War Breaks Out Within The Marijuana Legalization Movement

tobacco also screws the earth behind it when it grows - farmers used to grow cannabis afterward to replenish those fields...

to serve man said:

Just so everyone knows, I wasn't the author of this piece. Just saw it on another forum and decided that it was good enough to put on here. Take from it what you will and make up your own minds. I personally agree with zig zag zane in that should you tax me for growing my tomatoes? my peppers? corn? Why only cannabis? Because they know, like the article states, that they are going to loose a shit load of money if they don't, because cannabis grows freely.

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Well the only problem i see wrong with the dispensary's is that they charge street prices for there weed. its stupid. yeah some run deals and what not but still the majority charge street prices.

As for me i say tax it only if it is sold in stores. if its grown by myself then i should have to pay no tax. Can't see them charging me a tax on home grown weed anyway. i think people misinterpret that. no bill i know that wants to tax and regulate marijuana taxes marijuana that is home grown. Only store bought is taxed.

that sounds about right - at first we might see a steep license fee to be a commercial grower, but that might be a compromise we have to tolerate until a more fair situation can be worked out.. i mean - we really don't have a model for that scale of commercialization of weed - it will take some time before it is 100% fair and balanced..

I'm sure many people would agree with me when I said there's a fair way to have both (taxation and free growth) because not everybody's gonna wanna grow just because they legally can (just like the majority of people aren't gonna wanna do heroin just because they smoked pot) but there still will be people who wanna grow (like ourselves)

The problem with taxing it at an astronomical rate is that it leaves incentive for a black market to continue.

Getting the criminal incentive out of marijuana production should be a goal of legalization. Legalization with an intact black market will cause more problems than we currently have with the issue.

clydec said:

The problem with taxing it at an astronomical rate is that it leaves incentive for a black market to continue.

Getting the criminal incentive out of marijuana production should be a goal of legalization. Legalization with an intact black market will cause more problems than we currently have with the issue.

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...and you just wiped out Mexico's gross national product. The cartels will have nowhere to peddle thier schwag in the US.

maybe the problem now is that dispensaries can't undercut the black market without lowering the price they pay to growers - and most growers i know won't have that - they would just go back to selling it on the black market.. maybe the best way to lower the actual value of pot is to have some large scale farm production of like $5/pack joints that taste acceptable and get you stoned - then there will be no demand for shwag and local growers could still get something substantial for their hand manicured stuff - $800/lb is still $800 that a poor person didn't have to begin with - it is basically the only way a person with no money, but a plot of land can subsist.. then anyone who needed a little cash and has a backyard can pay their taxes without starving.. they buy food and products and the whole economy wins - tha end.

fuck dispensaries and their over inflated prices, I grow my own and thanks to the State of ** I am doing it legally.

ford442 said:

maybe the problem now is that dispensaries can't undercut the black market without lowering the price they pay to growers

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That's just not true. Dispensaries are more than doubling their money on every pound they buy. In most cases they triple their money. No other type of retail business that makes that kind of profit.

If they wanted to they could sell $40 dollar 1/8th max and still make a very healthy profit. They are making serious bank.

They charge that much because they are the bottle neck in the industry at the moment and enough people will pay those prices to keep their businesses extremely profitable.

More dispensaries are opening every day and as they do prices will go down. In the long run it'll all even out, it'll just take a while.

Dan Kone said:

That's just not true. Dispensaries are more than doubling their money on every pound they buy. In most cases they triple their money. No other type of retail business that makes that kind of profit.

If they wanted to they could sell $40 dollar 1/8th max and still make a very healthy profit. They are making serious bank.

They charge that much because they are the bottle neck in the industry at the moment and enough people will pay those prices to keep their businesses extremely profitable.

More dispensaries are opening every day and as they do prices will go down. In the long run it'll all even out, it'll just take a while.

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Unless they make enough to buy the influence required to keep it that way.

It works for Oil, Banks, Pharma etc. When have artificial markets ever been beneficial for the consumer?

Speaking of which, how's that Cap and Trade looking?

Dan Kone said:

That's just not true. Dispensaries are more than doubling their money on every pound they buy. In most cases they triple their money. No other type of retail business that makes that kind of profit.

If they wanted to they could sell $40 dollar 1/8th max and still make a very healthy profit. They are making serious bank.

They charge that much because they are the bottle neck in the industry at the moment and enough people will pay those prices to keep their businesses extremely profitable.

More dispensaries are opening every day and as they do prices will go down. In the long run it'll all even out, it'll just take a while.

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Wish Texas would do something about it.

Texas will get in gear when they see that relaxing pot prohibition means a better time at the Mexico border for everyone...

Yeah, this is the part that pisses me off. States have pissed all our tax money down the gutter, now they're fine-tuning their moral issues so they can sponge off the stoners.

Some years back, my home state in the Midwest decided it needed a lottery for revenue. Many folks found themselves opposed to the notion of legal gambling. So the lobby sold the idea by leashing it to increased school funding: "It's for the kids."

A decade later, those school funds are long gone. Watch pot decriminalization play out the same way.