California launches legal sale of cannabis for recreational use
California will launch the world's largest regulated commercial market for recreational marijuana on Monday, as dozens of newly licensed stores catering to adults who enjoy the drug for its psychoactive effects open for business up and down the state.
It becomes the sixth U.S. state, and by far the most populous, venturing beyond legalized medical marijuana to permit the sale of cannabis products of all types to customers at least 21 years old.
Colorado, Washington, Oregon, Alaska and Nevada were the first to introduce recreational pot sales on a state-regulated, licensed and taxed basis. Massachusetts and Maine are on track to follow suit later this year.
With California and its 39.5 million residents officially joining the pack, more than one-in-five Americans now live in states where recreational marijuana is legal for purchase, even though cannabis remains classified as an illegal narcotic under U.S. law.
The marijuana market in California alone, which boasts the world's sixth-largest economy, is valued by most experts at several billion dollars annually and is expected to generate at least a $1 billion a year in tax revenue.
- All Politics — and Cannabis Marketing — Are Local (Study: Washington, Colorado Provide Insight for California)
- California preps for pot-infused fare, from wine to tacos
- As California legalizes pot, laws collide at US checkpoints
- Medley of agencies tasked with enforcing California pot laws
- The Failed War on Drugs
- Legal recreational pot in California: What you need to know
- New year brings broad pot legalization to California
- Latest: Confusion for LA dispensaries as legal pot begins
- California pot shops ring in 2018, ring up first legal sales
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U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions will reportedly rescind the Cole Memo (DoJ), effectively ending the moratorium on enforcing cannabis prohibition in states where it has been legalized:
Attorney General Jeff Sessions will roll back an Obama-era policy that gave states leeway to allow marijuana for recreational purposes.
Two sources with knowledge of the decision confirmed to The Hill that Sessions will rescind the so-called Cole memo, which ordered U.S. attorneys in states where marijuana has been legalized to deprioritize prosecution of marijuana-related cases.
The Associated Press first reported the decision.
Sessions, a vocal critic of marijuana legalization, has hinted for months that he would move to crack down on the growing cannabis market.
Republican Senator Cory Gardner says he will hold up the confirmation process for DoJ nominees:
Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) threatened on Thursday to start holding up the confirmation process for White House Justice Department nominees unless Attorney General Jeff Sessions reverses a decision to roll back a policy allowing legalized recreational use of marijuana in some states.
Gardner said in a series of tweets that Sessions had told him before he was confirmed by the Senate that he would not change an Obama-era policy that discouraged federal prosecutors from pursuing marijuana-related offenses in states where the substance had been legalized. Colorado is one of those states.
[...] The Justice Department's reversal of the Cole memo on Thursday came three days after California's new law allowing recreational marijuana use went into effect.
Other politicians have reacted strongly to the news.
Previously: New Attorney General Claims Legal Weed Drives Violent Crime; Statistics be Damned
4/20: The Third Time's Not the Charm
Jeff Sessions Reboots the Drug War
According to Gallup, American Support for Cannabis Legalization is at an All-Time High
Opioid Commission Drops the Ball, Demonizes Cannabis
Recreational Cannabis Goes on Sale in California
Related: Attorney General Nominee Jeff Sessions Backs Crypto Backdoors
Past articles: 2015 • 2016 • 2017 👀
U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has come out in support of federal cannabis decriminalization, just in time for 4/20:
The Minority Leader of the Senate is making it official the day before 4/20: He's down with legal weed. In an exclusive interview with VICE News, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) confirmed he is putting his name on legislation that he said is aimed at "decriminalizing" marijuana at the federal level. For Schumer, this is a shift. While he has backed medical marijuana and the rights of states to experiment with legal sales of pot, what he is proposing is a seismic shift in federal drug policy.
"Ultimately, it's the right thing to do. Freedom. If smoking marijuana doesn't hurt anybody else, why shouldn't we allow people to do it and not make it criminal?" Schumer said.
