The dispensary business won't collapse because they are not competing with pharmacies. Though it will be fun to watch the insurance companies push back when pot is prescribed for whiplash, colorblindness, and genital herpes.
Luckily, the price will be so low, even after-tax, that you won't need insurance to fund your cannabis consumption.
Why do doctors face no backlash for prescribing painkillers willy nilly. Americans use legal painkillers more than any other country in the world.
It is very much a recreational users "drug," whatever you want call it, first and therefore engenders many characteristics of its sales.
A normal pharmacist is not going to walk the consumer through all the different kinds of "highs" the "patient" can get from different variations of Vicodin the way a dispensary worker would with canabis.
As well, I doubt CVS will start hanging "420" and Bob Marley posters all over the place or provide the kind "canabis experience" that consumers will want, for various, which will continue to be served by the dispensaries.
There are many strains that are cultivated for improving recreational experiences, I don't see Walgreens catering to this. So, I think the dispensaries will continue to exist in a significant way, but sure some of their business will be taken away but perhaps because of other effects the market for dispensaries will be expanded.
Even for those who use "recreationally", there are different goals. Some people use it to sit on the couch and watch netflix. Some use it to clean their bathrooms. Some use it while snowboarding or rock climbing. A lot of people use it to self-medicate anxiety and other issues. And different strains can be better for each of those.
As much as there may be a difference in flavour for wines, they all get you drunk the same way. Not so with cannabis.
How would a reduced federal scheduling level for cannabis also reduce the state's power?
Moving marijuana to schedule 2 will allow scientists to make honest assessments of its benefits and harms.
If you guys were in Canada, I'd be terrified right now. Thankfully, this blue ocean is undisturbed by the ycombinator fish thus far.
Post April 21st, when the UN convenes, and Canada/Mexico pull-out/renegotiate three of their treaties, the U.S. might be pulled in as a result, and Obama can quietly brag about Marijuana being legalized under his administration (and he doesn't have to take credit!)
1. http://www.canlii.org/en/ca/fct/doc/2016/2016fc236/2016fc236...
2. http://www.canlii.org/en/on/onca/doc/2000/2000canlii5762/200... [210]
Considering that concert and event venues were seized under crack-house laws in the early 2000s simply for hosting music events that featured drug use by attendees, actually facilitating drug use seems like not much of a stretch.
ps. I am in favor of complete legalization including the right to grow your own and sell, barter or gift your product to adults over the age of 18.
Hopefully, when you say "according to what I have seen", you are referring to respected scientific literature rather than anecdotal experience and heresay...
Cannabis is a "soft drug" when compared to drugs like heroin and cocaine - "soft" is a relative description. It is not meant to imply that using cannabis is entirely without negative effects.
Yes, it should be used in moderation - like alcohol, which is a more dangerous, legal drug.
The war on drugs does not work, so let's take a fresh approach.
Consenting adults not harming others should have the right to poison themselves as they see fit.
Well yes, they are criminals who have broken the law. Your argument is defeatist; drug prohibition works quite well in places like Japan and Singapore.
The current POTUS smoked cannabis regularly in his youth. Can you imagine how his career might have turned out differently if he was stuck in prison for a few months or years, because hey he's a criminal and he's broken the law? Which would have done more harm there, the drug or the criminal charges?
The question you need to ask yourself isn't whether or not your teenage kids - soon to become independent adults - will try weed. The question is, do you want them to be educated about potential harms and get ID'd until they turn 21, or risk them getting an illegal product that isn't tested from a violence-ridden cartel (that doesn't check IDs, by the way)?
I highly recommend that you educate yourself about this drug, as I'm not sure of what scale of harmfulness cannabis can be classified as a "hard drug" [1]. The New York Times' 2014 editorial board's writeup on this issue is thoroughly documented and excellent [2].
[0] https://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/drugfacts/high-school...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_harmfulness#/media/File:2...
[2] http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/07/27/opinion/sunday...
People get addicted to drugs mainly because they self-medicate for anxiety or depression, that's what you should really worry about actually, concerning your children.
I am going to assume that you grew up in a country where alcohol was available to teenagers, to a greater or lesser extent. And yet you also - presumably - managed to avoid turning in to a raging alcoholic.
Despite the availability of drugs and alcohol, you managed to avoid becoming a slave to either of them.
The mere availability of drugs (of any kind) will not immediately turn your children in to stoners, alcoholics and junkies. The causes of addiction are deeper than that.
As you said, you know what it is like to be a teenager. Teenagers experiment with various things that adults would prefer they avoided. Given that fact, let me ask you this:
Assume your children are going to drink underage (it is statistically likely that they will). Would you prefer them to drink a) a bottle of beer that an older friend purchased on their behalf, or b) a jar of moonshine, which was homemade without any quality control, and might contain adulterants?
This is not a rhetorical question, or a snarky one - I'm genuinely curious as to which you would prefer.
> My point is that I don't want my kids being turned into stoners and that the law should be on MY side, not the guy pushing drugs on them.
You seem to be saying that your children will be turned in to stoners if cannabis is easily available to them. Given that alcohol will be available to them, do you worry that they will turn in to alcoholics?
If not, why not?
If so, are you also campaigning to return to the days of alcohol prohibition?
If weed is forbidden/taboo, there's a good chance that your child will come across a successful/popular/intelligent peer that completely discredits everything you've ever told them about "stoners". My fiance is in medical school at a highly selective school and from interacting with a lot of her peers socially I've been again amazed at how many regular smokers are highly intelligent, driven and successful. Once it's truly out in the open, these successes can have a lot more context and we'll truly be able to study and discuss what truth there is to the stoner stereotype.
Should it? It isn't on your side if they want to (as consenting adults): ride a motorcycle, drink alcohol, go heliskiing, visit a strip club, buy condoms, or go bungie jumping, for example.
Should all potentially harmful activities of any kind be criminalized as well, because you have kids and the law should be on your side?
EDIT, for clarity: But no one who advocates legalization is advocating the scenario you describe. Total fantasy.
Perhaps you mean that no parent wants their young child/teenager to use drugs? No one in this thread (or anyone at Meadow) is advocating for that, we are specifically discussing adult use.
If we can take anything away from this extrapolated conversation, it should be that it's important to become educated and informed about topics highly susceptible to misinformation.
