I've smoked a little pot over the years; and while I don't totally dislike the effects its just easier to stick to my cigarettes and weekend beer due to nearly every employer requiring drug tests. To me, the benefits of hitting a joint don't outweigh the negatives. As far as legalization goes, I really don't care either way. If it becomes legal to posses, sell (not that my state would allow just anybody to sell it, see the Virginia ABC stores), and use; then great, wonderful. I'd treat it like I treat liqueur now, as something I indulge in a few times a year. Should it remain illegal for the rest of my life, then I might take a few hits once every few years and leave it at that. Marijuana isn't a big part of my life and never will be. I expect my generation, people 18-25, will be the ones that actually legalize it nationwide when they become of age to run for, and hold, the positions of power in congress. There's enough congress members of the previous generations around to effectively kill any serious push to remove marijuana from the list of schedule-one drugs; not to mention the massive amounts of money from special interest groups that actively profit from arresting and incarcerating people in the War on Drugs. Now just isn't the time to seek that legislation on the federal level, though I expect the Feds to eventually not pursue marijuana related investigations in states where the drug is legal on the state level, or not trafficked across state lines. Now, on a related note when people claim that should the government regulate the sale of marijuana it will remove funding from the various drug cartels that supply it on the black market; I call bullshit. Moonshine is still available despite alcohol being legally sold again for instance. After Prohibition was repealed in 1933 criminals lost a fair amount of income until they moved to trafficking other illegal goods and services. If the drug cartels lose funding from the sale of marijuana, I hypothesize that they would simply push heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine, etc. harder than they do already to make up for the lost funding. Organized crime isn't going anywhere no matter what kind of laws are enacted or repealed; the names and faces might change but the concept won't. Prostitution for instance might become more prevalent; or arms trafficking, or running untaxed cigarettes into areas where the taxes on tobacco are high. Where there's a will, there is a way to make money.
From pm, delete if it's too...whatever. If federal legalization happens, and it's no longer a crime to possess any amount of marijuana, then a few things will happen. First, the police will stop enforcing the marijuana-related laws, generally. Sure, they'll still bust the idiots with 240 pounds in a van, but why would they bust a small or moderately-sized grow house in someone's garage? You're already seeing this happen in Washington and Colorado: the lawyers are getting the cases dropped or the judges are throwing them out. With that happening, you move away from organized, criminal yet semi-industrial sale of marijuana. Why? Because of a few reasons: locale-I'd rather buy weed from someone who grows in his garage than a sketchy-ass dealer. Higher quality, better relationship, lower chance of him ALSO trafficking cocaine or heroin. If he's a legit grower, you can bet he's prepared for legal scrutiny. Two, money-it's cheaper to grow pot in your garage, than to grow it in Colombia or Mexico and pay dozens of gangsters to smuggle it around. Also, if it's cheap, easy and people think there's a lot of money in it (and right now, there's a lot of money in growing pot), lots of people will do it. The economic idea is that when a barrier to entry (prohibition) is removed, the price falls because more suppliers enter the market, creating more supply than demand. The black market for marijuana will continue to exist, but it would no longer be the economic juggernaut that it is now. Why? Because the black market is full of inefficiencies, whereas the public market competes to weed out inefficiencies. The black market offers no consumer protection, for example. If you buy weed and it's laced with PCP, on the black market it's "fuck you", but in the normal marketplace that whole business would be brought down. So, the normal consumer would greatly prefer the open market to the black market, all else being the same. Also, with the price falling, why would the black market participants continue? Why risk your life and freedom when the payoff is drastically reduced? No one sells weed now because it's a higher calling, they do it because it's lucrative and that outweighs the risks. The risks of the black market will stay the same, but the money will dry up, so they'll largely stop doing it. Demand will increase a little bit, but not nearly as much as people think. Why? Prohibition affects those law-abiders among us who will never smoke pot, there will still be dozens of other deterrents in place (drug tests for work, divorce, licenses, etc.) as well as the people who simply don't care, be it legal or illegal. The push for legalization is the ability to smoke pot in the privacy of your home as a consenting adult, and it would surprise me for the government to allow anything beyond those parameters (ie, no kids, no "pot bars", no driving and no pot-themed restaurants, etc.). There's a difference between industrial production and recreational production of all farm products. You have to recognize the 10,000 acre farms and the mom and pop garden patch are taxed differently (if at all). You can tax industrial farms, because they are a defensible social resource-we need them and will expend resources (taxes) to protect them. Gardening? Fuck no, it's not enough to protect at a macro level, it's a hobby. So, the tax question. Taxes are designed to be a social incentive. At this point, the social