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Legal marijuana sales forecast to hit $23B in 4 years

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61–70 of 133 posts

Re: Legal marijuana sales forecast to hit $23B in 4 years

#61
post #2

Terrifying, as the distribution of marijuana in the United States remains a federal crime, allowing anyone in this industry to be legally locked up at any time by the feds. Someone once told me that this is how most of China operates; there are many common day-to-day things (such as money transfers) that close to 100% of the population engages in that are completely illegal, yet tolerated. When a person does somethin…

It is a very precarious situation which I think extends beyond the marijuana industry, even in the US. What you said about China reminded me of the book Three Felonies A Day, which explains how modern federal crime laws put US citizens in a similar position of being extorted at the whims of the state. It seems like there could be an opportunity for some kind of mutual aid arrangement -- an insurance policy of sorts -…

You might try to make the argument that if enforecement is highly inconsistent that it's being done with bias. Not sure a judge would agree but it seems to be a reasonable argument. If the Feds are not enforcing a law, what's the point of the law?

Similar to how trademarks can be voided if they are not consistently defended.

Edit: written before I saw vidarth's comment.

Re: Legal marijuana sales forecast to hit $23B in 4 years

#62
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generic classes/treatments/therapy on addiction already exist. Marijuana has not been proven to be physically addictive like alcohol & heroin. Psychological addiction can happen with anything, so that is why I mention generic addiction treatment. I think your point is valid though. We can always learn more, especially if it can help.

I so dislike the word "addiction" because it puts every type of cyclical behavior in one bucket. Even worse is the word "addict", which is dirty and degrading and helpless. Just like the word "drugs" or "criminal". There are so many shades to it that one word just doesn't cut it. The word we use to state the issue gives us the frame of where to look for solutions, hence a bad statement can lead to bad solutions. For…

If you replace a word with another fairly quickly the positive and negative connotations follow it. Ex: African Americans and Black are much closer together than they used to be.

Re: Legal marijuana sales forecast to hit $23B in 4 years

#63

Has anyone figured out how one could get exposure to this in the stock market? Any other way to legally invest in this boom?

At the moment these businesses in the USA can't even use the banks. There are some large growers in Canada that are listed on the TSX. Aphria Inc., Mettrum Health Corp., Canopy Growth Corp., which owns two of Canada’s biggest licensed marijuana producers, Tweed and Bedrocan.

It seems growers who supply the retail outlets will be the way to go.

Re: Legal marijuana sales forecast to hit $23B in 4 years

#64

Good. It's now time to explore the market for people who want to quit/detox from the weed. I'm not saying this in a sarcastic way - I've been smoking on and off for 20 years and I have great respect for the plant. But it has this "self-limiting" property - sometimes you want to be with it, sometimes you want to take a break. And taking a break is not trivial for some people. This is were the secondary market can take…

Have you tried a high CBD/low THC strain? When I found it was limiting me, I moved over to a strain of this type and it still satisfied my urge to smoke something tasty, but also did not hold me back from doing anything, as it these strains do not get you 'stoned' in the normal sense. In hindsight, my addiction was that I related the act smoking to sitting back and being lazy, so once I removed that link I no longer…

Yeah basically just sort yourself some Sativa instead of Indica. It's almost like a whole new drug. I much prefer it, plus sex on it is utterly amazing.

Re: Legal marijuana sales forecast to hit $23B in 4 years

#65
post #53
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> However with the surveillance society we live in Or you could change the US constitution so that it includes a right to privacy and data protection, like the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, or the European Convention of Human Rights

It effectively does: the fourth amendment. More explicit verbiage is unlikely to matter. Besides, nobody said Europe wasn't a surveillance society.

The constitution doesn't have the word privacy anywhere in it. And the 4th amendment is worded as a specific protection against " searches" and "seizures" not surveillance.

Re: Legal marijuana sales forecast to hit $23B in 4 years

#66
post #51
post #48

Wondering how big this is compare to Netherlands :) Marijuana has been legal there for long time.

