I don't get the logic here. If you legalize it, but nobody wants it, then they will keep buying the real stuff from mexico.
On another note, this whole potency argument is a canard. You can get 151 rum, but almost nobody drinks it. Consumers know what they want, the idea that they go for whatever has the most of the drug is BS, as the 151 Rum argument shows.
The US has used that theory before. Sure, there are people who will go out of their way to buy white lightning or Cuban cigars, often solely because they are illegal. But it is a far cry from, a fraction of, the legal alcohol or tobacco industry.
Most cases for legalization insist that there will be high taxes associated with legal marijuana sales. But as with tobacco, the actual ingredients used in the cigarettes will be carefully controlled by the manufacturers, likely the tobacco companies. Their marketers have long known that the public would want a marijuana cigarette to look much like a tobacco cigarette, but just different enough so others could tell you were smoking marijuana.
But that much marijuana would be far too strong for most people, so a weaker variety would be needed. And there would also be a lot of wrangling about what ingredients, toxic ingredients, there should be *less* of in marijuana.
The end result is a highly processed, proprietary blend of marijuana, with a fixed amount of THC, with a genetically modified plant to produce fewer toxic components, or those components “bleached” from the marijuana. Or maybe create a variety of hemp without THC, but that is mellower in flavor, then add THC to it later.
All sorts of twists and turns. But the final product would be far removed from the typical marijuana cigarette of today.