Posted on 07/25/2006 10:01:22 PM PDT by VOA
ABC News: At San Francisco's Wharf, a Fight for Medical Marijuana Ensues
July 25, 2006 — San Francisco has more cannibus clubs — the dispensaries
of marijuana for the medical treatment of the nasty side effects of
chemotherapy, glaucoma or AIDS — than any other city in the nation.
Yet, that doesn't mean cannabis clubs make welcome neighbors, even in
bluest of the blue San Francisco, a city that prides itself on being
tolerant of almost every lifestyle.
(snip)
But the reality of the program is apparently harsher than the notion.
However accepting San Francisco may consider itself to be, the city
may also be showing standard-issue NIMBYism.
(snip)
Ten years ago, 56 percent of Californian voters supported Proposition
215, legalizing medical use of marijuana. But just try to find a
Californian today who wants a marijuana store in his neighborhood.
(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...
Not regulated like alcohol is, and not legal like it is either. It is still a Federal crime to grow pot in California, and the Feds have been known to bust people who grow it in any sort of large scale measure that would drive down prices.
In the Netherlands, large scale growing is illegal there too. In both instances, the growers take a substantial risk in growing, aka jail time, and their price reflects this risk, as well as the shortened supply.
You'd have licensed growers, licensed manufacturers, licensed sellers, federal inspections at every level, manufacturer's provisions for lawsuits, etc., all adding to the price. Then start adding taxes at every level of government.
That wouldn't come remotely close to the price of prohibition. Alcohol and tobacco has to deal with those same issues, and their price doesn't come anywhere near the price that pot costs. An ounce of tobacco is what, $5-10? An ounce of pot illegally is what, $350 or so?
Sure, increased quantity would reduce costs. But what are we talking about? Reducing the cost from $3 per plant to $1 per plant? On a product selling for $300 per ounce?
The cost of growing it now is irrelevant. It's the risk in growing it that creates the profit. Remove the risk and the price goes down.
In New York, it's over $8 per pack. Now you tell me why that is so. Tobacco is as cheap to grow as marijuana. When I was younger, I remember paying 35 cents per pack, and I thought that was a lot. There's no reason cigarettes should cost $8 per pack. But they do.
Taxes. Still, even taxes don't come close to the amazing price increase that prohibition brings. $8 a pack (which is around 3/4ths of an ounce, IIRC) compared to around $300 for the same amount of pot.
Where is tobacco grown, you ask? On huge, huge, huge fields. North Carolina has over 150,000 acres alone dedicated to growing tobacco. If pot can ever come close to having the acerage legally used to grow their supply, the price will come down drastically.
So let's not get all cocky talking about legal marijuana being cheap. I gave you the two best examples of legal marijuana, and the legal selling price isn't even close to the actual cost of producing it.
The two best examples of legal pot are piss poor in this discussion. In fact, they are irrelevant since the production of it is still illegal.
Regulate pot like alcohol and tobacco is, and then you can start comparing apples to apples.
It's actually less illegally, and those dealers have more risks.
Not really. It's about the same price, because the medical clubs have to get their supply illegally, much like the shops in Holland do.
Because they've been conned into smoking dope instead of getting the medicines they really need?
No source, of course.
According to the Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics--1996, Bureau of Justice Statistics; Albany, NY: Hindelang Criminal Justice Research Center, 1997; p. 413, table 4.38, the DEA made 5,835 marijuana arrests in 1996.
A couple of arrests per state per week. The typical pothead is nearly as likely to hit a state lottery as to be arrested by the DEA.
There go the profits for the first two pounds of dope they push.
Ok, here's sources for you:
http://www.ndsn.org/mayjun97/potraid.html
http://www.drugpolicy.org/news/10_16_02medmj.cfm
http://www.safeaccessnow.org/article.php?id=670
http://www.420.com/ht/news/content.php?bid=979&aid=10
Not to mention you are giving me 1996 stats for a law that was passed in, 1996. Brilliant stuff there.
The CSA passed in 1996? What an interesting alternate reality you live in.
The 5,835 marijuana arrests in 1996 were for the entire nation, not just California.
Oh, and your quote free links don't support your meritless and baseless assertions. Back to your same old tricks.
What are you babbling about? Under Proposition 215 they're not supposed to be buying dope. They or their primary caregiver is supposed to grow it themself.
Why do you care?
Facts don't matter to you?
I care about facts and law. Don't you?
Why won't you answer the question?
Why do you?
Asked and answered repeatedly.
Dopers hate lawful government and the truth, as your posts amply illustrate.