The legislation should be available within a week or so, and would remove cannabis (still listed as "Marihuana") from the Drug Enforcement Administration's list of Schedule I substances. States would then be free to regulate or continue to prohibit the plant. Cannabis advertising would be regulated as are alcohol and tobacco advertising. (Also at NPR, CNN, The Washington Post, and CNBC, as well as Reason taking a shot at Schumer for not doing it sooner.)
A majority of Americans support the legalization of cannabis, including, for the first time, a majority (51%) of Republicans, according to Gallup. Nine states and the District of Columbia have legalized cannabis for recreational use. 29 states, D.C., Guam, and Puerto Rico have legalized medical use of cannabis, and another 17 states have legalized the use of cannabidiol (CBD). Cannabis became available for recreational purposes in California on January 1.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by JustNiz on Tuesday January 02 2018, @12:39AM (28 children)
I'm looking forward to many of the myths around recreational marijuana use being completely without negative side-effects finally getting dispelled.
(Score: 3, Touché) by KiloByte on Tuesday January 02 2018, @12:53AM (5 children)
Compare the negative effects of marijuana with those of a completely legal, even for kids, drug that is nicotine.
Ceterum censeo systemd esse delendam.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 02 2018, @01:23AM
"children" https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/05/05/476872674/california-raises-age-of-tobacco-purchase-to-21-and-tightens-vaping-rules [npr.org]
(Score: 2) by Kilo110 on Tuesday January 02 2018, @02:55AM (3 children)
So nicotine is bad therefore we have to legalize marijuana? I don’t see the logical connection. Why even being up tobacco while rebutting his comment?
(Score: 2, Informative) by khallow on Tuesday January 02 2018, @03:22AM (2 children)
I agree with the argument. We legalized alcohol and tobacco, both worse in well known ways from marijuana. It's a standard consistency argument.
(Score: 2) by Kilo110 on Tuesday January 02 2018, @03:17PM (1 child)
Just because it's less bad, and worse things are legal, doesn't mean it 'deserves' to be legalized.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by khallow on Tuesday January 02 2018, @04:04PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 02 2018, @12:58AM
Like the ones with booze?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by takyon on Tuesday January 02 2018, @01:16AM (8 children)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napa_County,_California [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wino [wikipedia.org]
If we are going to go by the amount of harm caused [ias.org.uk], LSD, buprenorphine, shrooms, and ecstacy should be legalized first.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 02 2018, @01:19AM
Then we don't talk about CalExit but CalEviction.
(Score: 2) by KiloByte on Tuesday January 02 2018, @03:49AM (6 children)
I wonder what those ias.org.uk guys were smoking. The paper claims that alcohol is drastically more harmful, even to the user only, than tobacco or cocaine. Hmm right... the average user of tobacco loses 14.5 years of life, while the vast majority of alcohol users get no negative effects whatsoever. I'm for one an alcohol user: I drink a beer every a couple days, make tinctures [wikipedia.org] and liqueurs [wikipedia.org], haven't been inebriated in like 15 years, and even when I did drink much [angband.pl], I never had any problems worse than a nasty hangover on a non-school day.
Both of these substances have a significant amount of users (in civilized countries, 20-30% smoke and the majority drinks at least sometimes), yet while tobacco affects every single smoker to a drastic degree (20% of total life span lost on the average), only a small minority of drinkers suffer from it.
Ceterum censeo systemd esse delendam.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday January 02 2018, @04:03AM (3 children)
If you look at the breakdown (the more detailed second graph), it includes categories such as "drug specific mortality" and "crime".
Basically, alcohol comes way ahead because of people drinking and driving. Drunk people also commit a lot of crimes that they may never have intended to commit, people on a nicotine buzz, not so much.
As far harm to the user only, alcohol makes a lot of people do things that cause them nearly immediate injury. You can also die of alcohol poisoning if you drink way too much or pour it up your ass or whatever. Not really the case with tobacco. Long term, alcohol causes cirrhosis, and it has been linked to cancer [soylentnews.org] as well.
