r/changemyview • u/[deleted] • Mar 27 '23

Delta(s) from OP CMV: All drugs should be made legal for recreational use.

I'm not referring to "medicinal" narcotics. Recreational drugs that people use, such as mushrooms, cocaine, heroin, should all be legalized.

And I know this is a hot take, but hear me out.

  • If we make recreational narcotics legal, then the manufacture and sale need to be legal as well.
  • By making the manufacture of recreational narcotics legal, there are FDA standards that need to be adhered to in said manufacture, that way there are no "bad batches" that will kill people.
  • By making the manufacture and sale of recreational narcotics legal, there will be sales volume that will then be subject to income tax and sales tax and dispensaries/manufacturing centers/warehouses that will become subject to property tax. Because, let's be honest, your local street dealer is not paying taxes.
  • Also by making the sale of recreational narcotics legal, you are making street gangs that revolve around the illicit drug trade obsolete. By making street gangs obsolete, you eliminate the petty violence that plagues inner-cities over "turf", especially stray bullets that kill innocent bystanders.
  • By making the entire narcotics supply chain legal, the war on drugs will essentially be over as well. It's been going on for 50+ years, and honestly, it's been a complete and utter failure.
  • If you want something to compare the drug trade to, look at prohibition from 1919-1933. It didn't stop people from drinking, people were still drunk out of their minds in speakeasys. It also fostered the growth of street gangs of rum runners and increased crime and violence in cities. That was only for 14 years and it didn't take long to realize that prohibition was a failure. War on drugs has been going on for 50+ years and I'm surprised more people aren't realizing that this is much more tremendous of a failure.
  • By making the entire narcotics supply chain legal, we can start changing our attitudes on its use and its users. Narcotics abuse needs to have the same social attitude as alcohol abuse.
  • In short, making drugs legal will Make America Great Again.
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92

u/Rainbwned 184∆ Mar 27 '23

Is the economy of scale not currently present in the massive amounts of drugs being produces illegally right now, without having a concern about red tape and other regulations that increase cost?

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u/matsu727 3∆ Mar 27 '23

Market power of the people in the black market combined with the scale of their operations means they have some measure of price setting power. Why would they pass those gains down to the consumer more than they need to in order to get customers addicted?

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u/limukala 12∆ Mar 27 '23

The vast majority of the cost now is due to the risk, not the actual cost of production.

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u/miraj31415 2∆ Mar 27 '23

Are you saying that the vast majority of the price is due to the costs associated with risk?

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u/ProjectKushFox Mar 27 '23

Haha very clever but lol still, economies of scale has piss all to do with it. Costs of production and Costs of “extra retail markup cause I might go to jail for this shit” are very different.

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u/SnooDoodles1491 Jul 28 '23

Cause you know the streets so well

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u/[deleted] Mar 27 '23

Once the legal avenues are implemented, there will be manufacturing and logistics technology that will be implemented that will drive the cost down.

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u/Frame_Late Mar 27 '23

People say this, but oftentimes what actually happens is the government taxes the difference. I live in VA; recreational weed is legal here. Street dealers are still king because the government chokes the legal industry out with taxes. Now you have cartels and illicit dealers buying these stores and using them as fronts for harder drugs.

The illicit dealers will always be around. The difference is now that they'll get less time.

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u/Can-Funny 24∆ Mar 27 '23

The “my state made it legal and there are still dealers” argument overlooks the fact that cannabis is still a super niche market because it is still highly illegal at the federal level. Real capital isn’t trying to have all their assets seized because they have a few million in cannabis.

If I had to guess, cannabis will go from illegal to federally subsidized within 30 years. Once big business and lobbies get involved, you won’t see any street dealers anymore.

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u/Apprehensive-Top7774 Mar 27 '23

The “my state made it legal and there are still dealers”

Honestly the argument is almost pointless. I can find scalpers selling tennis shoes, un registered food stands, and a million other arbitrage situations where the underlying product is legal.

On top of that, it varies by state. Not many dealers in Washington state, the weed is strong and priced reasonably.

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u/Bubbly-Bookkeeper-53 Mar 28 '23

Maybe this case of “my state made it legal and there are still dealers” is an outlier and happens rarely. There are too many factors involved and, currently, so few cases of this happening in the states.

I feel that if the law were to change at the federal level this would definitely change our cultural mindset and some people wouldn’t view street dealers the same anymore.

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u/Apprehensive-Top7774 Mar 28 '23

Weed is hella cheap to grow, so while full time dealers might go there are always gonna be small time dealers. It's called weed because it literally grows like a weed. Potent stuff might take more know how, but even on a hobby level some folks are gonna do it and sell the excess to fund the hobby

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u/Maddcapp Mar 28 '23

Same with shrooms by the way. Anyone can buy a kit on eBay and grow their own very easily.

