ICTChris Posted April 7, 2023 Share Posted April 7, 2023 (edited) 20 minutes ago, parsforlife said: I just don’t see how the illegal market can match a legal one, yes tax and regulations come with a cost, but surely far less than trafficking costs, bribes etc Plenty of evidence from the USA that black markets can thrive when drugs are legalised. https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/marijuana-in-california-black-market-weed-buzzkills-for-california-legal-weed-industry-60-minutes-2019-10-27/?__twitter_impression=true Quote So where's the money being made in California? It turns out, in the very place legalization was supposed to destroy: the black market, which often operates out of store fronts like this in strip malls around the state. Those unlicensed shops don't have to pay for state and local permits and can sell marijuana much cheaper because they don't charge customers marijuana taxes. Which can reach as high as 45 percent. So it's cheaper and easier to buy pot on the black market, which is three times larger than the legal one. https://www.pressherald.com/2020/02/26/maine-wants-to-create-special-cannabis-crimes-unit/ Quote The number of illegal plants seized in Colorado – grown in sprawling networks of suburban homes to be sold at above-market prices in states where marijuana is illegal – has only grown since legalization, from 5,000 in 2014 to almost 60,000 in 2019, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. Many such cases. Edited April 7, 2023 by ICTChris 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carpetmonster Posted April 7, 2023 Share Posted April 7, 2023 3 hours ago, RawB93 said: Can anyone who lives in a country where it’s legalised tell me what prices are like? - per g, hq and so on. I’ve never been to Amsterdam either, though would imagine they have separate tourist prices. I guess what I’m getting at is, is there a chance that legalising and taxing it could actually make it unaffordable for some people? Whilst simultaneously making a select few companies very rich… I’d really rather it was just decriminalised and legal to smoke, cultivate (small amounts) and distribute. And those that need it can get it. Illinois it's about $80 for an eighth of flower because they went ham on taxing it. Street prices actually went up a little as a result; dealers just work out the cost without the tax and then charged that. The state still made $445m on it last year, and it's about double the population of Scotland for working out maths. A lot of regular/heavy users will just skip over to Michigan where the prices are slightly less than half of Illinois. Most states also let you grow a few plants for your own use if you have a medical card. Illinois doesn't - they just don't charge the tax if you present a medical card at a dispensary - but the chances of the cops giving any sort of a shit about someone with a couple of plants are zero in Chicago and minimal anywhere else. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ICTChris Posted April 7, 2023 Share Posted April 7, 2023 Is most of the marijuana consumed in Scotland / UK grown here or smuggled here? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carpetmonster Posted April 7, 2023 Share Posted April 7, 2023 27 minutes ago, ICTChris said: Is most of the marijuana consumed in Scotland / UK grown here or smuggled here? There was a story in the Daily Ranger the other day about a farm with 2m worth being busted in Stevenston the other day - and then when I was searching for it there was one from January with a farm of 75k getting done in Kilmarnock, so I'd imagine much of it's grown via the leccy off Scottish lampposts https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/ayrshire/ayrshire-police-recover-2m-worth-29637173 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RawB93 Posted April 7, 2023 Share Posted April 7, 2023 25 minutes ago, ICTChris said: Is most of the marijuana consumed in Scotland / UK grown here or smuggled here? I'm not sure of the source of all the weed currently in Scotland but I remember seeing/reading recently that the availability of pretty high end home-growing equipment capable of yielding high grade marijuana means that there's really no need to be importing it anymore. Seeds can also be bought from UK based seed companies. A quick google threw up the figures below. ...the Independent Drug Monitoring Unit estimated that by 2012, 80% of the cannabis used in the UK was grown here – up from 30% in the late 1990s. It is probably well over 90% now. Home-grown cannabis: how COVID-19 has fuelled a boom around the world (theconversation.com) 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TxRover Posted April 7, 2023 Share Posted April 7, 2023 7 hours ago, Binos said: How you managed to find that amongst the deluge of medical professionals stating the opposite Link to your deluge, please. The Journal of the American Medical Association, regarding a length study, is pretty solid. 7 hours ago, Binos said: Also it didn't state that Yea, it did. 6 hours ago, coprolite said: I don't have anything to hand and can't be arsed searching but im sure that some research found that it was newer, stronger breeds of skunk that were particularly linked to psychosis. In the same way that bootleggers and illicit consumers in 1920s chigaco went for whisky rather than a few pints of bitter, the economics of illegality encourages more potent, concentrated products. I used to be quite a heavy smoker back in the day. When i started out soapbar/ resin was much more common. I could easily have a smoke then go to the pub a couple of hours later and function normally. It also wasn't too much of a barrier to studying or work. Skunk is a completely different beast. It can make me extremely paranoid and i find normal functioning much more of a problem. As a society, we currently don't allow unrestricted sale of unregulated high strength moonshine, because it's dangerous. We tax the shit out of high strength spirits because they're potentially very harmful. We still heavily tax beer and cider, because of health concerns. It shouldn't be beyond the wit of man to arrange something similar for the range of different products that are unhelpfully grouped as a single thing, cannabis, in the minds of many. This is the biggest issue, the pushing of the THC levels to, frankly, insane strengths. The good news is a decent dispensary has a wide variety of strengths and formulations. 4 hours ago, RawB93 said: Can anyone who lives in a country where it’s legalised tell me what prices are like? - per g, hq and so on. I’ve never been to Amsterdam either, though would imagine they have separate tourist prices. I guess what I’m getting at is, is there a chance that legalising and taxing it could actually make it unaffordable for some people? Whilst simultaneously making a select few companies very rich… I’d really rather it was just decriminalised and legal to smoke, cultivate (small amounts) and distribute. And those that need it can get it. It varies wildly due to taxes and such. Here’s a mildly useful site for comparisons: https://www.priceofweed.com 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
