Pot Prohibition As Farm Aid

The Los Angeles Times reports that some pot growers in Humboldt County are having second thoughts about the prospect of going legit now that a marijuana legalization initiative has qualified for the November ballot:

Recently, "Keep Pot Illegal" bumper stickers have been seen on cars around the county. In chat rooms and on blogs, anonymous writers predict that tobacco companies will crush small farmers and take marijuana production to the Central Valley….

Humboldt State economists guess that marijuana accounts for between $500 million and $700 million of the county's $3.6 billion economy….

The conventional wisdom here is that fully legal weed might fetch no more than a few hundred dollars a pound [compared to about $3,000 for high-quality cannabis now], as more people grow it and police no longer pull up millions of plants a year.

Illegal marijuana "is the government's best agricultural price-support program ever," said Gerald Myers, a retired engineer and former volunteer fire chief who moved to the county in 1970. "If they ever want to help the wheat farmers, make wheat illegal."

Last year Reason.tv presciently produced an ad that worried marijuana farmers may want to air before Election Day.

Last month Nick Gillespie cited an A.P. story that similarly illustrated the confluence between satire and reality in this area. In the April 2007 issue of Reason, I noted that prohibition has made marijuana America's No. 1 cash crop.

[via Kevin Drum]

Comments

[Brian Sorgatz]

My review of the video: very intoxicating?and so is the marijuana.

[James Anderson Merritt]

This video is extremely well produced; its humor sheathes a very sharp point.

Why hasn't this been placed on TV stations and networks far and wide? At least it should be ubiquitous on tv stations here in the Golden State, given that we will soon vote on outright legalization.

[wylie]

Money?

[James Anderson Merritt]

Only money? I'd gladly kick down for a fund that sought to bring this message to everyone, everywhere. Anyone else?

[Greg]

obviously the growers want it quasi- legal (so they don't go to jail) and quasi-illegal (so they can make more money). The real benefits for legalization are to users who would pay less

[BakedPenguin]

The real benefits to legalization is the entire country, which may start to regain its 4th, 5th, 8th, 10th amendment rights, along with due process. Furthermore, not having to pay for the unjust imprisonment of people who have done nothing wrong not only saves money, it adds to the economy as these people become productive.

The cops, DEA, prison guard union, and the drug dealers are the only people who benefit from prohibition. Oh, and asshole politicians.

[jasno]

I don't think they'll have a problem coming up with a new evil worthy of sacrificing what's left of the Bill of Rights.

[BakedPenguin]

That would be the WoT. But at least there is a rational basis for fighting terrorists.

[capitol l]

Fucking stoned flightless bird, I had this whole WoT is the new pot, thing thought up, and you stole my tropic thunder. And furthermore... uhh...what?

[Farrel Benton]

Pot is reported as making people lazy and useless.
It seem to me the lazy and useless ones are the The cops, DEA, prison guard union, and the drug dealers you mentioned. They would have to do real work if pot were legalized.

[The Gobbler]

Haven't I seen her in porn films?

[AlmightyJB]

Please share if you remember which one:)

[BakedPenguin]

Sorry, guys, it doesn't look to be so. Her IMDB page doesn't have any films named "___ Sluts" or such like.

[Richard]

Because all porn stars work under their real names...

[BakedPenguin]

Despite all the hand-wringing about moral turpitude in Hollywood, and the bullshit about them being laid-back, it is about as receptive to porn as the 700 Club is. She probably would not have had that long of a career had she done porn, because she would have been "outed", and found it very hard to get acting work.

I remember speaking with a writer / director / actor who had a few parts (before he went bald). He said he'd been offered to direct some "Red Shoe Diaries" (I think that's what they are / were called) on Showtime (? - I don't have cable). He declined, because he said even being connected with a softcore production could mean getting passed over for other gigs.

That said, things have changed, and I'm am not up on the porn industry or Hollywood.

[skr]

didn't really hurt David Duchovny.

[Ben]

Former and current porn stars like Ron Jeremy, Jenna Jameson and Sasha
Grey have some limited success in getting mainstream acting work.

[IceTrey]

Another issues is going to be hemp. if growing marijuana to smoke is legal then growing hemp would be legal. Hemp and marijuana don't mix. Large scale hemp production would make it very hard to grow marijuana outdoors.

[Brian Sorgatz]

I suspect (but don't know for a fact) that hemp has been overhyped ecologically and economically. For instance, many of us prefer the smoothness and airiness of cotton fiber for clothing. Even with cannabis farming legal, most fields of it may be grown only for the mind-altering herb.

