do we really want it legalized?

[amsterdamage]

Originally Posted by Higher_Than_You

Oh and restricting sales to minors? that works well. i don't know a singler person under 19 that smokes cigarettes....

I know minors buy alcohol and tobacco - there's always someone over 18 willing to buy for their underage friends. But that source is a lot less than if alcohol and tobacco were illegal. If they were illegal there'd be black market cigarettes and alcohol sold everywhere. Ten year olds would be able to buy the stuff from the nearest alleyway, and there'd be no guarantees that the alcohol wouldn't kill you or make you blind.


Legal sellers of marijuana don't need to make the kind of profits that illegal sellers do so they'll set a price too low for the illegal sellers to be able to compete; that'll force the illegal drug dealers out of business. All sales will therefore be through licensed retailers, and prohibiting sales to minors will be able to be enforced, as will standards governing the quality of the product.

Some minors will get weed off their older friends, that's inevitable, but it'll be a lot less than what they can obtain right now.

[Talventaivas]

Originally Posted by amsterdamage

I know minors buy alcohol and tobacco - there's always someone over 18 willing to buy for their underage friends. But that source is a lot less than if alcohol and tobacco were illegal. If they were illegal there'd be black market cigarettes and alcohol sold everywhere. Ten year olds would be able to buy the stuff from the nearest alleyway, and there'd be no guarantees that the alcohol wouldn't kill you or make you blind.


Legal sellers of marijuana don't need to make the kind of profits that illegal sellers do so they'll set a price too low for the illegal sellers to be able to compete; that'll force the illegal drug dealers out of business. All sales will therefore be through licensed retailers, and prohibiting sales to minors will be able to be enforced, as will standards governing the quality of the product.

Some minors will get weed off their older friends, that's inevitable, but it'll be a lot less than what they can obtain right now.

Very well said - can your rep even get any higher?

[Higher_Than_You]

Originally Posted by amsterdamage

I know minors buy alcohol and tobacco - there's always someone over 18 willing to buy for their underage friends. But that source is a lot less than if alcohol and tobacco were illegal. If they were illegal there'd be black market cigarettes and alcohol sold everywhere. Ten year olds would be able to buy the stuff from the nearest alleyway, and there'd be no guarantees that the alcohol wouldn't kill you or make you blind.


Legal sellers of marijuana don't need to make the kind of profits that illegal sellers do so they'll set a price too low for the illegal sellers to be able to compete; that'll force the illegal drug dealers out of business. All sales will therefore be through licensed retailers, and prohibiting sales to minors will be able to be enforced, as will standards governing the quality of the product.

Some minors will get weed off their older friends, that's inevitable, but it'll be a lot less than what they can obtain right now.

I think i would have to disagree with that. I am not sure how things are where you live. I grew up in a small town, about 10,000 people, in ontario where of course you must be 19 to legally obtain alcohol and cigarettes. I can know that in grade six, so age 11 or 12, a lot of people i went to school with were using alcohol or smoking cigarettes on a failrly regular basis. If i had to guess, i'd say about 20-25% for alcohol and 30-35% for smoking. (keep in mind, my school was fairly small, less than 100 kids per grade) Yet the majority of of those people were not smoking weed, maybe 5%.

Fast forward a few years, age group 14-15 (now approx. 150 students per grade) alcohol use would probably be at about 85-90% of the kids i went to school with drinking every weekend, if not more often. 50-60% smoking and probably only about 20-25% smoking weed. And its not like marijuana wasn't readily available on the black market.

So I'm not entirely convinced that legalizing and controlling the sale of marijuana would help restrict sale to minors. It would become socially acceptable. Kids would see the adults doing it more, and would get the same people that they were getting there booze and smokes from, to get them weed.

I realize that my example probably doesn't represent Global, or even national trends. But I'm just saying, this is my experiance.