I can pretty much guess that we would buy it in the same places as we do alcohol. But are there already legit companies that mass produce this stuff? Also how is it or would it be sold? As in, could I go buy a pack of twenty class A joints? (sniker) or would they just sell it to me in the raw form?
Why you’d buy it in a DRUG store, of course!.
(isn’t that where most of 'em started out)
As it’s currently illegal to buy in most western countries, I’d be very surprised if there were any “legit” companies. Imagine the bad press back at home if Philip Morris or Coke were found to be doing this, even if it were legal in the country concerned.
Funnily enough, the only place that I’ve been to that tolerates it’s sale and use (Amsterdam) separates the sale of hash and alcohol. That said, if it were completely decriminalised or legalised in the US, it’s difficult to see how you’d achieve that, so you’re probably right.
If it were legalised, you can bet that it would be sold in cigarette form (irrespecive of whether you can buy the raw product or not). As an ex-smoker, I started on roll-ups but found that pre-rolled was a lot easier.
Phillip Morris would most likely have a hand in on this.
Hmm, I’ve been in a few places in Amsterdam that sell both. A supplementary to the OP: Who supplies the hash cafes in the Netherlands? I know some (most?) is produced domestically. Is this tolerated, or are the producers actively targeted?
I see you’re right, Claw. This link gives the history of coffeshops and says that some do serve alcohol with the hash.
It indicates that the majority is now grown in the Netherlands. It also mentions the strange situation where the shops are licenced to sell and the customers can legally (more accurately “not illegally”) buy hash, but the growing of commercial quantities is illegal (as would be the importing of the same). They do not appear to be targeted.
It’s my guess that it’d start out being domestically provided.
I expect many folks would opt to grow their own, which would be easy enough to do.
The interesting question is whether the government would try to tax marijuana. If so, the government might wind up keeping its drug enforcement structure in place, for the purpose of tracking down growers and distributors of untaxed, black market pot.
(See? The cops might get to keep all their helicopters and SUVs and other drug-fighting toys after all.)
As for the OP, I’m surprised the tobacco companies aren’t supporting legalization. (And who knows? They may be doing just that-- but surreptitiously.) Marijuana would seem like a natural replacement product for them as the tobacco market in the US declines.
Before it was flat-out outlawed the gov’t did tax marijuana. There’s a noteworthy case where a guy paid the tax and argued that because there was a provision in the tax law allowing for taxation of marijuana it was a legal product, but the courts ruled that the criminalization of possession superceded the taxation aspect. I’ll poke around for a link later. And every once in a while you read about some joker who goes into the local assessor’s office and asks for tax stamps for their weed.
Bromley, you’re obviously not overly familiar with US laws on alcohol if you think it would be hard to seperate the sale of alcohol and pot. Even if every law restricting marijuana were removed at once (which is unlikely), the liquer licencing laws would still be in place, and could easily be used to seperate the two. In many states, it wouldn’t even require passage of a law since the state alcohol board (whatever its called) could just add a restriction through its own processes under an elastic clause. Consider, for example, that strip clubs rarely fall under any legislation directly, their restrictions on what is acceptable come from limits on what they can do and still be able to serve alcohol.
Canadians?
Sorry.
I believe there was a cite in The Emperor Has No Clothes, that said that major tobacco companies had already trademarked brand names for this possibility.
Riboflavin Sorry, you’re correct. What I was trying to say was that if you made it legal (as opposed to the situation in the Netherlands) and if people could buy a pack of twenty at their local store, then they could go to a pub and smoke whilst drinking. It’s only a short step from that to having vending machines, although I appreciate that it could be stopped.
As to my familiarity with the US laws on alcohol, if this were the pit I’d be a little more forceful in saying “Hello” to Woody the waiter in an Outback restaurant in Orlando who refused to serve a 33 yr old and a 29 yr old without ID . It’s a crazy world when you are advised to take your passport with you to a pub.