Barn Owl
Active member
This may come as a shocking surprise to you, but marijuana? Its street value per ounce is currently about half that of gold. The value of the annual retail market for marijuana in the United States is difficult to estimate, but $100 Billion dollars seem to be the number that many accept. That is, admittedly, a value that is inflated precisely because of the high cost of it being a Schedule 1 substance. But even at a tenth of its current street value, that’s a big number that would attract Big Money.
And even if the current value of retail street trade for marijuana is wildly inflated and it’s only $50 or $70 billion dollars a year in the United States, the point to take away from all of this is that marijuana is already a "commercialized” product and has been for decades. That genie is out of the bottle – and it’s not going back in. Ever.
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I'm not so sure you have the final word on that. In the event of a depression or some other economic collapse, the decrim, or legalization could make home production slowly put a dent in the industry. I do agree that the people in charge, including MPP would rather see it taxed and sold and violators locked up before it is legal for anybody. And of course the plan is to mass market it. But it still is a weed and pretty easy to grow in a pot on your balcony and that could be the problem with your prediction.
Cannabis will always have a big commercial potential, but it is not like gold. It can be mass produced in a three months. As time goes on and people who were considered juvenile rejects in the early '70's now become tangled in politics, the future may determine it even MORE stupid to lock someone else up for 20 years for using a plant. Some of our biggest mainstream assholes like George W. Bush and Obama have admitted to regular use in the past. It almost seems as though time and popularity along with the easy cultivation of the plant may be what (hopefully) destroys the greed of the legal and illegal drug dealer.