5 ms·

Personally I feel like marijuana legalisation is a no brainer. It's the most used illegal drug in the world so it's incredibly easy to get hold of regardless of

Personally I feel like marijuana legalisation is a no brainer. It's the most used illegal drug in the world so it's incredibly easy to get hold of regardless of its legal status. At least with legalisation it can be regulated and taxed. I would expect any social impact could be mitigated with education. Also legalisation would prevent people from having to interact with illegal dealers who may or may not be selling other more dangerous drugs.

mcculley 4y ago
> it's incredibly easy to get hold of regardless of its legal status > At least with legalisation it can be regulated and taxed. If it is so easy to acquire, how will legalization result necessarily in regulation and taxation? I am sure some users would go the legal route, but I am aware of people in states that legalized who still grow and sell their own to avoid taxes.
- toomuchtodo 4y ago
  Missouri has generated $70M in recreational marijuana sales revenue in the first month after recreational legalization. Some people will avoid taxes via black market route but most will take the path of least resistance. Doctors hand out medical cards liberally, so that’s a cheat code if you can’t afford recreational taxes and are willing to put the effort in (medical is usually taxed at a lower rate). > Recreational cannabis sales in Missouri generated $71.7 million in revenue during its first month of legalization. > Medical marijuana sales generated an additional $31.2 million, resulting in a combined total of $102.9 million in sales since Feb. 3, according to data from the Department of Health and Senior Services. https://www.komu.com/news/state/recreational-marijuana-sales-in-missouri-exceeds-70-million-in-first-month/article_fe5c63c2-bd27-11ed-9aae-8b032ff169bd.html https://www.komu.com/news/state/recreational-marijuana-sales...
- vladvasiliu 4y ago
  I think it's "easy" in that since many people do it, they probably don't need to be hardcore gang members. I don't smoke weed, so my opinion may not be worth much, but if I did, I absolutely would prefer getting in from a somewhat regulated outfit and be sure that it's actually what I expect it to be. I don't know if adulterated weed is a thing, though. Sure, if between taxes and whatnot you end up with a price 100 times higher than your local dealer's, my point is moot. But I doubt that's the case. So if I could avoid having to deal with sketchy characters, that'd be a plus. I think growing your own is an entirely different question. My mom grows tomatoes, peppers and other stuff in her garden. I live in an apartment building, so I get mine from the local store. I do enjoy eating her home-grown produce when I visit, though. Maybe there's a market for "non-industrial-grown weed", too, as there is for farmers.
  - toss1 4y ago
    >>I don't know if adulterated weed is a thing, though. From conversations around purchasing a portable freezer (to store prepreg carbon fiber rolls for my shop), from someone who turned out to be in the legal weed business (processing & drying operations between growers and sales outlets), he told me that in the non-legal supply chain there is an insane amount of adultering weed with some really nasty stuff. Some of it is in the dealer chain to make make crappy weed "better", including adding Fentanyl, and some of it is from counter-drug operations spraying herbicides that are highly toxic but not necessarily 100% effective, so survive into the remaining harvest. Seems that is mostly filtered out for the legal supply chain. It was enough of a caution that if I were to resume partaking (haven't in decades) I'd definitely want to use a proper store, and really just get some seeds and grow my own - the only true quality control. Edit: clarity
  - notch898a 4y ago
    The biggest issue with going to a regulated outfit is there are cameras and possibly recording of license/ID information to ensure they don't sell over 1 or 2oz limit to you. ~30-50% of people have constructive access to a firearm at home, which means you're subject to going to prison for 15 YEARS of federal prison if you have a single joint. State legal weed is a no go for me until I can hunt squirrels without going to jail for 15 years. Hopefully someday the federal laws will be fixed to allow retail outfits to put money in the bank rather than get robbed by violent organized crime, and to remove pot users from the prohibited person list.
    - vladvasiliu 4y ago
      I'd argue that this is because of what seems like a mismatch between local / state laws and federal laws. I'm not from the US, so don't know how all this works, but I assume that if weed is "generally legalized", then it should be at the federal level, too.
      - notch898a 4y ago
