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SF suspends cannabis tax to help dispensaries compete with drug dealers

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Re: SF suspends cannabis tax to help dispensaries compete with drug dealers

#141

Post by junon »

JohnWhigham wrote: post #139
junon wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your first link's sample pool was high schoolers and young 20 y/os - people who haven't had their brains fully form yet (which happens around 25). Further, it was funded by the Australian department of health, so ehhh who knows what sort of biases exist there. I can't even open your second link. Picking sources from a Google search generally doesn't help to back up whatever point you're trying to make fwiw.

doesn't help to back up whatever point you're trying to make fwiw Neither does going "ehhh who knows what sort of biases exist there". What are you implying here, the people running the experiment are all inveterate stoners or something?

Do you want to address the main point of my comment or focus solely on the secondary point I made?

Re: SF suspends cannabis tax to help dispensaries compete with drug dealers

#142

Post by junon »

rat9988 wrote: post #138
junon wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your first link's sample pool was high schoolers and young 20 y/os - people who haven't had their brains fully form yet (which happens around 25). Further, it was funded by the Australian department of health, so ehhh who knows what sort of biases exist there. I can't even open your second link. Picking sources from a Google search generally doesn't help to back up whatever point you're trying to make fwiw.

This is the most biased answer I've ever read I believe.

How so? I pointed out a flaw in responding to my question with a study performed on adolescants.

Re: SF suspends cannabis tax to help dispensaries compete with drug dealers

#143

Post by ZeroGravitas »

boibombeiro wrote: post #90
aww_dang wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If people can sell pies, vegetables, dairy and sometimes cider at informal farmers markets, cannabis should be the same. Moldy cannabis is self-apparent in most cases. Toxic distilled alcohol isn't. Some claim you can use a flame test to detect poisonous liquor.

> Toxic distilled alcohol isn't. Do you realize this ideia of poison alcohol was propaganda done by the government during prohibition, right? We know how to distill from millenniums, and selling poisonous alcohol isn't a very sustainable business model... I remember reading an article about the success of this campaign (was one of the first of this kinda). I'm mobile, but I'm sure someone can find a post a link.

I think you might be referring to this legislative attempt to workaround tax avoidance with sometimes fatal consequences.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denatured_alcohol

> Denatured alcohol (also called methylated spirits, in Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa, and the United Kingdom; wood spirit; and denatured rectified spirit)[1] is ethanol that has additives to make it poisonous, bad-tasting, foul-smelling, or nauseating to discourage its recreational consumption. It is sometimes dyed so that it can be identified visually. Pyridine and methanol,[2] each and together, make denatured alcohol poisonous; and denatonium makes it bitter.

> In many countries, sales of alcoholic beverages are heavily taxed for revenue and public health policy purposes (see Pigovian tax). In order to avoid paying beverage taxes on alcohol that is not meant to be consumed, the alcohol must be "denatured", or treated with added chemicals to make it unpalatable. Its composition is tightly defined by government regulations in countries that tax alcoholic beverages.

Re: SF suspends cannabis tax to help dispensaries compete with drug dealers

#144

Post by Justsignedup »

dumbfoundded wrote: post #39
bryans wrote: post #24

In most recreational states, cannabis is taxed heavily at every step in the supply chain, so the highest quality still ends up being very expensive -- upward of $400/oz. The black market has the exact same quality at the wholesale price, typically 40-60% less than retail, with the added bonus of not having the government involved. For a daily or heavy smoker, a ~50% discount is a massive amount of money.

Additionally the taxes create operational overhead to stay compliant. Every product follows a chain of custody similar to pharmaceuticals. Even the scales used must be of the same spec used for gold weighing and cost roughly $1,500 each. It's not just the dispensaries but the wholesalers, processors, and cultivators need to buy these scales and register them once a year with the state for $100. Furthermore the batche…

As enforcement is winding down, weed dispensaries are competing against near slave wage labor.

That's the problem. Illegal weed is basically being created outside the US with labor who barely gets paid, of course the cost will be higher.

Because it's being imported via illegal channels this is now a customs problem.

My bet is that the way to solve this would be to create a legal weed import policy, letting it sit there for a decade, then when illegal weed channels don't exist, add on a tariff. Then things will balance out.

Re: SF suspends cannabis tax to help dispensaries compete with drug dealers

#145

Post by pmarreck »

boibombeiro wrote: post #90
aww_dang wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If people can sell pies, vegetables, dairy and sometimes cider at informal farmers markets, cannabis should be the same. Moldy cannabis is self-apparent in most cases. Toxic distilled alcohol isn't. Some claim you can use a flame test to detect poisonous liquor.

> Toxic distilled alcohol isn't. Do you realize this ideia of poison alcohol was propaganda done by the government during prohibition, right? We know how to distill from millenniums, and selling poisonous alcohol isn't a very sustainable business model... I remember reading an article about the success of this campaign (was one of the first of this kinda). I'm mobile, but I'm sure someone can find a post a link.

> this ideia of poison alcohol was propaganda done by the government during prohibition

imagine believing propaganda about propaganda.

congrats, man, you've come full-circle. methanol poisoning is very real, and methanol is definitely present in the "heads" of distillations (speaking as someone who's done this), and since there isn't a clear delineation between what is the "head" and what is the "body", it's entirely too easy (especially if you don't want to waste any of the good stuff) to accidentally include too much methanol in your distillation... which is exactly why alcohol is regulated

Re: SF suspends cannabis tax to help dispensaries compete with drug dealers

#146

Post by specialist »

Yes and (Adjacently): Dispensaries also need access to basic financial services. Like merchant bank accounts.