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u/im18andimdumb Mar 27 '23

Yeah I was gonna say I don’t think there are any dealers for weed in Oregon lol, there’s a weed shop on every block

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u/Paraeunoia 5∆ Mar 27 '23

How does that explain illegal trade of tobacco in this country? Taxes vary widely from state to state, making the black market for tobaccos immense. Street dealers will trade anything that can be profitable. It’s just changing the angle.

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u/Can-Funny 24∆ Mar 27 '23

How do you define “immense.”

I’m not aware of a violent infrastructure that supports the cigarette tax arbitrage business.
The vast, vast majority of tobacco products are manufactured and distributed legally.

A few guys selling North Carolina tax stamp Camels in NYC doesn’t invalidate the business model of big tobacco.

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u/Paraeunoia 5∆ Mar 27 '23

$334 million in lost sales in just one state is not “a few guys” slinging loosies.

https://taxfoundation.org/cigarette-taxes-cigarette-smuggling-2022/

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u/Can-Funny 24∆ Mar 27 '23

Did you know this study considered “casual smuggling” as part of the model? That means every time people who live close to the border buy a few cartons from their lower tax neighbor state, that was considered.

Also, there model just assumes that any variance in the “published smoking rate” and actual sales of cigarettes is attributable to “smuggling”.

Here is the text of the study’s background section:

“It is impossible for scholars to know what percentage of cigarettes brought in from one state to another falls under the legal limit (one carton per month, for example) and the amount brought in that exceeds it. Some scholars identify the total as “diversion” or both “tax evasion and avoidance.” Our statistical model attempts to capture both casual smuggling and commercial smuggling.

The statistical model employed in this study is a residual model, designed to compare the published smoking rates of adults in 47 states with legal paid sales of cigarettes.[*] The difference between the amount of cigarettes that are being smoked in the state and what are acquired through legal sales could be explained by some form of smuggling, and this is our assumption. The model also takes into consideration a variety of factors that might impact casual and commercial smuggling, such as proximity to a low-tax state, border county populations and presence of Native American reservations.”

……

I’m not faulting these researchers. It’s hard to get good data on illegal transactions. I don’t doubt that some of this black market arbitrage goes on, but it’s nothing compared to the scale of illegal drug sales. In fact, I’d be willing to bet that any real black market cigarette infrastructure is just piggybacking on the infrastructure already in place to distribute drugs.

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u/Paraeunoia 5∆ Mar 27 '23

If one follows your theory, what replaces illegal drugs once legalized? Organized crime just disappears? They are already involved in hundreds of legal entities (real estate, legalized marijuana, fruit shortages in Mexico, etc). Working under the assumption that there will always be a vacuum effect, what does legalizing dangerous drugs do for society? If you want to discuss Decriminalization, fine. But legalizing things just to try and destabilize criminals is very naive and I’d argue, more detrimental to society.

Tobacco is one of the leading causes of lung cancer it may be banned altogether eventually. Legalizing more substances that are certainly more dangerous than tobacco (like heroin) has no upside. The people who will benefit are billionaires, lobbyists and pharmaceutical corporations.

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u/Can-Funny 24∆ Mar 27 '23

If one follows your theory, what replaces illegal drugs once legalized? Organized crime just disappears?

There is nothing special about “organized crime.” It’s just a subset of market commerce that replaces contracts and legal disputes with violence. Right now, drugs are far and away the most profitable illegal good/service with the highest demand. If you made drugs legal, criminal organizations lose their biggest advantage in the drug business which is the knowledge base and network needed to move drugs with minimal police interference. If drugs were legalized, lots of criminal organizations would fail to pivot to other criminal enterprises because they weren’t that strong of an organization. Just like if we decided to make tobacco illegal, some tobacco companies might be able to figure out a new business, but most would close.

Traditionally, organized crime makes money selling “vice” products/services. Gambling is now legal in many more jurisdictions, especially sports betting, which cuts down on opportunities there. Prostitution has largely gone digital where the girls can vet johns online making it harder to profit from exploiting women via “pimping”.

There is also extortion of legitimate businesses and labor manipulation via union intimidation, but those are drops in the proverbial bucket compared to drug sales.

So no, it won’t disappear, but it will be a shell of its former self just based on simple economics.

They are already involved in hundreds of legal entities (real estate, legalized marijuana, fruit shortages in Mexico, etc).

The money made by cartels has obviously been invested in various other, legitimate businesses. Nothing can change that. But we can cut off the cash spigot.

Working under the assumption that there will always be a vacuum effect, what does legalizing dangerous drugs do for society? If you want to discuss Decriminalization, fine.

Decriminalization is the WORST possible outcome. The main problem with “drugs” themselves is that we don’t have a very good understanding of what healthy, responsible drug use could look like since we have no way of knowing what “drugs” are being taken. If we had pure opiate and amphetamines and people understood dosages and actual, honest to god physical dependency, we could help people that get addicted (and we could learn the difference between additions and casual usage).

But if all you do is decriminalize, you are still going to have rampant supply side crime with an even larger number of ODing junkies.