[SugarFree]

The real boon of hemp would be paper. Takes far less chemicals to process, the base is obviously renewable, and the end product is naturally acid-free.

[Chris]

Yep!

Paper is the greatest benefit hemp could provide. Renewable every year.

[IceTrey]

Only a few male hemp plants releasing pollen can easily ruin acres of marijuana.

[Episiarch]

There's a porn script in this statement, somewhere.

[BakedPenguin]

And if the porn script were on acid-free hemp paper, it could last for hundreds of years, enriching generations with the knowledge of the kind of filth we enjoyed in the early 21st century.

[Enough About Palin]

Men! Harumph!!!

[wheelock]

Any kind of large scale growing operation of herb for smoking will also produce some male plants (Hermaphrodites, etc ). I imagine regardless of legal status, the best will always need to be grown indoors with lots of grower control...

[Zeb]

There are lots of uses for hemp beyond clothing. Its fiber is superior to wood in many ways and it is far more efficient to grow than trees. It does not deplete the soil much as a lot of crops do. It is not going to save the world, but it is certainly a useful crop that should be in the mix.

I am surprised that more prohibitionists have not caught on to the fact that industrial help and marijuana of any quality are incompatible. They should be all for hemp farming as it will ruin any nearby pot crop. I guess that speaks to the subtlety and intelligence of such people.

[Jack Johnson]

Hemp necklace!

[jasno]

Well because a field of feral hemp looks about the same as a field of lanky 100% sativa goodness.

What are they going to do, check the buds for dankness?

[Rhayader]

We're the only industrialized nation in the world that doesn't allow hemp production. It's not that hard to tell a legitimate industrial hemp field from a guerrilla grow.

[Zeb]

In the world I like to imagine, they are not going to care why you are cultivating cannabis either way.

[skr]

this has already been dealt with with regards to large scale pepper seed production. There are ag materials that can filter out the pollen. The large scale production of MJ will be more like the large scale production of flowers in the central valley than wheat or strawberries.

[BakedPenguin]

The Los Angeles Times reports that some pot growers in Humboldt County are having second thoughts about the prospect of going legit now that a marijuana legalization initiative has qualified for the November ballot

God, this makes me want to get my AK and shoot some stupid, worthless hippies. Where is the DEA when they could actually provide a service? Namely, beating down dumbass, self-serving c*ntsores who are willing to see others thrown in prison for years so that they can make a little more money than they otherwise would have.

Die, die, die, you worthless fuckbags.

[Troy]

+1.

I was going to say just about the same thing...except I was going to call them cocksuckers instead of cuntsores.

I wonder if these were the same useless fuckers who were hanging around Haight and Ashbury proselytizing for free love, free food, free healthcare, and free weed?

[jasno]

No, they all grew up and got jobs.

These fuckers mostly came around after that.

[capitol l]

Cuntsore is better, you see a cocksucker brings pleasure to others, whereas a cuntsore...

[Episiarch]

But BP, if it's legal, then it's not showing it to The Man! Think of the KULTUR WAR, you selfish bastard!

[Shyne]

Wait, is it clear that they'd be allowed to farm? Sure, people would be allowed to possess an ounce. But growing something on a commercial scale usually involves doing acres of land.

Is that going to be legal? Or just everything-under-an-ounce?

If you can't grow 'em like tomatoes, is it even accurate to really call it legalization?

[BakedPenguin]

"The initiative would also allow adults to grow up to 25 square feet of marijuana per residence or parcel."

[Rhayader]

The bill legalizes personal possession up to an ounce for adults, and personal cultivation in a private home in an area up to 25 square feet. That would be statewide.

But it also states that individual counties and municipalities would be free to establish systems for large-scale production and distribution if they so choose. If the bill passes, I can't imagine Humboldt or Mendocino legislating their way out of that market.

[SugarFree]

5' x 5'? So like maybe 4 plants?

[Zeb]

You could keep yourself pretty well stocked on that. I've seen some amazing things come out of a 3'x3' closet.

[Rhayader]

Shiiiit, if you go Sea of Green you can get a whole lot more than 4 plants in a 5 by 5 area. My buddy from back in college has a little closet grow going -- he's got probably 10-12 plants in his closet, which can't be any more than 25 square feet.

If you set up right and cycle right and all that, 25 square feet is enough to keep you stoney year-round, and then some.

