That's okay, Sid, the rest of us forgot what you were talk.........oooooooo, did you see that shiny object!!!!

Blah... It's not changing anything other than adding to the 'smoker' population...

The unlicensed seller (dealer), will still be in business and the 'war on drugs', to include weed, will continue and may be more costly than it is now... Why, you may ask? Here's my theory.

The first day of sales in Colorado, the average price at a licensed seller was 4x the street price.
The licensed dealer will pick up the 'law abiding' individuals that didn't smoke prior to legalization simply because it was illegal and they didn't want to suffer the consequences of getting caught and continue to want to 'obey' the law.
The seasoned smoker will continue to buy from their dealers. Why not? It's cheaper (by 4x) and once you buy, it's legal.... unless you have to keep a receipt from a legal purchase to justify your possession. (doubtful)

The twist... the local government will desperately want to protect their new cash cow and pursue dealers even more vigorously than they do now. Unfortunately, they'll fail in shutting down the black market (already proven to be a lesson in fruition), and the 'legal' proceeds will be too low to offset the increased enforcement costs since only the 'law abiding' smoker will buy at a licensed business. The cost for the product at the licensed business will continue to increase to fund the chase of the black market dealers.

In the end, you're only "adding smokers" to the population since you will pick up the 'law abiding' smoker that started because it was legal.

Finally, the system crashes because the cost at the licensed dealer is out of reach, the law abiding smoker turns to the black market for their product, and you introduce a whole generation to the notion of pot smoking being status quo since it was legal at one point. The black market dealers have heavily increased their customer base and eventually, begin to fund other illegal activities with their windfall of proceeds from their illegal sales and can probably charge a higher price in doing so since the demand will be greater.

Consider this my opinion and rhetorical.

I am afraid of that, too, del. Three percent of babies are born testing positive for THC now. With it legal and commonplace, more positive THC babies with more possible neurological deficits. More smoking around babies which lends to more possible neurological deficits and more normalized smokers, too.

We did a fairly good job of stigmatizing cigarette smoking and a fairly good job of romanticizing pot smoking.

I am against criminalization of possession, but this opens a new can of worms.

Interesting -- and well thought-through -- theory, Del Husker.

no, it wasn't. the price was about $400/oz = $50/eighth. street price for "dank" (shit weed) is about $25/eighth. the most expensive strains sold out first.

pot sells for about $40-50/eighth nationwide, according to this website:

http://www.priceofweed.com/

i call BS on the claim that it is 4x as much, and all the subsequent claims based on that claim.

fetal alcohol syndrome was not reduced during prohibition.
i am confident that having pot legal will AID in the ability to dispense proper information to mothers.

Fetal Alcohol Syndrome was not even a disease until 1973. I doubt there is much research on the subject during prohibition.

Who is going to disseminate this information to mothers? The obstetricians do now and it's great for those who have prenatal care. A lot of women NOW stay away from prenatal care because they do random urine testing.

Del Husker wrote:
Blah... It's not changing anything other than adding to the 'smoker' population...

The unlicensed seller (dealer), will still be in business and the 'war on drugs', to include weed, will continue and may be more costly than it is now... Why, you may ask? Here's my theory.

The first day of sales in Colorado, the average price at a licensed seller was 4x the street price.


no, it wasn't. the price was about $400/oz = $50/eighth. street price for "dank" (shit weed) is about $25/eighth. the most expensive strains sold out first.

pot sells for about $40-50/eighth nationwide, according to this website:

http://www.priceofweed.com/

i call BS on the claim that it is 4x as much, and all the subsequent claims based on that claim.


I'm certainly not an authority on pot and prices historically. I was repeating one of the 24 hour news channels reports in passing the other day. I didn't look at the website you quoted above Mac since you quoted their findings in your post.

I did a 'quick' search to see if I could find the text report of the newscast I saw saying that the price of weed at licensed dealer(s) was up to 4x the price of the street. I didn't find it but I did find a huffington report that said the shops were already increasing prices on the first day of sales to try to 'control' demand. Here is that report... http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/0 ... 32304.html

My theory is just that, a theory... and also my opinion. It may change as the situation of legalized weed matures. I'm not going to argue the point.

