not far from an illegal market. Plus, with use so widespread compared to every other drug, there exists a large enough youth market to keep a pretty big black market going indefinitely.

How long after the abolition of Abolition did the black market for alcohol disappear?

I imagine bars opened more or less immediately and the big producers restarted production as soon as they possibly could (some had been making alcohol for medical purposes). That prohibition lasted 13 years, versus 60-plus years for marijuana. The infrastructure for mass production and widespread distribution never disappeared.

It’s still here, just small. While you can make your own moonshine for personal use, reselling it is illegal. Find yourself some black market spirits!

> metabolition

What's it take to produce opium? Some (opium) poppies, a razor blade, something to scrape the gum up, and a bit of drying time?

Market size seems like a better bet, yeah. Plus nobody takes weed as seriously as opiates.

Damn bro tell me more about how easy opium is to make. time to start a garden

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