You might disagree with the specific findings, but it should be considered a starting point towards using a "multicriteria decision analysis" (instead of an "asinine decision analysis" like we have today). There are very big differences between drugs on the left side and right side of the graph. We have drugs on Schedule I that will never cause nearly as much harm as alcohol, even if people were "abusing" it as much as possible.
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(Score: 2) by HiThere on Tuesday January 02 2018, @06:23AM (2 children)
OTOH, tobacco has been used in highly dangerous ways. E.g.
Back around 1500 the AmerInds had an working anesthetic, and the Europeans didn't...you take a cigar (I don't know the details) and slowly insert it into the patients rectum until they pass out, then you remove it some (but not entirely?). But you've got to be VERY careful, because the anesthetic dose is quite close to the fatal dose. I don't know how well this worked, but it's supposed to have been considerably more effective and controllable than alcohol.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 3, Funny) by anubi on Tuesday January 02 2018, @08:12AM
You know, I will never see a cigar smoker in the same way again.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 02 2018, @03:28PM
Sometimes I wonder how things like this were discovered. Then I think it's probably better not to ask such questions.
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Tuesday January 02 2018, @04:14AM
(I meant to say "Figure 4" instead of "second graph")
I'll refine my response a bit with some quotes from the paper, using alcohol vs. tobacco as the example:
In this category, tobacco causes zero or negligible immediate lethal deaths. Whereas alcohol has a blue box at the top representing immediate deaths caused by overconsumption. Nobody is "overdosing" on tobacco. Same with cannabis.
In this category, the magenta color which is at the top of the tobacco bar in Figure 4, you can see that they rate tobacco as having greater drug-related mortality than alcohol, DESPITE the inclusion of road traffic accidents.
And so and so forth. So they are actually not rating the drug-related mortality as higher than tobacco, as you objected. But they are including many factors (the multicriteria!) that you might not care about. For example, much greater "loss of relationships" with alcohol than tobacco.
But if you stripped away the portions of the bar graph you didn't care about (assuming you deem the scores they gave to each drug for each category to be accurate), than you could come up with your own multicriteria decision analysis that places tobacco above alcohol in terms of harm!
Again, the point is that there is a lot of harm associated with alcohol, not so much with cannabis, and much less for substances like "khat", MDMA, LSD, etc.
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday January 02 2018, @04:09PM
And what makes you think there's something wrong with that claim? For example, Delirium tremens [wikipedia.org], a withdrawal symptom from heavy alcohol abuse, is very dangerous. You don't have similar health-threatening symptoms when withdrawing from nicotine or cocaine abuse.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 02 2018, @01:25AM (10 children)
Apparently people missed your point.
Mary Jane has been WOEFULLY understudied. It probably is fairly harmless. But proper studies are few and far between.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by takyon on Tuesday January 02 2018, @01:51AM (9 children)
As long as cannabis is on Schedule I, the necessary research is not going to get done or will get done very slowly. That's not a good thing given that states have already taken matters into their own hands. Yet researchers still have their hands tied.
DEA Accused of Obstructing Research on Marijuana Benefits [soylentnews.org]
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2016/08/10/u-s-affirms-its-prohibition-on-medical-marijuana/ [washingtonpost.com]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controlled_Substances_Act#Schedule_I_controlled_substances [wikipedia.org]
These criteria for Schedule I are applied in a completely arbitrary way by people who are biased against recreational drug use and hold attitudes not unlike those of Jeff Sessions. We can easily make a case for cannabis not meeting any of the 3 criteria, whereas the DEA and FDA insist that it meets all of them.
Even with the limited research done, there is no justification for the Schedule I status. It is a fraud perpetrated by the DEA and FDA. Congress is too chickenshit to do anything about it, even though they could amend the Controlled Substances Act or work around the DEA and FDA. Two administrations have tolerated the "states' rights" recreational cannabis legalization trend despite having the authority to initiate a major crackdown if they wanted to. The United Nations is also ready to change [medicaljane.com] course [herb.co] on cannabis, but existing treaties can be ignored by member nations with few real consequences.
