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Weed
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Same as alcohol at present. You can brew beer or wine at home for your own consumption but it is illegal to sell it without a licence. People growing at home would not be taxed. Large operations would be raided like illegal distillation plants. Street sellers would be treated the same as people selling cigarettes or alcohol on the street.
Beer or wine at home. I remember this in the 80's...everyone did it for a month, no-one drank the results, everyone went back to the pub. No-one would dream of selling it (and less of buying it)...the only illegally brewed stuff that sells here is clear spirit in counterfeit vodka bottles.
Large operations are already raided and there are high mandatory sentences for those caught now cultivating weed....in the light of a legal market, do you need to up the already draconian penalties for large scale growers? Make it a life sentence?
It's like diesel in the border areas...there is any amount of the stuff legally available on any forecourt at an arguably fair price, much of which is made up of tax....criminal gangs will wash un-dutied diesel and go to a lot of trouble doing it for the money and run the high risks involved. Never underestimate the willingness of people to avoid taxes...
As for people selling fags on the street? How are they currently dealt with....the only people I see getting doen for it are the lorry drivers with millions of fags.The majority of people buy their cigarettes & booze in shops, most are simply not bothered doing it themselves and would not trust a blackmarket supply. I would hate to have to buy my spirits illegally, even if they were half the price or less, it is not worth the risk or bother. I don't think I ever heard of anybody I know growing tobacco to smoke it, though you can buy the plants (though I presume it does need more post curing care).
Alcohol and tobacco aren't fair comparisons (even though it was me that brought them up) because for both those legal drugs there is an already established supply and sale chain, regulated market, etc. and at least with tobacco, any financial return does not make it worthwhile.
With an emergent legalised product where hitherto both production and supply was "underground", those are/were the established means of supply and would probably continue to be in the face of the legal alternative priced at a non-competitive figure... and that's the key IMO; the pricing level...we all know how much ciggies and booze have added on in taxes, smae thing would happen weed, no doubt.
BTW there is a market for illegal booze and people do buy it...ironic really when you can just go to the North and buy the real thing for not much more. I never have and never would but people do....just like they do with other drugs such as the recent emergence of fake tamiflu alongside all the other scrip stuff widely available online.The price of drink & tobacco is structured like that. I think you might overestimate how many would be willing to grow on a continual basis rather than have the convenience of buying it. Many growers do it as a last resort, to ensure it is fully pure, I now suspect it will be contaminated with the various synthetic cannabinoids.
What you will probably get is people growing small scale grows providing a close circle of friends. The difference with booze & smoke is that it is easily stashed. Like in holland you can buy in one coffee shop, go to another and smoke it there, as long as you buy some food or smoke there too it is pretty much tolerated.
I think many will do it once and soon give up, it is a interesting hobby, like many lads I know have brewed beer once or twice in the past but never do it now.
Personally I'd rather buy it too....but as above that is completely dependent on price. Right now I buy it illegally and let someone else take the risk of growing it. In the event of legalisation I'd probably grow it since A) the price is likely to go up even over what is being paid now and
since it is no longer illegal to grow, or else C) buy it from someone I know who already grows it...in either B or C, no tax/VAT revenue is forthcoming.
Your point on small circle of friends growing (that is already a current means of supply)....we get back to the point of how exactly you impose tax on that market...do you just hope that people get a social conscience and declare any and all transactions and profit?Yes, and with the risk of contamination I think people will pay the extra few € for quality products, just like they buy other drugs from a chemist or authorised outlet. People don't even trust takeaway vans etc, and many will be loyal to certain brands. John Player Green;)
In fairness the risk of contamination is negligible alongside illegal alcohol production.
Drugs from chemists...in the event that I need them I will always try for the generic drug if at all possible...brands don't do it for me when it comes to chemicals. I know branding is a very important element of any market and like any other smoker I have my brand of fags and that's it, even though they're really all the same and they all kill you just as quickly.
Takeaway vans aren't a good example really...perhaps a better analogy would be take away food and proper restaurant food...which usually again comes down to the pricing level determining who eats where.Having experience of both I would say making high quality alcohol is far, far easier, and you can easily make a far superior product that commercially available alcohol. It has a far higher potential output in the same square footage used to to grow a single plant you could easily turnout 50x700ml bottles of 40% high quality vodka in just over a week (€1000 worth at offy prices). I would say the alcohol distillation is a far safer process too, there some myths still surrounding it, like the blindness one. A single glass of unfermented apple juice would be more likely to blind you than the entire 50 bottles I mentioned. Home distillation is legal in a few countries, and rightly so, a good alternative to having to drink the commercial poison out there.
I have nothing but anecdotal experience of either, but some of the people I know who grow aren't the brightest but still manage to get it right..and if they don't the product is still not a dangerous one. Are you seriously telling me that someone illegally producing and distilling spirits that wasn't fully aware of what they were doing couldn't seriously poison others? Methanol isn't difficult to extract from ethanol if you have the right equipment and knowledge...but what if you don't? Methanol blindness is a myth? http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1771266
2nd hit on google.
Anyway this is all way OT...I was trying to compare the taxable legal staus of two recreational drugs Vs a third illegal drug that would still IMO be difficult to effectively tax.That is a point I have brought up in many of these threads. Many illogically presume that people will drink the exact same amount and take these drugs ontop of their usual alcohol amount, and so "make things even worse". I do think people would drink less, and see it as a good thing. The gov will put up a supposed campaign for sensible drinking, but I wonder if they really do want it.
I see people drinking less as a good thing too (I am NOT anti-alcohol), but I'm not the one making 100s of millions in revenue from the domestic alcohol market. If I were I would feel that legalising a competitive substance, that was (possibly) more difficult to regulate and tax was probably not a wise move.
Of course were I in that position I'd be able to see that the fall in alcohol consumption and the problems it causes would lead to a drop in the number of public order arrests, random serious assaults, A&E admissions, subsequent health problems, loss in productivity through missed days, anti social behaviour, teen pregnancy etc etc would be worth the fall in the tax takes.
Anyways like I said I'm all for legal status...it's just that realistically, it's a very difficult system to impose and make money from...it's certainly not as easy as we'd all like to think...0 -
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