Pot Legalized

Quote: petroglyph

Is this just the revenue arm of justice keeping the price up?

What is interesting is that the same high grade strains cost the same regardless if its the black market or legal.

Quote: terapined

What is interesting is that the same high grade strains cost the same regardless if its the black market or legal.

Exactly, that was the impetus of my post.

Before quasi legalization the price was X, customers realized there is an expense to growing quality product and also the price payed was partially in respect that a grower could go to prison for a long time. This is crony capitalism just as phony as the stock market. When the state controls the price there is no price discovery, which was a large reason for stocks in the first place.

Now, as in the article I linked customers are free flowing in and out the door and paying plenty of taxes. Here in Az. the taxes are exorbitant and the price as you say is the same whether black market or legal dispensary. In the article and by my question I do wonder if by busting a few shops and confiscating everything including the cash and censoring any details if the cops aren't just aiding the high price now that it should be falling like a stone.

It is a well known fact that the cia flies cocaine into the US, partially as a way to fund black ops. If anyone doesn't believe this, search google or follow this trail.
http://www.brasschecktv.com/videos/cia/connecting-the-dots-crack-contras-and-the-cia.html.

For the first year here in Az. a patient could grow their own medicine if they payed the fee etc. I didn't want to grow for several reasons one being I just don't have a green thumb. But at these prices I would give it a try or find somebody that just liked to grow and pay a fair price. Now the state has modified the rules where a patient can't legally grow withing 25 miles of a dispensary. This isn't and has never been about possibly helping patients who are truthfully suffering that might get aid from mmj.

If things were honest which they do not appear to be, then I should be able to acquire this product which will grow outdoors way cheaper then the phenomenol cost of pain meds. But whoever is in charge of this fiasco will not let that be. Allowing voter approved mmj is nothing more than a revenue stream for the state. My needs mean nothing to them, only the revenue they can extract by being the drug dealer with the biggest guns.

When big pharma can make the billions involved then weed will come in packs [like it did in Vietnam] and will retail for about the same price as cigarettes.

Quote: terapined

What is interesting is that the same high grade strains cost the same regardless if its the black market or legal.

I've said it here before, but I guess it bears repeating.

Here in Washington, I can buy great stuff from growers for $10/gram. When the retail stores opened July 7, their prices were much higher, including the tax, and they're going up, up, up. I bought a single gram of Bubba Kush for $20 back in August, now the same stuff is $27, at the same store. I bought an 1/8 of a strain called Jack Frost 7 for $45 opening weekend (see pics earlier in this thread), then the same store offered it again 2 months later for $60. In fact, everything at that store now is $60-70 for an 1/8 ounce. A brand new store just opened in my area about 5 minutes from my house, so I stopped in on Friday. They had well-stocked shelves, but prices were higher than I'm willing to pay. But that's better than Seattle. Until recently, the only store in Seattle proper is called Cannabis City, and when I checked their prices when they opened, it was $70 for a 2 gram package for pretty much everything. More stores have opened, so their monopoly is over and their prices are more reasonable now.

My point being that prices are NOT the same whether black market or legal retail, here in WA at least. But I like to buy from the stores rather than friends because of the cool packaging, the THC content is listed and sativa vs. indica is right on the label, and the percentage of each if it's a hybrid. My growing friends have no idea what they're growing or what the THC levels are. I like having options, and seeing/smelling what's being offered, so I guess I'm willing to pay extra for that.

Someone said earlier (months ago) that the harvest dates that were listed on the packages I was posting were too recent, and proper drying/curing protocols were likely not being followed. The little store that sold those has broken its arrangement with that grow-op, Peninsula Cannabis, due to several customer complaints for that reason. Semi-moist weed, too many stems and a seed here-n-there, etc. I had noticed myself that what I was getting in the packages didn't resemble the images on their own website at all, and that the THC content seemed low. But WTH, I'm kinda new and learning. That store, Seachange Cannabis has had some better product of late, and is now open 4 days a week due to better supply. Some of it is so stinky-fine I keep going into the bedroom to open up the pouch for a big sniff again and again. It's like a skunk took a dump on a pile of wet pine needles. I'll post more pics if anyone's interested.

I keep buying the stuff, because I'm a collector (!), but don't smoke enough to keep up. Last Saturday, I took my little Pax vaporizer with me on my errands and took a couple hits in the middle of the day! I never do that, but wanted to use up my supply. Hated it. Won't do it again.

Quote: petroglyph

Is this just the revenue arm of justice keeping the price up?

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/03/west-hollywood-medical-marijuana-raid.html

Were we not instructed that the feds weren't going to be raiding mmj state sanctioned facilities? These were said to be the best of the best in the business in the area. Paying plenty of taxes, following all the rules. Gotta keep the money flowing to the cartels, there is an election to be run, and we need to keep all the beds full in the "for profit prisons". Weed was cheaper when it wasn't legal, but another bureaucracy needed funding. Its a jobs program for the inept.

I'm kind of expecting them to say "those are the kings dear", they already own the water and air. We don't need no "stinking rights".

Maybe I'll be wrong, but I suspect there is another issue at this place that triggered an investigation and the raid.

Law enforcement does that sort of thing all the time, and turn a blind eye to one issue, unless some sort of other complaints start coming in.

Quote: petroglyph

Is this just the revenue arm of justice keeping the price up?

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/03/west-hollywood-medical-marijuana-raid.html

Were we not instructed that the feds weren't going to be raiding mmj state sanctioned facilities? These were said to be the best of the best in the business in the area. Paying plenty of taxes, following all the rules. Gotta keep the money flowing to the cartels, there is an election to be run, and we need to keep all the beds full in the "for profit prisons". Weed was cheaper when it wasn't legal, but another bureaucracy needed funding. Its a jobs program for the inept.

