[treeswarper]

Yuroks Get Help

[boot up]

Legalize it, control it. Kill the market for the illegal stuff That should reduce the riff raff and this kind of crap.

[DIYSteve]

Nancy says "just say no."

[treeswarper]

A story I heard from a native of the Lost Coast. His brother was fishing in a river he'd always fished in--working his way up the river. An armed guy in camo came over, pointed a rifle at him, and told him to get out and never come back. The brother left, but got to thinking and got mad. He was not going to let the country be taken over by newcomer pot growers. He started packing in fuel and burning pot plantations on his own. The guy grew up in the woods and was used to walking in the brush. One night, as he was pouring out fuel, a hand reached out and grabbed his leg. He fell. Another guy in camo had him and ordered him to be still. The guy was part of a drug raid and lectured him. The brother was wondering how long he was going to spend time in jail. The cop then ended with, "This is dangerous and you could be killed. Make this patch be the last one." The brother finished and torched off the patch. Get the locals mad, and you might pay for it someday.

[Daryl]

I think it will be interesting to see Government competing with the illegal market for sales. I'm guessing enforcement of illegal sales and grows will increase now that it's also sort of tax evasion.

[Ski]

good luck with that. it may be almost as successful as enforcement of the Volstead Act. as long as the "legal" retail price is three times that of the "illegal" street price, the underground market will thrive.

[DIYSteve]

[contour5]

[DIYSteve]

[wolffie]

Eric Schlosser, Reefer Madness It's 3 mini-books, about the marijuana industry, illegal imigrant labor, and the pornography industry. The latter is particularly fascinating. Seems the industry for a long time was dominated by one man, whose passion in life was hiding his illegal businesses from the authorities (follow your bliss). In his interview with Larry Flint (notorious publisher of Hustler magazine), Flint remarks something like, "... the internet is going to kill the pornography business... how can we make money publishing this stuff when people post their own homemade smut on the internet for free? And these people will post anything, anything..." I struggle to imagine an outraged Larry FLint. This week's Stranger has an article about legal weed. [A pang of nostalgia... we used to hide it from our parents, and ended up hiding it form our kids...] Kinda sad: now it's legal, and I just don't seem to have much interest in it anymore.

[markh752]

[Dante]

I went to a continuing education seminar related to the legalized Cannabis industry. After hearing the presentation, I asked the speakers how Washington's legal market can compete with the black market because: 1. Washington has placed a 25% excise tax on production, processing and distribution (at each level). 2. Legal pot businesses are subject to Washington Business and Occupation Tax which is levied on gross revenues. 3. Section 280E of the Internal Revenue Code prohibits legal pot businesses from deducting ordinary and necessary expenses--they can only deduct cost of good sold. The speakers basically said that the legal market can't compete with the black market, and were hoping that the tax regime will change over time. I also read the report from the consultants Washington State hired to investigate legalization. When it came to Section 280E, they said that if the IRS enforced Section 280E strictly, then legalization would fail, so "for purposes of continuing their analysis" they assumed the IRS would not enforce Section 280E strictly. I think the smart players with ample financial backing are in it for the long term, and know they will be losing money for a while... A lot of smaller players are going to fail, and then their licenses will be for sale... Here's an Article on Section 280E.

[contour5]

[Ski]

[Dante]