Again, I’m still talking legalization ala booze/cigs. Price floors and added taxes need to be pretty extreme (like modern day MJ) to give the black market the margin wiggle room to compete with big business.
I don’t personally think the taxes will stay that high forever. I think we’re still waiting out societal stigma and the deaths of old lifer politicians.
But I can find weed dealers in any city as a tourist. What’s the difference? Imo it’s decades of big business and scaling completely murdering those black markets.
Imo it’s apples and oranges to compare playing arbitrage with cigarette prices and manufacturing your own.
You have to drink a bunch of it to go blind. I have made hard cider before which contains Methanol. I don’t think you could drink enough of it to go blind, but maybe I am wrong. A popular thing to make with hard cider is called apple jack. You make it by putting your hard cider outside in the winter (or freezer if it is not cold enough). As it freezes you pick out the ice chunks and discard them (alcohol has a lower freeze temp). What you are left with is a freeze distilled apple booze. It still has all of the Methanol in it. It gives a different feeling when getting drunk on it, and a terrible hangover.
With normal heat distilling the Methanol is removed by just discarding the first 10% or so that comes out of the still. Methanol boils at around 145 F, and Ethanol boils around 175 F, so the Methanol boils first and is the first out of the still. No fancy filtering needed.
Isn’t this illegal? If you’re involved within law enforcement… why would you admit to this?
I’ve tried a Marlboro cigarette, I think I’d be able to differentiate between a real one and a fake one. There’s a distinct smell/aroma present from marlboro darts.
Isn’t there the risk of inadequately cured tobacco inducing serious detriment upon smokers? Similar to BM tobacco here being associated with acute lung damage/pneumonia etc
HOTH is an awesome show. Context of the characters’ personalities is crucial to the humor of the show. Many don’t give the show enough time to understand it.
Right. The question is how much legalization? IMO there is no set of policies being discussed that will get the cartel to decide that it isn’t worth their time to stay in the weed business.
The same is true for the nice lady I know who just bought a new Dodge Ram 4x4. She’s selling everything she can get her hands on in the face of dispensary prices of $25 an 1/8.
Could she survive a MJ industry like the tobacco industry was set up and regulated in the 20th century? Maybe, but competing with Marlboro Greens for $0.89 a pack would be a tall order for any grower.
But that’s not what is happening, nor is it remotely likely.
I’m happy to agree to disagree. I think federal legalization with price floors and taxation (albiet I’d prefer lower than current taxation, but that’ll take time and deaths) will do the same thing to every other black market industry.
Did any of the black market cig growers survive at the scale of cartels? Booze bootleggers? Imo the crime side of things is about supply and demand.
In a conversation on this topic, there’s also the question of increasingly draconian punishment. Will harsh punishment deter people because they’re scared out of their wits? Again, I wouldn’t want to see users’ lives destroyed but I assume wrongfully or rightfully that distributors might think twice if punishment is swift and severe.
I’m NOT saying I’d definitely want extreme punishment but I think it’s something theoretical that fits the conversion.
Even if there were harsh punishment, it would be easy to avoid being punished. Don’t want such punishment? Don’t do it.
Seems to work, look at places like Saudi Arabia where they behead people in pubic for stuff like that. Its just a question of what is worse for society, drug use or public beheadings and stonings? When you take it to that extreme, harm-reduction tactics don’t sound so bad anymore.
It’s not an easy thing to solve or we wouldn’t be in the situation we are in now.
This is what I had in mind when I referred to harsh punishments for distributors, not users. It does seem to work. If fear of such punishment works, and thereby lessens drug use, can people simply stay out of such harm’s way? I think it’s easy to do that: don’t distribute drugs. The vast majority of people go through their lives not dealing drugs.