I'm kind of expecting them to say "those are the kings dear", they already own the water and air. We don't need no "stinking rights".

Uruguay got tired of people dying defending the US failed "war on drugs" policies and now so far is the largest national grower of cannabis.http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/22/uruguay-legal-marijuana-drug-traffickers

This hearing happening now in California could be a tipping point.http://blog.sfgate.com/smellthetruth/2014/10/28/war-on-pot-defies-science-doctors-testify-in-federal-court/

This country needs desperately to use the money now used to chase cannabis users/growers and redirect the law officers toward real criminals, enough already! Help stop the insanity of using so much money to incarcerate users in a victimless crime to incarcerating those that intentionally do harm to everyone and destroy this once thought to be "free nation".

Since 2008 an this country losing over 13 Trillion dollars that will never be recovered, not one elite banker has went to jail, versus how many lite cannabis users?
Many states will still put a person in state prison for years, years for paraphernalia alone. Justice department my ass.

A relative states 135 dollars per day to incarcerate a prisoner in Ak. I'm sure it is less in Texas but still lets use min. of 30k per year. I am aware of a person who got out of prison in Texas after 6 years for having a pot pipe. So the tax payers have forked over a minimum of 180,000 dollars because of a pipe. Is this a great country or what?

Consider how rural areas that are highly dependent upon seasonal tourists often have to "endure" a sort of Search and Rescue tax. Tourists, sportsmen, etc. would not flock to any area if they can't get evacuated during fires or unexpected floods. Headlines about slip and falls on cliff faces have to be followed up with photos of helicopters and SAR personnel leaving their homes and businesses or else rock climbers, fishermen, etc. will simply go elsewhere.

Its becoming the same way with certain touristy areas getting boycotted because of an "Arrive on Vacation; Leave on Probation" attitude. Its the same annoyance as a small town operating a speed trap for half its annual budget.

Eventually its going to become a similar situation to drug laws and jaywalking laws.

Ruining lives with pot arrests will simply get too much of a public backlash. Whole towns live on pot and its proceeds, $pendocino, CA and Santa Cruz, CA are now wealthy enclaves but were each pot havens in the sixties.

Hotel owners have always known they have to be "flexible" regarding ladies of the evening. You want your hotel to have a convention business then you can't be busting too many hookers unless they are eyesores.

Its hotel owners who told engineers to make the elevator glass walled and hang it off the end of the structure. Engineers don't do stupid things like that unless the owner tells them wives don't enter dark elevators.

Eventually you get to a point where Prison Guard Unions and Cop Unions just don't hold sway, ordinary citizens do.

Look at how we test DUI samples so fast and often store rape samples in crime labs or police departments for decades. You think the tests are more complex or something? The main difference is DUI enforcement is a profitable industry, jailing rapists is not.

Anyone have any great ideas about how to cash in on hemp oil/ products?

The question doesn't include getting my hands dirty, hehe.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/american-seed-oil-company-announces-160000394.html

Is this as good a gamble as a game manufacturer or does everyone on the low end get killed on pink sheets?

The opposition to cannabis legalization is repeatedly financed by big pharmaceutical company's that fear their 16 billion a year sales in the US alone would be jeopardized if cannabis were legalized.

Other significant financing to the opposition to legalizing cannabis comes from the liquor lobby.

http://www.vice.com/read/leading-anti-marijuana-academics-are-paid-by-painkiller-drug-companies

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/11/01/german-pharma-companies-cannabis_n_6085886.html?ncid=txtlnkusaolp00000592

The first link is near laughable that Perdue the manufacturer of Oxycontin is worried about marijuana becoming addictive. Think there is potential for conflict of interest in these paid for opinions?

Quote: petroglyph

The opposition to cannabis legalization is repeatedly financed by big pharmaceutical company's that fear their 16 billion a year sales in the US alone would be jeopardized if cannabis were legalized.

Other significant financing to the opposition to legalizing cannabis comes from the liquor lobby.

http://www.vice.com/read/leading-anti-marijuana-academics-are-paid-by-painkiller-drug-companies

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/11/01/german-pharma-companies-cannabis_n_6085886.html?ncid=txtlnkusaolp00000592

The first link is near laughable that Perdue the manufacturer of Oxycontin is worried about marijuana becoming addictive. Think there is potential for conflict of interest in these paid for opinions?

Don't forget the Mafia.
They want to keep it illegal also.
Too much money at stake for them also.

I think the U.S. government's single biggest mistake in their futile war on drugs has been their stubborn refusal to admit that pot has a handful of medical applications. Huge, huge mistake.

Here's why:
1) TV news footage of cops arresting cancer patients and multiple sclerosis patients in wheelchairs is terrible for public relations. Everyone knows that jail is more dangerous for a cancer patient than pot.

2) Refusing to admit that pot can be used medically undermines the government's trustworthiness and turns the DEA into laughing stocks who ignore basic science.

3) This is the biggie: by prohibiting distrubion via hospitals & retail pharmacies (Walgreens, CVS) in states with legal medical marijuana, the government inadvertantly created a semi-legal industry of pot clinics. Those clinics are extraordinarily profitable, (it's just a weed, after all) and as a result, tons of money was funnelled into campaigns to legalize recreational pot (Colorado, Washington state.)

The longer the government holds out on medical pot, the more ridiculous they look. (In 2014, it's still illegal in most US states for an epilepsy patient to grow a plant in their own backyard which reduces their epilepsy seizures??? That's nuts.)

Ironically, the government's stubbornness on medical pot was probably the best thing to ever happen to the legalization movement. The government should have compromised, but I'm glad they didn't.