We’re about to be presented with Initiative 502, so now might be a good time to start telling ourselves the truth about marijuana and its legal status. But can we do that? I wonder.
Let’s begin our exercise in truth telling with current state law. It allows anyone to easily obtain a “medical” certification to buy pot from a “dispensary.” As a Seattle Times reporter demonstrated last summer, all you need is $200 and a backache that won’t go away. Any “dispenser” will be happy to help you find an “herb”-friendly doc, or nurse, or naturopath. In an emergency, try Hempfest.
A certified “patient” can possess 24 ounces of pot, plus 15 plants, which is another pound or so. Yes, pot can be medicine, just as cocaine and alcohol can be medicine. More truth: Today’s “dispensaries” exist mainly to sell highs, just like the liquor stores do.
Anyway, what changes under I-502? How about some truth there?
Yes, it eliminates the “medical” fig leaf. That’s a plus, because I prefer the truth to euphemism. But it also imposes new restrictions. Possession limits are drastically reduced to one ounce, and – most crucially – growing one’s own is virtually eliminated.
To ascertain why, it might be a good idea to locate your old college economics textbook. The truth: You’ll quickly deduce that, in return for blessing recreational use, I-502 would put the state smack in the middle of a legal marijuana cartel by constraining supply. The price of the state’s involvement? At least $200 an ounce, and that’s conservative.
You see, hemp and marijuana are legally cultivated today. According to a study by the Rand Corporation titled “Estimated Cost of Production for Legalized Cannabis,” where legal barriers are absent, it costs $1 an ounce to grow hemp for rope and oil, and $20 to $30 an ounce to grow and process pot as a drug.
In the U.S., if drug-quality pot were grown and processed as other crops are, Rand estimates the cost at a bit less than $13 an ounce. Do it in a terrarium in the living room, and it would cost maybe $5 an ounce. A “dispensary” sells the same thing for $250 an ounce and up.
Extra costs fall into two categories, one generated by the need to conceal growing and distribution, and the other by excess profits. How much of one and how much of the other? A different Rand study suggested that illegality quadruples production costs, which leaves $150 and up per ounce for the “dispensary.”
Incidentally, who’s to say that the current “dispensaries” have no ties to the “community gardens” authorized by current law? What’s true? Near as I can tell, no one in authority has taken a close look at who is supplying the “dispensaries,” let alone any cross-ownership. Forgive me if I refrain from fitting the “dispensaries” for their halos. They’re focused on nothing but their own wallets.
I believe the following to be true: The lucrative economics of the current setup explains why the “dispensaries” have lined up against I-502. The profit to be reaped by a state takeover of existing cartels explains the eagerness of those politicians who are supporting this exercise in “legalization.” According to Rand’s study, if pot were treated as a legal product, prices would drop by at least 90 percent. Not a lot of tax money if you actually legalize it, is there? Can we handle the truth?
Not only are there returns to erecting a state-enforced marijuana oligopoly, but there are even greater returns to voter skepticism. Demand the truth. There is plenty more to say about marijuana itself, and its legal status, and the sustainability of the industry structure that I-502 aims to create, but only if we dare seek the truth. Can we do that? I wonder.
Magnolia Mencken welcomes your feedback. You can contact him at magmenck@gmail.com.
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