welshbairn Posted April 7, 2023 Share Posted April 7, 2023 (edited) 49 minutes ago, carpetmonster said: Illinois it's about $80 for an eighth of flower because they went ham on taxing it. Street prices actually went up a little as a result; dealers just work out the cost without the tax and then charged that. The state still made $445m on it last year, and it's about double the population of Scotland for working out maths. A lot of regular/heavy users will just skip over to Michigan where the prices are slightly less than half of Illinois. Most states also let you grow a few plants for your own use if you have a medical card. Illinois doesn't - they just don't charge the tax if you present a medical card at a dispensary - but the chances of the cops giving any sort of a shit about someone with a couple of plants are zero in Chicago and minimal anywhere else. The tragic thing is that if cannabis had legalised about 50 years ago, farmers in countries like Colombia, Mexico and Afghanistan could have made a healthy profit from exporting it without switching to cocaine and heroin. In the seventies nearly all the dope was imported, had Colombian once and it was magic, you never hear about it now. If you have to smuggle you want the value to be concentrated in as low a volume as possible, thus the switch to coca and poppies, and THE WAR ON DRUGS made shifting dope not worth the risk, and the huge profits on class A ended up corrupting and screwing up especially those three countries. Edited April 7, 2023 by welshbairn 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Binos Posted April 7, 2023 Share Posted April 7, 2023 1 hour ago, TxRover said: Link to your deluge, please. The Journal of the American Medical Association, regarding a length study, is pretty solid. https://www.priorygroup.com/media-centre/cannabis-use-fuelling-rise-in-psychosis-among-young-adults-says-top-priory-expert https://nida.nih.gov/publications/research-reports/marijuana/there-link-between-marijuana-use-psychiatric-disorders https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/news/2021/cannabis-users-at-much-higher-risk-of-developing-poor-mental-health https://www.cdc.gov/marijuana/health-effects/mental-health.html https://www.bmj.com/content/380/bmj.p407 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3927252/ https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/cannabis-induced-psychosis-review 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Satoshi Posted April 8, 2023 Share Posted April 8, 2023 Right, so your argument is you should put people who voluntarily consume a product into prison? Next thing you will be telling us that legal products like fatty food, alcohol, coffee and cigarettes also have negative health consequences. Maybe the consumers of these products would all be better off it it was made illegal, they had to purchase shoddy unregulated products from criminals, and if caught they would be imprisoned. Saying "drugs and bad m'kay" is not an argument, who is your policy (or continuation of the status quo) actually going to benefit? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TxRover Posted April 8, 2023 Share Posted April 8, 2023 9 hours ago, Binos said: https://www.priorygroup.com/media-centre/cannabis-use-fuelling-rise-in-psychosis-among-young-adults-says-top-priory-expert https://nida.nih.gov/publications/research-reports/marijuana/there-link-between-marijuana-use-psychiatric-disorders https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/news/2021/cannabis-users-at-much-higher-risk-of-developing-poor-mental-health https://www.cdc.gov/marijuana/health-effects/mental-health.html https://www.bmj.com/content/380/bmj.p407 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3927252/ https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/cannabis-induced-psychosis-review Priory Group…one guys opinion with no link shown, just inferred and assumed. NIH…specifically singled out high-potency marijuana and users with AKT1 markers (roughly 7% of the population)…too small a percentage to make such a sweeping statement. By this standard, there are a number of things that should be banned first. Birmingham News…users identified in GP records is a worthless sample group with no control. CDC…finally, a real study, but it doesn’t “prove” your argument. Again, high strength and daily use is the key focus here for some possibility of a slightly increased risk of many things, psychosis’s being the least common. The BMJ…a statement by an incoming President, referring to risks of using strong marijuana from early-teens…and legalizing it certainly wouldn’t allow for this, so irrelevant. NCBI…investigates the mechanism by which cannabis may cause psychosis…doesn’t address any increase above baseline. Psychiatrictic Times…Deals with an increase in Emergency Room visits proportional to increased overall cannabis use…duh. So, a deluge of irrelevant or unrelated items, one being a study that disproves your concern about legalization, the rest being unhelpful to your chicken little philosophy. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Molotov Posted April 8, 2023 Share Posted April 8, 2023 What’s more appropriate? This? Or this? