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"because if Walgreens or liquor stores could carry pot legally, customers would buy from there, and not risk getting their pot from the illegal sources."

Currently, 30% of pot smokers are under 21. With legalization, that percentage could increase to 50% (as the University of Alaska study showed).

Now, with half the marijuana market being illegal, there's plenty of incentive to maintain "illegal dealers". AND, they'd be much harder to catch, in that it would be perfectly legal for the dealers to own, carry, or grow pot -- you'd have to catch them actually selling to kids.

This is not a problem with tobacco or alcohol since a small percentage of users are underage (it's 6% for tobacco, not sure about alcohol).

Pot crusader Marc Emery smokes marijuana while holding a plant. (CP file photo)

Supporters of pot crusaders rally in Vancouver
Last Updated Sat, 30 Jul 2005 21:45:06 EDT

About 200 people rallied in Vancouver Saturday to protest the arrest of three members of the B.C. Marijuana Party, who are the subject of an extradition request from the U.S. government. Vancouver police armed with a search warrant carried out a raid Friday on a pot-seed store run by party leader Marc Emery. Pot crusader Marc Emery smokes marijuana while holding a plant. (CP file photo) The warrant was executed on behalf of the U.S. government. Emery was arrested by RCMP in central Nova Scotia and is spending the weekend in a Halifax-area jail awaiting his return to Vancouver.

Michelle Rainey-Fenkarek, financial agent for the party, and Greg Williams, an employee of Pot-TV, were taken into custody in Vancouver.

Rainey-Fenkarek was released on bail Friday while Williams remains in custody.

All three face charges in the U.S. of conspiracy to manufacture marijuana, distribute seeds and engage in money laundering. Conviction carries a sentence ranging from 10 years to life in prison. American officials are seeking their extradition, a process which could take six months to a year.

Currently, 30% of pot smokers are under 21. With legalization, that percentage could increase to 50% (as the University of Alaska study showed). Now, with half the marijuana market being illegal, there's plenty of incentive to maintain "illegal dealers".

Your analysis is faulty. Even if projections of 50% underage users are correct (and it's unlikely for a number of reasons), you're overlooking the fact that in the case of legalization most of those would be getting their pot from "diverted" legal sources, the same way that underage drinkers today get their booze from Dad's liquor cabinet, or with false IDs or from an "under-the-table" liquor store clerk, or via friends who are of legal age.

What's the last time you saw an underage drinker get bootleg liquor from someone's illegal still? No, they get Budweiser and Jack Daniels from legal producers/distributors -- they just find ways to get around the measures put into place to keep booze out of the hands of minors. That's a lot easier than finding and maintaining a complete black market "alcohol cartel", *and* it's safer, the supply is more reliable, the product is more consistent, and of higher quality. Who in their right might would buy "back alley booze" of unknown safety and quality, when they could get Jose Cuervo Tequila from a friend over 21 who can buy all you want?

The same factors would be at work in the case of marijuana legalization, no matter how large the "youth market".

AND, they'd be much harder to catch, in that it would be perfectly legal for the dealers to own, carry, or grow pot -- you'd have to catch them actually selling to kids.

Not at all. Black market pot would be easy to distinguish from legally produced pot, in the same way that it's not hard to tell bootleg liquor from a case of Absolut Vodka.