It isn’t. I agree with you on that point. The total labor, the technological level (watering can versus sterilizing equipment, for example) and the scheduling effort (seasonal versus exacting cookbook) are all much lower.
People have done agriculture and made beer for probably almost the same length of history. But growin’ stuff is still simpler than making brew. Just is.
Well, seems it could be either way.
If you live in the right area and plant at the right time with a moderate amount of effort and know-how you can produce the plants fairly easily. From this, as you noted, you get one crop per year (which may be more than enough to supply your needs till the next growing season…not sure how well pot lasts in storage…a few months sure but still good after a year?).
Conversely you could opt for indoor lights and produce multiple crops per year. As you suggested this gets a fair bit more advanced and expensive and time consuming. Here I think you approach or exceed home brewing. Depends how far you take it I guess.
This reminds me that there will no doubt be a big advertising campaign, which will emphasize the benefits of brand name weed if home grown becomes a threat to the professional growers. I bet that lots of plants will be sold, and then growing will be abandoned by many the first time they get a bad result. I wonder what percentage of home brew kits are sitting in closets.
As an example of the laziness of the American public, look at the reduction in real cooking over the past few years. Making dinners from scratch is cheaper, tastier, and more nutritious than packages or getting fast food - yet it is too much of a bother for many.
BTW, Sam is for legalization - he just disputes the taxation benefits.
Short answer-- yes.
In practical terms, the amount of resources and effort needed to produce a few plants, whether they are tomatoes or pot, is truly trivial. Quality of virtually all agricultural products is dependent upon the growing conditions, and home grown is often superior to commercial. My tomatoes are far superior to the stuff in the grocery store, and having a couple of these plants is simple. But in small scale farming, as in large scale, there are gazillions of possible ‘issues’ that can arise. Too much rain, not enough rain, swarm of cutworms, accidental overdose of fertilizer, on and on and on. One accident during the entire growing season, and you’ve got bupkis. Very disappointing for a hobbyist grower. Possibly a door-closer for a commercial grower.
So although I really love my home grown tomatoes, I simply don’t bother most years because unfortunate accidents have somewhat suppressed my enthusiasm. I could work harder at it, be more careful, inspect for bugs more diligently, I guess. But then it wouldn’t be as much fun, and a different kind of cost/benefit analysis would obtain, with probably the same (buy them at the store, mostly) result.
I suspect something similar would take place with homegrown legal pot. There would be some people (the ‘Green Thumbers’) who would always grow their own, just as there are home gardeners now who fulfill all their veggie needs out of their back yards. And there would be some much larger group of dilettantes at the hobby who would make occasional attempts but mostly end up as purchasers rather than producers.
I for one would start smoking pot if it became legal, I think consumptions would increase significantly (along with consumption of Doritos and other snack foods) and I think that we could probably collect billions of dollars a year in taxes.
In post #22 I noted that the Dutch legalized marijuana awhile back and they smoke less than Americans do. A Dutch official said they succeeded in “making it boring.”
I suspect there would be an upswing when it became legal and available for the novelty then would taper off and probably fall below current usage levels over time.
Do you think we should have a snack food tax too? I’m wondering about the increase in consumption. Sure, a spike as everyone tokes up legally for fun, but I have a feeling consumption will only increase a little, but now it will all be on the books.
But why is taxation necessary? I’m sure there will be social costs associated with legalization, but I doubt they will exceed the current costs of criminalization. We could easily collect $1 billion a year in taxes, but that is might be a fraction of what enforcement is currently costing. Is a lack of taxed our real economic problem? I doubt the extra $1 billion dollars will be spent wisely, the payoff from cutting enforcement will payoff much better. The benefit will be much greater than the money spent of enforcement of marijuana laws. Marijuana is a drug dealer gateway. It may be too late in some areas, but illegal marijuana has created a class of people who deal in contraband, and provide the low level framework for other drugs. If this step had been taken 30 years ago, the cocaine and methamphetamine suppliers might not have had a market to exploit. It wouldn’t have stopped those drugs altogether then or now, but it will leave the dealers more conspicuous, cut down the demand, and raise the price of doing business.
The other end of this is the new social costs. Laws and regulations regarding drug monitoring will have to be revisited, there is no clear definition of intoxication with marijuana, and some people just can’t handle marijuana, just like alcohol and other drugs. Existing convictions based on marijuana will need to be reviewed, even if the acts were illegal at the time, punishing people for acts that are currently legal is essentially unjust. Underage usage may increase, it’s hard to predict, but this could lead to additional problems. And there will be people who get stoned and operate heavy machinery and there will be costs that ripple outward from there.
It still seems like legalization is an overall win, and the tax meme is an excuse to satisfy the anti-enjoy-life types.
I doubt underage usage would increase.
As I noted earlier when I was in high school getting pot was downright simple. Everyone knew the people to talk to and hell, sometimes they’d even deliver.
Getting alcohol, which was legal but regulated, was far more difficult to the point it was semi-rare to get so much as a six pack of beer.
Of course there will be kids who smoke but more than today? I doubt it.
