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You're just making up unlikely worst case scenarios. How likely is it that they would make the minimum age 25 for marijuana when it is 21 for alcohol and 18 for tobacco? I'd say it's not likely at all. If it was going to be legalized, and I think it will be someday, they'll make it legal for adults, probably setting the age at 21 as was done with alcohol. Would they put a limit on THC content? Maybe, I don't know. Maybe they'll just tax the higher THC content stuff more than they tax the lower THC stuff and put a few more controls on the stronger stuff, kind of like the differences between beer and wine and whiskey today. Will taxes be so high that there will always be a big black market for marijuana? I don't think so because marijuana is presently far more expensive than it would cost to grow it on a large scale commercial basis using modern agricultural methods. It is a plant after all.

It is probably is more difficult to produce marijuana than tobacco, especially the really pricey stuff, because pricey pot today is sold with stems removed and the leaves growing from the buds carefully trimmed off, and there is a lot of labor involved in harvesting and manicuring buds that probably could not be mechanized to any great extent unless the manufacturer was producing hashish or bulk product full of leaves and stems to be sold at a much lower price.

Hashish by the way is nothing but dried resin and resin glands removed from chopped up buds and leaves growing with the buds using either fine mesh screens that the product is passed over or using ice water and a blender to cause the heavier resin particles to separate from the vegetable material and then the vegetable material is removed and what remains is filtered of using a serious of fine mesh screens. Either way the resin is harvested, it is dried and then pressed into blocks of hash, with or without heat used to bring the oils out of the dried resin particles to make a darker and more pliable product. Just knowing how we tend to process the heck out of stuff I imagine that if marijuana was legal that the big companies would want to process it into hash because they could probably mechanize that entire process and be able to blend the resins they harvest with God knows what kind of additives to produce consistent product without having to manicure pretty buds or grow without seeds. Then they could sell the seeds and the fiber from stalks for other uses.

"I've been told that marijuana is a weed that grows everywhere. Now you come along and tell me that me it's just as difficult as tobacco. I guess the side of the fence you're on depends on the argument you wish to make, huh?"

It is a weed and it does grow everywhere. But the stuff growing wild in ditches or wherever doesn't sell for much if anyone will buy it. A lot of crops that we consume also grow wild. I guess just about all of them grew wild at one time. But we domesticate these crops and breed them to have traits we find desirable. In doing so, we tend to make them less hardy than the wild versions. There is a great deal of labor involved in growing crops, just about any crops. Out in the wild if a lot of the seeds don't germinate, or if plants die, that's no big deal. That's just natural selection. The hardier plants survive, and adapt to their surrounding over the generations. When we are farming for profit, or just for food or whatever, we concentrate our crops in set areas. Hopefully we've chosen the area well for soil content with respect to nutrients, PH levels, texture, structure, drainage, depth, and so on, and without the bad stuff like certain types of bacteria, certain types of fungus or plant diseases, etc, that will destroy our crops. Usually we have to amend the soil and then fertilize the crops during the growing seasons while getting rid of pests and plant diseases that damage our crops. We have to water and pull weeds and frequently inspect the plants for problems that we need to nip in the bud. There is a lot of work involved in all of this. Spend a few years growing vegetable gardens like I have and you'll know what I'm talking about.

I've never grown pot, but I have read a lot about the process and I have talked to people that have grown it. It's a little more involved than doing something like growing tomatoes. As with something like tomatoes, they have to first choose good genetics, a good strain that will grow well where they are trying to grow it and have the traits they will desire. In order to grow the high dollar stuff they have to keep any male plants away from the female plants in order to prevent pollination which causes seeds to develop. They either have to either keep a close eye on their plants for pollen packs that would indicate male or hermaphrodite plants and pull those before they release their pollen, or they have to keep "mother plants," which are female plants they keep alive under lights sometimes for years on end. They take cuttings from the mother plants and root these cuttings to make "clones" which will pretty much be copies of the mother plants. This way all their plants should be female unless stress causes some to turn into hermaphrodites.

In addition to all the other stuff they have to do, they have to be careful about how they harvest their plants. THC levels rise as the plant matures. There is a point though where THC starts to convert into another cannabinoid that is not particularly desirable. Growers growing the high dollar stuff go to great pains to make sure they harvest at the right time. To get maximum potency that often involves harvesting each bud separately because they don't all mature at the same time. They aren't like tomatoes where you can put them on the window sill and let them ripen the rest of the way. They have to be removed at just the right time. The guys growing the high dollar stuff get out there with jewelers loops and inspect the buds to see look at the tiny hair shaped resin glands growing from the plant material that exude resin have turned the right color. They'll look to see that 60% of the hairs, or whatever percentage they've found to be the "right" percentage for whichever strain they are producing, have turned orange or brown or golden or whatever color they'll turn on that plant. These guys have this down to an art. They have to know these plants inside and out and know how to grow take care of them in order to consistently get high yields of high dollar product.