In my jurisdiction, dispensaries are still cash only. Because of federal law, banks won't touch weed money. (Ironic, given how many have laundered cartel monies.)

IIRC, there's been security problems. Like stick-up robberies. Which increases risks and costs (more security).

I know people working on weed policy. Harmonizing all the laws up and down the legal stack. Totally not my issue, so please correct me.

--

My throwaway crazy uninformed idea: Merge the marijuana and state-run bank policy advocacy. So that dispensaries (et al) have a safe, convenient alternative to handling cash.

Aha. WA State Rep Hasegawa proposed this policy in 2014.

https://cannabisnow.com/washington-state-could-manage-mariju...

Hasegawa is a great guy. So I'm probably repeating an idea I heard during some presentation (and not being original).

Any way. SanFran should create their own bank for their own small businesses, including dispensaries.

Edit: Maybe even just start their own credit union. Like a union of local small businesses. Sponsored by the local chamber of commerce and partially underwritten by the city. Totally spitballing here; I have zero knowledge about this stuff.

Sorry. I no idea about the current status of state-run banking, in WA, CA, or else where. In general terms and in principle, I support anything that takes power away from commercial, publicly traded banks.

Re: SF suspends cannabis tax to help dispensaries compete with drug dealers

#147

Post by pmarreck »

junon wrote: post #68
darthrupert wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

50% is worth the diminshed crime, and nobody should consume cannabis daily.

> nobody should consume cannabis daily Based on... what? Your opinion? Your parents? Your god? Because it's certainly not based on fact.

Not every counterargument or counterevidence to your worldview is an appeal to taste, authority, tradition or religion.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/alicegwalton/2014/10/07/what-20...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-term_effects_of_cannabis

That said, outcomes may vary by individual, daily quantity, and whatever strain was most commonly smoked, and frankly, if it had been decriminalized and taxed instead of demonized from the get-go, research would have been much further along by now (can't exactly easily study an illegal substance).

Re: SF suspends cannabis tax to help dispensaries compete with drug dealers

#148

Post by pmarreck »

junon wrote: post #133
Thorentis wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not based on fact? Which facts are those? Certainly not these ones I'm guessing? https://www.uq.edu.au/news/article/2021/01/long-term-study-r... https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https:/...

Your first link's sample pool was high schoolers and young 20 y/os - people who haven't had their brains fully form yet (which happens around 25). Further, it was funded by the Australian department of health, so ehhh who knows what sort of biases exist there. I can't even open your second link. Picking sources from a Google search generally doesn't help to back up whatever point you're trying to make fwiw.

Here's what his second link landed on, for me:

https://accp1.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdfdirect/10.1002/...

Re: SF suspends cannabis tax to help dispensaries compete with drug dealers

#149

Post by MisterTea »

bryans wrote: post #24

In most recreational states, cannabis is taxed heavily at every step in the supply chain, so the highest quality still ends up being very expensive -- upward of $400/oz. The black market has the exact same quality at the wholesale price, typically 40-60% less than retail, with the added bonus of not having the government involved. For a daily or heavy smoker, a ~50% discount is a massive amount of money.

> For a daily or heavy smoker, a ~50% discount is a massive amount of money.

Its more than that. I have a few dispensarys in CA and the experience is shit. The places are loaded with cash because they cant legally accept credit or debit cards. So you have to bring cash or use their ATM and get charged a withdrawal fee. This also means they are targets for robbery so security at these places is crazy with guards, waiting rooms and check points. This meeans you have to wait upwards of 20 minutes just to get inside to wait on a counter line for another 10 minutes. The experience is miserable.

My NYC dealer has been in the game for ages and moves volume. You can buy plates (pounds) from him if you wanted (usually $1800-2400 depending on the strain). I send a text and get an automated menu reply, text back my order plus address and within an hour or less someone is outside in an "uber" or "lyft" with my weed. I pay $80-100 for 0.5 oz.

BTW, if you live in NYC and pay over ~$30-35 for an eighth ounce you're getting ripped off BIG time (unless its in a branded bag like Jungle Boys etc.) I have a friend who moved to Williamsburg tell me how they buy from same the guy I do, more than double the price and sell it to "stupid rich white kids from Iowa".

Re: SF suspends cannabis tax to help dispensaries compete with drug dealers

#150

Post by throwaway0a5e »

OneTimePetes wrote: post #83
bryans wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some states did initially allow co-op markets where farmers got to sell directly to consumers, and only needed to test large batches to meet requirements. The prices were very low because there were no extra middlemen to get taxed, and because each farmer was its own vendor, you could buy very large quantities in one location -- and I think the concept eventually got shut down for that reason.

The middle-man feared to be cut out and replaced by new humbler middle-man and lobbied for safety regulations to kill the emerging competition?

And the regulators obliged because they got to take a cut and control how it gets spent and they get to pick winners by exerting influence over the myriad of licensing and compliance stuff that legitimate business in this day and age. Win-win, so long as you don't care about the outcome for the peasants.
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