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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

#171

Post by ironmagma »

sneak wrote: post #92
klyrs wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is something pot activists have complained about from the get-go. Legalization was sold to politicians with the promise of high taxes. We knew that poor users would be priced out of the market, that legal weed would be a privilege enjoyed by the rich, that dealers with criminal records would be shut out of the legal market.

The terms "white people" and "black people" don't appear in your comment, and I think they should.

You are wrong. One of my best friends is white and can’t afford legal weed so he buys it from unsavory sources.

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

#172

Post by nicoburns »

seanwilson wrote: post #164
nicoburns wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do you realize this ideia of poison alcohol was propaganda from the government, right? Eh, I'm not sure about that. There are stories in the newspaper every few years about a corner stop selling cheap bootleg alcohol that has caused someone to go blind (or die) because it contained too much methanol. I for one am quite glad that alcohol production is well regulated.

> There are stories in the newspaper every few years about a corner stop selling cheap bootleg alcohol that has caused someone to go blind (or die) because it contained too much methanol. I for one am quite glad that alcohol production is well regulated. Can you find a case of methanol poisoning for beer or wine brewing where the maker hasn't deliberately added in something extra that contains methanol (e.g. from flu…

I haven't researched this, but all the cases I remember were vodka or a similar spirit. It may well have been because someone was adding something containing methanol.

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

#173

Post by hoten »

MisterTea wrote: post #149
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, wait…

Kind of an aside, but there are banks that reimburse withdrawal fees. Schwab is one.

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

#174

Post by xeromal »

MisterTea wrote: post #149
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, wait…

You'd pay cash to a local dealer too so I don't really see the difference there.

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

#175

Post by pengaru »

boringg wrote: post #167
Justsignedup wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 the…

Um, its being grown in Humboldt county in the middle of the forest. It is essentially incredibly cheap forced labor - but input costs are pretty low. There is also pot being imported but a lot of it is grown in the state/national forests.

Judging from news reports, a good chunk is grown in the desert region as well:

https://z1077fm.com/tag/marijuana/

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

#176

Post by xeromal »

SamBam wrote: post #161
thaumasiotes wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Legalization was sold to politicians with the promise of high taxes. We knew that poor users would be priced out of the market, that legal weed would be a privilege enjoyed by the rich Poor users seem to enjoy a lot of legal alcohol. Taxes on that are high too, and it's even easier to make your own alcohol than to make your own weed.

The majority of poor people have neither the time, space, know-how, or desire to make their own alcohol or weed. But it's an awful lot easier for a dealer to sell weed to a hundred people than for them to sell bottles of alcohol to a hundred people.

One will get you in severe trouble in a lot of states.

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

#177

Post by GordonS »

darthrupert wrote: post #166
GordonS wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What? Of course not! You made a blanket statement, and I simply refuted that by pointing to a large group that doesn't fit with it.

But you are not claiming that there's no adverse effects with your medication? I'm not sure what we're arguing about here.

I'm simply claiming that your blanket statement is false - there are good reasons why some people would use it every day, and for whom the good effects outweigh any bad effects.

In terms of bad effects, it's not as simple as "yes" or "no"; it's more about how much you use, as well as how often. For example, I use 10mg/THC oil at night, and vape up to 0.2g in the evening - the only adverse effect I have is some acid reflux from the oil, which is easily dealt with.

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

#178

Post by mandmandam »

GordonS wrote: post #123
mandmandam wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It makes perfect sense if you're an organized gang stealing horse tranquilizer, and adding it to awful quality hash that's been mixed so much with garden waste that it barely works. It's not seen as much these days, but was literally a nationwide problem in Ireland for well over a decade.

FTR, ketamine is much more than a "horse tranquilizer" - it is used extensively in emergency rooms, for depression and neuropathic pain, and in general vetinary medicine. And of course, it has wide-scale use recreationaly. I presume the "horse tranquilizer" moniker came about as some kind of anti-ketamine propaganda.

You're not wrong; but I meant it quite literally, as in, it was being stolen from vets and thrown into incredibly shitty hash.

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

#179

Post by detaro »

xeromal wrote: post #174
MisterTea wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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, wait…

You'd pay cash to a local dealer too so I don't really see the difference there.

Don't they take payment apps? Also if the illegal competition is that much cheaper, not being more convenient is one more point against them.

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

#180

Post by agumonkey »

oceanghost wrote: post #8
therockspush wrote: post #2

Whats the price difference here? Doesn't seem worth the effort of hitting up a dealer unless you're picking up a couple other party platters.

I don't smoke weed, (not for moral reasons, I just hate it), but the incentive structures are really weird. My read on the situation is... Government wants to tax the weed and ensure its safe. So there are a ton of regulations which require you to do a lot of extra work and are expensive. That, along with the taxes creates a huge price differential between legal and illegal weed. I thought it was all about taxes at f…

govt should think different.. ask for smart people to fight to make the bestest safest process and product, then distribute over the nation and forget it (it's safe, it's cheap, it's smart. end of story)
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