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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe best article ever on the future of pot legalization
Last edited Fri Nov 22, 2013, 12:41 PM - Edit history (1)
ne morning in August, Mark Kleiman, a professor of public policy at U.C.L.A., addressed the Seattle city council on the subject of marijuana. Kleiman is one of the country’s most prominent and outspoken analysts of drug policy, and for three decades he has argued that America’s cannabis laws must be liberalized. Kleiman’s campaign used to seem quixotic, but in November, 2012, voters in Washington and Colorado passed initiatives legalizing the use and commercial sale of marijuana. Immediately afterward, the State of Washington decided that it needed help setting up a pot economy. State bureaucrats don’t generally sit around pondering the improbable, so they had made no contingency plans. A call for proposals was issued. Kleiman assembled a team that beat out more than a hundred other contenders for the job. He calls himself a “policy entrepreneur,” and offers advice through a consultancy that he runs, BOTEC Analysis Corp. In a nod to the ambiguity inherent in studying illicit economies, BOTEC stands for Back of the Envelope Calculation.
Washington and Colorado have launched a singular experiment. The Netherlands tolerates personal use of marijuana, but growing or selling the drug is still illegal. Portugal has eliminated criminal sanctions on all forms of drug use, but selling narcotics remains a crime. Washington and Colorado are not merely decriminalizing adult possession and use of cannabis; they are creating a legal market for the drug that will be overseen by the state. In a further complication, the marijuana that is legal in these states will remain illegal in the eyes of the federal government, because the Controlled Substances Act of 1970 forbids the growing and selling of cannabis. “What the state is doing, in actuality, is issuing licenses to commit a felony,” Kleiman says. In late August, after months of silence, the Department of Justice announced that it will not intervene to halt the initiatives in Washington and Colorado. Instead, it will adopt a “trust but verify” approach, permitting the states to police the new market for the drug. Many other states appear poised to introduce legalization measures, and the Obama Administration’s apparent acquiescence surely will hasten this development.
SNIP
When legal marijuana goes on sale, sometime next spring, the black market will not simply vanish; over-the-counter pot will have to compete with illicit pot. To support the legal market, Kleiman argued, the state must intensify law-enforcement pressure on people who refuse to play by the new rules. A street dealer will have to be arrested in the hope that “you will migrate that dealer’s customers into the taxed-and-regulated market.”
Officials in Washington had been expecting a peace dividend, yet Kleiman was calling for a crackdown. It was the kind of logical argument that nobody wants to hear. Not even law enforcement: to a narcotics detective, pot legalization can feel like an existential affront. As if to deepen the insult, tax revenue from the sale of legal cannabis will be devoted to substance-abuse prevention and research—not to police or prosecutors. Who, then, was going to pay for such a crackdown? Although Kleiman urged state officials to set aside funds for increased law enforcement, he can get impatient with such complaints. He likes to say, “You don’t get any of the revenue for arresting robbers, either.”
SNIP...............
READ MORE: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/11/18/131118fa_fact_keefe?currentPage=2
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pscot
(21,044 posts)They'd let the market work unhindered long enough to become established, then set up a tax structure that recognizes the realities of the trade. If they're too greedy, the illegal market will flourish and the state will get nothing but a headache.
Bennyboy
(10,440 posts)I think that it has to be completely nailed down, all aspects before legalization. Who grows it, commercial regulations and taxation and the backyard grower. The distribution etc. I know a crap load of growers and I can tell you one thing and one thing only, you are going to have to arrest them to get them to pay taxes. They will stay underground, continue to ship product across state lines to states that do not have legal pot.... What do we do about the guy who sells a few 1/8s a week to his friends?
What about pot products? edibles, tinctures, hashish?
What about medical uses, will there be separate shops that focus only on the medical, but sell the same products as a pot shop would?
And what about pot shops? What can they sell? packaging? testing? taxation? inspection?
What is going to happen is what happened after prohibition. More police (revenuers!) to bust manufacturers that were not legal and keeping those who choose to stay illegal in check.......
pscot
(21,044 posts)Our county council just voted a 6 month moratorium on licensing growers. The Governor (Inslee) seems to be bent out of shape over legalization. The legalization advocates oversold MJ as a revenue source, but of course the narcs have done that for years with their million dollar pot busts. Now the state has brought in a consultant who's telling them they need a police crackdown on growers who won't toe the state line. I don't think anyone is going to be happy with what comes next, least of all growers and medical users who could see prices rise dramatically. There's a discussion now at the Washington forum if you're interested: http://www.democraticunderground.com/10822533
Comrade Grumpy
(13,184 posts)We can thank Alison Holcomb and her crew for that giveaway to the prohibitionists. And she threw in a bonus drugged driving provision.
Holcomb and crew said these giveaways were necessary to win.