I don't doubt that smoking cannabis is associated with health risks. Possibly vaping or using edibles or oil or whatever has less problems associated with it, but still has some negative effects. More research could make the picture clearer. But the Schedule I status has got to go no matter what.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 02 2018, @02:08AM (1 child)
I do not disagree with anything you said. They point is the study of it is bad. I mean there are people walking around thinking it cures cancer. What we have are tons of 'wives tale' evidence. As it gets more and more legal perhaps maybe we can get real studies. People are going to use this stuff legal or not, healthy or not. Our gov should at least realize that.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by takyon on Tuesday January 02 2018, @02:48AM
Yup. The ultra pro-cannabis "it cures cancer!" people are a complete meme [youtube.com]. But they will persist as long as the government or officials continue to push anti-drug propaganda and failed policies. (And the lack of research also helps health lies spread unchecked.)
Also consider the rise of health bloggers attacking certain food additives or promoting certain supplements with scant evidence, and reaching potentially huge audiences. It's a bit of a parallel to the "fake news" phenomenon, except instead of purely ad revenues you've got health/superfood/supplement revenues (maybe in the form of referral links for the bloggers and tubers on the ground level) and people like Dr. Oz selling pure snake oil. On the other hand you have the push to schedule [soylentnews.org] kratom [soylentnews.org], something that anecdotally helps people who might otherwise end up strung up on opioids. The plural of anecdote is not data, but the government's response seems to be less about safety and more about control. Everything's very emotionally charged, and the DEA's reflexive pushes to put everything on Schedule I (the nuclear option) don't help the situation.
Personal production and use of all drugs should be decriminalized, except maybe in cases of what you would call chemical weapons, e.g. deadly nerve agents.
Perhaps we don't even need to kill off the Controlled Substances Act + scheduling system. Instead, remove the criminal penalties tied to the scheduling system. Then maybe the lists could be made compiled using a scientific approach measuring harm and medical value instead of the fear of recreational "abuse". People could still use their recreational drugs, as long as they don't try to sell them (on a large scale). We could encourage the use of "safer" drugs like cannabis or LSD and steer people away from deadlier opioids, meth, cocaine, etc. Of course, you need an encouraged drug for each category since different drugs are used for different reasons. Kratom could be the encouraged replacement for opioids which people are getting hooked on after using painkillers like tramadol. The FDA Commissioner had some funny mixed messaging on kratom recently. [soylentnews.org]
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(Score: 4, Informative) by Pslytely Psycho on Tuesday January 02 2018, @06:02AM (6 children)
The most proper study of all is ongoing.
As now the entire west coast has legalized recreational use. So far, it has been a net positive for society.
In fact, the reality here is it has dispelled the stereotype of the 'doper.' The people of the stereotype simply are not the people visiting the pot shops. Here, the pot is as cheap, and in many cases far cheaper than the street, with edibles, waxes, etc and the clientele is rarely the down and out doper variety, but instead it's grandma, that shop owner down the street, the apartment manager, the professional in suit and tie and your neighbor.
It's caused the near complete death of the black market locally.
It is highly regulated and the state makes a killing in taxes as the shops proliferate. Hell, you can't drive ten blocks without running into a weed store. The are nearly as ubiquitous here as the espresso stands that are on nearly every corner.
As we were the first to implement the law (by about a week ahead of CO as I recall) this marks six years. Society failed to collapse, we got a large influx of jobs, taxes, economic growth, and no real negatives. It has even better support now than before, as people began to realize just who turned out to be tokers, and the stereotypes melted away.
What better study than real life?
Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday January 02 2018, @06:25AM (1 child)
That doesn't have a lot of bearing on long-term health effects. There are plenty of studies still being done on alcohol, tobacco, coffee, etc. The data for cannabis is lacking due to government restrictions, or tainted due to reefer madness and getting grant money based on saying what certain feds wanted to hear (I know that some researchers, like Donald Tashkin, have flipped and supported cannabis in recent years).
But it's clear that no matter what the health effects are (they won't be as bad as alcohol or tobacco), it should be decriminalized federally, and it also makes good sense to legalize and tax it (leading to economic benefits, reduction in crime, less money to the cartels, etc.).
