It's a federal law, not a state law...

('course a libertarian/conservative like myself might argue that the feds shouldn't have anything to do with state's rights..... and then I'd go on and on about how the federal government is continuously encroaching on states rights, and how such and such was never in the Constitution as a right the feds had over the states and so on and blah blah blah)

(Moved to the political section)

To look at this from an economic standpoint one would note a sharp drop in mean quality and a spike in prices for higher quality product should it become legal.
This assumes two things:
1) Commercialization would lower quality as is evident with tobacco
2) Quality and mediocre products are differentiable (yet related)

Should it become legal many home growers would be put out of business by the overwhelming growing capacity that corporations such as Philip morris have. Firms have the capital to invest in the product and can quickly take advantage of economies of scale where as your home grower does not. Second it can be assumed that you will see packs akin to a pack of cigarettes in stores as the main share holder of the marketplace. I take the assumption that the quality will degrade from its current position based on the following. Prices on these packs will fall drastically as compared to any street price you can find today, however since the product will be in the hands of profit maximizing corporations strains that survive well will be those chosen to be grown (above all other traits). This sharp drop in the mean price will make home growth uneconomical for many and those involved will leave the market. Since we assume the packaged product and the homegrown are differentiable the prices of home grown product will rise to make it worth while to those that remain in the game.

tl;dr
read it

Preaching to the choir on that one!

Yogurt . . . commercialization isn't going to raise the price of homegrowing . . . it may cut down on small-business type growing operations, but compared to the fact that, well, its currently illegal . . . . yeah.

If that initiative passed as is, individual growing would probably rise steeply. I for one would grow (even though i don't smoke a ton) if it didnt mean having obvious (and semi-permanent) strong-smelling peices of po-bait in my yard/house.

illegal seeds are like $10 a pop for wicked strains . . . 1 germinated seed (50-90% rate probably) gets you way more pot than any company could ever sell you for a profit. An individual grower is still not going to be under any GREATER threat of law by selling to you without a license, so except for the price drops from the fact that it couldn't land you in jail, i wouldn't worry at all.

Plus it would have to be federally legal before any corporatization could happen.

In case you haven’t noticed, the Constitution has been jizzed on so heavily by so many politicians, especially as of late, that I half-expect to see it sitting next to Paris Hilton in rehab, imparting painful stories to its support group regarding the news it received from its doctor about its inevitable demise from a hopelessly torn and infected anal tract.

It’s morally and ethically reprehensible to me that we dictate to adults, through force of law, what they can and cannot do to themselves, and, if you look at the court decisions and general spirit of the land, it was also so to the rest of the country, if not the world, up until about a century ago. I’m not entirely sure what happened to cause civilization to make such a 180 on that.

Marijuana becoming legal is about as a pie-in-the-sky fantasy as you can have, save maybe, the fantasy of having our Constitution enforced (and the two certainly aren’t unrelated).

The few wins you have had on the subject are actually dismal defeats. San Franisco’s medical marijuana effort was much like its effort to make gay marriage legal, where it basically wound up making legal to kill gays on sight in 38 states by the end of the same year. The Los Angeles effort has become single the biggest cause of self-righteous bastards saying “I told you so.” since Eve gave Adam the apple.

I think what put the nail in the lid of the coffin on that fantasy was when we privatized our jail system though. (BTW – When did that happen, how did that happen, and why aren’t the people who allowed, and continue to allow it to happen in jail? That’s gotta be the worst move of the century! ><) In addition to all the other economic and political motivations to support drugs being illegal, now we’ve found a way to profit on the home front in the name of the moral high ground. I mean, you get to take already deprived kids, who aren’t really supporting the country economically anyways, off the street and make a few thousand dollars a head per day off them. Plus you pretty much guarantee return customers and culture addicted to your product (ie. jail). It’s a win-win situation.

If you think that’s an exaggeration, take into account that, depending on the survey you read, anywhere between 30% and 50% of all black males between the age of 18 and 30 are in jail. Between 40% and 75% of the people in jail, are there on drug related charges. Set that side by side with the less debatable statistics that during the last twenty years: 97% of all new jails are privatized, and while crime rates have been fairly stable nationally, the number of people in jail has tripled.

I’m sure Doc would call that “progress”, but I’d be quick to point out that if there were no blacks filling that economic nitch as a result of being entirely descended from folks who weren’t even allowed, for the most part, to go to school until the 1950’s, I’m sure we’d be doing the same to the poor white folk. It’s more about economics than race; they just happen to be the easiest exploitable resource, at the moment.

That’s just my “reason for the day” mind you. I’m sure I could post up a new travesty each day, for the remainder of the year, as to why the laws are as they and will remain so , if only I had the time. >_>
_________________
"When I was in prison I was wrapped up in all those deep books. That Tolstoy crap. People shouldn't read that stuff. When we read these books what purpose does it serve in this day and time?" - Mike Tyson
Thothie

ROFLMAO




You and my girlfriend would get along really well.


I've always been of the belief that people can do whatever the fuck they want, as long as it's not harming anyone else.


Thoth you're probably nodding, but let me elaborate.

My definition of "Harm" means that I believe people should not be allowed to kill themselves, refuse to wear seatbelts, or knowingly do anything else that would directly or indirectly cause other people an amount of pain and/or emotional distress, or loss of financial gain.

If you die in a car acident because you weren't wearing your seatbelt, someone has to clean you up off the road. People who care about you suffer because you were retarded, and someone has to pay for the 30 or so people that responded to the call and the damage you caused through a willful act of disobidience.

We have laws and personal freedom restrictions to preserve other people's rights and freedoms.


Now, don't get me wrong - there's a whole bunch of laws I feel are too restrictive, and marijuana being illegal is one of them. I've believed the same as Thoth for a long time, that marijuana is an easy excuse to use against someone should they "step out of line". I hate government control, but only if that control is misplaced.

If I were making the rules, marijuana would work like alcohal:

You have to be a specific age to buy it.
It is illegal to use it at work, and has a negative social stigma attatched to it if you are using it while performing some task that could potentially harm someone.
Using it too much would also have a negative social stigma.


Other than that, every ounce of research of done on this topic indicates that it is chemicaly safe (the smoking process is what damages brain cells), you will generally recover fully from it's effects after 3 months of not having used it, and that it is somewhat mentally and physically addictive.

I don't smoke at all myself, mainly because I don't want to be dependant on a chemical substance to be happy, or fight with myself while trying to quit using it. I fall all too easily to temptation, a drug habbit would not be a good idea.


--Locane