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SF suspends cannabis tax to help dispensaries compete with drug dealers

thenationaldesk.com

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

#191
post #92
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.

Read between the lines; I said "dealers with criminal records"

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

#192
post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I doubt most take payment apps. I'm sure most are savvy enough to know their transactions are being monitored.

In Colorado small time dealers will take payment apps, but anything wholesale is cash or crypto.

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

#193

Has the city considered…uh, arresting drug dealers?

>Has the city considered…uh, arresting drug dealers? We've been doing this for 50 years. Hasn't really worked out so far.

Not San Francisco. If you walk around the city for a few minutes, you’ll find drug deals happen in plain sight and at all hours of the day.

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

#194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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/

Seems like both mexican and asian gangs based on those arrested. Desert seems like a bold place to grow even in the shade structures... All you need to do is run an algorithm over the satellite data for any new structures on a weekly basis then have PD check it out for illegal grow op...

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

#195

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.

I don't have to wait 30min in what ironically feels like a police station to buy weed.

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

#196
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

My point is that the legalization of the weed business was a deliberate choice to shift revenue streams away from black people and toward white people.

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

#197

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 polic…

Yeah it's weird, at my dispensary in WA they do have some setup where you can pay with a (debit) card but in addition to a $3 service fee they also for some reason have to round up to the nearest multiple of $5 and give you cash back.

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

#198
post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And why does that seem to worry you so much? Do you worry that I'm right, or am I offending you by saying this?

Because such assertions should be based on evidence.

No, I think you're wrong. When we're talking about recreational drugs, those who claim or imply that they're safe have the burden of proof.

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

#199

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.

Purely anecdotal, but my brother has a small (illicit) still and has walked me through the process - it's fairly simple, and neither of us can figure out how these methanol poisoning cases could happen by accident. Simply, the "heads" (which are high in methanol) come out of the still first, so it's easy to remove them. In addition, methanol test strips are cheap and easy to use.

Discarding the heads is obviously best practices, but from discussions with serious scientifically minded distillers (ie chemists that enjoy brewing gin and artisanal vodka at home) the amount of methanol contained in the heads of your home distillation is hardly enough to harm you. In the worst cases if you consumed a significant volume it might give you a harsh headache (and this would be a truly large amount). If you were to collect the heads from several batches and drank that all in one go, you could probably make yourself sick.

Now say you're a shady corner store owner and you take some denatured alcohol or other spirits and dump it into some cheap vodka and sell it under the table as 'moonshine' or something else to make a quick buck...yeah you're going to hurt people. And not just a little. You could easily kill someone that way, or permanently damage them. But at home with your own still? You're way more likely to start a fire than you are to kill someone with your distillate. Unless you start cutting your output with other not-for-consumption spirits.

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

#200
post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

My point is that the legalization of the weed business was a deliberate choice to shift revenue streams away from black people and toward white people.

Most people who supported it said it was to get away from the deliberate imprisonment of black people who didn’t deserve criminal penalties for casual drug use. So I guess the question is, which is the worse conspiracy?
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