(above photo: Blue Dream)
One of the reasons often given for legalizing marijuana – either for medical or recreational use – is that it will eliminate illegal sale of the drug and reduce street crime. Just one example I found on the internet this morning:
Then I read this article at Detroit Metro Times, the title of which is Why marijuana sales on the black market are blooming in Michigan after legalization. Medical marijuana sales and use has been legal in our state for several years now.
The state’s lax enforcement, combined with stringent regulations, pricey fees, and an achingly slow rollout of licensed growers and dispensaries, have fueled a black market that the regulated cannabis industry was supposed to stamp out.
That is hurting the state-sanctioned dispensaries that spend more than $100,000 a year on licensing fees, attorneys, storefronts and meeting new standards, such as testing their products.
“It’s like the Wild West out there,” says Michelle Donovan, an attorney who helps clients navigate the complex legal market. “This is really hurting our licensed companies.”
Michigan’s voters have approved legal recreational marijuana, and using, growing and possessing marijuana is now legal; legal recreational sales don’t begin until next year. Those who already have a small amount of marijuana can smoke it so long as they smoke it in a private place. Individuals can have up to 2.5 ounces of weed in their possession, which works out to about 160 0.5 gram joints, The Detroit News reported. A total of 10 ounces can be stored, so long as the extra 7.5 ounces are kept in a secure place.
Use is legal by those over the age of 21. It still is illegal to use on federal property, at schools including public universities, and in public. Pot use isn’t allowed in any place that could be accessible to the passing public, such as your front porch. Back gardens, however, are likely OK, depending on how open they are, according to The Detroit News. If you grow plants, they can’t be visible to the public. Metro Times continues:
Michigan can learn a lot from the mistakes of California, which legalized recreational marijuana on Jan. 1, 2018. More than a year later, about 80 percent of the cannabis sold comes from the black market, largely because of high taxes and stringent restrictions, according to a new report by New Frontier Data, which tracks marijuana sales and trends.
It also seems that enforcement of illegal sales is not being strongly policed and punished in the current situation of some legal/some illegal sales. I imagine that will continue, at least for the small dealers. Apparently the Michigan State Police aren’t interested in vigorously cracking down on the black market. Of course ALL of the state laws legalizing the use and sales of marijuana are in direct opposition to current Federal law.
Does legalization of marijuana decrease illegal drug crime? Well, it seems the answer is: it depends.
It is clear that states have the right to legalize any drugs they like within the confines of the state boundaries. That is within the rights outlined in the U.S. Constitution. The 10th Amendment states that:
“the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
Personally, I don’t think that legalization is a good idea, mainly because of the affects of marijuana on the brains of young adults that are not fully developed until their early 20’s. It also apparently can cause brain changes and psychosis in some individuals. The marijuana you can buy today is not the drug we oldsters remember from the 1960’s and 1970’s. It has been hybridized and contains many times more THC.
I voted against legalization of marijuana for recreational use in my state in last November’s election.
Studies about marijuana use and the brain:
The American Journal of Psychiatry
American Psychological Association
My previous post on this topic:
Alex Berenson | Marijuana, Mental Illness, and Violence
Stella's Place 
I do believe I’ve mentioned this before when we were discussing California legalizing pot for recreational use.
It doesn’t take a think tank to realize that illegal (i.e., untaxed) marijuana use will increase, all we have to do is look back at bootlegging after prohibition was repealed and cigarette smuggling here (not to mention Europe) from low tax to high tax areas. In NOLA, as in other port cities, licensed vendors are allowed to sell tax free cigarettes and alcohol for consumption outside of US borders, just as duty- free shops can on the US-Mexican border – and in unlimited amounts. A good number of these products are diverted back into the US as a slight markup for profit makes them far cheaper than the heavily taxed ‘legal’ ones.
The Mexican pot farms are of such a size and level of efficiency that the US states legalizing and taxing pot makes it seem as if the cartels sponsored that legislation. Once you get that cheaper cartel pot in hand there’s no way of telling if it’s taxed or bootleg, a win-win for everyone except the government.
Right now the pot-legal states can say that the reason the illegal imports haven’t been put out of business is that there’s such a large demand for pot in the states where it’s still legal but that once it’s legal in all 57 states things will change.
What I find interesting is that for decades the conservative states have been using the ‘states’ rights’ defense for their actions and the more liberal states have held that states’ rights died with the end of the Civil War. Now the Feds are blasting the liberal states for their saying that their states’ rights allow them to ignore Fed drug laws the liberal states are hiding behind…their states’ rights. Let’s see how this plays out when the conservative states that have passed laws protecting their residents from Fed gun-grabs start pointing to the drugged up states as examples of states’ rights to ignore Fed laws.
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I don’t think you’ll see much pushback from each state against the black market sales………….until they don’t see the tax revenue they were told they could make. If numbers come in way short, expect a crackdown that will hammer the little guy selling some weed outside of the “proper channels”. Will make the local speed trap look like Sunday school. As long as the state gets what they think they should, all will be left alone.
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