But Colorado approved legalization with the same percentage of the vote, and has home growing and no drugged driving provision.
We are winning now and don't need to be making foolish concessions that will keep the drug war alive.
bhikkhu
(10,789 posts)from the "power structure" of government. What if you could grow marijuana and not fear the police? Smoke marijuana without the nagging fear of a government that calls you a criminal? What if you could vote for people who don't feel obligated to publicly condemn and disparage you and deny your right to choice? What if you didn't have to hide, and have two different faces at the ready?
50 years of that has made a certain amount of alienation a chronic part of our culture, so much so that its taken for granted and almost comfortable. I don't smoke pot myself, but hat's the part I would like to see change the most.
I think a "more perfect union", in the sense that the president has used it, would be one the the more beneficial (even if less-than-intended) consequences.
Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)No more than people who drink alcohol are a culture.
In my cynical old age I figure the government really really needs a scapegoat or three, get them to give up one scapegoat and they'll just find another.
ladyVet
(1,587 posts)Decriminalized, yes. He says that legalization will mean commercialization and taxes. Big no no! lol
eShirl
(20,268 posts)Look at the homebrew supply industry for analogy.
pscot
(21,044 posts)The won't get their expected tax windfall if they do. And Washington needs money to make up the gazillion dollar tax break they just gave Boeing for jobs that are headed for South Carolina anyway.
Comrade Grumpy
(13,184 posts)And unnecessary. Colorado won by the same percentage of the vote, and it has home growing.
LordGlenconner
(1,348 posts)Spend some time in places where it's not that way and his opinion might evolve.
Comrade Grumpy
(13,184 posts)Does he really want to throw people in jail for growing plants?
Emelina
(188 posts)if legalized will be a death-blow to the drug cartels of Mexico.
Bennyboy
(10,440 posts)it might hurt a bit for them but they will continue to use other drugs, most of which fit in a a much smaller space, to keep control. there will be MORE METH around that much is certain.
TheKentuckian
(26,314 posts)Of course the answer is for broad and complete (not reducing penalties or writing tickets but striking sanctions wholesale) decriminalization, allowing the vaunted market to establish it's self, and then later setting up a legal framework where safety/purity regulation and taxation worked in.
reddread
(6,896 posts)neither should these lying criminal oppressors in government stand to benefit from tax funds they will only use to kill and violate the Constitution with.
GIY obviates these schemes and legalization or decriminalization without the freedom to grow what you want is unacceptable.
anyone who thinks they can count on revenue from such an easily cultivated plant is a little too high or LYING.
Bennyboy
(10,440 posts)yet, nobody seems to be doing it. (and I am a home brewer and distiller). People are not going to want to grow it. let me tell ya. For one thing it is (Contrary to popular opinion) not easy to grow. High Quality buds? No way a backyard grower can do that the first time, some never..
Extracts? edibles? hashish? All take a pretty specific knowledge and machinery that not everyone has.
People wanna have convenience they don't want to read a big book on growing pot and do all that.
reddread
(6,896 posts)It is easy enough that production will quickly outstrip (as it already has as far as I can tell) street demand and prices will never be enough to sustain a decent tax revenue.
Without prohibition pressures.
Which they will continue to supply.
So, this POS article is making the case for continued oppression.
Anyone can garden if they want to, and certainly, if those gates are open,
there WONT be a tax take worth talking about.
and thats the way it out to be.
Let em tax cigarettes and alcohol to pay for the real costs to society.
Comrade Grumpy
(13,184 posts)Me? I grow my own.
The only taxes the state will get from me are sales taxes on my inputs.
At the same time, however, I am not supporting the black market.
And I am not supporting any more initiatives or legislation that doesn't include home cultivation.
TheKentuckian
(26,314 posts)more meth if weed is legal. Essentially, substituting meth for the lost revenue from weed.
I say fuck that, take it and all vice out of their hands and starve them out.
Meth is already DIY, the results aren't great and in order to not have folks blowing their housed up and to keep the poisoning down, a regulatory system needs to be in place and paid for so you have to tax it and I figure it is best to hold off on taxes until a post - drug war, post cartel dominated price is set by supply and demand.
Now, even if we were talking about the same thing, in which case I'd be closer to agreement but still apart if you'd rather keep business as usual than some kind of legalization and slow the roll of folks to the pen.
reddread
(6,896 posts)the two things are not mutually entwined.
Meth, like many other criminal activities
could be curtailed.
I believe law enforcement benefits in every possible
way from the continuation of those sorts of activities.
My point is simply that pot is not logically a source of revenue.
It will take some strong actions to force those income streams.
Unacceptable.
Comrade Grumpy
(13,184 posts)Some people do nasty things on meth, some people get addicted. But like all psychoactive substances, most users are not problematic, not addicted, and quit doing it after awhile.
