Posted on 07/09/2014 12:54:00 PM PDT by Rusty0604
Veteran marijuana activist Douglas Hiatt, right, says Washington's Initiative 502 establishes a "Soviet style" market for marijuana and won't work.
Youre going to have people selling grams of pot for $25? What, are you kidding me? Hiatt says. You can get the best pot you have ever smoked for 10 bucks a gram at a [medical marijuana] dispensary or from someone else who's going to give you a better deal than the state.
Theres no way they are going to eliminate the black market with something thats totally unresponsive to a market at all, Hiatt says. "You're going to see very quickly the problems when you try to do things Soviet style. When you're using universally rejected planning economy theory, you're going to reap disaster."
But his advice to lawmakers: "You want to take the people doing whatever the illegal activity was and you make them legal. You don't create this giant freaking bureaucracy, you don't start trying to do economic planning that would make Lenin proud, you let the free market work."
(Excerpt) Read more at usnews.com ...
If only this guy could take his newfound appreciation of capitalism and 1), apply the concept to all activities and 2)share his knowledge with all the lefties.
The plan was always to buy a little bit from the legal shop and then keep the receipt to cover for the cheaper stuff they get from their old dealers. Washington could have one legal shop. They’re only worried about the sales receipt.
When it comes to getting high,
leftists suddenly understand
market forces.
Don’t harsh on mellow, man!
It’s the same in Colorado. But the cartels are getting business mainly from the state! Thousands of small grows have sprung up in basements and sheds and they produce much better product than the mass growers (some of which are cartel owned) who produce for the stores.
The small growers have lower prices too (no tax). People look upon the retail stores like a 7-11, just grab a little something when you get caught short.
Govt never changes, and never solves problems. It just increases in size and power. People work around it as best they can.
When NY imposed huge taxes on tobacco, the black market came in. If cigarettes didn’t have the tax stamp on them people could get into trouble. I guess that wouldn’t work with MJ since it won’t be sold in packs.
So much for the talk of “tax the hell out of it”.
Send the revenuers in to get their share like they do when people make moonshine...
I guess that frees up the Mexican cartels to ship over more heroin. Now they don’t even have to worry much about the border patrol catching them as they are too busy babysitting.
I suspect his newfound insight is situational.
Kids today are so retro, the love their Mexican cokes.
I suspect you are correct.
Fine by me. The point as a smoker is that I won’t go to jail. The rest of it I don’t care about.
LOL. I was gonna say there may be a good side to this. All these libturd potheads will learn some basic Econ.
Tommy Chong owns a grow shop in Pueblo, Colorado.
“Send the revenuers in to get their share like they do when people make moonshine...”
Many states allow people to distill a limited quantity of spirits without paying any taxes for personal consumption. Are you opposed to that freedom?
Does it have the worm in the bottom of the bottle?
One of the points pot addicts made for legalization was that the government could regulate and tax it. Now they are bitching about it.
Sounded good when they were stoned.
“We buy the Mexican bottled coca cola at our local Korean country store”
In the midwest these Cokes are labelled “kosher”. The have sugar instead of corn syrup- and yes they are much tastier than there mainstream cousins
Not all legalization supporters are even pot users, much less pot addicts. (I'll take this opportunity to mention that pot is less addictive than alcohol.)
was that the government could regulate and tax it. Now they are bitching about it.
Even if it was the same people in both cases (for which there is no evidence on the table) they may simply have overlooked the possibility that Washington would OVERtax and OVERregulate.
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