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(Score: 2) by HiThere on Tuesday January 02 2018, @06:34AM
FWIW, I have known people who basically couldn't safely use marijuana. So far I've known one and met two briefly. I have no idea how many users I've met. It seems that there is the marijuana equivalent of the alcoholic, though I'm sure the mechanism is different. And I'm *guessing* that the proportion is smaller. None of the three were violent, but all were either extremely unreliable or, the one I knew, abstainers.
This is such a small sample that it almost doesn't even count as anecdotal, but with no real studies I don't know of any better data.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 02 2018, @06:57AM (3 children)
Can we also mention the loss of revenue to criminal gangs? Jeez, it would be worth legalizing just to deprive violent criminals their source of revenue and reduce the expense of law enforcement / incarceration. Anything else, whatever, is icing on the cake.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday January 02 2018, @07:03AM (2 children)
It's also a loss of revenue for law enforcement gangs who use asset forfeiture to take money, drugs, and possessions away from criminals as well as ordinary citizens.
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(Score: 2) by deimtee on Tuesday January 02 2018, @01:50PM (1 child)
They can still take the money and the assets. You have to prove you weren't buying drugs to even have a chance of getting any back. Good luck proving a negative.
Personally, I can't see how that doesn't violate the fourth amendment, but then I am not a lawyer.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday January 02 2018, @04:13PM
It does violate the Fourth. But while you might have rights against unlawful seizure of property, apparently, your property doesn't have those rights too. /sarc
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Tuesday January 02 2018, @12:54PM
Yea, no one ever said it was 100% harmless. Safer than alcohol and everything else that gets you high? Yup.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Tuesday January 02 2018, @12:40AM (1 child)
PG&E once announced that there were more than 30,000 grow-ops in California.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 5, Funny) by mhajicek on Tuesday January 02 2018, @01:47AM
Misread that as 30,000 grown-ups in California, and didn't believe you.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 02 2018, @12:46AM (16 children)
So what is California doing about it's homelessness problem?
*crickets*
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 02 2018, @12:51AM (8 children)
It's creating jobs and collecting more taxes.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Ethanol-fueled on Tuesday January 02 2018, @01:02AM (5 children)
This is a good opportunity for bum job training, but the only way it will work would be to embrace the idea of putting people into work camps.
Affordable housing? Not while douchebags still want to move here from every other state. And they still do.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Tuesday January 02 2018, @01:50AM (4 children)
You couldn't pay me to move to California. I've turned down job offers simply because they were in California.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday January 02 2018, @02:03AM (2 children)
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Tuesday January 02 2018, @06:36AM (1 child)
Interesting joke. I rather *like* living here, but it's getting too expensive.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by anubi on Wednesday January 03 2018, @03:29AM
I have lived in California for 40 years or so... but one thing that I am seeing lately is really getting my goat.
Tax Law.
I keep seeing all this brohuahua over house flipping. Make money fast. Just tie up property you do not live in. Now its a business expense. Special deductions.
So investors are doing what makes them the most money. Ramming up the price of real estate.
Should not our Tax Law be written to encourage providing employment, rather than hogging resources?
If I had my druthers, I would see the "homestead" exemption drastically increased, along with deductions things that provide employment to tradesmen, such as home maintenance and construction. Basically, encourage everyone to spiff up their house while providing more employment to people who do not have 9-5 job.
Forget trying to tax at that level... just be glad they are doing something more productive than waiting for their EBT card credit to be posted.
Leave your mitts off that gardener or stone mason that is helping a homeowner spiff his place up. They are not making that much money. On top of that, it sometimes costs them as much money as they earned to just account for what they earned in a governmentally accepted format.
The government is trying so hard to micro-tax the micro-income earners that its losing sight of millions of people who are wising up the meme that the best way to live is not to work.
The end result of this is we have bums on bicycles coursing up and down our residential areas all day, treating our houses and cars like a shopping mall, instead of working for a living.
Because our Government's tax law. Tax the workers. Credit the freeloaders.
They get paid to sit on their can. While government exacts even more tax dollars from us to pay them to do so.