After they harvest the plants, they have to manicure the buds and dry them just right. They want to get rid of the green taste, but not over dry them. They want the buds to retain some moisture, but not too much. The temperature and humidity wherever they dry them has to be just right. They have to be careful in the way they do it, or the buds will get moldy and be ruined. This is especially a problem with the more potent stuff. THC is mostly in the resins the plants produce. The really powerful stuff tends to have big thick buds with lots of resin on them. The resin adds to the density of the buds. Dense resinous buds tend to retain water, creating ideal conditions for mold and fungi that will ruin them. That's one of the big reasons why the most potent pot tends to be grown indoors. Indoors under lights they have better control over the environment and plants can be watered from the bottom rather than from the top as happens when it rains outside. They don't want water on these buds or super windy conditions banging the plants together and causing the dried resin to fall off onto the ground. Growing the plants indoors though of course adds a lot of labor and other costs.

The best marijuana is not only dried, but it is also cured. They put it in jars or other airtight containers and cure it for a while, opening the containers every day for a brief period to let the product breath and then closing them up again and putting them back in a dark space with a constant cool temperature. This apparently makes it taste a lot better and some say it also increases the potency, although that doesn't make much sense to me because I know that THC levels in marijuana tend to degrade in time especially if the product is exposed to air and heat.

Anyway, there is a great deal of labor involved with growing quality marijuana, and it requires skills and knowhow the average person does not possess. Anyone could probably grow it, but only the most dedicated are going to be able to consistently produce good results. Most will find that there is a lot more involved with the process than just planting a seed and watching it grow. This is a process that takes months, or a year around process if they keep "mother plants" and/or grow continuous crops indoors, which would be required if they don't have a good place to grow it outdoors. The plants require constant care, even more so if grown indoors where they have to mess with all the super high power lights that marijuana requires, keep temperatures and humidity just right and so on. Not everyone, especially (ambitionless) young pot heads, is going to have a place to grow it either indoors or outdoors, or the significant investment an indoor growing operation requires. Most aren't going to have the time or the patience required, let alone the skills and the knowledge required.

I think what would happen is that before long there would be favorite brands or varieties people stick with, like they find favorite brands of cigarettes and beer that they stick with. The popular stuff may not resemble the stuff out there today much, just as mass marketed beer and tobacco are very much different than what people used to consume. Consumers will like that they can go to a shop ad choose from a wide variety of product. They'll prefer that over some homegrown some guy grew who might not have been careful about mold and fungi, and who might have been using toxic pesticides, fungicides, or fertilizers designed for ornamentals rather than consumable crops. Consumers if given the choice would rather have a product that has some safety guarantees. Before long they'll have no more interest in homegrown than they do in home brewed beer or moonshine.

As for potency level limitations, there might be limits on potency. I don't really think those are needed on normal plant material, but would think it might make sense with preparations like hashish. Marijuana potency is reaching its top end. Allegedly, they've found a couple of samples that were actually over 30% THC. Most of the THC in marijuana is in the resin that exudes from resin glands found on the buds and to a lesser extent on the leaves, especially those growing out of the buds. This resin is the stuff that is collected and pressed into hashish. I believe that the highest THC level for any hashish that they have ever seized and tested was around 40%, most is much weaker than that, with a lot of it being less than 10% THC.

Pot cannot get much stronger than the strongest stuff out there today because marijuana is after all a plant and there has to be plant material to support all the THC that is produced. There has to be plant material to produce the resin that contains most of the THC. The resin has to have it's inert material to acts as a vehicle for the THC and other cannonades exuding out of the resin glands. The glands themselves have to have inert material to provide structure. The most potent stuff can't get much more potent, and from what I've read there appears to be some leveling off in the top end, THC levels aren't continuing to rise. Most of the indoor stuff is holding steady at 15% or less. Law enforcement say this is because indoor commercial growers are focusing more on big production and turn around than making the absolute highest THC levels. This makes sense because making it super high THC takes a lot of effort and gas long as it's fairly potent, growers can sell just about all the pretty stuff that smells really good and is well manicured for a high price. The extra effort required to make it just as strong as it can possibly be isn't going to bring them much more money, if any. Buyers will see how pretty the stuff looks and smells and see that it gets them stoned without smoking too much of it and they'll buy it right up. They won't be able to discern the difference between 15% and 20% pot, or probably even 15% and 25%. You can only get so high. That's one of the differences between pot and alcohol. It's only going to take a little of the 15% stuff to get someone to that point. Most people aren't going to be able to tell the difference, especially if they smoke four or five puffs to get ripped. Either the 15% or the 25% would probably do it.

