Quote:
Originally Posted by FireFly
IIRC, troutman posted a Rolling Stone article on legalization in Colorado and the cost of a JOINT is about $15.
ONE JOINT.
Legalization makes it more expensive. I thought perhaps you could buy a pack of maybe 5 doobs for the price of a pack of cigarettes but $15 a joint is unreal.
|
In Amsterdam it was 15-20 euro for a pack of 5 good sized ones. Depending on the size, $15 is probably close to par with street prices.
In relevance to this and FlamesAddiction's post regarding the prohibition actually pushing overuse, I have to agree. I smoke quite regularly and been trying to cut back significantly, but the way it's sold makes it very difficult. If you want to get a decent price, you have to buy at least a 1/4 ($60-70), and as with most products, the more you buy the cheaper it is per unit. Most dealers won't sell you just a joint or two, especially if you've never bought off them before and many don't sell less than 1/4 at a time. This means you have a big bag hanging around all the time for easy access.
Now, if I was able to go to the corner store every Friday and grab a few joints for the weekend, I would likely smoke a lot less than I currently do just because that's all I really want. But it's easy to justify a session after work because I have this big bag just sitting there, drying out and ready to go. Imagine if you could only buy alcohol from a select few people in the city and they only sold it to you a case at a time and getting a 6 or 12 pack would be impossible/relatively crazy expensive compared to buying the standard amount. Not to mention all the stress of having to find that guy, meet them wherever they want to meet, associate with a criminal, do a shady deal, etc... just so I can enjoy a smoke in the comfort of my own house, which harms no one but myself.
I see the concerns of people on the other side, but don't see them as any different than concerns about alcohol or prescription drugs. And I think we will see more open dialogue between parents/schools and kids in regards to mary jane almost purely because parents wont be ashamed/hesitant to discuss it for a few reasons: a) legality isn't an issue, so you don't assume your kid to be breaking the law by talking with them which cuts a lot of the tension of the issue. b) parents can feel better about sharing their own experience with the drug and expressing their views about the potential negative effects. c) schools will be more ready to actually explain the drug and it's intended uses/potential problems.
I remember getting a good spiel in DARE about the minute details of the problems with cigarettes and alcohol, what exactly was in them and how they harmed/affected your body/mind. But when it came to the illicit drugs, it was pretty much "these are the bad things don't do or touch them". When if they explained (without bias to what is positive or negative) what the effects of the drugs are, we wouldn't necessarily need to find out for ourselves, we could make informed decisions about whether or not we want to try it.
For example: I smoke herb regularly, but a cigarette has never touched my lips. DARE left no stone unturned on cigarettes and all the negatives made me never want to touch the stuff. But I was never given a break down about all the positives/negatives of herb was just told it would fry your brain. Well, maybe that's an incentive? Maybe a high school kids wants to see what a "fried brain" feels like. When if the actual effects were discussed, maybe some kids would never do it because they wouldn't want to feel that way. Cocaine was the same thing. Don't do it, it's bad and you'll end up like these guys (pictures of dead addicts). Well news flash** A teenager is generally intelligent enough to figure out that not all people who use (certain) drugs have their lives ruined by it, so maybe they're one of the lucky ones. A friend who told me all cocaine did was make him want more cocaine made me never want to try it, and I stand by that today. No teacher or parent told me such a thing, I had to find out from a friend with experience. Why are we making people come across these things with little to no knowledge of them? Eradicating them will not work, so explain it thoroughly and the difference between recreational natural things like herb and shrooms vs heroin and meth and everything inbetween.
Back to Amsterdam, when I was there my GF and I decided to try shrooms. She had a couple times, I never had. I felt a lot safer about buying them ina seal package with labelled effects and different grades from "laugh your ass off" to "you're gonna see some crazy s***" that I do about ingesting stuff from a random ziploc from a random guy in a parking lot.
tl;dr
Legalize, educate and regulate and the whole practice will be a lot safer, because you certainly arent stopping people from doing it regardless.