Lucrative New Markets

Who says drug dealers don't respond to incentives? This is from The New York Times:

"A lot of people who were selling pot or heroin are now selling cigarettes," said a 25-year-old struggling actor from East Harlem who said that he needs to dabble in cigarette dealing to make ends meet. "You can make the same amount of money,'' he said, "and you don't get locked away as long."

Comments

[Anonymous]

"lid = 1 oz, more or less, sorta"

True, altho quality affected quantity as measured in "fingers."

Back in the day of a $10 lid, in my neighborhood that price would get you a 2-finger lid of Columbian, a 3-finger lid of Michoacan and a 4-finger lid of garden-variety shake.

[Jason Ligon]

anon 01:07 :

How many hogshead is that?

[Mr. Nice Guy]

I cannot understand how moralism can trump economic opportunism. If the government legalized and taxed drugs, gambling, and prostitution, it would have enough money for 12 Iraq occupations, fund social security, and still balance the budget.

[Anonymous]

Hogshead is a liquid measurement, so a lid-to-hogshead calculation can't be done.

But I reckon that a 2-liter bong would hold about 1/100th of a hogshead of liquid.

[Anonymous]

Mr. Nice Guy,

They'd still find a way to overspend. But it would probably allow them to encourage consumption instead of villify it.

[Anonymous]

2 jiggers = 1 pony. Look it up.

[chthus]

Actually, 3ponies = 2 jiggers

http://www.drinkboy.com/BarTools/Jigger.html

[Brad]

Hogshead is unit of measurement for tobacco

[Mr Happy]

I'll take the taxed and legal version of pot over the current illegal, siezed property version. Just like my homebrew kit, I would sincerely enjoy partaking in the creation and consumption of pot, tax free and legal. Where I would prefer reasonable taxes on legalized drugs, I mostly prefer the legalization!

[Anonymous]

http://www.convertit.com/Go/ConvertIt/Measurement/Converter.ASP

says 1 jigger = 2 ponies.

and http://www.cocktail.com/about/measurements.htm

says 1 jigger = 1 pony

Maybe drunks are less concerned with the exact amounts of liquor in their drinks than any of us suspected.

for the record, convertit.com also says

1 hogshead = 5376 jiggers = 3.5 kilderkins

[Jason Ligon]

Anon,

Just flashing back to my days as an underdraduate physics student, when a shocking amount of amusement was derived by expressing quantities in goofy English measurements like slugs, hogheads, stone, and the like.

My sense of humor never seemed to help me with the ladies, for some reason ...

[Jason Ligon]

That's a lot of jiggers. Liquid density could then be expressed as Stone/Hogshead.

To convert to Stone/Kilderkin, you could cross multiply to cancel out your hogsheads ...

[Anonymous]

Or you could type it into convertit.com.

[Pete Guither]

What's should be most startling about this news item to the drug warriors is that, despite billions of dollars spent on interdiction and extremely oppressive drug laws in New York, illicit drug supply and dealer market competition are vigorous enough to make the switch to illegal tobacco sales economically attractive.

But then again, the drug warriors clearly slept during economics class, since they don't understand supply and demand or elasticity.

[thoreau]

In regard to Pete's comments on drug warriors sleeping in Econ 101:

If I went to Barnesandnoble.com (my wife works at B&N, gotta plug it!) and ordered an introductory microeconomics textbook to be shipped to the Drug Czar in DC, what consequences could I expect?

If there's no risk in it, maybe we could start a libertarian campaign to send "Economics for Dummies" to high level drug warriors in DC.

[Warren]

A long long time ago in an America far far away...

1 lid ~ 1/4 pound

Or more specifically, the amount of dope piled level to the rim of a new upturned galvanized trash can lid.

Or so I have read.

[Mo]

"I remember when a dime bag cost a dime"
-Willie Nelson

[Russ]

"If there's no risk in it, maybe we could start a libertarian campaign to send "Economics for Dummies" to high level drug warriors in DC."

I recently met a federal candidate for my electoral riding, and loaned her my copy of "Economics for Real People" by Gene Callahan.

Just doing my part in the War on Economic Illiteracy. ("WoEI" would be a good acronym if I could figure out how to pronounce it.)

[james]

Warren:

According to my dad, yes my dad, an original Haight-Ashbury hippy, Berkeley Vietnam Protestor, and current steering committee member of Seattle Hempfest (if that doesn't spell expert, I don't know what will!), a "lid" comes from the amount of weed one can pile onto a 1 lb coffee can lid that usually is approximately 1 ounce in weight. Apparently, in the 60's and the 70's, everyone bought the 1 lb cans of coffee, typically utilized them for storage for various items once emptied of coffee, and once in awhile, take the lid to measure out approximately one ounce of herb. My dad used to say, "there was always a lid to score with all the coffe cans around so one could score a lid." He said that balance beam scales were hard to come by and were too expensive to purchase. Us youngins' are lucky to live in the digital age!

From time to time, I would see Andy Rooney reminisce about the loss of the 1 lb cans of coffee. "Now they are 11.25 ounces!" Andy would say.

Just don't ask me where 420 comes from.

[Jason Ligon]

I have officially won a bet about this with a liberal family member. Thanks for the update.