goal is to gut the black market for money, and generate revenue for the government. Taxing the supply, ie all the mom and pop gardens, would be damned near impossible. Think of all the untaxed produce that flows through farmer's markets. It would be a nightmare to tax. So, taxing production will have to happen on an industrial scale: taxing the big boys. Well, immediately after prohibition there would be no "big boys". Now, then and for the next few years, the government would be waiting on the InBev of weed, and since it's a new market, any premature intervention would waste more government money than it's worth. So, they'll levy a tax on the point of sale (the dispensaries) and wait and see. If this "product", in an unrestricted market is profitable, the tax will go up. If it's not, they'll provide subsidies to create "big boys" and guide them into becoming a commodity that's widely available and standardized, just like alcohol. If it's not profitable, then the idea of a dispensary will become a joke and pot will become an informal commodity, like used furniture or firewood. Highly unlikely, but you never know. Economically, it's a bubble that has to burst to become stable and taxable. On the flip side, if its' REALLY profitable, the government will assume higher control. Think about selling a pawn shop license to the tune of $2 million, or claiming sole distribution rights for 20 years. It's not a crazy idea, because the revenue would go straight to the government, the market would be able to grow, the industry would develop standards under strict control, and the government could claim CYA by limiting the outlets. The idea is replacing the "unsafe practices" of the black market by strict government control. Over time, they would phase out into private dispensaries, but the example for this came from the end of the last Prohibition: some governments still assume sole control over the distribution of hard alcohol.
As a Washingtonian, I can say that I'm pretty excited about this. Pot will be sold (and presumably produced) in state regulated businesses (and growhouses). I can't imagine the state buying wholesale weed from Mexican cartels or the stoner down the street. Employers will still be testing for pot use, since it's a Federal statute. This makes sense to me. Pot possession up to an ounce is now legal. People that got busted before the initiative passed are probably shit out of luck, but I'm pretty sure the courts will probably just make them pay a fine/community service and send them on their way. The big deal is the fact that the law has a blood test for suspected DUI arrests. Since pot stays in your system for as long as it does, some people are pissed about that. We'll see how much of a shitshow this turns into. State regulated pot sales start December 6th.
Lots of charges being tossed out <a class="postlink" href="http://blogs.seattletimes.com/politicsnorthwest/2012/11/09/175-marijuana-prosecutions-in-king-county-dismissed-because-of-initiative-502/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://blogs.seattletimes.com/politicsn ... ative-502/</a>
You've really thought this out, and from an economic standpoint; it sounds great. How do you think the cartels will respond to this? It seems like you think they will just say, "Oh well, it's legal now, that was fun"; and be done with it.
Seek a certain type of pleasure and having men with guns kick down your door and carry you away for it sounds pretty fucking stupid to me. There are those among us who simply won't settle for second hand smoke. And as long as they are not hurting anybody or violating the rights of others, they should be free to pursue whatever forms of pleasure they desire. I guess what I'm trying to say is... can't we all just get-a-bong?
Plenty of other places will still have draconian prohibition laws (see: Indonesia, for example) and they'll move into those places. Some of them may try to become legitimate businesses, some of them will focus on or find other illegal ways to make money (prescription drugs for example). US demand might not change much, but I'm willing to bet international demand might change a lot, because the price will drop. Most of the drugs produced are sent to places like the US and Europe because they can get top-dollar there. Once that market is saturated, then the price will fall and a lot of other countries will absorb the surplus that was originally intended for the US. So, the US's drug problem goes away (hopefully), and everyone else's drug problems get worse, or at least drugs get cheaper. If the US legalizes, a lot of other countries will have to follow suit, out of sheer inability to resist the flooded market. The market will likely find a new low price, because right now marijuana is the top cash crop in the world, by a lot. When the market stabilizes, it'll probably still be more lucrative to grow pot than corn, tobacco or wheat. If that's the case, the Colombian farmer doesn't give a shit if he sells to Americans or Colombians, all he knows is that growing pot is still better than beans or corn (but probably not as good as coca, which is another problem). So, the market will flood and prices will drop, and people who wanted to smoke but couldn't afford it, now can. When pot becomes cheaper than booze in a country like Guatemala or Chile, how can that government refuse to legalize, when the mighty military of the US couldn't stamp out this problem? It would be a huge waste of resources to continue to fight, and for most countries, impossible. Maybe some conservative places keep it illegal for a few more years, but if the US drops the ball, eventually everyone else will. One interesting question is how much police protection will growers be given? The existing black market could use some racketeering techniques to bully the new entries to the market if they think the police won't defend their property rights.