It’s probably still a net positive to release the federal restriction, but I hope all these small/mid sized businesses don’t get gulped up by big tobacco or other mega corps
It’s probably still a net positive to release the federal restriction, but I hope all these small/mid sized businesses don’t get gulped up by big tobacco or other mega corps
Turns out legalization of a drug doesn’t lead to massive increases in consumption. Who knew.
Definitely kneecapped the black market though: most moved to the legal side and black market prices cratered.
- Consolidation is already happening in a lot of ways, in some cases despite state laws designed to prevent it
- Consolidation by big tobacco seems less likely than probably other major industry incumbents (in the long run, I’d bet on companies primarily oriented around alcohol)
- Federal posture since Cole (when first states legalized recreational, partially rolled back under Trump/Sessions but seemingly not as much as was feared at the time) is largely what prompted strong local laws; it’s based in analysis of interstate commerce; federal legalization could have a similar analysis without undermining existing strong local laws; the tradeoff would probably be large disparity of justice between states (on party lines)
- A much better outcome would be a central rule not just to legalize, but to more strongly incentivize justice for people affected by draconian laws in the first place. This is a pipe dream, but it should be the focus because any compromise will start with that.
Users have doubled: https://www.statista.com/statistics/264862/cannabis-consumpt...
Use among users has also increased 20%: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/962353
But marijuana enjoys high markups, pseudoscience "health benefits", and is becoming more and more acceptable to Americans each and every year.
Though maybe you want your drug dealers to be unproductive, for society's sake! I may take this back...
Regardless, unless Congress does something to make it legal nationally, we'll still have the state frameworks. Just hopefully avoiding the most draconian criminal charges.
Why not? Laws of scale would drive the price down while improving the profit margins, both clients and investors would win.
Still curious to see how this may affect cannabis commerce. Will CVS have cannabis extracts behind the pharmacy counter?
Looking at historic trends the point where pot was first legalized for recreational use isn’t obvious. If anything the long term upward tends started long before legalization which didn’t seem to have significant impact. https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s...
Meanwhile in Schedule III it's a judgement call. Schedule III drugs like K or steroids are drugs we know are useful, your doctor can prescribe them, your hospital pharmacy has them, but we also know they get abused. That sounds much more like marijuana, and, to be honest, alcohol. Can we justify Schedule III for Marijuana and yet not for Alcohol? It's at least a serious question whereas the Schedule I status was just nonsense.
But you really see that reflected in the doubled number of users which is probably the more relevant number.
Same happened after alcohol prohibition: more people consumed after the ban was lifted, but consumption was safer. But rarely people that didn't consume during the prohibition went on alcohol binge after the end of the ban. They just drank a couple of beers per week, maybe even a glass of bourbon twice a year, now that they can buy and consume it safely.
Thus the stats you linked doesn't necesarily show a "massive" increase in use, but many people using it sparsely now and many people now admiting to use it that were using previously. In fact, while statista.com shows a 100% increase, the second and more controlled study shows only a ~20% increase that makes more sense (far from massive).
I think of the thriving microbrewery scene (vs not just Budweiser et al but so-called "premium" beers from megabreweries that don't hold a candle to the local stuff).
I also wonder about the degree to which psilocybin might be following THC's path, wrt state vs federal laws....
I've personally known people with terminal cancer who wouldn't use marijuana to manage pain and nausea because it is federally illegal. They suffered more than they should have. Is lower use always good?
Bigger companies can pay a lot more because they are more productive. And further research has shown its the same pool/type of people at each.
Which in turn will increase the number of studies.
Which will in turn provide more support for eventual legalization.
Research being blocked (often by the DEA) was one of the biggest hold-ups.
Calling it: CVS and Walgreens will move into the medical market for this. You think these little shops will be able to process health insurance payments when that sector gets in on it? lol
Notwithstanding grey-market limitations, people have their motives for accepting the inefficiency of starting or staying small. Potential, for example.
I think some inefficiencies are important, especially when scoped to "who can do this thing the cheapest?"
They'd be insane to not go with that name.
I smoked for 15 years, turns out quitting was easy, once you undestood the way the addiction works, but nobody considers that they developed oral fixation from sucking on a potennt noootropic habit forming substance all day,
But then we have Silvy Listhaug (politician): Marijuana will continue to be banned because she is a mom, she told the reporter photographing her smoking cigarettes. I hope she gets lung cancer.
Personally, as a monkey with a lump of fat in my head called a brain, I think drinking fat solving solvents are a bad idea for that reason alone.fMRI scans shows white brain tissue in drinkers literally dissolves over time.
The increase in marijuana use is mostly due to 3 factors:
* Nobody is hiding anymore.
* We become more people every day.
* More & more people realise alcohol sucks.