        Our constitution is supposed to relegate intrastate trades to the states via the 10th amendment. This was nullified in wickard v filburn, where they decided growing your own plant and consuming it on the spot is interstate commerce. Obviously this is nonsensical, but the courts don't want to shake the house of cards and you'd have people screaming about the "end of the civil rights acts" and various other popular laws that depend on an extremely fudged version of interstate commerce and the 10th.
- blululu 4y ago
  For one thing, people are really lazy (especially when they smoke a lot of weed). For another enforcement is kind of pricey. I am aware of people who had federal helicopters land on their property to machine gun down their grow operations. I would guess that a helicopter full of highly paid federal agents backed by even more highly paid lawyers costs more than they guys would make in a few seasons.
- Jackim 4y ago
  The Province of Ontario made half a billion in cannabis revenue last year from legal sales. There are provisions allowed for private growing. Some people go beyond and grow more than they're allowed, but this has been a huge success, financially, for the government here.
- mathieuh 4y ago
  I would absolutely rather walk into an actual shop than order something online and hope it arrives as described, or hang around for 30 minutes looking dodgy waiting for a dealer to show up
- aaomidi 4y ago
  The same way piracy decreases when access is easier.
- debatem1 4y ago
  Washington state brought in >$500M in revenue on marijuana taxes last year. You can say that you don't understand why people pay it, but empirically the question of whether they will pay the tax is settled.
- red-iron-pine 4y ago
  You pay taxes on every tomato you buy at the grocery store. Or every slice of bread. You don't have to, though. You can just grow your own tomatoes. Easy to do, and can be done with the right setups all year. But you don't. You buy wheat, or tomatoes at the store because it's easier. Sometimes you can get them from your neighbor for free, or from a local farm stand (and lets be real that farmer probably isn't tracking VAT/GST). The vast, vast majority of buyers are still buying their MJ from retailers, and the incredible tax surpluses the states are seeing reflects that. Most of your weed, like most of your tomatoes, is coming from a store.
bityard 4y ago
Marijuana was legalized in my state. I've never touched it myself but I was actually in favor of this and voted for it because I believed (and still do) that the war on drugs was a giant fleecing of the American people. Since then, what has happened here is that we basically got the worst parts of everything. 1. Since "hey, it's legal now," lots of people take that to mean they can smoke it wherever and whenever they want. While driving, in parks, near schools, immediately before class, and so on. Along with legalization, there should have been laws enacted, communicated, and enforced which would encourage people to get stoned at home in their own time instead of out in public where they are a danger or at least nuisance to everyone. 2. A good majority of the billboards in my state, in cities and along highways, are now for MJ retailers. I'm worried about the impact this persistent advertising has on normalizing the casual use of psychoactive substances for children who see these ads constantly in their day-to-day lives. 3. The retailers are regulated and taxed, but their prices are quite outside the range of those on a lower to lower-middle class income. As a result, there is still a lot of gray-market dealing going on to provide lower prices for those that accept the risk/inconvenience. And therefore with it, some amount of crime. So legalizing MJ did _not_ suddenly make everything above-board and peachy overnight like all of the legalization supporters had claimed it would. I don't know that I have a solution for any of this. I only hope that right now we are just seeing some kind of peak the way cigarettes were positively mainstream in the 70's and then gradually faded over the new few decades as society realized what they were doing to us and our children over the long term.
- lotsofpulp 4y ago
  >As a result, there is still a lot of gray-market dealing going on to provide lower prices for those that accept the risk/inconvenience. And therefore with it, some amount of crime. So legalizing MJ did _not_ suddenly make everything above-board and peachy overnight like all of the legalization supporters had claimed it would. Consequences of excessive taxes are not consequences of legalization. The primary benefit of legalization is to reduce abuse by police and the judicial system. It is clearly just a tool for authorities to be able to hide behind plausible deniability if and when they want to exercise their power over others.
- polishdude20 4y ago

