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from the is-marijuana-shipped-in-reefers? dept.
As reported by CNBC, on Oct. 27, ETF Managers Group filed for a new ETF, the Alternative Agroscience ETF. This ETF will mimic an index as closely as possible that tracks cannabis cultivators, producers and distributors, cannabinoid drugmakers, fertilizer producers, and tobacco companies.
But there's an interesting catch behind its "inception." The Alternative Agroscience ETF won't really be a new ETF at all. ETF Managers Group is switching the focus and tracking index of an existing ETF, the Tierra XP Latin America Real Estate ETF (NYSEMKT: LARE), which tracks the Solactive benchmark of real estate in Mexico and Brazil, to an ETF that predominantly follows cannabis companies.
[...] According to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing, the switch to a cannabis-based index will occur on Dec. 26, so there's still a few weeks to go before investors will have an ETF that truly tracks marijuana stocks.
What is an ETF? "An ETF, or exchange-traded fund, is a marketable security that tracks an index, a commodity, bonds, or a basket of assets like an index fund. Unlike mutual funds, an ETF trades like a common stock on a stock exchange. ETFs experience price changes throughout the day as they are bought and sold. ETFs typically have higher daily liquidity and lower fees than mutual fund shares, making them an attractive alternative for individual investors."
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/etf.asp
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 24 2017, @11:56PM (23 children)
It's not going to be just a few mostly-harmless stoners, paranoid and not caring about life.
It's going to be aggressive lifestyle marketing campaigns. It'll be the same as how companies push cars, soda, shoes, alcohol, etc.
There will be pot for every imaginable market segment, with potential buyers secretly categorized in every possible way, from the innocuous to the offensive: baby boomers, high school students, women, bikers, lesbians, bears, college students, athletes, soy boys, Trump voters, Trump haters, military, blacks, busy parents, airline pilots...
We're letting this get started, and it's going to fuck us over.
(Score: 4, Funny) by takyon on Friday November 24 2017, @11:59PM (2 children)
Home planting is killing Big Weed!
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by frojack on Saturday November 25 2017, @12:04AM (1 child)
Like home brewing is killing Big Beer?
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Saturday November 25 2017, @07:50AM
When was the last time you heard tell of Budweiser?
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 3, Touché) by khallow on Saturday November 25 2017, @12:39AM (17 children)
So what? Society didn't fall apart when they marketed alcohol, cigarettes, and coffee.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 25 2017, @01:28AM (13 children)
Alcohol and cigarettes kill many. They also cause newborns to be deformed in many ways: the obvious, internally, on a molecular level, and mentally.
The fact that society doesn't fall apart is true. It's a terribly low standard however.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday November 25 2017, @01:35AM (12 children)
Their choice. As I noted, no reason to care.
Ok, so we should ban alcohol, cigarettes, and coffee? Or ban pregnancies?
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 25 2017, @02:02AM (11 children)
It's not "their choice" when they get hit by a drunk driver. It's not "their choice" when an apartment building burns down. It's not "their choice" when they get beat to a pulp by an enraged drunk. It's not "their choice" to be born into a family with these issues.
If we could ban these items without causing gross disrespect for the law and an ever-increasing portion of the budget going to enforcement, probably so! We ditched prohibition not because alcohol suddenly became good for America, but because our attempts to enforce the law were causing disaster. Cops and judges were using alcohol. Gangsters were supported by alcohol. People were getting poisoned by the low quality of illegal alcohol.
Getting rid of the drug prohibition is probably an overall improvement, but it wouldn't be all wonderful. It's trading one problem for another. Taking measures to block big-budget advertising and lobbying would limit the damage.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday November 25 2017, @02:12AM (10 children)
It's no help to punish people who make good decisions for those who don't.
And there's the rub. We can't. You're proposing a bad idea which will encourage gross disrespect for the law to punish good people for the behavior of a small group of bad people.
That's game.
Of course, there are trade offs. Not seeing the point since the problems of recreational drug legalization are less than the problems of the war on drugs.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 25 2017, @02:50AM (9 children)
I'm not proposing prohibition.
I'm admitting that prohibition is both good and bad, but probably more bad than good. I'm pointing out that legalization is going to lead to terrible things, not denying that prohibition also leads to terrible things.
I didn't propose anything, but here I will: Impose strict plain packaging requirements that are harsher than Australia has for cigarettes. Brand names get replaced with government-supplied identity numbers that change every 90 days. Prohibit industry trade groups that could advertise or lobby for the entire industry, and prohibit having more than 5% of the market share. Allow cultivation of drug plants in home gardens. Allow unrestricted purchase of all precursor chemicals, such as iodine and anhydrous ammonia.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday November 25 2017, @06:22AM (6 children)
Welcome to democracy. The freedom to decide means the freedom to decide badly. At least, punishing people after they hurt someone makes more sense.
I have a better suggestion. Freedom of speech is more important than anything you've mentioned yet. So let's not do that instead. I'm particularly opposed to the removal of branding and such. That's an important quality cue to customers in addition to being the primary manifestation of speech of the business.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Saturday November 25 2017, @07:55AM (4 children)
SCOTUS has held that different kinds of speech have different levels of first amendment protection.
Restrictions on protected speech require "strict scrutiny" by the courts. Different kinds of speech are given different kinds of scrutiny. There is also "compelling interest".