The UK and CAnada's offcial stance on alcohol is that there is no such thing as a safe amount of alcohol consumption.
The war on drugs is going well in Norway: Cocaine & MDMA purity averages above 80%, Racemic amphetamine is cheaper than hash now, and the hash is good as anything you can find in dutch coffeeshops. ..and it is all getting cheaper at the same time. The war is being lost so bad the police have stopped issuing Narcotics stats 2 times a year as mandated and dropped it to once a year. Last year crystal meth averaged over 99% purity, 99.2%-99.6% according to Kripos Crimelab!! 5000 mafia families in Europe alone funds their organized crime with proceeds from the artificially high price of cannabis caused by the ban, legalizing and taxing it resoanbly would snuff out those and would be a massive blow to organized crime. GHB is fueling a rape epidemic here. Oh and you can legally buy poppy seed and grow them here...
I don't mean half-assed decriminalization here and there which still feeds very healthy criminal ecosystem and for end user of say weed doesn't change a zilch in anything, I mean same legal treatment as tobacco and alcohol, we don't prescribe that for anxiety do we, its all fun and chill and introspection (for me). Its 2024 FFS, and we see idiocy live where politicians are lying in the cameras to please old conservative folks for next elections.
I want to buy edibles, happy to pay any tax they slap on it. I want to buy a single joint, of strength and power I want to choose. Or vapes. Not some overpriced mediocre shit from paranoid desperate illegal immigrant standing in dark corners of shady parts of cities. Give that man an honest job on some weed farm or distribution system.
I can see tobacco becoming effectively a Schedule III type substance, made only when it is deemed necessary for some reason and not generally available - New Zealand tried to set off on that path, the UK is attempting it now, unlike booze (or marijuana) which has a population of people who say "Hey, that's fun, don't take that away" the smoker are almost all against smoking, they see it as an unpleasant mistake they made rather than a choice they're glad to have taken.
Wickard v. Filburn United States Supreme Court case Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U.S. 111, is a United States Supreme Court decision that dramatically increased the regulatory power of the federal government. It remains as one of the most important and far-reaching cases concerning the New Deal, and it set a precedent for an expansive reading of the U.S. Constitution's Commerce Clause for decades to come. The goal of the legal challenge was to end the entire federal crop support program by declaring it unconstitutional. An Ohio farmer, Roscoe Filburn, was growing wheat to feed animals on his own farm. The U.S. government had established limits on wheat production, based on the acreage owned by a farmer, to stabilize wheat prices and supplies. Filburn grew more than was permitted and so was ordered to pay a penalty. In response, he said that because his wheat was not sold, it could not be regulated as commerce, let alone "interstate" commerce. [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wickard_v._Filburn)
To add a bit, the importance of some inefficiencies are lost when viewed strictly through an investor lens. E.g., investigative journalism is expensive and largely inefficient regarding the profitability of a newspaper. Redundant inventory/equipment is largely inefficient until low-probability events effect supply. Small businesses may be inefficient but provide economic stability to a non-urban center etc. etc.
Perhaps gummies/edibles would be covered under some circumstances -- but to be a prescription or even an OTC "medication" it has to go through FDA approval to demonstrate efficacy and document the side effects, and it will have to be manufactured to pharmaceutical standards of potency and purity, which will make it more expensive.
I think it will most likely be like alcohol: sold for recreational use, age-restricted, and not medical.
I don't think they'll carry intoxicating forms of marijuana, though. (I've never seen a CVS with alcohol, but that could be because of how my state handles liquor licenses.)
They'll definitely look at their options for the marijuana business as they can safely do so legally.
(Although anecdotally the best results are obtained from taking mostly CBD with a tiny bit of THC; it appears that the latter does something that makes the former's effect more potent. So you see stuff like e.g. 20:1 CBD:THC pills around - can't get high on that, but very effective at pain management. However pure CBD pills are still more common.)
Then there are these incredible 10mg THC infused lemonades that are amazing.
On the other hand, the novelty of legal weed only lasted about 4 months for me. Because the store was there and there was this selection I never had access to before I wanted to try different things and was smoking more than I would have normally. At the end of the day though it is all still just weed. It is fun for me but only once a month at most now.
I also don't know a single person that didn't smoke weed because it was illegal and now they do because they can go to the store and purchase it legally.
I think that the polling has doubled for users because people can answer the poll honestly when weed is legal. The idea that weed being illegal is keeping 50% of the potential weed smoking population from smoking is utterly preposterous.
If anything, what is interesting is how many people who would never try weed when it was illegal, will still never try it when it is legal. They may say it is because it is illegal or they don't want to smoke but you can't sell them on 10mg legal lemonaid either.
Now that it’s “legal” I wonder if that was what was holding it back before.