The Government is setting the meme that the only way to win is not to play ( work ).
Through Tax Law.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday January 02 2018, @11:01AM
Ditto that. Actually, I don't want to live on the west coast. OR the east coast, unless maybe Maine, or Nova Scotia. I believe the most sane Americans live in the middle of the continent.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 02 2018, @01:05AM (1 child)
Homelessness or weed? If you smoke yourself to stupidity, you may not realize state policy is fucking you over? At least the flaming commie cinderblock will still have it's cats. [nytimes.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 02 2018, @04:16AM
Smart Stoners [thirdmonk.net]
Francis Crick - Nobel laureate - Settled in San Diego County
Richard Feynman - Nobel laureate - Cal Tech
Kary Mullis - Nobel laureate - PhD from Berkeley; mostly a Californian since then
Sergey Brin - PhD from Stanford - Silicon Valley dude
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 02 2018, @01:21AM (5 children)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_equivalence [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 02 2018, @01:26AM (3 children)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imbecile [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 3, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 02 2018, @01:35AM (2 children)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by Osamabobama on Tuesday January 02 2018, @06:00PM (1 child)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potato [wikipedia.org]
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday January 03 2018, @12:55AM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nightshade_(disambiguation) [wikipedia.org]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by The Vocal Minority on Tuesday January 02 2018, @03:46AM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_fallacy [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 02 2018, @07:53PM
There isn't a whole lot you can do unless you go full out and provide housing, but that will also entail a near-permanent officer presence since drug addiction is highly correlated with homelessness. Many homeless people avoid shelters too, not only are they an easy target for bullies / thieves but many do not want to live under the various restrictions that get put in place. I believe a lot of homeless from other areas make their way to CA because the weather is nicer and the economy still has some legs under it so they can scrape by more easily.
I guess the new problem is the wave of working homeless, people who can't afford the insane rent prices. There is nothing we CAN do unless we go the dreaded "planned economy" route and do some rent price fixing or something. The speculation and corporate ownership of massive amounts of real estate makes the problem untenable for the average person.
Seems like so many people just love to hate on California, perhaps ask yourselves why that is and then do research into the various talking points that come to mind. Then compare to your favorite midwest state, see if California is really as bad as you think.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday January 02 2018, @01:45AM
New York, Illinois, and Texas are the most populous states remaining. It's time to get to work on them! Of course, when they see all the taxes being raked in by the first six states, they'll be jumping on the bandwagon!
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday January 02 2018, @02:01AM
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Tuesday January 02 2018, @02:55AM (10 children)
Quit smoking pot a good 40 years ago (it gave me a headache, my dad and sister have migraines so, yeah). The San Diego Reader has a bunch of ads for medical weed, price seems to be $7-10 a gram. Sounds like the State and cities are getting greedy and ratcheting up taxes on the stuff. In maybe 3 days to let things fall out I'm curious which will be cheaper?
A) Freely available weed to everyone
B) Medical marijuana sold to peeps who pay $25-40 for a card of some sort
C) Weed you can buy from some guy that 40 years ago was your high school quarterback.
D) My brother in law, who has been growing in his backyard for a good 10 years now. They don't smoke, they sell it all.
Why shouldn't we judge a book by it's cover? It's got the author, title, and a summary of what the book's about.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Tuesday January 02 2018, @03:07AM (9 children)
Not sure what your brother-in-law charges but otherwise one would assume your friendly neighborhood drugdealer would be the cheapest since there are no taxes on his transactions. That said one could further assume that you get what you pay for and one would assume that would be easier to know or figure out if you buy from a proper legal store.
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Tuesday January 02 2018, @03:17AM (2 children)
I've never asked what he charges, but he has 5-6 plants at a time in his greenhouse. He also grows tomatoes and various herbs, all of which he uses himself.
I suspect CA will smother the golden goose via taxes, I'm guessing the price low to high will be:
1) Local weed dealer. No taxes, but no idea how good/safe the weed is.
