Aren't weed prices...

[SHRED]

...artificially steep due to the fact that marijuana is illegal for mainstream use?

Then why is California figuring projected tax revenue income, if legalized, off of current prices?

California finds pot is a huge cash cow
Since California became the first to legalize marijuana for medicinal use, the weed the federal government puts in the same category as heroin and cocaine has become a major economic force.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2009496835_pot19.html

I favor legalizing and the tax savings alone by the courts, law enforcement, and prisons will be huge but come on, lets get real, it's easy to grow.



Now legalizing our farmers to grow industrial hemp would be where the tax revenues would skyrocket.

http://www.naihc.org/hemp_information/hemp_facts.html

[patrice]

1. Couldn't there be a drop in prices while producers sort themselves out and stabilize production, but

then, wouldn't prices go back up, because they already know how much people WILL pay for it?

[SHRED]

2. could be...

I am afraid they will outlaw people growing their own in favor of the corporate interests.

[notesdev]

3. You just watch

They'll slap on a regulation that can't be afforded by anyone smaller than Archer Daniels Midland, and that will be that.

[imdjh]

11. Let's not pretend that pot-ag is a New Age kibbutz.

If you are at all familiar with the potonomics of Humbolt County California then you know that there are Growers and there are Others. Growers live in the houses you get a glimpse of as you drive around the back roads, houses high up with solar panels, gates, and which you rightfully fear accidentally trespassing upon. Then there are the folks who live in the trailer parks who derive their income from this business one way or another, many of whom engage in the dangerous job of transport and distribution.

[CrownPrinceBandar]

15. Then, once again..................

governments will spend a bunch of money trying to enforce very difficult laws that limit cultivation by Joe Schmoe, thusly limiting the whole money-saving aspect of legalization.

I see no real potential for much corporate loss if you let folks individually cultivate. Like I've always said, if governments use the home-brewed beer model, it would be a win-win. A grower would still pay taxes on equipment and materials, and they would not be allowed to sell their product on the market without a license (more $$). This would work as, I'm sure there is a vast majority that would rather go the state store and buy a ADM or Monsanto-produced 1/4oz, than wait 6-8 week for a crop to mature.

[Mike K]

27. When marijuana was decriminalized in New York City -

- during the sixties and seventies, the laws remained on the books but the police were not interested in enforcing any laws other than those forbidding public sale, public use and distribution to minors. In other words, as long as one was discreet and sensible the cops didn't pay attention.

I lived in Park Slope, Brooklyn, which is a brownstone neighborhood with a distinctly Liberal atmosphere. Lots of people grew pot in their backyards and my across-the-street neighbor grew it in large wood tubs on the flat roof of his brownstone. He was very generous so I rarely had to pay for weed. My late wife would bake a big special carrot cake for him, which contained about an ounce worth of THC oil, and he would give us about half a pound of excellent buds -- which I understand would bring a price of $2,500 on today's black market.

Back then the going price of ordinary weed, mainly leaf with lots of twigs and seeds, was around $20 per ounce. An ounce of really good, dark, resinous sinsemilla bud sold for $50 - $75, depending on who.

The point being, once the pot laws are relaxed and the madness of prohibition subsides people stop paying attention to it. Growing becomes more common and an underground market imposes itself on prices. People who are able to grow it can't use all they grow themselves so they either give it away to their friends or sell it at very friendly prices to acquaintances.

[CrownPrinceBandar]

8. That's my biggest fear as well.............

This big rush to bolster coffers w/ grass will only alienate the little guy who just wants to grow a few plants, sans pesticide and any other additives that will maximize yield in the shortest period of time. It would be a shame to see that the only source of legal bud will be the product you buy from your state store. I would almost prefer to leave it criminal if the whole marijuana industry will be co-opted for sheer corporate profit motive.

I have always said they need to adopt the same scheme as they have with home-brewed beer: Keep production amounts low and don't sell, they'll leave you alone. I wonder if the hydroponics industry will lobby to keep a home-growing provision in any law to protect/ensure their future profits?

[imdjh]

4. I think they expect the price to drop, and the tax to take up the slack.

I do wonder if some of the growers aren't wondering how they are going to make mortgage payments on million dollar (or more) house and lifestyles if the price of pot drops to $150 an ounce, a hundred of which is tax.

Is anyone growing cocaine in the US?

[tridim]

5. CA is talking about a flat tax on an ounce of $50.

That would be fixed revenue based on quantity, not price.

IMO that's the wrong way to tax cannabis, but it's better than nothing.

[Mike K]

28. California is in for a big surprise if it legalizes marijuana.

The demand will be so great the state can't possibly control distribution, largely because of the smuggling factor. One out of every ten motor vehicles leaving the state, from private autos to commercial vehicles, will be carrying weed to other states and there will be 'round the block lines at every store that sells it.

The state will be forced to back down, take what it can get in the way of taxes, which will be significant. An enormously powerful market will emerge and will drive prices down by the sheer force of competition. After a few months, when the brainwashed segment of the public sees that legally available pot didn't cause any of the problems it was expected to, the prohibitionists will have a hell of a time imposing rigid controls over it again. Demand will assert itself.

[panader0]

6. Agree, agree

But even though it is easy to grow, many people won't or can't. Just look at the grocery stores. That stuff is easy to grow too, yet most don't. How many brew their own beer? Perhaps permits could be sold by the government to grow your own. The real money would be, as you said, in the industrial hemp. That, and the huge savings from the legal/prison system.