It ought to be made available through legal means to people who want it.
Are you seriously saying meth can be curtailed? How's that been working out?
reddread
(6,896 posts)I come from the meth breadbasket, and when it isnt some goofballs in an apartment blowing things up,
its farmers, wealthy crooks and race car guys.
The hell it should be made available.
Ive seen the effects.
There is nothing worse that you can put in your body.
Comrade Grumpy
(13,184 posts)Meth is Schedule II, which means it can be prescribed by a doctor and has been deemed safe enough for some medical purposes, just like prescription opioids.
Not saying that abusing meth is a good thing, just that the nearest meth user is as likely to be employee of the month as she is some toothless street hooker.
And those exploding meth labs and crappy homemade meth with all its poisonous components? That's drug prohibition, not meth. Remember bathtub gin?
reddread
(6,896 posts)If you think meth should be permitted because the government schedules it any particular way, all I can say is
WHATEVER.
Why dont you tell all those children I see whose parents are not employees of the month, how it is prohibitions fault?
Why dont you tell those displaced tenants who had their apartment destroyed by fire caused by exploding makeshift
"labs" that it is the governments fault?
Tell those people contending with darkened streets because of relentless copper thefts, and other scrap metal drives
that cause magnitudes more in damage than they recover down at the crooked recycling center its just a prohibition issue?
Why dont you blame a not insignificant percentage of homelessness on prohibition?
God knows those prostitutes could do a lot better if their habits and their activities were legal.
I cant believe anyone here would defend a substance that is so completely destructive and addictive.
but hey, its a free country.
unless you want to grow some weed.
TheKentuckian
(26,314 posts)not holding back a greater storm of hell that would be unleashed upon society if not for our brave law enforcement and secure prisons. Such is completely unsupported, in fact the tighter the grip the greater harm to broader society and the zeal to crackdown is pure emotionalism that is admittedly reasonably derived from the effects of the street formulations and the reaction of law enforcement which ever ratchets up the associated dangers.
Shit, meth is a prime example the societal problems are actually orders of magnitude worse than before it was considered a focus. We were better off by far when someone was able to walk into the corner store and buy methamphetamine cheap and easy. Where their problems? Sure but the reaction has created a fairly dangerous environment for those who don't even use the shit while herding users to more dangerous versions.
I also think there is more revenue than you think in taxation of weed, though less than some would guesstimate based off inflated street prices powered by prohibition because far fewer than you make out will grow as long as a reasonably true market is allowed to be established.
Logically, prices will plummet. If you overcharged you kill your revenue stream because more would try to grow. Once this is allowed to balance out then you can introduce taxation and still be significantly lower than street prices.
People are making this more complicated that it at all needs to be. Almost no one grows their own tobacco even though it is taxed at now hundreds and in the case of roll your own, thousands of percent above retail and you totally can, seeds are readily available. Weed without the specter of legal sanction would be even easier, cheaper, and less labor intensive to cultivate. This really should be simple but perspectives are distorted by a few generations of extreme silliness and the fear of loss of revenue from folks all over the map.
RainDog
(28,784 posts)
Aaron8418
(18 posts)I can see how much good Kleiman is talking about doing, he is absolutely right that the more dealers that get busted and taken off the street because it's legal to buy it from the store legally, people will much rather buy it legally than illegally if they can get it legally. Make a whole lot of sense if you really think about it, it will boost our economy, provide us with an alternate source of fuel and introduce us to a different better way of life. Let everybody smoke, i think the world would be a better place.
Bennyboy
(10,440 posts)Coming to bust that still cuz it is untaxed. Precisely right there. And I know a ton of the large growers that are getting rich off pot. we are talking building 500K homes, buying land, rich and once it does become legal, it is time for them to pay taxes like everyone else and I will SUPPORT law enforcement and IRS efforts to collect taxes on the growers, the manufacturers, the trimmers (who should go on the payroll) and everyone else that profits off cannabis.
Do I think those taxes should be higher than other things? NO. Di I think that cannabis sold as medicine at a dispensary should be tax exempt? YES I DO, just like Oxycontin is.
I have a cannabis biz to launch right now and in my biz plan taxes are well discussed.....
And when talking about METH, you all are not getting it. There is a entire generation of kids that have been given meth since being toddlers. MILLIONS AND MILLIONS OF CHILDREN.....My grandkids are that way. ADHD diagnosis at 3 and four and since then all kinds of speed through various drugs. Once they turn 18 and can no longer keep their scripts they are going to be DOING ANYTHING to get their hands on METH, it is easy to buy and ten bucks is all it takes. And all them drugs the were prescribed did NOT ONE FUCKING THING to keep the kids in control. NOTHING.