4 ms·

I once had an economics professor who insisted the bigger hurdle to marijuana legalization was monetizing it. It's a quite unique cash crop in that it only tak

I once had an economics professor who insisted the bigger hurdle to marijuana legalization was monetizing it. It's a quite unique cash crop in that it only takes a small area and small amout of labor to produce large supply. His words, paraphrased: "You can grow enough marijuana in your basement to meet the demands of your whole neighborhood! And it's a difficult thing to patent to use IP ownership as a revenue model..." Looks like BioTech Institute LLC (and I'm sure lots of others) are trying to address the second point.

toufka 9y ago
Similar to tobacco - which has a bunch of regulations associated with growing it for sale.
- drewmol 9y ago
  Similar, however the space requirement to produce enough tobacco to satisfy the demand of a typical cigarette/cigar smoker is drastically larger than for marijuana.
grecy 9y ago
It's also extremely simple to produce enough alcohol for your entire neighborhood in your basement with a home-made still. That has not stopped the monetization of alcohol... People who want to make billions from this will simply lobby until there are extremely strict laws in place to protect their profits, and then also lobby to make sure there are wars and extremely strict punishments for violators of those laws.
- koolba 9y ago
  Distilling liquor is significantly more dangerous than growing a plant.
  - drewmol 9y ago
    Also, it's much more labor and processing time intensive. It's not true that alcohol demand can be satifsfied in anywhere near similar space and labor requirements that marijuana demand can be.
    - candiodari 9y ago
      Plus there's the risk factor. If you fuck up distillation of alcohol, even slightly, people may die. You get the temperature control on your distillation wrong by 3 degrees, people will get sick from drinking it. 5 degrees, and it may kill kids who happen to get a hold of it, and starting at about 8 degrees it gets to the point where 2-3 glasses of your homebrew whiskey will kill a full blown adult.
      - grecy 9y ago
        My experiences of home brewed stuff from all over Latin America and West Africa disagree with your theory. Drink it, you'll be fine!
        shkkmo 9y ago
        In my experience with Latin America, much of that homebrew was produced by the local experts and most people don't make their own moonshine.
        Mediterraneo10 9y ago
        The most common liquor in West Africa is palm wine, which is not distilled and so methanol does not form. However, West African countries fairly regularly see cases of drinkers going blind from homemade distilled beverages, I would be very cautious about the provenance of any strong liquor offered to me.
      - adrianN 9y ago
        I know that home distillation of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C8%9Auic%C4%83 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C8%9Auic%C4%83 is still fairly common in Romania for example, and you don't see many people dieing. It can't be as hard you think.
- rangibaby 9y ago
  Even the easiest homebrewing requires more knowledge and skill than dumping some seeds in your garden, which is literally all you need to do to get an acceptable crop of weed
  - seattle_spring 9y ago
    Acceptable certainly is relative. If you just "dumped some seeds in your garden", you would get seedy, low-grade crap weed, regardless of what strain you planted. Good weed requires proper attention and care.
    - malka 9y ago
      Wont kill them or blind them. Will get them High. Wont taste that good.bad weed is More acceptable than Bad alcohol
      - saturdaysaint 9y ago
        At worst, any weed being sold today will make for fantastic edibles.
    - drewmol 9y ago
      In my experience, as long as you select the right seeds/strain (feminized seeds are readily available) and harvest in time, you won't have "low grade crap weed"(obviously that description is subjective) but a very marketable product. Yeild is more difficult to optimize for. Since other people are comparing rudimentary horticulture to consumable alcohol production for some reason, making market grade alcohol is not nearly as simple. Aside from maybe some parts of West Virginia, basement hooch is not in high demand.
  - atupis 9y ago
    Really http://allrecipes.com/recipe/58561/homemade-wine/ http://allrecipes.com/recipe/58561/homemade-wine/

toufka 9y ago

Similar to tobacco - which has a bunch of regulations associated with growing it for sale.

drewmol 9y ago
Similar, however the space requirement to produce enough tobacco to satisfy the demand of a typical cigarette/cigar smoker is drastically larger than for marijuana.

grecy 9y ago

It's also extremely simple to produce enough alcohol for your entire neighborhood in your basement with a home-made still. That has not stopped the monetization of alcohol... People who want to make billions from this will simply lobby until there are extremely strict laws in place to protect their profits, and then also lobby to make sure there are wars and extremely strict punishments for violators of those laws.

koolba 9y ago
Distilling liquor is significantly more dangerous than growing a plant.
- drewmol 9y ago
  Also, it's much more labor and processing time intensive. It's not true that alcohol demand can be satifsfied in anywhere near similar space and labor requirements that marijuana demand can be.
  - candiodari 9y ago
    Plus there's the risk factor. If you fuck up distillation of alcohol, even slightly, people may die. You get the temperature control on your distillation wrong by 3 degrees, people will get sick from drinking it. 5 degrees, and it may kill kids who happen to get a hold of it, and starting at about 8 degrees it gets to the point where 2-3 glasses of your homebrew whiskey will kill a full blown adult.
    - grecy 9y ago
      My experiences of home brewed stuff from all over Latin America and West Africa disagree with your theory. Drink it, you'll be fine!
      - shkkmo 9y ago
        In my experience with Latin America, much of that homebrew was produced by the local experts and most people don't make their own moonshine.
      - Mediterraneo10 9y ago
        The most common liquor in West Africa is palm wine, which is not distilled and so methanol does not form. However, West African countries fairly regularly see cases of drinkers going blind from homemade distilled beverages, I would be very cautious about the provenance of any strong liquor offered to me.
    - adrianN 9y ago
      I know that home distillation of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C8%9Auic%C4%83 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C8%9Auic%C4%83 is still fairly common in Romania for example, and you don't see many people dieing. It can't be as hard you think.
rangibaby 9y ago
Even the easiest homebrewing requires more knowledge and skill than dumping some seeds in your garden, which is literally all you need to do to get an acceptable crop of weed
- seattle_spring 9y ago
  Acceptable certainly is relative. If you just "dumped some seeds in your garden", you would get seedy, low-grade crap weed, regardless of what strain you planted. Good weed requires proper attention and care.
  - malka 9y ago
    Wont kill them or blind them. Will get them High. Wont taste that good.bad weed is More acceptable than Bad alcohol
    - saturdaysaint 9y ago
      At worst, any weed being sold today will make for fantastic edibles.
  - drewmol 9y ago
    In my experience, as long as you select the right seeds/strain (feminized seeds are readily available) and harvest in time, you won't have "low grade crap weed"(obviously that description is subjective) but a very marketable product. Yeild is more difficult to optimize for. Since other people are comparing rudimentary horticulture to consumable alcohol production for some reason, making market grade alcohol is not nearly as simple. Aside from maybe some parts of West Virginia, basement hooch is not in high demand.
- atupis 9y ago
  Really http://allrecipes.com/recipe/58561/homemade-wine/ http://allrecipes.com/recipe/58561/homemade-wine/