IIRC, marijuana is not legal in the Netherlands, but is 'tolerated'.

Oh, you are right! I didn't know!

http://europe.newsweek.com/marijuana-and-old-amsterdam-30821...

Re: Legal marijuana sales forecast to hit $23B in 4 years

#67
post #42
post #2

Terrifying, as the distribution of marijuana in the United States remains a federal crime, allowing anyone in this industry to be legally locked up at any time by the feds. Someone once told me that this is how most of China operates; there are many common day-to-day things (such as money transfers) that close to 100% of the population engages in that are completely illegal, yet tolerated. When a person does somethin…

A way to "solve" this might be (and it'd be incredibly hard) to give a constitutional right for "uneven exercise of the law" or something of that sort to be a defence against most charges: If you could demonstrate that cases are selectively investigated or prosecuted other than by clear, published standards (e.g. based on amount of available evidence), the law in question should be considered null and void until the…

There is a "selective prosecution" defense [1]. In tax law, there is a "selective enforcement" defense [2].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selective_prosecution

[2] http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1933943

Re: Legal marijuana sales forecast to hit $23B in 4 years

#68
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

are you serious? thc and nicotine are two different drugs. they are different . they do different things. and the sky is blue and 2 plus 2 equals 4. you don't have to smoke cannabis to get thc. you can eat it, and many people do. if you just don't like the idea of it, that's one thing and completely understandable, but claiming (even rhetorically) it's the same as tobacco is one of the stupidest things i've ever read…

> are you serious? thc and nicotine are two different drugs. they are different. they do different things. and the sky is blue and 2 plus 2 equals 4. They are different, but they have many similarities. They're used under similar circumstances. The business model around them is very similar. I would expect the industry that forms around it to ultimately behave very much like the tobacco/alcohol/etc. industries, and s…

I seriously doubt marijuana consumers tolerate harmful chemical additives. I expect marijuana businesses to behave about as badly as the average business, but I doubt they'll manage to be as hideously evil as the tobacco companies.

And what do you mean they're used under similar circumstances?

Re: Legal marijuana sales forecast to hit $23B in 4 years

#69

Has anyone figured out how one could get exposure to this in the stock market? Any other way to legally invest in this boom?

At the moment these businesses in the USA can't even use the banks. There are some large growers in Canada that are listed on the TSX. Aphria Inc., Mettrum Health Corp., Canopy Growth Corp., which owns two of Canada’s biggest licensed marijuana producers, Tweed and Bedrocan. It seems growers who supply the retail outlets will be the way to go.

Most of the growth pre-legalization at a federal level won't be at these companies though, right? There's no way these guys can be supplying the markets in WA/OR/CO/AK because they'd need to transport a lot of product over national borders and would have to deal with federal border agents. Right?

Re: Legal marijuana sales forecast to hit $23B in 4 years

#70
post #68
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> are you serious? thc and nicotine are two different drugs. they are different. they do different things. and the sky is blue and 2 plus 2 equals 4. They are different, but they have many similarities. They're used under similar circumstances. The business model around them is very similar. I would expect the industry that forms around it to ultimately behave very much like the tobacco/alcohol/etc. industries, and s…

I seriously doubt marijuana consumers tolerate harmful chemical additives. I expect marijuana businesses to behave about as badly as the average business, but I doubt they'll manage to be as hideously evil as the tobacco companies. And what do you mean they're used under similar circumstances?

>I seriously doubt marijuana consumers tolerate harmful chemical additives.

Why would they be any different from tobacco consumers?

>I expect marijuana businesses to behave about as badly as the average business, but I doubt they'll manage to be as hideously evil as the tobacco companies.

Don't most of the factors that make tobacco different from the average business apply equally to cannabis?

>And what do you mean they're used under similar circumstances?

They seem to serve a similar social function. Indeed don't people frequently smoke a mix of the two?

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