Tag: legalization of marijuana

Endless Rules

Guest Post by John Stossel

Endless Rules

Politicians just don’t learn.

People die as police fight drug dealers. Marijuana dealers form gangs and fight among themselves.

It’s so stupid. Especially because marijuana is relatively harmless.

Finally, some states legalized it, hoping to put an end to the black market. But legalization hasn’t ended the violence.

Why? Because many states impose so many unnecessary rules.

California is one of the worst.

“The illicit market is approximately two to three times the size of the legal market,” says cannabis industry lawyer Tom Howard in my new video.

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Pot Heads

Guest Post by The Zman

One of the stranger developments in the last twenty years has been the slow semi-legalization of marijuana. Some states have gone down the “medical marijuana” road while others have legalized it. Federal law has not changed, with regards to marijuana, but the enforcement has changed. In theory this should result in an irreconcilable conflict, but so far the Feds have cooperated with the states to avoid problems. Jeff Sessions has indicated that’s about to change, but a year in and there has been no change.

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Legal Marijuana’s Social Impact On Colorado

Via ConvergEx’s Nicholas Colas,

Believe it or not, there was no change in the number of marijuana users in Colorado between 2014 and 2015 after legalization of the sale of recreational cannabis went into effect. At least that’s what Colorado’s Retail Marijuana Public Advisory Committee reported in their latest research on the effects of marijuana on public health. They also found that calls to poison centers for exposure to marijuana and emergency room visits continue to fall. The State Department of Public Safety also reported that the number of marijuana arrests nearly halved, down by 46% between 2012 and 2014. Moreover, Colorado has one of the lowest unemployment rates in the country, and the legal marijuana industry has certainly helped by adding 18,000 new full-time jobs in 2015 according to the Marijuana Policy Group. Perhaps the most significant benefit to the state is tax receipts, as Colorado received $198.5 million in tax revenue last year from marijuana sales of $1.3 billion.

Bottom line, retail marijuana legalization has had its fair share of pros and cons in Colorado, but it’s not been nearly as bad as critics had forecast.

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I_S VISITS A LEGAL MARIJUANA SHOP

After going out to breakfast this morning I walked down the street to check out my first legal weed shop in person. I was curious to find out if the prices for weed on priceofweed.com in states where it had been legalized were based on legal purchases or black market because their website does not say. I walked there mostly because I don’t want my license plate recorded (if that kind of thing is going on) but it is colder than a well diggers ass out there at 7 degrees above zero!

The place was clean and neat with no hint of marijuana aroma at all. Called Smokane, it looked a bit like a white sterile hospital room with jewelry display cases. There was a chalk board menu of their products on the wall which isn’t really helpful unless you are familiar with the hundreds of different strains that exist. They break things down by type which falls into sativa (head high) and indica (body high) and hybrids which supposedly offer aspects of both.

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