Quote:
Originally Posted by
Bigtank 
I enjoy how you consider yourself an expert on all things about the drug trade.
Again, Let me preface this by saying I’m all for its legalization.
I know you think that your little patch of California, is the WHOLE WORLD...but there are alot of other places and things are not like your little corner of the West.
IF you are smoking the “homegrown” then you have either a medical condition…or you have obtained the weed illegally, under California law; whether under falsified prescriptions or ailments, or you are buying it from an illegal source. Marijuana grown by licensed growers makes a small portion of the market and can only be sold under a license and only to a legal distributor.
A large portion of “homegrown” to not quite legal users, is actually grown by Mexican Cartel grow farms located within our borders.
There is just as much propaganda coming from the either side of this issue. The major issue with getting it legalized is that the “high” side spends all their money on Doritos instead of lobbyist!
You need to take your own advice and open up your mind and understand that while you may think it’s the greatest thing ever, it still causes a lot of issues within the United States.
I don't consider myself an expert. I just read the news:
http://blogs.laweekly.com/informer/2010/10/legalizing_pot_would_cut_mexic.php
Marijuana accounts for something like 18-20% of the cartels' profits. That's big, and obviously lots of users are supporting the cartels. If you look at the RAND study the article above is quoting (http://www.rand.org/pubs/occasional_papers/2010/RAND_OP325.pdf), the cartels import almost exclusively low grade, cheap marijuana, and the higher grade marijuana is grown almost exclusively by domestic growers in the U.S. and Canada (see the study). Notice what I actually wrote, which is that the kind of people who can afford golf and frequent this web site are, I would argue, almost exclusively the type of people who would not buy the low-grade crap that the cartels traffic.
I will say that in reading through the whole RAND report, I was surprised (as were the authors), that the low grade marijuana (some unknown but presumed large percentage of which comes from the cartels) makes up a large proportion of the total market, somewhere from 60-80%. I would have guessed more like 25%, so I admit error there. But I stick to my point that I'm willing to bet the vast majority of posters here are of a demographic that does not buy the low-grade crap, something that's essentially supported by the authors of the study when they discuss their surprise at the estimates they came up with, which means the argument about blood on the hands of smokers mostly doesn't apply to posters here (and certainly not to me).
Quote:
A large portion of “homegrown” to not quite legal users, is actually grown by Mexican Cartel grow farms located within our borders.
This is unsubstantiated opinion. If you've got a real source for this opinion that can refute the RAND study, please share.