[SteveInClearwater]

With regard to marijuana, the cost in a legal market would be far more modest than current Prohibition demands, since most anyone with a place to grow can make their own product.

By following easy available instructions and presuming a thumb that is at least a mild shade of green, one can produce a pound of solid-grade weed for about $50. That's 3 bucks per ounce; 75cents for a 1/4.

Current street price in Florida for equivalent product is $50-60, about an 8000% markup.

Oh it may be a bit moot anyway, as my conversations nationwide with pot smokers indicate that most would be more than happy to pay $10-40 per quarter oz, even if a huge percentage was tax; if only they could be free from criminal arrest.

Steve http://www.dpffl.org

[joe]

How long until the first shooting?

[Jason Ligon]

Why do I have the feeling that the answer they will come up with is to make tobacco punishable like heroin? That way, no one will do it ...

[dhex]

a friend of mine used to joke that pot will be legalized someday but by that time he'll still have to sneak out around the corner to buy a lid of tobacco for $200.

[Kevin Carson]

This points out the Achilles heel of the "legalize it so it can be regulated and taxed" argument. If drugs are legalized, they will be the obvious target of heavy vice taxes, like cigarettes and alcohol are now--a very lucrative cash cow. The taxes might not be enough to push pot to way over $100 a lid, but you never know.

So there will be a black market in untaxed drugs (probably smaller than the existing one), just like there is a black market in untaxed cigarettes.

[Anonymous]

The first shooting will certainly come from a standoff between a dealer and a government agent, they won't allow someone else to muscle in on the government's profit center.

[Boss Tweed]

Are people still using the term "lid"? I thought that went out with Cheech and Chong...

[dhex]

the friend in question is 57 years old. 🙂

i don't remember how much a lid is (i'm 25) but i'm guessing it has to be what 1/4 to 1/2 oz?

[Hovig John Heghinian]

Kevin! Drug taxes! Abandon the thought! You'd think drugs were only for the rich! My goodness, surely the poor have a right to self-medicate too! Medicaid will have to step in!

The other ironic inevitability is that once drugs are legalized, they will be mass-produced by the big drug and tobacco companies so vilified today.

[J S Allison]

lid = 1 oz, more or less, sorta

[R.C. Dean]

"If drugs are legalized, they will be the obvious target of heavy vice taxes, like cigarettes and alcohol are now--a very lucrative cash cow.

So there will be a black market in untaxed drugs (probably smaller than the existing one), just like there is a black market in untaxed cigarettes."

Yup, if they are taxed heavily. Of course, with no or low taxes, this isn't a problem, so it seems the only way to get rid of the black market in pot is to (a) legalize it and (b) make it subject only to ordinary sales taxes, rather than special excise taxes, no?

[dhex]

the untaxed black market for drugs would probably be much smaller unless the taxation rate was phenomenally high - high enough to make no cost difference. even then, the prospect of legally buying an illegal substance would, i think, be more appealing to a large number of consumers.

all of this, of course, is based on the fantasy that any of this has a snowball's chance in hell of happening in my lifetime.

JS: thanks for clearing that up. 🙂

[keith]

What if the drug warriors use this to convert good drug hustlers into good cigarette hustlers? If you believed in the "reduce drug use" mission, and did not have an "anti-cigarette" or "maintain bureaucratic fiefdom" agenda, this would be an excellent, market-based approach to reducing net accessibiltiy to illegal drugs.

[junyo]

Even heavily taxed, drug prices would drop. The "war on drugs" is currently acting as a price support, adding tons of cultivatation, transport and distribution overhead that would go away with legalization. Freely cultivated and distributed, actual costs would be minimal.

[Kevin Carson]

R.C. Dean,

You're right, of course. But I fear the political temptation to resort to vice taxes as a source of easy money would be irresistable.

dhex is also right that it would take an astronomical level of taxation to make a weed more expensive by weight than gold.

Boss Tweed,

"Lid" is indeed still a current term. What fascinates me is the erosion of the nickel and dime bag over the years, comparable to that of the Federal Reserve Note.

The last time I bought any, over a decade ago (I wouldn't consider taking a chance today on having my property seized without trial or even charge by the filthy pigs), a nickel bag was called a "nickel patch"--a tiny manilla envelope a couple of inches square, barely enough to get one joint out of. I wonder if the nickel is even still in use as a unit of measurement. I remember a humorous story in National Lampoon about a guy who was transported back in time to the '50s, asked to buy a "nickel bag" from some Jazz musicians, and was given a thirty-gallon sack. Heh heh.

[Douglas Fletcher]

"I remember when a dime bag cost a dime"
-Willie Nelson

No he doesn't.

[disgusted vet]

By following easy available instructions and presuming a thumb that is at least a mild shade of green, one can produce a pound of solid-grade weed for about $50. That's 3 bucks per ounce; 75cents for a 1/4.
Posted by: SteveInClearwater on September 24, 2003 10:48 PM

I concur, but what's the 50 bucks for? You drop a seed in the ground...water...and stand back. It's that simple. So at every price level (tax included), some people will be customers, some will be farmers, many will be both. And the world will be peaceful and safe once again.

[Anonymous]

I've always thought that cigarettes were the real "gateway drug." The only reason I didn't smoke pot in college was because I didn't smoke. Now that drug dealers are selling them, I guess that proves it.

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