IIRC correctly, commercial speech can be restricted if there is a compelling interest. I expect that's why cigarette ads and packs bear warning labels. It's not like the tobacco companies don't know from lawyers.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 25 2017, @11:45AM
> Restrictions on protected speech require "strict scrutiny" by the courts. Different kinds of speech are given different kinds of scrutiny. There is also "compelling interest".
Indeed. Those who don't believe this should put a chapter from a Game of Thrones book on their site and then try and free-speech their way out of the resulting billion-dollar fine...
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday November 25 2017, @02:35PM (2 children)
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Saturday November 25 2017, @09:10PM (1 child)
I expect that the state could argue that it has a compelling interest in discouraging smoking by eliminating brands.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday November 25 2017, @10:05PM
Let us remember that what is arguable is far greater than what makes sense or is legal for that matter. The state could argue, for example, that it doesn't have a compelling interest in discouraging smoking.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 25 2017, @07:59PM
The supreme court decision that granted partial personhood to businesses was a disaster. Businesses get the upsides, but they face few of the downsides. They don't register for the draft. They don't risk execution for their crimes. Businesses are fundamentally not people and are not deserving of rights like free speech, yet here we are.
The "important quality cue" is what needs to be wiped out. Products that don't meet a minimum standard can be subject to recall or even class action lawsuits. That supposed "important quality cue" is what allows people to be susceptible to advertising. Most often there is no real quality issue at stake; it's all just fictional nonsense created by a marketing department and their ad agency.
Heck, it's even trouble for non-harmful products. We are constantly being spammed, even in the physical world. The average business doesn't even benefit; they must participate in the arms race because everybody else is doing so.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Monday November 27 2017, @06:32PM
Am I missing something? Because it sounds like that would be exactly what the major corporate producers would want -- they can cut costs in every way possible and not worry about quality because nobody has any way of knowing if they're buying the same brand they got last month. Smaller brands won't be able to compete because the only differentiation would be cost and they wouldn't be able to get costs down as far with their lower volume. If it was found that one brand was tampering with their product or had some kind of issues (as we've seen with Cigarettes -- American Spirits were recently found to have extremely high levels of nicotine) consumers can't effectively avoid or boycott that product.
If you're going to as far as removing consumer choice just to avoid marketing, then you'd probably be better off to just nationalize the production entirely.
(Score: 2) by cykros on Tuesday November 28 2017, @09:28PM
These measures do make some sense for particularly dangerous drugs, and if we were moving to legalize methamphetamine or cocaine, I'd be a little more gung ho about adopting your methods to reduce the harm while acknowledging that prohibition was a failed experiment.
That said, I'd agree that meeting somewhere in the middle would be fair. Brand names I'd keep, but sure, keep the cartoon mascots and extreme sports out of it (seriously kids, don't go skydiving while you're stoned). As for lobbyists, well, I'd not limit your proposed reforms to this or any other specific market; lobbying in America has gotten absurd across the board. As for market share restrictions, it's hard to enforce keeping your competition in business, but sure, if any sensible additional anti-trust measures stew up, I'd be open to examine them. Home cultivation is a must, though I'd go more restrictive than you (as has my state) and require that plants be out of view of the public, to dissuade access by minors as well as to avoid a burglary uptick. Precursor chemicals are mostly not an issue when marijuana is what we're talking about unless you're talking about extracts, but even there prohibition would be fairly futile, as you can yield a fairly high THC extract with nothing more than wax paper and a hair straightener.
You're right not to echo the cries of the stoned masses about everything being 100% harmless, but try not to fall too far into the reactionary camp either...we already have more harmful products flooding our society bringing far fewer benefits with them; marijuana legalization should not be public enemy number 1, or on the top 20 list for that matter.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Saturday November 25 2017, @07:50AM (2 children)
now women suffer as many heart attacks as men.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday November 25 2017, @02:34PM (1 child)
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Saturday November 25 2017, @09:09PM
what is the average life expectancy of women who smoke? What is it for women who don't?
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Saturday November 25 2017, @07:49AM
+1, Touche
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by cykros on Tuesday November 28 2017, @09:13PM
It'll fuck us over only in the same ways that other big business already fucks us over, and less so than many existing ones.
In the meantime, we're getting a boon to the economy in the form of a significant job uptick, a range of products with a majority of products being 100% domestically made (we have some of the best soil in the world for cultivating cannabis, and a lot of real estate, particularly with the demand for tobacco on the decline), and potentially the largest addition to the tax pool in decades. Meanwhile police resources are freed to address real problem crime. Never mind the potential for export revenue as foreign nations also legalize once we stop bullying them into fighting our drug war which only existed in the first place because some rich guy didn't want hemp paper to turn his forests worthless.
I'm not saying everything will happen without any drawbacks. Some people will have existing mental health conditions exacerbated. Potentially there will be a rise in DUI deaths (heck, I'll even go out on a limb and say there'll be more than the deaths that currently happen due to marijuana's black market status). And sure, some will undoubtedly find its way into the hands of minors, much like alcohol routinely always has. But to allow these issues to get in the way of bringing in all of the benefits that come with legalization is to ignore the futility and high costs of the last 80 years worth of prohibition. Maybe it's time we stop letting the government attempt (unsuccessfully) to be our babysitter, and actually try giving the public a chance to exercise a little responsibility for their own lives for a change.