According to the government, most of the indoor grown sinsemilla they find today is 15% or less THC (usually between 10% and 15%), with very little being 20% or higher. The marijuana connoisseur types who buy this ridiculously expensive stuff are happy with product in the neighborhood of 15% THC, or even lower. They don't know the THC levels of the pot they smoke though, because testing THC levels requires very sophisticated and prohibitively expensive laboratory equipment not available to the general public. Our state crime lab doesn't even have the ability to test for THC levels, only the presence of THC. Pot smokers go buy the way the product looks and smells and also by how much it takes for them to reach the desired effect. They may or may not have ever had product with 20% or higher THC content, and the difference between pot stronger than 20% and 15% pot is minute anyway so it seems to me that keeping it 20% or even at 15% at the very top end is not likely to cause a big black market for more powerful marijuana. And remember that there really isn't any way for illicit pot growers to test their THC levels. These pot picky marijuana connoisseur types who are paying ridiculously high prices for marijuana that is probably 15% or lower for the most part anyway. It's really strong, and good enough for them at those levels. Why would they want to buy some homegrown from some guy who might have used dangerous pesticides, fungicides, and so on, and who cannot even guarantee that the product he is selling has a higher THC content than that which these people could buy at the store?

Potency limits would not be that big of a deal provided they were not set too low. There isn't much difference between 10% THC pot and 20% pot. Both are strong and either would get most people really high with just a few puffs. If it takes a person four puffs of the 10% stuff to reach whatever level of buzz he likes to achieve, it would only take two puffs of the 20% stuff. If there have to be THC limits, I'd suggest that they be set pretty high, up in the higher range for sinsemilla today, say 20%, and then set up a taxing scheme where more powerful marijuana is taxed and controlled more like distilled spirits are taxed and controlled more than beer today.

Most people do not buy the really potent stuff today. It is ridiculously expensive. I hear people around where I live are paying upwards of $125 for a quarter ounce (seven grams) of indoor grown sinsemilla. Outdoor stuff is much cheaper, and standard commercial grade Mexican is dirt cheap. People can buy it for $60 or $80 an ounce (not a quarter ounce), sometimes less and sometimes more depending on who people know. It is not as powerful as the fancy sinsemilla. Most of the pot the government seized is of this caliber though. Commercial grade marijuana averages around 5% THC, and seized marijuana overall only averages a little higher than that, less than 6%, even when they include all the really potent stuff that is seized. Sinsemilla (seedless), both outdoor grown and indoor grown averages generally somewhere between 9% and 12% the last few years. It fluctuates. It appears from the government numbers then that most people aren't smoking the super powerful stuff. I see the same in court. I saw two evidence bags today cops were showing me that were seedy Mexican. All the stuff they ever show me is seedy Mexican crap, and I see an awful lot of pot that law enforcement has seized. The rich guys who buy the super expensive stuff don't tend to invite the attention of law enforcement. It might be that the overall average THC content is a little higher but only poor people get caught. But law enforcement seizes tons and tons of Mexican and far less of the potent stuff. They seize several thousand pounds of it every year in my county from vehicles driving down the highway. I always have at least hundreds of pounds worth of these drug mules cases at a time. It's all seedy Mexican brick weed, seedy pot compressed into bricks and bundled in plastic and paper often with other stuff in the wrapping to conceal the smell. Shoot, most of the stuff I've seen over the years in social settings tends to be regular commercial grade stuff too, even among people who could afford the pricey stuff. Most people around here at least just don't want to and/or can't afford to pay the ridiculously high prices for premium indoor grown sinsemilla. They'd rather pay a lot less and smoke a little more of the commercial grade stuff.

THC limits could probably be set even lower, but setting them too low would introduce the forbidden fruit factor and encourage a black market for more potent stuff. It would be better to just set the limits high and taxes, regulatory costs and production costs would keep the expensive stuff pretty expensive. If mass production caused it to become too cheap, taxes could always be raised. That way people used to the potent stuff would still be able to get what they want and regular pot smokers who occasionally want something more potent, like a beer drinker like me might occasionally crave a nice single malt scotch whiskey, could get what they want through legal channels. There would be no need for a black market, and the super potent stuff would remain expensive such that few would use it as their regular smoke. Even with higher taxes on the more potent product, black market producers would not be able to undercut prices and still make a profit because growing true connoisseur grade marijuana is an expensive labor intensive process, especially when competing against large commercial growers who can bring their costs way down through mass production. The little illicit grower growing to sell would have to pay taxes and neither would his customers, but he couldn't compete with the big companies producing on a large scale production cost wise and the risks involved and the fact that a lot of this illicit product is seized brings the prices way up. It wouldn't be worth it for him unless he could charge enough to make a huge profit. The black market then would be about like the black market for moonshine, only comprising a tiny amount of overall sales.