As for operating heavy machinery I think the same rules apply as today. Don’t show up to work fucked up, expect to pee in a cup if you do fuck up. Alcohol is legal but those operating heavy machinery know they had better be sober. Same would go for pot.
I just think more casual usage will have an accompanying increase in irresponsible usage. I’m sure the media will report incidents out of proportion to reality. There will be social costs, but as I stated, they don’t seem likely to add up to the amount spent on maintaining criminalization.
By this logic, nobody should drink anything but grain alcohol.
I don’t know if your friends are genuine connoisseurs or just affecting, but there are real ones. It’s not simply “stronger” products they’re interested in, but different qualities of effect.
Marijuana is not a single substance, but a complex of related compounds. (This is part of the reason that synthetic THC for medical purposes doesn’t work as well as the plant itself.) Most of the work on teasing out the effects of each component, and the techniques for encouraging each one in the the plant, has yet to be done, but there’s no doubt that different profiles of compounds (different ratios of the various cannabinoids, not just absolute quantity) have different psychoactive effects. There’s also considerable variation in individual response to (and approaches to the use of) marijuana, so one person’s ideal buzz might be too drowsy or too hyper or too mindless or too thoughtful for another.
There will be a big market for different commercial varieties and preparations of marijuana after legalization. Some of these will be premium or artisanal products, more will be simple commercial grades.
I know, it is already more or less what I do with my aerogarden. Right now it is cycling on 17 hours off 6, but I can change that at will. I can grow something that is up to 3 feet tall, so all i would have to do is crow my 6 plants until they are 18 inches, then do the light thingy then ask them for a date and see who responds so I can get rid of the makes [:D] then resume growing … I am guessing that online I could find all sorts of hydroponic nutrition recipes, and timetables and all.
Honestly, doesn’t sound more involved that some of the aerogarden projects I have seen on their forums…
That is probably the best explanation I have heard yet.
The problem is that the USA government will regulate it back to being illegal again. Legalizing marijuana is not as easy as legalizing marijuana. The USA has some of the most anal retentive laws in the World already on alcohol laws. The government would have to regulate it to the point that we would wish it was illegal again. Then the "do gooders’ churchies and the MADD people would go apeshit and want to enact more laws to the point where us potheads will go “Fuck it, make it illegal again. We will go back underground, listen to Floyd and eat our Zesty Mordant and Chicken wings. Screw you civil society!”
Questions:
Which companies will sell the marijuana? Tobacco companies? Wal Mart, an extenstion of the State Liquor Monopolies?
Will all the marijuana have to be domestic, or could marijuana be imported from other counties? If it is to be a domestic product 100%, where will it be grown? Wouldn’t that field be highly protected against trespassers?
Where will the product be cured and dried for sale?
How will the product be packaged? Will it be in bulk? Will it be rolled?
How much will marijuana costs in this market? Most marijuana smokers have dealers and contacts for the product and rarely worry about arrest for sensible amounts. It would seem to me that the price would drop, but with the taxes, it might be the same price or higher.
Will hashish/hash oil be legal?
Will people be allowed to grow it and sell it from their homes? (I doubt it.)
How will the government regulate the quality of marijuana and how much THC is allowable in each unit of marijuana? The FDA? I would love a job with the FDA going to bud farms and smelling that beautiful plant in bloom. But then the FDA would make me urinate in a cup, which would make the job mundane.
What if the pot smoker has children? Will the government step in and disallow people from smoking it in their homes? They haven’t done it to cigarette smokers or beer drinkers, although one fouls the air and both are legal drugs.
Does someone have to be 21 to possess marijuana? (On my World, there would be marijuana bars like Amsterdam with coffee/beer and doritoes.)
If marijuana becomes legal, buy Frito Lay stock.
Can someone transport marijuana in their car? (My law would be that the marijuana and the bong needs to stay in the trunk) How to make enforcable laws against people “high” driving (similiar to a DUI test).
Piss tests will continue as usual. Obviously there are many jobs where we do not want someone intoxicated. Airline pilot, drivers, air traffic controllers, cops, firemen etc.
Can you really make rope, fuel, clothing and all that other shit that the hippies have been saying forever? Are there companies in 2010 who do not want hemp legalized?
Can adults smoke marijuana outdoors, or should they be at home (where it is illegal, unless you have children, then it is a grey area with no answers.)
The Dutch government is trying to regulate this business somewhat, even though they throw up a lot of roadblocks on the coffeebars that sell the product. The coffeebars seem to be in a state of quasi-legalness there. I have read that Spain is almost marijuana legal. Maybe someone who has been to Europe can fill me in on the facts there.
It is not as easy to say, tomorrow, marijuana is legal! After alcohol became legal after prohibition, the various states had to create their own alcohol laws, or they still could enforce prohibition. Some states took decades to make alcohol legal, and still in the USA, there are dry counties scattered the midwest and south. The Feds need to drop the prohibition and let the states and local governments decide the laws. Let the states that voted for Medical Marijuana Dispenseries have them for fk sake.
