Yes, this is true... although they'd be somewhat lower as the availability of a partial substitute good would lure some of the demand away. But that's like saying that if you buy a burglar alarm, your house may still burn down. Yes, and?
If THC content is regulated, dealers will sell high potency pot.
And if my grandmother had balls, she'd be my grandfather. I'm all for requirements to label pot for potency... just as we do with alcohol and tobacco. Why should the government mandate certain potencies?
They'll sell pot laced with other drugs.
Rather like saying that there's a thriving black market in baggies, which drug dealers sell laced with marijuana.
They'll sell to the under-aged.
Indeed... although the underaged would find it harder to get pot, with much of the supply going to licensed dealers with a strong financial incentive not to sell to minors. Nowadays, 100% of marijuana is sold by dealers who don't check ID. And, of course, if law enforcement didn't have to spend so many resources tracking down and arresting responsible adult consumers, they'd have that much more to devote to busting the scum who sell to kids.
They'll sell it untaxed.
Which is why our cities are infested with low-life scum peddling untaxed alcohol on the streets, right? Got news for you, sport: supplying a black market is expensive. There are costs to keeping one's operation clandestine, to bribing law enforcement and judicial officers, opportunity costs to the necessary small-scale production forgoing economies of scale, and of course the cost of purchasing weapons and hiring enforcers to resolve disputes in a market which cannot use the civil court system. Black markets cannot be price-competitive with free markets, and taxes could be ridiculously high (as they are on alcohol and tobacco) without making illicit drugs a good buy for the consumer.
The "and" is that the illegal conduit remains. As I said, it would be like legalizing wine during Prohibition. Those who drink wine certainly would be in favor. But what does it really solve?
"Why should the government mandate certain potencies?"
To get the votes for legalization. From parents concerned about their kids getting hooked on high potency pot as they're concerned about their kids getting hooked on cigarettes because the tobacco companies are "deliberately increasing nicotine content".
"Indeed... although the underaged would find it harder to get pot"
Harder to get. Sure. But harder to get means nothing. Today, kids admit that alcohol is harder to get than pot -- yet they use alcohol 2:1 over pot. Why? Because society says it's OK (Hey, how bad can it be? It's legal!)
"have to spend so many resources tracking down and arresting responsible adult consumers"
True. Instead they'll have to spend their time running sting operations on 500,000 retail outlets selling marijuana.
"Black markets cannot be price-competitive with free markets, and taxes could be ridiculously high (as they are on alcohol and tobacco) without making illicit drugs a good buy for the consumer."
The taxes on alcohol aren't there yet. But they are on cigarettes.
"Thanks to recent city- and state-level tax hikes, New York City now has the highest cigarette taxes in the country—a combined state and local tax rate of $3.00 per pack. Consumers have responded by turning to the city's bustling black market and other low-tax sources of cigarettes. During the four months following the recent tax hikes, sales of taxed cigarettes in the city fell by more than 50 percent compared to the same period the prior year."
" New York has a long history of cigarette tax evasion. Former governor Malcolm Wilson dubbed the city the "promised land for cigarette bootleggers." Over the decades, a series of studies by federal, state, and city officials has found that high taxes have created a thriving illegal market for cigarettes in the city. That market has diverted billions of dollars from legitimate businesses and governments to criminals."