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Moonster Posted April 8, 2023 Share Posted April 8, 2023 12 hours ago, Binos said: https://www.priorygroup.com/media-centre/cannabis-use-fuelling-rise-in-psychosis-among-young-adults-says-top-priory-expert https://nida.nih.gov/publications/research-reports/marijuana/there-link-between-marijuana-use-psychiatric-disorders https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/news/2021/cannabis-users-at-much-higher-risk-of-developing-poor-mental-health https://www.cdc.gov/marijuana/health-effects/mental-health.html https://www.bmj.com/content/380/bmj.p407 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3927252/ https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/cannabis-induced-psychosis-review Literally copy and pasted links with headlines he liked but didn't read the content. Anyway, you've made a great case for regulating cannabis, unless of course you'd rather to continue prosecuting these users with mental health problems rather than helping them. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Binos Posted April 8, 2023 Share Posted April 8, 2023 8 hours ago, TxRover said: Priory Group…one guys opinion with no link shown, just inferred and assumed. NIH…specifically singled out high-potency marijuana and users with AKT1 markers (roughly 7% of the population)…too small a percentage to make such a sweeping statement. By this standard, there are a number of things that should be banned first. Birmingham News…users identified in GP records is a worthless sample group with no control. CDC…finally, a real study, but it doesn’t “prove” your argument. Again, high strength and daily use is the key focus here for some possibility of a slightly increased risk of many things, psychosis’s being the least common. The BMJ…a statement by an incoming President, referring to risks of using strong marijuana from early-teens…and legalizing it certainly wouldn’t allow for this, so irrelevant. NCBI…investigates the mechanism by which cannabis may cause psychosis…doesn’t address any increase above baseline. Psychiatrictic Times…Deals with an increase in Emergency Room visits proportional to increased overall cannabis use…duh. So, a deluge of irrelevant or unrelated items, one being a study that disproves your concern about legalization, the rest being unhelpful to your chicken little philosophy. Wtf -1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TxRover Posted April 8, 2023 Share Posted April 8, 2023 2 hours ago, Binos said: Wtf 7 hours ago, The Moonster said: Literally copy and pasted links with headlines he liked but didn't read the content. Anyway, you've made a great case for regulating cannabis, unless of course you'd rather to continue prosecuting these users with mental health problems rather than helping them. I suspect The Moonster summarized it quite well. Read the links you provided and get out to support legalization and regulation. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Binos Posted April 9, 2023 Share Posted April 9, 2023 On 08/04/2023 at 07:14, The Moonster said: Literally copy and pasted links with headlines he liked but didn't read the content. Anyway, you've made a great case for regulating cannabis, unless of course you'd rather to continue prosecuting these users with mental health problems rather than helping them. There will be more people with mental health problems exacerbated Basically if you have any history of mental health problems in your family, don't smoke hash -1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
coprolite Posted April 9, 2023 Share Posted April 9, 2023 (edited) 18 minutes ago, Binos said: There will be more people with mental health problems exacerbated Basically if you have any history of mental health problems in your family, don't smoke hash This is only true if legalisation leads to people who aren't otherwise exacerbating conditions, and wouldn't have started, starting to smoke hash. Illegality isn't an effective bar to availability. Illegality is an effective bar to any quality control or regulation. That's probably sensible advice in your final line, although i'd add don't drink alcohol, do coke or take opioids. But people self medicate and are going to do that however they can. I'd rather the options for those people included lower doses and safer environments. Edited April 9, 2023 by coprolite Spleeling 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
++Ammo - Airdrie++ Posted April 9, 2023 Share Posted April 9, 2023 https://www.forbes.com/sites/dariosabaghi/2023/03/16/germany-to-introduce-bill-to-legalize-cannabis-in-the-coming-weeks/ Damn Germans enabling mental illness. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Binos Posted April 9, 2023 Share Posted April 9, 2023 10 minutes ago, coprolite said: This is only true if legalisation leads to people who aren't otherwise exacerbating conditions, and wouldn't have started, starting to smoke hash. Which would be more likely if it was legal And was an issue long before super skunks existed -1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Molotov Posted April 9, 2023 Share Posted April 9, 2023 20 minutes ago, Binos said: There will be more people with mental health problems exacerbated Basically if you have any history of mental health problems in your family, don't smoke hash I appreciate it’s a different topic but there are significant concerns relating to pharmaceutical drugs and the shortened lifespan of individuals prescribed them. https://www.rethink.org/media/2627/rethink-mental-illness-lethal-discrimination.pdf Not enough imho is being done to resolve mental health issues which may actually be impacted by very poor diets in our society. The link between the gut and the brain is vital. There is lots of information and evidence to support this. https://www.health.harvard.edu/diseases-and-conditions/the-gut-brain-connection It really annoys me that our GPs and psychiatrists are pushing big pharma drugs when the causes may be related to the modern highly processed unhealthy diets that directly impact brain health. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Moonster Posted April 9, 2023 Share Posted April 9, 2023 12 minutes ago, Binos said: Which would be more likely if it was legal And was an issue long before super skunks existed Are you going to start smoking weed if it becomes legal? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.