[Episiarch]

Whoa, NutraSweet can do math? I didn't realize you even know what a square root was, let alone calculate one.

[SugarFree]

Sometimes I even surprise myself.

[James Anderson Merritt]

No square roots around here, man, only hip ones, ya dig?

[skr]

25 sqft per person. two people in a household then 50 sqft. We aren't talking about letting the damn thing get to be 20 feet tall and letting it turn to hemp. Just keep cycling quickly from veg to flower and you will have more pot than you know what to do with. Just don't set up a stand in your front yard. They will confiscate the weed and the zucchini.

[Kill The Hippies]

What BP said...

[Greg]

Yeah - well all that too. I was sort of limiting the comment to the money they were talking about in the article.

[BakedPenguin]

Nothing personal, Greg. In case it wasn't incredibly obvious, this is something that upsets me a bit.

I mean, it bothers me when "businessmen" get together to game the system with their politician buddies. However, when the end result is peaceful people suffering in prison because of someone's greed, it's a whole other level. And I get very, very angry.

[Rhayader]

Yarb. +1.

[Lost_In_Translation]

Illegal marijuana "is the government's best agricultural price-support program ever," said Gerald Myers, a retired engineer and former volunteer fire chief who moved to the county in 1970. "If they ever want to help the wheat farmers, make wheat illegal."

I know technically someone can be this retarded, but everytime I see it, somehow I'm flabbergasted. Analogies are tricky, but surely he can't have thought this was a true statement.

[John Thacker]

"Retarded" is an insult to the retarded here. This kind of rent-seeking crosses over to "evil" IMO.

[Enough About Palin]

"Retarded" is an insult to the retarded here. This kind of rent-seeking crosses over to "evil" IMO one of the most frequently used words here at H&R

[John Thacker]

Yes. But this goes way beyond the normal retarded story we see here at H&R. "Let's have people in jail so our prices can go up."

[skr]

+1

[Steff]

The reason why marijuana would, indeed, become the new cash crop is because unlike tobacco, it grows far more easily. I could probably grow it in my yard in Ohio, unlike tobacco. This WOULD drive prices down, but is that a bad thing? My God, who's gonna bother smuggling grass over the border when it's dirt cheap?

Though, once it does go large-scale commercial, you'll find a bunch of liberals and conservatives banding together like they did with tobacco to talk about the toxic effect of inhaling smoke and ruining everyone's quality of air. Because it's inevitable that fashion dictates policy, which it mostly did with cigarettes long after the relationship between cancer and health ailments was established.

This will lead to sin taxes, and all kinds of other studies, thus creating yet another mess...

Or, I'm pessimistic.

[Zeb]

What you describe is very likely if pot is legalized. But, though there is some black market in tobacco, you don't see a lot of people getting murdered over it or people not directly involved in the black market going to prison over it, so it would still be a great improvement.

[Steff]

I want to see pot legalized. I also want people to leave tobacco-users the fuck alone. I can never, ever understand why liberals are rabidly anti-smoking and utterly pro-weed. Either way, you are definitely inhaling smoke. People can argue the chemical additives in cigarettes, but they wanna take out all natural tobacco, too.

I STILL don't get it.

[Episiarch]

KULTUR WAR, Steff. Liberals think "southern conservatives support the tobacco industry because they're huge corporations based in their states". Also, they see conservatives as anti-hippie, and therefore anti-weed, so they are for it.

Both TEAM RED and TEAM BLUE are fucking scum, and their only principles are "is the other side for it? Because then I'm against it."

[Steff]

...you know, I might be a dope. For all the reading I have done on pro/anti smoking, I never really considered that it was because most tobacco growers are from southern states populated by conservatives.

Thank you. Seriously. I never looked at it from that angle before.

[BakedPenguin]

Steff, you might be able to grow tobacco, even in Ohio. If it's too cold there, you could grow them inside. They're pretty plants, so it wouldn't look too strange.

I'm surprised there hasn't been a much larger upswing in grow-yer-own tobacco since the tobacco taxes went into effect. Especially, since the plant isn't unattractive, and would not look out of place in a suburban lawn border or garden.

[Steff]

I might have to look into doing just that. I love gardening, so spending some yard space on tobacco might not be a bad idea. I know that Ohio's growing season isn't optimal for tobacco, but with some proper though, starting inside might work.

Thanks for the link!

[prolefeed]

You can grow weed anywhere. You can grow it outdoors most places that have any sort of summer at all, and indoors anywhere at any time.

