Policy

Pot Farmers Against Pot Legalization or, Life Becomes a Reason.tv Video

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As California voters ponder whether to vote for marijuana legalization via a ballot initiative this fall, at least one group is wary of changing the legal status of cannabis: Pot growers who like the current system just fine.

If California legalizes marijuana, [black-market growers] say, it will drive down the price of their crop and damage not just their livelihoods but the entire economy along the state's rugged northern coast.

"The legalization of marijuana will be the single most devastating economic event in the long boom-and-bust history of Northern California," said Anna Hamilton, 62, a Humboldt County radio host and musician who said her involvement with marijuana has mostly been limited to smoking it for the past 40 years.

Read more here.

Legalizing any product will almost certainly reduce its price, even if you factor in a heavy vice or excise tax which will be attached to legal weed. And it will definitely encourage more people to start growing and selling pot, increasing supply and, ceteris paribus, driving down prices. So we can all understand why pot growers might be nervous at the prospect of legalization. And hopefully they can understand why their fears about competition are no more compelling than those of any producer in a free-market economy.

So how is this all like a Reason.tv video? Just watch below.