It turns out it would cost you about the same (especially including bust factor) for you to travel from Detroit to Texas and score cheap brick schwag.

If you are disciplined, you can the reasonable equivalent from exepnsive stuff grown locally, just use tiny amounts, it's healthier anyway.

The only way the government would keep the cost high is if it wants to maintain the black market. The government cannot undermine a black market that sells at the same price it does. No, in order for legalization to work, the government would have to set the price with tax substantially lower than typical market prices under prohibition. Otherwise, the entire purpose behind legalizing (destruction of the black market) would fail miserably. Black markets exist when legal markets either cease to exist (as is the case now) or fail to compete with black market prices.

Legalized cannabis would also be cheaper because the average person could grow his or her own for a fraction of the current cost per ounce. Many people grow their own now not because they don't want to hassle with using a dealer, but because in the long run it is far cheaper to grow your own than to buy it retail from a dealer. And if the legal price of cannabis is too high, your dealer can grow it him- or herself and sell it to you at a profit (but still considerably less than the legal market prices)--thereby undercutting the legal market and establishing a black market. In short, legalized weed would have to be cheap enough to compete with legalized cultivation.

Given these factors, the price of cannabis would drop considerably under legalization. To artificially inflate the price of cannabis would be counterproductive and stupid.

I hope this clears up my reasoning on the matter.

Dan B

Having said that, you could likely double your number for "regular marijuana smokers" and be closer to the truth. And don't get me wrong--my intention is not to slam your math (which is just fine), but to arrive at a less conservative figure for "regular cannabis smokers."

As to blaze: you seem to be forgetting the fact that prohibition itself raises the price of cannabis by (extremely conservatively here) about a factor of about 20 (in other words, that same ounce goneposthole might pay $200 for under prohibition would likely cost about $10 if legal and untaxed). Add a 500% tax, and it's still only $60 an ounce for $200 weed. So, no you would not be paying more if weed were legalized and taxed heavily.

Also by the way--where do you live that people are still selling dime bags? I haven't heard that term applied to cannabis since the mid-1980s. Even a cheap 1/2 ounce costs about $45. No offense intended--I'd just like to know where the inexpensive cannabis can be found.

P.S I do love my tree's

15,000,000,000 divided by 200 dolares per ounce wholesale is 750,000,000 ounces of weed.

At 12 ounces per year per partaker, the number of imbibers is (750,000,000 ounces divided by 12) 62,500,000 in the United States of America.

See, people do know how to have fun.

Here is the link itself:http://212.129.240.114/upload/showthread.php?s=&threadid=2181

Greenfox, I have come to a new appreciation of your reform efforts in the last 12 hours. You the man.

That is one big deficit. The suprising thing about California is that they spend more on their prison system than on education. That is a hard thing to do because the largest part of county property taxes and the biggest part of state budgets is almost always education. In NC it is by far the biggest state and local expenditures. Maybe they should consider scaling back the prison sentences for cannabis related charges. The prohibitionist would use the word crime instead of charges, whereas I would say the real crime would be the state making and prosecution MJ charges.

At the DE messageboard Nol put up a picture of some famous lighted electronic billboard where they flash the news about like the famous one at Times Square in New York. In yet another thread calling to let Colin Davies go free, he posted the message flashing saying that the (federal)prison system had reached 70,000 and its capacity was only 71,000. The man in charge of that system said they were going to have to quit sending people in for the small drug crimes because there is no room for the real criminals. With 40 states having financial problems some states are going to figure out that it is way to expensive to incarcerate MJ users and let them out. The states have to do something because many of them have state laws requiring a balanced budget unlike the federal government that can grow the national debt.

Jay Leno said something about the California primary being this week. It sure would be nice if the people of California set a record of defeating incumbents in a primary. It would send a strong message that the people can find new leadership and do fine without the bastards that are protecting the MJ prohibition laws. Please vote against the incumbent and let some new people into politics and send the message to the entrenched incumbents that the voters are quite capable of untrenching them in this war for freedom.

There will be a second coffeehouse open in the UK in Bournemouth in just a few days. The owner will be a guy named Jimmy Ward. That marijuana sure makes governments say and do stupid things. That stuff is dangerous.

For me to behave the way they want me to behave is absurd.

Charlie Manson had people behave the way he wanted them to behave. He simply told them what to do, and they did it. He imposed his will to manipulate their behavior. He brainwashed them. Way to go, Charlie.

The state is no different. They are more meddlesome and nefarious than Charlie Manson.

The old Golden Rule applies here: Don't do to others what you wouldn't want done to yourself.

Legalize marijuana and leave people alone, for God's sake and for our own.

But asset forfeiture is a purely economic perspective, and that's the one that law enforcement is looking from.

They don't care about what money the rest of the state has, as long as they get theirs.

There is is, right in black and white. This isn't a war about keeping Amerika's "children" safe at all. It is about raising good-patriotic childun and teach them not to question their puritan/neo-Christian ways, (not saying there is anything wrong with Christianity, but...)

ENOUGH!

IF I want to put a sacred plant in my body, or eat mushrooms, or drink gasoline, or blow coke, or shoot smack, or even eat my own shit, I SHOULD BE ALLOWED! The only time I should be prohibited from ANY of this is if I hurt another person. Smoke a bowl of crack in your house? Sure, it's not safe, but it's not the government's business. Smoke a bowl of crack and then go out and drive and kill somebody? THEN it's the government's business. HANG the bastards, and I'd be the first to support this sort of thing. I don't support the errosion of our free rights, however. I don't support neo-christians telling me how to eat, shit, and breathe. Enough, I say. Isn't tbe absurdity of not being allowed to POSSESS A SEED gotten to anyone else yet? I am near insanity in my ravings, but my intents are as pure as snow. I may tell you what I think, but never would I force you to "think like me". That's what we call free choice. Even "God" says in the bible that man is to be judged by man's laws on earth, and by God's in heaven. I am not trying to put a religious tint on things, but seriously, GOD GAVE US CHOICE FOR A REASON. Don't prohibit that choice. If pot is truly evil, let GOD sort it out AFTER we die.

AMEN.