I also believe that if marijuana was legalized, the “War on Drugs” could be on the defensive, and there can be a strong dent in the cocaine/crack, meth, heroin market. Cops waste too much time and resources arresting people with an eighth of bud in their pocket. Free the resources. These drugs will never be eliminated but I feel that if as much manpower that’s spent on marijuana would go into the three ugly drugs above, it could be a start.
The biggest practical problem with legalization is that determinations of impaired behavior endangering others are much harder to make with pot than with Alcohol.
I think even pro-legalization types like me don’t want someone getting totally wasted and then barreling down the freeway listening to Inna Gadda Da Vida and munching Cheezy poofs. I don’t want my heavy equipment operators totally fascinated by the way the sun glints off the whirling blade of death.
With alcohol, the effects wear off quickly, we have established tests for impairment, we have a good handle on what a certain level of blood alcohol will do to your judgment, and we have plenty of established case law to guide us when laying down charges for driving under the influence or recklessly endangering others when impaired.
Pot’s not so easy. As far as I know, there are no standards or tests to definitively show that someone is impaired due to pot ingestion. You can fail a test for pot days or weeks after you last smoked it.
When it’s illegal, you can do draconian things like fire someone if any trace shows up in a urine test. But if it’s legal, you need nuance. And I don’t think we have very nuanced tests. If I’m wrong, maybe someone can enlighten me.
Even determining impairment isn’t easy. Pot isn’t like alcohol. It doesn’t wear off in a few hours. It slowly leaves your system, and lingering effects can stick around for days after your last smoke. There are studies that have shown mild cognitive effects on memory and attention for several days, maybe even a week more more, after last use. So we need to figure out what constitutes impairment. Hell, not getting enough sleep has an even bigger effect, but we don’t throw people in jail for only getting four hours of sleep.
So to me, this is the big problem. Legalization advocates should be working on this to show they have a plan for reasonably integrating legal pot into society.
I don’t see it as a big problem. People have drinks now for lunch and go back to work. If there’s a problem and it turns out they’ve been drinking the problem is compounded.
Can they tell by the amount of pot in your system whether you smoked that day, a day or two ago?
Consequences same as now. Those who choose to smoke on a more than occasional basis have to be veryt careful or accept the consequences. Chances are if someone gets too high they’ll be driving too slow rather than too fast.
My point is that making a legal determination of impairment is a lot harder. It’s a lot fuzzier with pot than it is with alcohol. The effects wear off gradually, residual effects can stay with you for days, and blood tests can show THC for a long time after real impairment has worn off.
Also, there’s a whole bunch of established practices for determining alcohol impairment even absent a breathalyzer. I’m not sure we have similar tests for pot, because the way the impairment manifests itself is different.
Anecdote - last night I was speaking with a pretty major pot dealer in a pretty major US city. He is eager for legalization to legitimize his business. Said business was doing great. His bet is that it will not be long before Calif legalizes it, and then other states will tumble like dominoes.
Legalizing may mean the government grows, sells and taxes it. To assume they would sit back and say, have at it, might be wrong. They might crack down on illegal growers and sellers while peddling licenses or growing it them selves.
Well, Sam is correct in that there aren’t any well established tests to find out if you are intoxicated on THC. What does linger are the traces that are left over after your body has metabolized them. The tests we have now are basically testing whether you’ve smoked pot in the last few weeks, not if you are high right now.
On the other hand, THC and the other chemicals in marijuana don’t affect your motor skills in the same manner as alcohol or other depressants. I don’t think any realistic amount of THC would affect my motor skills to the level that a marginally legal blood alcohol content would. In regard to the legislation of it in relation to the operation of vehicles, etc., I think it should be treated more like mood altering chemicals are, rather than depressants. Its affect on mood and short term memory are far greater. Either way, it’s a totally different kettle of fish, and thinking that you might need to treat it like alcohol is ignoring it’s actual effects.
Not too sure about that, perhaps for you. When I tried it [back in the late 70s, probably about 3 different parties total over a few weeks one summer] I noticed that it affected me pretty much exactly like alcohol [wine was my favorite drink back then] I was very mellow and laid back, somewhat slow and slightly klutzy. I didn’t feel that it would be a good idea to drive home so I slept on the couch at one party and in my car at the other 2. Most of the other people at the parties [assorted ages so it wasn’t all high school kids] that were smoking and not drinking tended to act about the same. I would say that it definitely was making people clumsy-drunk.
I think there would have to be some sort of good study done by a nonbiased group to determine the same info we use for DWI/DUI, sort of some equivalent to the .1 alcohol type level set point to determine if someone is DUI or not.
I have to admit, I am leaning more and more towards legalization - I really miss being able to sit back and have a few drinks to get mellow and giggly. I just can’t afford the waste carbs of drinking. being able to do a social bong now and again would be very nice. And before anybody jumps on the whole addict thing, you can drink socially, and from everything I have read you can do marijuana socially as well as long as you are not an addictive personality, and I am not an addictive personality. I happen to actually like myself and am not self medicating for any chemical imbalances.