[Whoaccio]

LOL
If the government taxes it too much, the criminals will still be in business. I guess the biggest advantages would be in the quality of production. A lot of over-doses and problems with 'illegal' drugs are the substances they are mixed with or the poor quality of them.

I've been trying to work out the economics on that, but it is difficult given that there are few good statistics on the drug industry. The average price of pot is roughly between 150-200$ an ounce (let's say 175$). I see no reason through industrial scale production (operations with 1000+ plants) prices couldn't be dropped to 50$/ounce. Most of the street price of pot comes from the mark up various levels of drug dealing apply to it. For instance, you could buy a 1/4 pound for roughly 600 bucks, which works out to a cost of $5.35/gram, nearly half of the street price for a gram and that is just one or two levels of distribution up.There is soo much markup in most illicit drugs that, where they ever legalized, they could be taxed at exorbitant rates while still undercutting the drug market 99% of the time.

 

[afransen]

I don't know what the yield of a pot plant is, but I imagine you can easily grow 12,500 plants to maturity for less than $400,000 if it is legal but can't be grown in an open field. So, cost of $32 a plant.

 

[CGM]

Tax it identically to cigarettes.

Growing marijuana indoors is much easier and practical than tobacco... It should have minimal tax

 

[urbanboom]

^

The only reason that cigarettes aren't banned, is because it doesn't cost the system anything. All the money that the hospitals bleed due to tobacco is regained by the cigarette tax (and then some). If we allowed so many people to smoke pot freely, it would cost the health system billions of dollars. Without any form of taxation we would be in the dark abyss of eternal debt. It would be foolishness to ask me to subsidize the health cost of the pot smokers (which is what happens now). They should have to do it themselves.

Legalize it. Regulate it. And tax it.

 

[Dilla]

Growing marijuana indoors is much easier and practical than tobacco... It should have minimal tax

I think you'd be surprised at how lazy people are. It ain't rocket surgery to make alcohol (beer, wine, moonshine), but few do it.

It's almost as much work to grow one or two plants as it is to grow 10. But not many people would have the space. And it's not as easy as "plant a seed and watch it grow". It takes quite a lot of work and experience to get a good yield. Plants will change from female to male in mid growth, mites, timing the lights. Also, it makes for big hydro bills. All this, and after a few months of growing it, you'd dont' usually get all that much. It would be much easier to buy it at current street prices (which we know the market is willing to pay), and even if taxed to those levels, professional growers could easily make a profit at half the price they currently wholesale it for.

 

[Dichotomy]

^

The only reason that cigarettes aren't banned, is because it doesn't cost the system anything. All the money that the hospitals bleed due to tobacco is regained by the cigarette tax (and then some). If we allowed so many people to smoke pot freely, it would cost the health system billions of dollars. Without any form of taxation we would be in the dark abyss of eternal debt. It would be foolishness to ask me to subsidize the health cost of the pot smokers (which is what happens now). They should have to do it themselves.

Legalize it. Regulate it. And tax it.

It's currently costing the government billions of dollars in wasted money to fight the war on drugs, so in reality it would probably have a net zero affect on the budget.
People get cancer from smoking cigarettes because they smoke 20 a day for years. It's not like you get cancer from a weekend binge! If someone smoked a few joints on the weekend (while at the cottage, for instance), how would that affect the health system?
We are constantly 'dumbing down' our laws and our regulations in this society because of idiots out there. Anything in excess has health consequences, whether its pot, alcohol or Twinkies.

 

[CGM]

If someone smoked a few joints on the weekend (while at the cottage, for instance), how would that affect the health system?

Increased obesity due to the munchies

 

[Dichotomy]

increased Obesity Due To The Munchies

Lol

 

[Ronald]

Legalize it, then cultivate it in special labs like they do over in Holland, so that we have at least one place in Northern America where you can get some weed with a decent amount of thc instead of the weak crap we have nowadays.
Having said that, I still envy Canada's liberal attitude towards marihuana. Wish America was more like that.

 

[urbanboom]

People get cancer from smoking cigarettes because they smoke 20 a day for years. It's not like you get cancer from a weekend binge! If someone smoked a few joints on the weekend (while at the cottage, for instance), how would that affect the health system?

I don't think that you hang around the same people that I do.

If those people want to smoke at their cottage, go ahead. I'm all for that, but I'm not really referring to them. The occasional smokers still have to pay tobacco taxes, just like addicts do. I think it should be the same for pot.

 

[Dilla]

I don't think that you hang around the same people that I do.

If those people want to smoke at their cottage, go ahead. I'm all for that, but I'm not really referring to them. The occasional smokers still have to pay tobacco taxes, just like addicts do. I think it should be the same for pot.

Yes, some people smoke a lot, and there's a metric fu%#load of tar in marijuana. Too large a haul can make it feel as though your lungs have torn open.

 

[Whoaccio]

Growing marijuana indoors is much easier and practical than tobacco... It should have minimal tax

I tried to grow a few plants back in high school, it is possible but not recommended. A lot of people think you can just drop a seed in a pot and, a month later, you have a few ounces of the stuff. As far as botany goes, it is a pretty robust plant. The problem is that if you don't cultivate it properly you end up with ditch weed. It is a fair amount of effort as well, more than I was willing to put in at least.

 

[MisterF]

I don't think that you hang around the same people that I do.

If those people want to smoke at their cottage, go ahead. I'm all for that, but I'm not really referring to them. The occasional smokers still have to pay tobacco taxes, just like addicts do. I think it should be the same for pot.

Still, even the biggest potheads I've known never smoked as many joints as the average cigarette smoker smokes cigarettes. It gives a lasting high plus it's not addictive, so nobody's going to smoke a pack a day.

 

[urbanboom]

^

Well if memory serves me correctly,

1 joint = 5 cigarettes, in terms of health damage. So you could could smoke 3 joints a day, but that would be the same as smoking 15 cigarettes.

I just don't understand how we could demonize smoking, but embrace pot. Looking at it from a health perspective, pot is much worse, especially if you smoke it in large quantities.

 

[Dichotomy]

Let's face it - if alcohol were invented today, the Nanny State would ban it. Look at our archaic alcohol laws. There isn't much hope of legalizing pot or any other recreational drugs any time soon.