We'll see how things go in the next several years (granted it remains legal). You would have to be naive to think the illegal dealers won't 'lower' their prices to compete with legal sales if necessary. It's not like they've ever had to compete with legal competition. Either way, it will add to the smoker populace. It will increase enforcement costs since the local government now has a 'stake' financially. I don't see any good in it, frankly. I think enforcement should be concentrated on the distribution of proceeds. I've never cared if 'mom and pop' grew weed in their basement for recreational smoking. What people do in their own home is none of my concern. What does concern me is the bigger illegal distributors and what they do with their proceeds of sales. My 'subsequent claims' are extremely valid, IMO... until stats gathered from legal sales over a period of time prove otherwise....FWIW.

Holy cow! Those prices are steep. The price list for downtown Vancouver today is $300 an ounce for high quality, up from $160 on December 31st. Cheapest seems to be in Vernon at $125 an ounce for high quality. Best bet, if you're on Vancouver Island, is Duncan at $135.

most places East of the Rockies are over $300/oz for high quality weed. Denver is East of the Rockies.

i really think someone got their facts messed up. they compared THE MOST EXPENSIVE weed in CO, to the cheapest crap street weed. it is not a fair comparison.

i think the dispensary rates are totally fair, and totally market.

whoosh!

i didn't say anything about ALL of your subsequent claims, only the ones that followed from the premise that pot was 4x more expensive in the dispensary than on the street.

i read somewhere that pot went from $250 to $400/oz on the first day due to dwindling supply. i don't know where that came from, honestly. i don't know whether the $400 stuff was all that was left, or not. but if the story was accurate, pot started off @ below market rates, and ended up much higher, which is consistent to the wild demand on day one. things will settle down, and so will pricing.

We could always just legislate that no smoking of anything, put your pot in brownies.

Many, many moons ago I had a terrible experience with hash in brownies ~ we were at a big bar-b-que on a hot and steamy summer day ~ the host brought out brownies for dessert and, not so surprisingly, I was one of the first in line ~ they were delicious ~ I had 2 ~ and, soon after, got violently sick ~ I'm pretty sure I threw up everything I had eaten in at least the month before ~ ~ he had neglected to warn anyone that the brownies were loaded with hash ~ my former cop/detective SO "convinced" him to never ever ever not warn others again, which at least allows folks to choose 'yea' or 'nay' on laced food ~

Sooz

Yeah, in my youth I tried a lot of things. The only time I had a bad experience with it was when I had a drink that someone had put something into that I didn't know about.

What I find interesting in this debate is the blithe assumption, which seems particularly prevalent in the US, that human behaviour is a simply a product of reward and punishment. Its the product of a totally simplistic notion of rationality. So, if you don't like a particular behaviour then the obvious thing to do is to make it illegal or increase the punishment for doing it and , at the same time, assuming that legalising a particular kind of behaviour will necessarily lead to an increase in its prevalence.

Humans just don't work that way. What we decide to do or not to do isn't simply the product of some punitive cost/benefit analysis, and we should be thankful for that.

This is particularly significant in the whole area of "victimless crimes" (different to crimes that have no effect on other people btw).

So, you don't like people drinking? Prohibit it, that will stop them! It doesn't.
You don't want people smoking MJ? Prohibit it, that will stop them. It doesn't.

Why not consider the overall social costs and benefits rather than do it on an individual basis? Looked at from that perspective Prohibition was a disaster, not a triumph for "good living". The same with MJ. The punitive punishments metered out for use and possession have had far worse overall effects than just letting people use it if they want to. Look at your prison population for a start.

What drives the whole approach is an underlying absolutist moralism. Its not really about the prevention of undesirable consequences, its about punishment for its own sake.

Cattleman: HEAR HEAR!

Prices will settle down once the market gets its bearings. This is not new territory. Markets for new products and services are created every day. Pot will be no different.

Sitting here with a glass of bourbon at hand, thinking about legalizing pot, I'm thinking, why fight it? As time goes on it gets to be a smaller and smaller minority imposing a questionable moral judgement on a greater and greater majority. Half the people in this house have smoked weed, and are among the smartest, most industrious people I know. Yesterday I saw a Hawaiian guy smoking a funny pipe and playing a ukulele, and later lying on his back, hugging the instrument and staring, unblinking, into the sky. Much better than the guy I saw staggering and puking his guts out in Madison last week. Just keep both of those guys out of their cars for a while.

Half the people in this house have smoked weed, and are among the smartest, most industrious people I know.

So half have smoked weed and they hangout among the smart, industrious other half?

No, they ARE a couple of the smartest and most industrious. I.e. they haven't become derelicts