2) Medical weed. Kinda regulated, decent prices
3) Legal weed. Strangled by taxes, bought by people who for whatever reason don't want to get a medical marijuana card.
Why shouldn't we judge a book by it's cover? It's got the author, title, and a summary of what the book's about.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Tuesday January 02 2018, @08:20AM (1 child)
I haven't been keeping up with this... is it legal to grow your own?
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 02 2018, @07:47PM
In all the state's that have legalized recreational use yeah, up to X number of plants. Here in CA I think it is 6(?) and you can legally carry up to an ounce of weed. I can't wait for the end of the black market, it attracts so many scum sucking slimeballs. The decent folks are all going through the hassle of legalizing their operations, the fuckwads hopefully just go back to working normal jobs.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Pslytely Psycho on Tuesday January 02 2018, @06:17AM (5 children)
Here in Washington, the weed is as cheap, and frequently cheaper than the street. I only speak of the east side, as I live in Spokane, not Seattle. Meh weed is like 6 a gram or 65 an oz, good weed 10-12 a gram and around 110-150 an oz. Great weed maybe 15-20 and 150-220 an oz. The black market is dead. The handful of street dealers can't compete with well equipped stores with 30 strains and weekly sales from specific growers. Plus the stores have edibles, drinkables, wax, shatter, oil, body creams and are clean, professional, and very well stocked. The clientele completely dispels the stereotype.
We have both budget and boutique style shops.
A street dealer just can't compete.
Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Tuesday January 02 2018, @11:01AM (4 children)
That is kind of interesting. The street dealer only really offer two perks -- one should be the price since he doesn't have to pay any sales taxes and his transaction should be more anonymous then getting a card or register in some other fashion. The problem might be greed, the legal and illegal side keep looking at each other and trying to figure out what they price should be. I recon the street dealers just pocket taxes as extra income. But if he can't compete with prices then as noted he should be dead in the water.
As a matter of selection the street dealer should never have the same selection as a store. But growing wise it shouldn't be an issue, somewhat depending on where the dealer gets their weed from.
Stores probably opens up a whole new market to, people that wouldn't ever buy illegal drugs or don't even know where to get them. They can easily walk into a big store with a large sign on it.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday January 02 2018, @11:09AM (3 children)
I think that you may be overlooking one pretty serious cost for illegal sales. That is the risk of jail. Remember Al Capone? They never did convict him of the various violent crimes he committed. They got him on tax evasion. He "got away with" countless violent crimes, but was burned for not paying taxes. Street sales people are going to consider the risk of being caught. Time in jail, money for bail, money for lawyers, the risk of conviction, potential years out of your life - and the knowledge that the guy who gets a business license, pays taxes, and does everything legal is probably making more money than you in the long run.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Tuesday January 02 2018, @11:46AM (1 child)
The downside of crime, it very rarely pays. I seem to recall having read numerous studies where they conclude that if criminals had just taken the worst of lowpaying McJobs they would in the long run have been better off. There is just a small group of criminals that actually make decent money and it usually doesn't last or the risks, as you have noted them, are staggering. Not only from the justice-system but also from other criminals.
I think one of the interesting side effects might be what the legalization and industrialization of growing might to do to the (mexican-) drug cartels south of the border. It should be murder on their weed related business. There shouldn't be any point in smuggling in weed from outside anymore. I guess they have to shift their entire focus to harder drugs. One wonders if they might set up "legal" growfarms on the northern side of the border, might be a great money laundering facility if they can get into the network on the legal side of things.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 02 2018, @03:45PM
I'd wager that even if you somehow were able to go back in time and tell each and every one of the individuals, the criminals, the exact statistics - and have them somehow completely believe you - that they would still choose crime. There's more to life than maximizing expected income. Going the route outside of McJobs comes with the potential for massive gains as well respect. People who work McJobs are generally treated like jokes, and their potential for meaningful gains are near 0. That's not a pleasant existence, even if it may be the tortoise beating the hare in most cases.