[Zeb]

Growing is easy. Making it into something pleasant to smoke is not so easy as I understand it.

[R C Dean]

No shit. Tobacco is labor-intensive, has to be picked just so, and (most especially) has to be cured just right, or it is absolutely brutal.

[JD]

From what I have read, growing tobacco is not that hard. The hard part is curing and aging it, which takes a lot more time and space than most people are willing to devote.

[BakedPenguin]

Wait... which color are we again?

[Episiarch]

I am white on the right side, BP. You are white on the left side.

[BakedPenguin]

So I'm naturally superior, right? It's hard to keep this stuff straight, especially since I came back from Omicron Ceti III.

Damn, I miss those spores...

[Tulpa]

Both TEAM RED and TEAM BLUE are fucking scum, and their only principles are "is the other side for it? Because then I'm against it."

Which is different from "libertarian" support for federal funding of stem cell research, how?

What you're describing is human nature. Red, blue, yellow, orange, it doesn't matter what team you're on.

[Cabeza de Vaca]

What libertarians support federally funded stem cell research?

[Kill The Hippies]

why liberals are rabidly anti-smoking and utterly pro-weed

Liberals aren't, as a group, pro-weed. Most, though not all, dope-smoking liberals are though.

[Steff]

True. I suppose I've just seen one too many libs who were screaming about how unfair it is that weed is illegal, and then five minutes later, howling about how my smoke is poisoning their air. It makes me blink a lot.

True that not all liberals are like that. I think younger ones tend to be.

[jasno]

You're conflating a ban on where you can smoke tobacco with an outright ban on marijuana.

[Steff]

One will be the other, eventually.

[Forrest]

I can never, ever understand why liberals are rabidly anti-smoking and utterly pro-weed.

How much does smoking weed increase your chances of developing lung cancer or emphysema or having a heart attack? There's your answer!

But I shouldn't mock. It took a lot of courage for you to admit being irredeemably stupid. I'm proud of you.

[Cabeza de Vaca]

Troll,

I personally know several people whose lungs have collapsed from taking bong hits. So you're irredeemably stupid also.

[skr]

if weed were cheaper, I would eat way more.

[AlmightyJB]

" I could probably grow it in my yard in Ohio"

"You could definately grow it in your yard in Ohio and it would do great."

[Steff]

I wish I could! Man, I'm married to a COP and he agrees marijuana laws are bullshit. I haven't even smoked the stuff, and I'd still grow it. Just because.

[Lawn Gnome]

Does he enforce laws that he thinks are unjust?

[Steff]

Not really.

He doesn't write seatbelt tickets. Weed is a bit trickier -- there's a fine line between holding to your ideals and losing your job. So he has cited for weed. He has, however, outright told people that if he doesn't see it, he can't do anything about it, therefore don't let him see it. He will stop people for speeding, but unless they're really way above the limit or have a record of speeding, he writes warnings.

So yes, I would say he does, within the limits of being able to remain employed by being in law enforcement.

[Zeb]

Does he know about LEAP?

http://www.leap.cc/

[Lawn Gnome]

I'm surprised you husband still has a job as he doesn't seem to be of the revenue-generator-with-a-badge type.

I applaud your husband's ethic but I am sure he is way in the minority.

[Rhayader]

Or grow it in your closet anywhere in the world.

[Jordan]

Business seeks to use government regulation to prevent competition. Liberals scratch their head in confusion. News at 11.

[Rhayader]

Here's my thing. I smoke pot every day, and I like good weed. I have no interest in buying some Phillip-Morris grown merch schwag crap that comes pre-rolled in filtered cigs. If I want a headache I can just turn on the news.

I think a legal pot industry would look a whole hell of a lot more like the fine wine industry than the tobacco industry. A huge segment of the marijuana market wants exactly the sort of finely manicured, genetically perfect, crystal-covered beauties that Humboldt growers have been producing for decades. Even if we cared about how a legal marijuana industry would affect such a small segment of the population -- which we shouldn't -- the people of Humbold, Mendocino, etc have absolutely nothing to worry about. We like their dank.

[Episiarch]

It would actually probably be like the micro-brewery industry even more than the wine industry. You'd have your huge producers that churn out baseline stuff, like Budweiser, and then you'd have every sort of small specialty producer under the sun making an incredible variety of stuff.

And it would be great. The benefits to the economy alone would be fucking staggering.

[Rhayader]

Hell yeah, that sounds just fine to me. And the Humboldt hippies with their 600W HPS lights in their mom's basements should shut the hell up if they don't like it.