[sharesunited]

7. State ownership of dispensaries is the answer. The state keeps ALL the revenue. Not just some tax.

[ensho]

9. we could do both - grow hemp and legalize weed

the uses of hemp would take off like a rocket

legal weed would free up cops, courts, jails, prisons - saving everybody money (private owned jail companies would scream and faint)

and the tax would help to keep states from crumbling.

[Ilsa]

10. I'd like to see some regulation to reduce the strength of marijuana, too, if

if is really twice as strong as it was in the 1970's, or whatever they are saying about it. I don't know if I elieve that line, but I keep hearing that "today's pot is 10 times stronger than when we smoked it, with more deleterious effects."

[SHRED]

12. strong pot is healthier

Less smoke needed.

[imdjh]

14. What about the social aspect though?

Two hit pot comes a lot closer to looking like an injection dose than the party pot of the 70's, where people would sit around and enjoy sharing pot and the company of their friends.

[SHRED]

16. we are talking about pot...not an injected drug

And besides...the Thai Stick we got during the Vietnam era was as strong as any nowadays.

[imdjh]

19. Yeah, it was, but it was a "treat" not an everyday thing.

[droidamus2]

24. Anyway

I grew up in Humboldt County and I don't know about other places but we were smoking some really good skunk weed back in the 1970s. I first started smoking about 1973 and that was Mexican dirt weed with occasional access to Columbian. I would say in about 1975 we started to see some high quality seeded and some early sins and by '76 or '77 we were toking up stuff that was just as good as what people get today. Early on you would have dry spells before each harvest season but by the end of the decade you pretty much had access all year round. The meme 'of ten times stronger' is comparing the Mexican dirt weed with high grade sins so its sort of like comparing beer to hard alcohol by volume instead of content. By that I mean if you compare a 12 ounce beer to 12 ozs of tequila the tequila is obviously going to appear much stronger. If you make the correct comparison that a 12 ounce beer and a shot of tequila are about equal in alcohol content then you see the 'strength' argument isn't as dramatic.

[CrownPrinceBandar]

17. That's crap................

and stinks again of reefer madness. Anti-pot folks have been singing the fears of the dangers of "stronger pot" for as long as I've been aware of the substance, and none of the horrible things that the critics say will happen, has happened. Yes Virginia, there is pot paranoia, and its mostly on behalf of the critics.

"Injection dose"? Please.

edit: spelling

[CrownPrinceBandar]

18. Heck, use a vaporizer...........

no smoke is needed.

[erickzapanta]

21. not just a vaporizer

but a very good http://www.vaporoutlet.com">vaporizer

[imdjh]

13. Polio pot.

That's what a friend calls the "good" pot. It isn't like the Mexican and Columbian people rolled into cigarettes and shared at social gatherings in the 1970's.
That my be the source of my objection to those who still smoke. I don't recall being rendered stupid by the pot we smoked in high school. I don't recall getting paranoid or edgy from that pot. I don't recall it having the effect on my friends that the "good" pot these days seems to have. Perhaps what I sometimes complain about as the long term effects of pot is actually the short term effects of high potency pot.

[Mike K]

29. The only "harmful" marijuana -

- is that which is grown with toxic pesticides and carcinogenic growth enhancing chemicals. The operative difference between ordinary "ditchweed" and so-called high-potency marijuana is the higher the potency the less one needs to use to achieve the desired effect. People who appear to be harmed by high-potency marijuana are comparable to those who get falling-down drunk on strong liquor -- because they don't know when to stop. All the claims that "today's" high-potency marijuana is so strong it causes harm is nothing more than the latest version of Reefer Madness nonsense.

The strongest marijuana I have ever experienced was grown on Okinawa in the mid-1950s. We bought it from the mama-sans who did our laundry. In exchange for an American ten dollar bill (or 2,500 Okinawan yen) and two cartons of Pall Mall cigarettes (which cost a dollar a carton at the PX), we got a #10 can packed to the brim with cleaned purple indica sinsemilla that was so resinous it stuck to the fingers and was hard to roll.

Two or three hits on a skinny rolled from that stuff (nobody rolled fatties with it) was plenty. Smoking half a joint would glue your feet to the floor and make you catatonic. In all the years that followed I never experienced anything like that weed, and I have smoked everything from Panama Red to Kona Gold. It was simply amazing.

[tridim]

20. Problem is, good genetics are already established..

The only way to grow weak Cannabis these days is to A) choose bad genetics or B) grow half-assed versions of good genetics. Both options are just silly and counter productive. If RJR wants to manufacture "lite", chemically altered marijuana that's up to them, but nobody will buy it.

Mexi-weed starts with good genetics (old Columbian land-race sativa strains), grown, compressed and shipped without care. We already have that and everyone agrees that it sucks in every way.

As people have already mentioned, good pot is better for the lungs. It's also much more refined for its medical benefits, cannabis is much more than just THC. Flavor is my number one criteria.

[cubensis]

22. maybe not

Sensible attitudes like that have no place in government.

[TxRider]

23. Taxes will keep prices high

They will need to establish a price that is fair to growers and distributors, taxed to a level that is just below what would keep the illegal industry going.

[ki83760]

25. probably

[Dubiosus]

26. WTF!!

The advertisement in the space of your OP is placed by "drugfreeworld.org" and they want to convince you that pot is one of the most dangerous drugs...and sell books!



:spray: :spray: :spray: :spray: