Legal marijuana sales forecast to hit $23B in 4 years • Hacker News Board

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

#71

Post by ams6110 » Mon, Mar 21, 2016, 1:59 PM UTC

justsaysmthng wrote: post #46

bcook wrote: 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…

I usually hear the term "addiction" used more for the physical cases such as alcohol or narcotics, and "dependency" more in the psychological sense.

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

#72

Post by Tenhundfeld » Mon, Mar 21, 2016, 2:20 PM UTC

enkephalin wrote: post #56

forgetsusername wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Hard to see how it's much different to tobacco really. For one, you don't have to smoke it (where the majority of negative health effects come from). You can eat it, steep it, drink it. Comparing it to tobacco is ridiculous.

you can also insufflate or chew tobacco. i don't find the comparison ridiculous at all. both contain psychoactive subtances, and can lead to serious health issues, or a decline in quality of life (tobacco of course being more dangerous than weed).

Nicotine is one of the most addictive substances ever studied. THC is not physiologically addictive.

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

#73

Post by cr1895 » Mon, Mar 21, 2016, 2:26 PM UTC

kazuyan wrote: post #48

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

It's an extremely common misconception, but it isn't legal in the NL. It is tolerated through an official policy called "gedoogbeleid" in which it is effectively legal for people over 18 to buy up to 5 grams at a time in a coffeeshop. It's that famous Dutch tolerance.

However, there are some key differences with the situation in the US. In the Netherlands, the supply to the coffeeshops is still very much illegal; it's a "mystery" how the shops are supplied, but they've got the product (max 500g at any given time), and it's tolerated for them to sell it to the public. Supply however remains under the table. Enforcement is rigid, if they're over the 500g limit, selling to minors, or selling other hard drugs then they can be swiftly shut down.

The Dutch government at the highest levels is increasingly regressive; they've even begun to criminalize supporting the growing of cannabis, which is absurd when you see that innocent garden supply shops are now potentially liable. At the municipal level in the largely pro-cannabis cities (e.g. Amsterdam, Rotterdam), there have been plans to try regulated and tolerated growing. The national government however emphatically rejects these plans and prevents it from happening. Some councils (especially in the south near Belgium) have enacted resident-only restrictions, which has the not-unsurprising effect that nuisance street dealing picked up. The government tried to enact this nationwide, but many cities refused and there are usually no residence restrictions except for certain areas.

(Interesting fact: only 35% of visitors to Amsterdam visit a coffeeshop. It's a big, inaccurate stereotype that the Dutch are stoned all the time or that Amsterdam is all about weed. Americans smoke a lot more than the Dutch do, much to many visitors' surprise.)

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

#74

Post by encoderer » Mon, Mar 21, 2016, 2:28 PM UTC

justsaysmthng wrote: post #46

bcook wrote: 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…

To qualify as addition it must not be only habitual but also harmful.

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

#75

Post by Zigurd » Mon, Mar 21, 2016, 2:30 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #65

cbd1984 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Freedom of movement isn't in there, either. Nor is the freedom to use math to secure your documents. Are you claiming these are not rights?

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

#76

Post by madaxe_again » Mon, Mar 21, 2016, 2:41 PM UTC

rmc wrote: post #36

drawkbox wrote: post #25

The US could use a new market to add to the economy that is for sure. A large majority of people in the US support it at 58% for all, 64% under 50, 71% under 35 [1] However with the surveillance society we live in, we need to rid the books of laws that most people break otherwise there will be a sea of non-violent crimes that don't make logical sense today. Laws as deterrents for moralistic or non-violent acts do not…

> 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

Both known as "the bogeyman" in the UK and being used as an argument as to why we should leave the EU, by both politicians and press, which many appear to have already bought.

The mind boggles.

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

#77

Post by 6502nerdface » Mon, Mar 21, 2016, 2:42 PM UTC

pakiko82 wrote: post #57

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

If you're an accredited investor in the US, you could consider investing in a number of cannabis-focused hedge funds, private equity funds, and venture capital funds that have sprung up recently.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/debraborchardt/2015/05/19/cannab...

http://poseidonassetmanagement.com/

http://www.privateerholdings.com/about/

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

#78

Post by rayiner » Mon, Mar 21, 2016, 2:45 PM UTC

Zigurd wrote: post #75

rayiner wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Freedom of movement isn't in there, either. Nor is the freedom to use math to secure your documents. Are you claiming these are not rights?

Freedom to use encryption I think falls squarely under the first amendment, because it's a way of communicating with other people. Freedom of movement has been held to fall under the privileges and immunities clause, which is at least plausible considering that one of the purposes of the constitution was to eliminate interstate barriers to trade.

But privacy? I don't think such a right exists, at least not in its modern formulation. You can't find modern articulations of the idea in contemporaneous works.

And that's a big deal. If you're going to say that a 200-year old document prohibits a democratically-elected Congress and President from setting policy, you better prove that the folks who wrote that document intended that prohibition. Democracy is supposed to be the general rule; Constitutional rights the exception.

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

#79

Post by madaxe_again » Mon, Mar 21, 2016, 2:47 PM UTC

TheLogothete wrote: post #41

golergka wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you go from the assumption that marijuana is almost as bad as cocaine and heroin — which a lot of policy makers and beurocrats pretty sincerely believed — it makes total sense.

No one actually believes that. Not anyone with any kind of power anyways.

That generation grew up earnestly believing that a single toke would drive you irrevocably insane, to murder, to rape, to jump from a tenth story window.

Watch "Reefer Madness" - it's reflective of the mindset these policymakers grew up with.

If you want to understand where that mindset ultimately came from, look at the history of cocaine prohibition - it boils down to racial politics.

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

#80

Post by at-fates-hands » Mon, Mar 21, 2016, 2:48 PM UTC

Mark my words, now that states see the incredible tax revenues from this industry, they're going to tax the fuck out of it, and then regulate the hell out of it to discourage and limit new businesses popping up all over (which is already happening anyways).

This has become a cash cow for state governments and I don't see this ending well for anybody wanting to use legally. The government track record on stuff like this is absolutely miserable.