[Steff]

It would! Huge benefits. And existing DUI laws already cover being high while driving, so it's not like we'll need to add fifty new stupid laws to protect the anti-weed people from their own paranoia.

[AuH20]

Actually, I think the tobacco industry may hold the best comparison here.

There will be the schwag weed that is pretty easily available in the mainstream, and will mostly be sold pre-rolled in cigarettes... think your Newports,Camels, Marlboros (though older stoners like me will always prefer unrolled, and there will be a market for that).

The high quality stuff will be more like the cigar industry (just as you pay top dollar for some fine Cubans, you will pay top dollar for fine weed).

Although Epi, I do think you are right in that there would be incredible local variety, with some highly successful local strains eventually going national.

[Rhayader]

Yeah it's funny, it's almost like the "tobacco industry" does not include fine cigar makers. The business model and customer base is just so different in every way.

In that sense I think it's similar to the idea of Budweiser versus a Micro-Brew, like Epi said.

[prolefeed]

You'd have both your "Two Buck Chuck" type weed (FWIW, Charles Shaw Merlot at $3 is an amazingly good wine), and your high-end Sonoma/Napa type weed.

[Shyne]

One of the points of having markets is that no individual can figure out in advance what people are going to want. Let 1000 flowers (ok, buds) bloom and let trial and error sort it out.

Who knows? Maybe people will love shitty brickweed?

Eventually, though, we're going to see a situation arise that will have some calling for regulation. Some asshole will try to adulterate their shit in a potentially dangerous way and then the whole apparatus of the California department of organic Cannabis will send its inspectors to farms around the state.

They may even check for minimum (maximum?) THC levels. And the stoners will have to move on to moonshine (or whatever you call the pot equivalent)...

[Rhayader]

Who knows? Maybe people will love shitty brickweed?

Hah maybe, but so far our quasi-legal markets have slanted far toward the high-quality side of the scale. Good luck finding brickweed in a dispensary in LA.

And the stoners will have to move on to moonshine (or whatever you call the pot equivalent)...

I guess that's where hashish and honey oil and the like would fit in, huh?

[Episiarch]

Hey, way more people drink Coors than drink Dogfish Head. I think generic (and cheap, remember) brickweed would go off the scale once it became legal.

[Rhayader]

Yeah true, I mean every big bust you read about now is like 89 kilos bricked up in the back of a U-Haul, so obviously people are buying the stuff now.

So yeah I'm sure the big & cheap production model would make its way into the market. I just don't think it could push out the high-quality niche market -- in fact I think the balance between demand for the two models would be a lot closer with cannabis than with alcohol.

[BakedPenguin]

Also, not everyone can afford Widow White, Kush, etc. - not even were it legal.

[SugarFree]

And stupid fucking hipsters would smoke the shittiest weed possible to pose as some sort of regular dude.

[Episiarch]

PBR isn't the shittiest beer, NutraSweet. Rainier is. I didn't know that before I moved to Seattle, but now I do.

[Zeb]

What about Gennesee cream ale? The first sip tastes like someone already put a cigarette out in it.

[Episiarch]

Have you had Rainier? If you had, you wouldn't ask that question.

[AuH20]

I think it'd be more like the tobacco industry, with the cigarette-cigar divide.

People who liked good weed would be like cigar smokers, while people looking for a quick, cheap buzz would be more on the cigarette end of the spectrum

[Tim]

All these markets have their analogies:

PBR - Dogfish Head
Marlboro - Cubans
Boones Farm - Lafite Rothschild

etc...

[prolefeed]

It doesn't make sense to make brickweed when it's illegal, since the penalties for possession are based on weight, not THC content.

Legalize it, and suddenly cheap stuff would become economically rational to produce.

[Rhayader]

Yeah I see what you're saying, but brickweed is actually much more prevalent in the underground market than it is in semi-legal markets like the Cali dispensaries or Amsterdam. But those markets still shroud production in secrecy, so who knows what that actually means.

[Paul]

If...IF you're operating in an unregulated market where you're free to produce whatever you want, however you want. See my posts below.

[Rhayader]

That scenario seems to involve "medicalized" marijuana though. We're talking about legal production for recreational use.

[Paul]

I understand. But it's all speculation. And the cynic in me says that in the end, the government will prefer a medicalization law because it gives them more control.