I'm sorry if you're not capable of following a conversation. I can try to type it in crayon for you if you wish.
Paulson made the claim that medical pot prices are the same as street pot prices in California, or more. I agreed that the are the same, and that is because the cultivation of marijuana, for any purpose, is still not legal in the state, and that the DEA has been known to bust people on a large scale basis for those who are trying to increase the supply, to lower the price.
You then chimed in with some very irrelevant garbage about arrest statistics from the DEA in 1996. 1996 was the year that the California voters made medical marijuana legal, so your stats have no puropse in this argument.
Oh, and your quote free links don't support your meritless and baseless assertions. Back to your same old tricks.
Quote free links? Those are all people busted by the DEA for growing pot for medical purposes, which completely supports my argument that the DEA is known to bust people who grow large scale for medical purposes. I apologize if you're incapable of keeping up or reading them, but since you don't appear to even get the point of my post, I doubt your ability to understand the point of my links is any greater.
And before you whine about meritless and baseless accuastions and quote free links, here you go:
http://caag.state.ca.us/newsalerts/2002/02-103.htm
(SAN FRANCISCO) – Attorney General Bill Lockyer today requested a meeting with United States Attorney General John Ashcroft and Drug Enforcement Agency Director Asa Hutchinson to discuss the federal government's unprecedented attacks on locally-authorized medical marijuana operations.
Over the last several months, the DEA has initiated a string of raids throughout California targeting small, locally-authorized medical marijuana cooperatives. Yesterday, federal agents raided a Santa Cruz cooperative that had been working closely with local law enforcement to ensure compliance with state medical marijuana laws. Some of the raids have resulted in arrests, yet in several cases, federal prosecutors have declined to prosecute. In a letter formally requesting the meeting, Lockyer stated:
"I must also question the ethical basis for the DEA's policy when these raids are being executed without apparent regard for the likelihood of successful prosecution. Whether or not the U.S. Attorney decides to file in the Santa Cruz case, my Department is aware of other recent DEA-initiated raids involving as few as six marijuana plants in which no charges were ever filed, and no convictions were obtained. Conversations with DEA representatives in California have made it clear that the DEA's strategic policy is to conduct these raids as punitive expeditions whether or not a crime can be successfully prosecuted."
Lockyer further questioned the timing and wisdom behind the federal government's strategy of using scarce public safety resources to raid medical marijuana cooperatives:
"A medicinal marijuana provider such as the Santa Cruz collective represents little danger to the public, and is certainly not a concern which would warrant diverting scarce federal resources away from the fight against domestic methamphetamine production, heroin distribution or international terrorism to cite just a few far more worthy priorities."
http://www.mapinc.org/ctcnews/v02/n1859/a06.html
Federal drug agents will continue to raid marijuana plots, medicinal and otherwise, the agency's director said in a letter to state Attorney General Bill Lockyer.
"As long as marijuana remains a Schedule I controlled substance, ( the Drug Enforcement Administration ) will continue its enforcement efforts targeting groups and individuals involved in its distribution," agency head Asa Hutchinson wrote in a Sept. 30 letter.
Hutchinson's letter, obtained by the Sentinel, was in response to a Sept. 6 letter from Lockyer in which he criticizes a DEA raid on the Davenport garden of the Wo/Men's Alliance for Medical Marijuana, an area medical marijuana cooperative.
Hutchinson questioned the medical validity of marijuana, saying it hasn't been approved by the Federal Drug Administration. And he said medical-marijuana laws in the states where it has been approved are being "abused to facilitate traditional illegal marijuana trafficking and associated crime."
Medical-marijuana backers, like the alliance, say patients grow pot for themselves and no money changes hands.
Hutchinson added that the federal agency is obliged by law to seize plants even if no prosecution results.
That is the case with the cooperative, whose co-founders, Mike and Valerie Corral, were arrested during the raid, then released. Agents seized 167 plants, but no charges have been filed. Attorneys for the cooperative filed motions in federal court last week for the return of the plants.
After the raid, Lockyer wrote: "The apparent decision by the DEA to put any kind of priority on such raids demonstrates a lack of good judgment and seriously threatens to wreck the historic productive partnership of the DEA and California's state and local law enforcement, undermining our efforts to fight dangerous drugs and the major narco-terrorist organizations that manufacture and distribute them."
Hutchinson responded that the DEA continues to partner with state and local agencies around the state in eradicating marijuana.
California is one of eight states that has approved marijuana for medical use, placing the state law at odds with the federal government.
LOL!
I didn't ask you about what dopers hated.
How does someone using medical marijuana harm you?
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