mcculley 4y ago

> it's incredibly easy to get hold of regardless of its legal status > At least with legalisation it can be regulated and taxed. If it is so easy to acquire, how will legalization result necessarily in regulation and taxation? I am sure some users would go the legal route, but I am aware of people in states that legalized who still grow and sell their own to avoid taxes.

toomuchtodo 4y ago
Missouri has generated $70M in recreational marijuana sales revenue in the first month after recreational legalization. Some people will avoid taxes via black market route but most will take the path of least resistance. Doctors hand out medical cards liberally, so that’s a cheat code if you can’t afford recreational taxes and are willing to put the effort in (medical is usually taxed at a lower rate). > Recreational cannabis sales in Missouri generated $71.7 million in revenue during its first month of legalization. > Medical marijuana sales generated an additional $31.2 million, resulting in a combined total of $102.9 million in sales since Feb. 3, according to data from the Department of Health and Senior Services. https://www.komu.com/news/state/recreational-marijuana-sales-in-missouri-exceeds-70-million-in-first-month/article_fe5c63c2-bd27-11ed-9aae-8b032ff169bd.html https://www.komu.com/news/state/recreational-marijuana-sales...
vladvasiliu 4y ago
I think it's "easy" in that since many people do it, they probably don't need to be hardcore gang members. I don't smoke weed, so my opinion may not be worth much, but if I did, I absolutely would prefer getting in from a somewhat regulated outfit and be sure that it's actually what I expect it to be. I don't know if adulterated weed is a thing, though. Sure, if between taxes and whatnot you end up with a price 100 times higher than your local dealer's, my point is moot. But I doubt that's the case. So if I could avoid having to deal with sketchy characters, that'd be a plus. I think growing your own is an entirely different question. My mom grows tomatoes, peppers and other stuff in her garden. I live in an apartment building, so I get mine from the local store. I do enjoy eating her home-grown produce when I visit, though. Maybe there's a market for "non-industrial-grown weed", too, as there is for farmers.
- toss1 4y ago
  >>I don't know if adulterated weed is a thing, though. From conversations around purchasing a portable freezer (to store prepreg carbon fiber rolls for my shop), from someone who turned out to be in the legal weed business (processing & drying operations between growers and sales outlets), he told me that in the non-legal supply chain there is an insane amount of adultering weed with some really nasty stuff. Some of it is in the dealer chain to make make crappy weed "better", including adding Fentanyl, and some of it is from counter-drug operations spraying herbicides that are highly toxic but not necessarily 100% effective, so survive into the remaining harvest. Seems that is mostly filtered out for the legal supply chain. It was enough of a caution that if I were to resume partaking (haven't in decades) I'd definitely want to use a proper store, and really just get some seeds and grow my own - the only true quality control. Edit: clarity
- notch898a 4y ago
  The biggest issue with going to a regulated outfit is there are cameras and possibly recording of license/ID information to ensure they don't sell over 1 or 2oz limit to you. ~30-50% of people have constructive access to a firearm at home, which means you're subject to going to prison for 15 YEARS of federal prison if you have a single joint. State legal weed is a no go for me until I can hunt squirrels without going to jail for 15 years. Hopefully someday the federal laws will be fixed to allow retail outfits to put money in the bank rather than get robbed by violent organized crime, and to remove pot users from the prohibited person list.
  - vladvasiliu 4y ago
    I'd argue that this is because of what seems like a mismatch between local / state laws and federal laws. I'm not from the US, so don't know how all this works, but I assume that if weed is "generally legalized", then it should be at the federal level, too.
    - notch898a 4y ago
      Our constitution is supposed to relegate intrastate trades to the states via the 10th amendment. This was nullified in wickard v filburn, where they decided growing your own plant and consuming it on the spot is interstate commerce. Obviously this is nonsensical, but the courts don't want to shake the house of cards and you'd have people screaming about the "end of the civil rights acts" and various other popular laws that depend on an extremely fudged version of interstate commerce and the 10th.
blululu 4y ago
For one thing, people are really lazy (especially when they smoke a lot of weed). For another enforcement is kind of pricey. I am aware of people who had federal helicopters land on their property to machine gun down their grow operations. I would guess that a helicopter full of highly paid federal agents backed by even more highly paid lawyers costs more than they guys would make in a few seasons.
Jackim 4y ago
The Province of Ontario made half a billion in cannabis revenue last year from legal sales. There are provisions allowed for private growing. Some people go beyond and grow more than they're allowed, but this has been a huge success, financially, for the government here.
mathieuh 4y ago
I would absolutely rather walk into an actual shop than order something online and hope it arrives as described, or hang around for 30 minutes looking dodgy waiting for a dealer to show up
aaomidi 4y ago
The same way piracy decreases when access is easier.
debatem1 4y ago
Washington state brought in >$500M in revenue on marijuana taxes last year. You can say that you don't understand why people pay it, but empirically the question of whether they will pay the tax is settled.
red-iron-pine 4y ago
You pay taxes on every tomato you buy at the grocery store. Or every slice of bread. You don't have to, though. You can just grow your own tomatoes. Easy to do, and can be done with the right setups all year. But you don't. You buy wheat, or tomatoes at the store because it's easier. Sometimes you can get them from your neighbor for free, or from a local farm stand (and lets be real that farmer probably isn't tracking VAT/GST). The vast, vast majority of buyers are still buying their MJ from retailers, and the incredible tax surpluses the states are seeing reflects that. Most of your weed, like most of your tomatoes, is coming from a store.

bityard 4y ago

Marijuana was legalized in my state. I've never touched it myself but I was actually in favor of this and voted for it because I believed (and still do) that the war on drugs was a giant fleecing of the American people. Since then, what has happened here is that we basically got the worst parts of everything. 1. Since "hey, it's legal now," lots of people take that to mean they can smoke it wherever and whenever they want. While driving, in parks, near schools, immediately before class, and so on. Along with legalization, there should have been laws enacted, communicated, and enforced which would encourage people to get stoned at home in their own time instead of out in public where they are a danger or at least nuisance to everyone. 2. A good majority of the billboards in my state, in cities and along highways, are now for MJ retailers. I'm worried about the impact this persistent advertising has on normalizing the casual use of psychoactive substances for children who see these ads constantly in their day-to-day lives. 3. The retailers are regulated and taxed, but their prices are quite outside the range of those on a lower to lower-middle class income. As a result, there is still a lot of gray-market dealing going on to provide lower prices for those that accept the risk/inconvenience. And therefore with it, some amount of crime. So legalizing MJ did _not_ suddenly make everything above-board and peachy overnight like all of the legalization supporters had claimed it would. I don't know that I have a solution for any of this. I only hope that right now we are just seeing some kind of peak the way cigarettes were positively mainstream in the 70's and then gradually faded over the new few decades as society realized what they were doing to us and our children over the long term.

lotsofpulp 4y ago
>As a result, there is still a lot of gray-market dealing going on to provide lower prices for those that accept the risk/inconvenience. And therefore with it, some amount of crime. So legalizing MJ did _not_ suddenly make everything above-board and peachy overnight like all of the legalization supporters had claimed it would. Consequences of excessive taxes are not consequences of legalization. The primary benefit of legalization is to reduce abuse by police and the judicial system. It is clearly just a tool for authorities to be able to hide behind plausible deniability if and when they want to exercise their power over others.
polishdude20 4y ago