(Score: 2) by Pslytely Psycho on Wednesday January 03 2018, @03:00AM
Ah, yes, I can only comment on the laws here, but recreational doesn't require anything other than showing your ID in exactly the same manner as buying cigarettes or alcohol. No record kept. Medical required a database, but we pretty much eliminated medical. You only need a medical card to grow. I wish we had adopted growing with recreational, but hey, we were the first and it was a bitch implementing it the first year, too few stores and too many grow licenses, that caused a glut. It has since stabilized.
Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 02 2018, @03:23AM (1 child)
California excise tax and cultivation tax is what I found, but whose pockets are they going into?
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Tuesday January 02 2018, @03:46AM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adult_Use_of_Marijuana_Act [wikipedia.org]
Those percentages represent leftover revenues after a number of other programs are funded:
http://www.businessinsider.com/recreational-marijuana-tax-revenue-allocation-2016-11 [businessinsider.com]
In even greater detail at this link: https://www.fool.com/investing/2016/10/15/heres-how-california-would-spend-its-expected-1-bi.aspx [fool.com]
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 02 2018, @03:49AM (3 children)
This is NOT legal until the federal law changes. At any time, that federal law can be enforced against politically disfavored people.
One symptom of being a 3rd-world country is that there are lots of laws that are seldom enforced. Such laws are used to go after people that piss off those with power.
To avoid being a 3rd-world shithole, it is necessary to fairly enforce all laws. If we don't intend to enforce a marijuana ban, then we need to make it legal for real, by changing federal law. For every law we have, our goal should be 100% reliable enforcement.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 02 2018, @05:25AM
You can't fairly enforce unjust laws. Unjust laws must be ignored, violated, and challenged at every turn, and yes, they will hopefully be scrapped entirely. I understand concerns about selective enforcement, but slowly attacking federal law by opposing it on the state level is one way to get marijuana and other drugs legalized; eventually, they will no longer be able to ignore the situation.
In any case, the federal war on drugs is definitely unconstitutional, even if our courts refuse to recognize that. Where's the rule of law in violating the Constitution?
(Score: 5, Interesting) by takyon on Tuesday January 02 2018, @05:32AM
That's only one dimension. Yes, there is an unresolved conflict [wikipedia.org] between state and federal law. States have gone beyond mere decriminalization (make the feds do the work of arresting people if they want to) and are permitting sales, handing out licenses, and collecting taxes. The feds could swoop in and enforce the law if they were directed to. It shouldn't be left this way (spoiler alert: it should be legalized federally and Congress is doing the nation a disservice by continuing to kick the can down the road).
The other dimension is the people vs. the feds. Many millions of people support legalization (in the neighborhood of 57% [pewresearch.org] to 64% [gallup.com] polled), and many millions flout the law, engaging in disobedience and even civil disobedience (disobedience = growing/using but not trying to get arrested, civil disobedience = something like smoking on federal property as part of a protest [thecannabist.co]). People are also expressing their support by collecting signatures and affirming legalization by ballot initiatives, which set up the state-federal conflict in the first place. This at a minimum protects them from local and state law enforcement, and forces the issue with the feds by undermining laws that the feds are apparently not willing to enforce out of fear of a political backlash.
Are unenforced laws symptomatic of 3rd-world shitholes? Perhaps. But it doesn't mean the country is going to pot. Plus, any hint of the feds "fairly enforcing" these laws to go after people could become the catalyst that gets the laws changed for good. And in a long shot scenario, federal cannabis charges could be contested all the way to the Supreme Court (Constitutional challenges [wikipedia.org] have been attempted before unsuccessfully, but the Supreme Court undeniably bases decisions partly on shifting public opinion). Maybe we should just use the Religious Freedom Restoration Act(s) [wikipedia.org] to kill this Prohibition [wikipedia.org] without the help of Congress.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 02 2018, @08:00PM
State vs. Federal, its about time we started getting some progress on that front! I think the current example is precisely how it should be done. Allow states to test out their own laws before revoking or enacting it as Federal law. I think we're reaching the tipping point where Federal law will have to be updated, the midwest is getting a very clear lesson on marijuana from their close neighbor CO and the handful of other states that have yet to experience any negative side effects from legalization.