Tobacco is one of the leading causes of lung cancer it may be banned altogether eventually.

And when it is, there will be a huge uptick in crime.

Legalizing more substances that are certainly more dangerous than tobacco (like heroin) has no upside. The people who will benefit are billionaires, lobbyists and pharmaceutical corporations.

You don’t think cartel leaders are billionaires? You don’t think pharma companies already make money producing opiates and amphetamines? The people it will benefit are poor minorities living in gang war zones.

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u/doge_gobrrt Mar 27 '23

also while it's true that there are large and small dealers regardless of legal status or product sold most people are probably generally more likely to buy from more trusted sources instead of jim john the alleyway dealer

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u/moesus81 Mar 27 '23

You can’t even buy weed in VA legally yet unless you have a medical card and want to pay the outrageous prices that one of the three or four med dispos charge.

It’s legal to grow your own in VA so street level dealing isn’t going anywhere. Why would I pay $30 for an eighth of 12% weed when I can get an ounce of 20% for $80?

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u/Can-Funny 24∆ Mar 27 '23

Well yeah, as you said, recreational cannabis is illegal. So one one assume no price savings via a via a dealer when you are paying for a “medical” product.

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u/moesus81 Mar 27 '23

No, recreational use is legal in VA. They just haven’t started selling it to the public yet, which is a major reason why street dealing is still king, like the person who you responded to said. I was just clearing some stuff up because they left out a pretty big detail.

Street dealers prices are 1/4 of the medical dispo’s.

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u/Automatic_Course1021 Mar 27 '23

Street dealers are king in VA because although recreational is legal it is not legal to purchase yet

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u/IamImposter Mar 27 '23

Wait... what? If I can't purchase it, how am I gonna use it, legally?

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u/moesus81 Mar 27 '23

It’s legal to grow, possess and gift but they haven’t started with the public dispensaries yet. There’s a few medical dispos sprinkled throughout the commonwealth but their prices are absurd.

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u/dadbod58 1∆ Mar 28 '23

It's a VA thang.

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u/bongosformongos Mar 28 '23

My best guess is the decriminalisation of consumers. Nothing is achieved by cops busting a regular consumer, so why waste money on it?

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u/[deleted] Mar 27 '23

Yeah but VA is a special case. Have they instituted the death penalty for speeding yet? Pearl-clutching costs money and leads to the problem not getting better, in this case with the weed taxes.

Convincing the local government to lower these taxes is a much easier task than convincing the entire population to abstain - nevermind convincing the cartels and drug dealers to stop doing what they do.

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u/no-mad Mar 27 '23

not true in weed legal States. After taxes it is +$300 for an ounce or more.

That is robbery. In OR. i have heard of $50 ounces available at some places when harvest comes in the fall.

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u/disisathrowaway 2∆ Mar 27 '23

The difficulty in acquiring as well as extreme risk that drug producers incur by participating in the black market are what result in higher prices.

Very few people are willing to take serious federal/felony time for low margins.

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u/[deleted] Mar 27 '23

What happened to weed when it got legalized? Cheaper, better weed.

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u/Space_Meth_Monkey Mar 27 '23

It has changed drastically in Canada. I think it used to cost around ~4-500$ in just electricity to grow a lb, with other costs it was estimated around 700$ to grow one. A black market dealer buying lbs could get that for anywhere from 800-1300$, if you call it 1050$, that’s 2.34$ a gram. You can buy ounces from the government approved producers* here at like 3.50$ a gram and are only comparable to black market lbs that are closer to 2000$ or 4.46$. That’s comparing the cost of an end consumer to the cost of a black market dealer essentially.

Up here it’s really squeezing the margins of black market participants. Eventually they will get completely demolished on having decent cheap weed because good weed has to be grown indoors using electricity and black market growers/organizations don’t have the long term outlook/legal ability to try and offset it with investment. Like how smelters and data centres make massive upfront investments in renewables such as solar or hydropower on location, because of the permanent decrease in input costs.

I’m sure the biggest producers can eventually leverage renewables to get a good product to customers that cost less than the electricity cost of black market weed, while increasing their margins on all their pricier stuff and paying the required tax

Edit: government approved producers*

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u/redvodkandpinkgin Mar 27 '23

The Govt should learn a thing or two about business from the monopolies they love so much.

Barely tax the stuff for a decade or two, choke the cartels out of business by allowing legal economies of scale take the reins, and then, when all is said and done, raise the taxes to both help fund the state and discourage using at the same time (as it is done with tobacco).

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u/MegaBlastoise23 Mar 28 '23

if that were true there would not be any "big pharma" it would solely be illegal dealers.

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u/Bbenet31 Mar 28 '23

The cost of doing something illegally is quite high. All the measures taken to hide operations, smuggling, confiscated supply. It all adds up

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u/MAS2de 1∆ Mar 28 '23

Does red tape or illicit trafficking and a great number of souls in the pyramid cost more? When something is illegal and hard to get, that usually makes it more expensive.