Comment by PragmaticPulp | Hacker News Reader

Comment by PragmaticPulp | Hacker News Reader

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> Any substances widely consumed by people should be regulated and tested before they are sold to the public

Even after marijuana legalization, many states still have thriving underground marijuana markets.

Many people who consume a lot of a substance over time will inevitably seek out cheaper sources. The sources complying with regulation and testing requirements, however light, will be more expensive than someone growing some plants in the back of a spare building somewhere.

The problem is exacerbated for more expensive and addictive drugs. The few people I’ve known who became addicted to opioids were spending significant amounts of money to maintain their habit and traveling to increasing dangerous situations to get better prices.

It’s optimistic to declare that everyone should have access to well tested drugs, but the reality is that it’s not a magic bullet. I also have some serious doubts about the narrative that increasing availability of drugs won’t contribute to more widespread addiction problems.

> The sources complying with regulation and testing requirements, however light, will be more expensive than someone growing some plants in the back of a spare building somewhere.

That is not the case here in Seattle. The shop near my house sells a vast array of marijuana products at prices the old black market could never have touched. Economy of scale works! The testing requirements add real value - very few people will choose to buy some sketchy black-market grower's mystery weed when they can select from dozens of strains with measured cannabinoid percentages at a legal shop instead.

Here's an article explaining why Washington has been more successful than California in moving its marijuana industry aboveground:

https://reason.com/2022/11/14/washington-has-been-much-more-...

While onerous regulation is probably a significant contributor, the continued existence of California's black market is probably helped by the fact that a lot (by some estimates ~60%) of the cannabis in the country was coming from California pre-legalization, the vast majority from a couple counties on the rather remote northern coast.

The culture there is the intersection of hippies and libertarians (of both the left and right varieties), a conglomeration basically joined exclusively by their general disdain towards government oversight. A lot of farms went legit, but it's not exactly surprising that others didn't.

A lot of states have made legal marijuana prohibitively expensive. The only black markets for weed in Oregon are for minors, because you can buy an ounce of pretty good quality stuff for $70.

Politicians who lost the war to keep a harmless drug illegal try and price out people from consuming it.

As a resident of Colorado, I can confirm this. In Colorado, medical marijuana is taxed differently from recreational marijuana sales. Even generally recreational users are always trying to figure out a way to get a medical card, because the taxes are extremely high. Colorado charges a 15% excise tax for sales from cultivator to retailer, and then an additional 15% tax at point of sale. Additionally, for various reasons, recreational shops tend to charge more as a base rate than medical shops. The outcome is that on average recreational products are actually 50-60% higher in cost by the time the customer pays vs medical products, for identical underlying goods (e.g. same strain, weight, quality, producer).

The flip side is that taxation of recreational usage in Colorado has been very good for the state budget. I remember several years where the taxes collected were high enough that the state increased income tax refunds, and in one case to 100%, because Colorado has tax income caps and must return tax income overages. The reality though is, if you're dependent on a drug and there's a cheaper way to get it, you'll do that. And in fact, a lot of people in Colorado still home-grow and trade/sell with friends, because purchasing the product through a dispensary is too expensive.

The average price in Colorado for an ounce of high quality marijuana is about $100 /before tax/, which makes it around $115 after tax vs Oregon's $70 at point of sale, that's a significant difference in pricing.

A lot of people desperately want a magic bullet for addiction, but I think it takes a healthy dose of humility to admit that there is no one perfect answer that will just solve it. Human nature is tricky, biology is tricky, and economics is tricky. Even someone eminently brilliant in all three subjects would have a difficult time coming up with a “solution.“

I wouldn't put Ozempic out of the running for miracle cure for addiction (to food, gambling, alcohol, or drugs) just yet.

> The sources complying with regulation and testing requirements, however light, will be more expensive than someone growing some plants in the back of a spare building somewhere.

Avoiding police raids costs money too. But lets imagine you are right.

When you go to the bar, do you buy the cheapest boose they sell? No, you don't. Do you choose wine for w party by selecting the cheaperst crap they sell?

When I speak to people who use sibstances recreationally, they are discussing who has good stuff, who is dishonest, etc. They aren't just buying the cheapest white powder they can find.

> The sources complying with regulation and testing requirements, however light, will be more expensive than someone growing some plants in the back of a spare building somewhere.

The cost of dodging regulations can easily exceed the cost of compliance.

That's a lot of hemming and hawing with no solutions, which leaves us once again with a status quo that guarantees a violent black market, guarantees impure drugs and associated deaths, fails to make drugs less available (and makes youth access easier than for alcohol or tobacco) and costs an unfathomable amount of taxpayer money.

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