[Rhayader]

Yeah that's why I hope a supermajority of states pass voter-initiated legalization before the feds try to re-schedule it. If they're trying to rein in a wild west by the time they address the issue, we might end up OK.

But yeah, a top-down federal re-sched would probably be pretty onerous.

[Zeb]

Tell that to the Mexicans.

[IceTrey]

Well if it was legal and easy to get I'd prefer to smoke hash.

[prolefeed]

The conventional wisdom here is that fully legal weed might fetch no more than a few hundred dollars a pound

I think that's off by one to two orders of magnitude. Imagine many square miles of Central Valley farmland crammed full of weed. The price should drop to perhaps ten bucks a pound, similar to the price of other dried herbs. It's not an expensive crop to grow if you're not dodging law enforcement.

[Paul]

Imagine medicalized marijuana. I'll bet you all the way up to 50 cents that if it gets legalized medically, it'll eventually be classed as a schedule ii narcotic.

Now imagine a pharmaceutical growing 'oxycontin' or 'vicodin' in an open field.

Think again. People growing marijuana are going to be required to have so much security and government oversight that again, only the largest factory farmers will have the resources to comply.

[Zeb]

This is true if you don't care about quality and you want to spend lots of time picking out seeds. Growing, preparing and curing good stuff is fairly labor intensive.

[Paul]

Recently, "Keep Pot Illegal" bumper stickers have been seen on cars around the county. In chat rooms and on blogs, anonymous writers predict that tobacco companies will crush small farmers and take marijuana production to the Central Valley....

It's worse than that. With the never-ending "Regulate us! Tax us! Set us free!" mantra that the marijuana lobby has been screaming, that's exactly what they're going to get. And on the 'regulate us!' front, they're going to get the FDA so far up their ass their tonsils will have to be delcared 'safe and effective' everytime they open their mouths.

Every aspect of their growing operation, potency, toxins etc. will be scrutinized to a degree in which only the largest corporate growers will have the resources to comply.

Plus, it's "smoking"... look what's happened to cigarettes over the last few years. You think you're going to get by that by whistling past the regulatory graveyard? Think again.

Add in the fact that people keep pushing marijuana as "medicine" and now you've got the entire government medical establishment pressing down on you. What, you thought you were going to have a 'boutique' drug business? Nope, if marijuana is legalized in a medical context, the only people who are ultimately going to be able enter this business are the major pharmaceutical corporations.

[AuH20]

Actually, knowing the FDA's stance on electronic cigarettes, will the vaporizer industry just completely die (a vape pretty much operates by the same principles).

[skr]

Pot doesn't have to be smoked. It works quite well when eaten. This could complicate regulations aimed at limiting smoking.

[SugarFree]

Malcolm McClaren is dead. Con men of the world mourn.

[BakedPenguin]

He was the P.T. Barnum of punk. I had mixed feelings about the guy, but it's a loss.

[SugarFree]

Another McClaren band.

[Kill The Hippies]

And a good one. more subversive than the Sex Pistols in many ways

[James Anderson Merritt]

I had the good fortune to be the board-engineer for an interview between Annabella and one of our station DJs when I worked college radio in the early 1980s. I thought of that experience when I read about McLaren today.

[Susan]

We can't have pot legal because it has been illegal a long time ant it is just what we do. We are in a rescession and many jobs depond on pot prohibition. Prisons bring much needed jobs to rural communities.

[Rhayader]

Not this again. You're a troll, right?

[wayne]

Funny stuff, Susan! Do you have a boyfriend?

[Robo Sapien]

Privately owned prisons (yes, they profit from the incarceration biz) are being built at increasing rates to meet the demand caused by imprisonment of non-violent marijuana offenders. FUCK THAT.

[JSinAZ]

I'm wondering how the nannies will decide to regulate the extract and concentrate market - schwag can be transmuted to gold by some careful solvent extraction, or perhaps bubble hash preparation. I can image a new letter or two being added to BATFE - maybe a new 'T' for delta-9 THC?

[wayne]

I think all of you Pot snobs are way off-base. High quality MJ can easily be grown outdoors. The only reason I can imagine pot costing "several hundred dollars per pound" is if the gubmint lays a $190 per pound tax on it; that is exactly what I expect to see, of course.

[skr]

but only on crop a year

[James Anderson Merritt]

"Last month Nick Gillespie cited an A.P. story that similarly illustrated the confluence between satire and reality..."

Merritt's Conjecture: If you travel widely enough, or live long enough, you will witness the convergence of reality with even the most outrageous satire.